Adobe Releases Preview of 64-bit Flash For Linux

Rinisari writes "Finally, the day has come. Adobe has released a pre-release version of the 64-bit Flash player. It is available at the Adobe Labs Flash Player 10 download site immediately. Where are the Windows and Mac versions? 'Release of this alpha version of 64-bit Flash Player on Linux is the first step in delivering upon Adobe's commitment to make Flash Player native 64-bit across platforms. We chose Linux as our initial platform in response to numerous requests in our public Flash Player bug and issue management system and the fact that Linux distributions do not ship with a 32-bit browser or a comprehensive 32-bit emulation layer by default. Until this pre-release, use of 32-bit Flash Player on Linux has required the use of a plugin wrapper, which prevents full compatibility with 64-bit browsers. With this pre-release, Flash Player 10 is now a full native participant on 64-bit Linux distributions.' Windows and Mac OS X 64-bit versions will follow, and the final versions all will be released simultaneously. Tamarin, the JIT compiler in Flash, is now capable of producing 64-bit code and nspluginwrapper is no longer required. There are, however, no plans to release a debugger version of the 64-bit plugin."

Comments

Re:Silverlight

[Ed Avis]

We now have Java and Flash on 64-bit. No more reason to bitch.

Java is free but Flash is not (gnash and swfdec are getting there, but still not good enough for everyday use). And x86_64 is not the only 64-bit platform; what about Sparc and Itanic users, for example?

A binary blob for x86_64 is nice, I guess, but better would be for Adobe to give a bit of help to the projects trying to make a free implementation of Flash. So please continue to bitch, if you think that helps.

Re:Silverlight

[morgan_greywolf]

Might I suggest open standards so anyone who cares can implement their own?

You mean like this one? Yes, good idea. ;)

Ubiquity of flash

[DrYak]

Out of interest, what do you consider the smallest possible user base that any concession should be made with regard to support?

Given that flash is starting to get ubiquitous, any online-capable platform is going to need it badly soon. Restricting a (closed) technology to only a couple of most widespread platform is really bad.
If we exit the world of desktop computers the most widespread CPU are embedable RISCs such as ARM and MIPS. Yet, none of them can currently get even a free-as-in-beer plugin downloadable from adobe's website.
Thus embed platforms (such as PDAs, MID) have either to count on gnash (lots of F/LOSS BusyBox/Linux based PDA & Smartphone projects) or do without flash at all (iPhone currently).

There are lots of other possible creative usage for other machines. But, by lacking flash some of them will suddenly be not so useful for experiencing the web.

That's why the whole flash thing was a bad idea to begin with. In an open system as the internet, where everything is documented and free to get re-implemented, where everything was built in this open way, suddenly there comes a new "standart" which will only run on a couple of processors, preventing anything else to use it and stoping any creative use of it.

How much effort should be put into supporting either Sparc or Itanic, or indeed any other minority platform?

Well not much is asked from Adobe. Just help the open source enough to have a descent open source implementation.
That should be that much difficult, taking into account that adobe makes no money on the free-as-in-beer plugin, instead their main income comes from the creation suites.
Adobe has done it in the past (PDF is a published standard, with numerous alternative implementation existing - Adobe makes money on the Acrobat suite).
Concurrent of flash have done it (Silverlight vs. Moonlight)

And I'm not just talking about closed source apps here, I'm also talking about open source projects and the stance they take, and the whole range of possible support options

Usually, after the first couple of ports have revealed all the hidden platform dependent bugs, lots of additional posts come almost "for free", generally only a recompile away.

In addition, we don't expect the Gnash developers to maintain port for every fucking platform under the sun.
Gnash is free/libre opensource software. If the developers don't have the resources to port the application themselves, others are open to do it.

In fact that's what's happening : gnash is mainly developed on x86 and x86_64 architecture, but that hasn't stopped other enthusiasts to port it to PS3 (MIPS).

Flash is getting popular. As long as there's some interest for some platform there are bound to be enough interested developers (for that platform) to port it instead of gnash's own developers.

Popular game engines on portable device is a nice example :
ScummVM is available on a dozen of hardware platforms, some not even POSIX compatible. Not all of them are maintained by the main ScummVM developer. But the popularity of ScummVM and the coolness to be able to plas scumm-based (mostly LucasArt) games on whatever pocketable machine you have has nonetheless attracted enough motivated people to port it to a wide array of machines.
Same goes for several other game engine (Doom and Duke3D are nice examples. Usually its the second thing that get ported to any new hardware platform, right after Linux).
Given the rising popularity of flash, Gnash will probably follow the same trend... ...as long as gnash is compatible enough to flash.
And for that, cooperation from Adobe will help immensely.

Re:Silverlight

[not already in use]

Release the source, or at least an open API/documentation/something, and then let us do the work.

Yeah I've heard this before. Must have been last week that people were bitching that Google hasn't ported Chrome to Linux yet (here on slashdot). It just seems to me that the more companies give in to the Linux community, the more they demand. It usually goes:

Release the specs! -> Release the source! -> Port it for us!