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.

[Dogtanian]

Yo dawg, we heard you like closed platforms...

Cute, though I'd say the problem here is that you *don't* get a closed platform in your closed platform.

Re:Straw man

[Draek]

And even if Sears was the only place to buy shoes, you could always wear hiking boots or sandals.

Your point?