Flash Is Not a Right

medcalf notes that game designer Ian Bogost enters the debate about Flash by saying "[A] large number of developers seem to think that they have the right to make software for the iPhone (or for anything else) in Flash, or in another high-level environment of their choosing. Literally, the right, not just the convenience or the opportunity. And many of them are quite churlish about the matter. This strikes me as a very strange sort of attitude to adopt. There's no question that Flash is useful and popular, and it has a large and committed user base. There's also no question that it's often convenient to be able to program for different platforms using environments one already knows. And likewise, there's a long history of creating OS stubs or wrappers or other sorts of gizmos to make it possible to run code 'alien' to a platform in a fashion that makes it feel more native. But what does it say about the state of programming practice writ large when so many developers believe that their 'rights' are trampled because they cannot write programs for a particular device in a particular language? Or that their 'freedom' as creators is squelched for the same reason?"

Comments

Re:You signed away this "right" by picking Apple.

[sbeckstead]

Try to publish something that Adobe thinks denigrates Adobe and see how fast your hair catches fire from the backwash of their lawyers jet planes.

Re:It's called "PERSONAL PROPERTY," Apple!

[whisper_jeff]

Ah, how cute. I have an anonymous coward slashdot stalker. How pitiful is your life that you feel the necessity to post these trite little replies to my Apple-related comments?

Please, keep it up - it amuses me. I'll actually feel like I've gone astray should your replies stop gracing my comments.

Re:Two senses of "closed."

[ashidosan]

I'm not the AC poster, but I agree. Fuck off. Posts get modded up because they contain useful information. This melange of accusations and vitriol doesn't quite count.

Re:Two senses of "closed."

[icannotthinkofaname]

you don't get to vote without a name.

Actually, he does. On Slashdot, it's impossible to mod a story and post non-anonymously. All moderators for a given story are nameless relative to that story.