There’s a bit of ruckus going on at the moment in the world of HTML5. A number of people are claiming that Adobe has blocked the latest publication of the HTML5 standard. However, after diving into the actual mailing list threads, it becomes obvious quite quickly that it’s nothing but a misunderstanding. Update: Masinter replies: “No part of HTML5 is, or was ever, ‘blocked’ in the W3C HTML Working Group – not HTML5, not Canvas 2D Graphics, not Microdata, not Video – not by me, not by Adobe.”
So, what’s going on here? Ian ‘Hixie’ Hickson (Google) and Anne van Kesteren (Opera) were both claiming that Adobe was blocking the publication of the latest HTML5 specifications by posting a formal complaint to a members-only W3C mailing list. Others picked up on this, but it’s a bit of a storm in a teacup, since a perusal through the relevant mailing list thread reveals that it’s all based on a misunderstanding.
After Hixie’s and Van Kesteren’s claims made it onto the internet, Shelley Powers posted a message to the public mailing list of the HTML-WG, asking what on earth was going on. “At least two members of this team, Ian Hickson and Anne van Kesteren, representing Google and Opera, respectively, have been writing this morning that Adobe is officially blocking publication of HTML5,” Powers wrote, “This type of communication could cause FUD among the community of users, and should be addressed as soon as possible.”
“There was something in the minutes yesterday about a formal objection from Larry Masinter [from Adobe], but the emails in this regard went to a protected email list,” Powers continues, “However, Larry has discussed in the www-archive list, a publicly accessible list, his objections to the publication of Microdata, the RDFa document, and the Canvas 2D API, but not the HTML5 document, itself.”
The concerns in question have to do with charter and scope, and are not exclusive to Adobe. The problem seems to be that all these documents – Microdata, RDFa, Canvas 2D API, HTML5 document – are all lumped together, and some are confused about whether or not an objection to a single one can block all of them. The answer is clear: no, it cannot. In other words, Masinter’s objection does not block HTML5.
So, to get back to Hixie’s original complaint, two aspects of it appear to be untrue. First, Adobe’s complaint is not a secret at all – it’s a procedural thing that was posted to a public mailing list February 5. Second, this complaint is not blocking HTML5.
I’m not a particular fan of Flash, or Adobe in general, but it seems like the torches and pitchforks were taken out of the sheds a little too soon on this one. When I first encountered Hixie’s blog post, I was quite angry, but after spending some time reading the mailing list posts in question, from the people actually handling the matter first-hand, it became quite clear it’s all just a storm in a teacup. You can obviously read the mailing list thread yourself so you can make up your own mind.
Did I just spend a considerable amount of words (and time) defending Adobe? I have this sudden urge to brush my teeth…
everybody likes to hate on flash these days and most of the hate seem to come from apple fanboys to justify apple not allowing it on their devices.
Flash is a scriptable runtime environment that also play audio and video streams. Apple did not prevent flash because of its appetite on resources, they prevented it because of its scriptable nature and apple’s inability to control what code can run on flash if they allowed it. Apple’s obsession with control is what is keeping flash off of its devices.
i am a linux user and i do not like flash very much and apple’s interest in pushing the web off of flash is in agreement with mine and i should be thankful but i do not approve of their lying about their reasons and i think we should all call them out on it instead of repeating it simply because we agree with their end result
The hate comes from the Linux and OS X camps, with a growing horde of Windows camp sick of the scourge known as Flash; and welcome the day HTML 5 is supported in all WebKit, IE and Presto based browsers.
Most of these flash haters seem to think that when flash disappears, the ads are gone, too. And that is just an insane assumption.
(dupe post)
Edited 2010-02-15 13:07 UTC
Flash content can be annoying at times. And I would much rather see web-developers use open standards instead. But this technology works relativity well on Linux and Windows. It would work much better on OSX if Apple cooperated more with Adobe.
That being said, I feel that some opposition comes from the Apple camp who believe that since iPhone does not support Flash hence Flash must be bad.
Hence I have to ask you: as a former Apple employee and a well-known Apple advocate on this forum, is your opposition to Flash due to your love for open platforms or are you just drinking and selling the Jobs Kool-aid? Would you have reasoned differently if iPhone did support Flash and did it really well??
Edited 2010-02-15 13:09 UTC
Flash has been a detestable framework for web development since its’ inception.
