Re: [Fsfe-uk] Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

[Jon Grant]

Hi,

Alex Hudson elucidated on 08/11/06 09:43:
> On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 03:25 +0000, Jon Grant wrote:
>> All looks like a little improvement, hope they release the rest eventually
>>
>> I got this reply from Matt Rozen at Adobe:
>>
>> "Adobe doesn't currently have plans to open source Adobe Flash Player
>> beyond what's being open sourced today."
> 
> That's not totally surprising, and to be honest I don't expect them to
> make it free software any time soon either. 

RMS divided some examples I had given quite succinctly into two
scenarios which could cause them to free/open Flash player as far as I
can see.

* When Adobe loose to MS or W3C etc they will open up :-
  i) as demonstrated by Netscape's browser
  ii) RealNetworks Helix project.

* When Flash gets a competent replacement in the form of Gnash
  or an alternative plugin etc.
   i) As demonstrated by Troll releasing Qt X11
   ii) and then Qt win32 only when a team are working on their own
implementation.
   iii) Sun now freeing/opening Java because GCJ is a competent replacement.

> I'm not totally sure why: they argue the standards thing, which is
> mostly a bogus argument. Plus, their value isn't in Flash player at all:
> it's in the Flash tools. 

Maybe they are just looking for points to prove why they don't have to
free/open the tech. They don't have to be valid to be useful for PR!

Cheers
Jon