It was slow, buggy, incompatible with almost any browser other than ie and netscape, costly to setup on a server, bandwidth intensive, obnoxiously used, and made sites inaccessible for the disabled.
What has changed in 10 years?
Well, the scourge has reached more platforms now? Oh, and it can make today’s CPUs grind to a halt when playing a simple video, so I suppose ten years have made it more of a resource hog than before. Other than that, can’t think of anything.
How about the fact that Flash sucks, the developers at Adobe suck, their management are locked in a reality distortion field, and long time Microsoft haters are having greater success with Silverlight than with Adobe’s Flash. I truly am sick and tired of hearing the sycophants from forums and the crap employee’s of Adobe bending over backwards apologising for the abortion of a technology that is Flash.
Oh, and to claim that some how because it is installed by many people it equates to a product ‘not as bad as people make it out to be” – who the f–k chooses to use the technology in the first place! I’ve never ever seen a end user install a plugin for something unless the developer of the website itself pushed for its use! so please, to some how equate quality to distribution to people actively choosing to install Flash is a pathetic and fictitious argument to make.
We all know what the solution is – open source the damn plugin; there is no value derived from the plugin – you make the dollars off the development tools. Open source the plugin under a liberal licence and allow vendors to contribute and fix up the problems because so far Adobe has demonstrated gross incompetence when it comes to delivering a stable product. Oh, as for ‘forked versions’ as the Flash apologists in the past here have claimed – institute the same requirements that Java has, “you can’t call it Java unless it has passed the conformity tests”.
people give this argument also give another one saying that it is only a matter of time before hulu ditch flash and use html5/video. Hulu will never do this because they want people to always stream their contents and will never go with a “naked” streaming solution that will allow people to record their streams. For this reason, adobe will most likely never open source their player because they want to keep all content providers who want to keep their contents locked up. Flash going open source today and hulu will go silverlight a few seconds later.
as long as content providers want their stuff locked up, there will always be proprietary technologies that will allow them to do that ..why not be happy with the devil u know than the devil you dont? moonlight has so far show no interest in implementing proprietary technologies netflix uses in streaming their contents in silverlight and to expect microsoft to support anything other than windows is expecting too much from them and that will surely lead to disappointments
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?408059
I knew this sounded too much familiar… Come on, this is not even on-topic.
It is on topic given that the person I was responding to was an unapologetic apologist for Adobe, Flash and all that is unholy with proprietary technologies. Why write a whole new post when I’ve already beaten my chest so many times on the matter?
The hate comes from a variety of users from all platforms:
* FOSS and OS X users for being neglected with sub-standard ports
* Users who don’t have powerful machines and find simple webpages can often max out their machine.
* Surfers who stumble across a whole site built in Flash and find they can use the most basic of functions (back buttons, copy/paste, open in new window/tab)
* People who like to browse the web on internet-ready non-PC / Mac equipment (portable devices, integrated devices like games consoles and TVs, etc).
* People who just get sick of intrusive ad banners (some even come bundled with sound effects).
And the problem is compounded by the fact that if and when you do stumble across a Flash heavy site (excluding ads), there’s often no way to view the site without Flash – thus either forcing the user to run Flash or lose content.
Admitted, the quality of the Windows version is superior, but for 10.1, Adobe will improve at least the OS X version heavily. They promise to bring CPU decoded video on par with the Windows version. They can’t use the graphics processor’s decoder chips directly on OS X though, because Apple does not have an API for that, yet. This is clearly Apple’s fault, we have to be fair here. Second, they announced that 10.1 will use Core Animation on the Mac, which will probably boost graphic calculations a lot.
No sympathy from my side, here. Look, if you buy an Atom based device and expect it to do everything that a “real” laptop/desktop can do, that is your fault. Adobe does improve H.264 based video decoding with Flash Player 10.1 though, by using specialised decoder chips available in some of these machines.
That is a problem, Adobe needs to improve on accessibility, very true. But you know what? This is ultimately the task of the site author(s). Let’s say Adobe’s authoring tools will support HTML5 tomorrow, with all canvas glory and stuff. How can you even assume that people will not just continue building unaccesible sites, because they don’t care? Technology can help, but it will always be misused, bear this in mind, please.
You haven’t heard of the Open Screen Project yet, right? Adobe hands you the code, if you need to port the Flash Player. That’s the main focus of Adobe right now, bring Flash to more devices like smartphones, etc. and use dedicated hardware for “heavy” tasks like video decoding or graphic calculations. And btw, Flash is available on the Wii and the PS3, that’s 2 out of 3 for the current generation of game consoles, not too shabby, heh? 😉
Are HTML5 based ads less intrusive? Why? Sorry, but this is not an argument. Ads will stay with us even if Flash becomes irrelevant.
Again as stated before, this is ultimately the task of the site author(s).
That’s all completely irrelevant to the here and now.
What about people still using P4’s and 1GB RAM? (In fact, I know some people who run even lower spec systems)
And what about people who aren’t on high incomes or even lucky enough to live in one of the more developed western countries.
Most home users don’t upgrade their computer every 3 years. Most home users don’t see a computer as a toy that needs updating frequently. They see it as a necessary evil and expect to keep using it for 5 to 10 years.
So why should we be excluding rich internet content from people who don’t want to spend hundreds on their computer every 2 years. It’s not as if the same content can’t be rendered on systems via other media formats.
You’re still missing the point.
I’m stating why people dislike Flash.
Most people don’t give a toss who’s to blame, so they blame the technology.
So my point was 100% accurate.
And what happens when Adobe moves to the next iteration of Flash? You are completely reliant on your games console updating it’s firmware.
I’d sooner see HTML5 and not have to worry about firmware updates with every update to Flash.
And as for hand held devices – I’m still yet to be convinced that Flash will run smoothly on them when on content heavy sites. HTML5 would.
Of course they will. But Flash Ads are what people notice for the now – thus it’s what they complain about thus my point about why they dislike Flash.
Switch off nerd mode for one moment and think about what I wrote.
It wasn’t a technical manual for Flash – it was a list of reasons why Flash was unpopular.
Some maybe unjust, but Flash is famous for those annoying ads that cripple your machine.
You’re still making excusing for Flash.
I can see you love the technology but for once try switching of your bias and try to have an objective look at what people are complaining about.
Most of your post consists of either shifting the blame (you even blamed users for trying to surf the internet on low spec machines rather than Adobe’s shoddy plug ins!!) or arguing that Adobe plan (note: not yet implemented in consumer devices) to fix the problem.
Well all of that is just completely irrelevant to the plight of the average web surfer; Those that hate Flash, hate Flash for the reasons I’ve specified.
Excuses from Adobe aside, those are still the reasons.
Huh? I’m sorry, but you said Adobe completely neglects anything other than Windows and I mentioned Adobe’s efforts to improve that. How that is completely irrelevant to the here and now, I don’t see.
The question is: What are we talking about, right now? What sites are so incredibly slow on such a machine? For HD video, I can only say this: It’s a highly demanding task for a CPU. No x86 single core CPU can handle 1080p H.264. None. Not a single one. General purpose CPUs are just crappy at it. That’s why mobiles, graphics cards etc. come with dedicated decoder chips nowadays. And in Flash Player 10.1, Adobe is using them on Windows.
So I ask you again: What exactly should be faster on such a machine and do you think that these sites would be faster when using HTML5 technology for everything?
Again, what tasks/sites are you talking about? Whining doesn’t make an argument.
Why blame Adobe for delivering a solution for a problem that WHATWG and W3C weren’t able to adress? That’s not Adobe’s fault, they delivered. The wide adoption and variety of uses of Flash is proof for the need.
If the game console maker doesn’t update their browser to support the latest and greatest W3C standard, you are screwed, too.
For phones, good enough should be good enough. We will see, but the preview videos on the Palm Pre look promising.
We will see. It’s also a question of the implementation. HTML5 isn’t faster by definition just because it’s open and Flash is “proprietary and bloated crap”, right?
The overwhelming majority of people will probably never install a Flash blocker. Just some tech-savvy.
No, it was a list of reasons why YOU think flash is unpopular. An I tell you this: Most people don’t know anything about Flash and thus they can’t complain about it. Heck, most people probably don’t know what a browser does or what a plugin is.
I haven’t done a single thing in Flash myself, yet. I don’t love the technology. You’d better be objective about how many people are really complaining about it and if they even matter. Because I am not sure if they really do, Flash is well alive, from what I can see on the net everyday.
It is totally legitimate to shift the blame. I don’t blame users for trying to surf the internet on low spec machines. What I do is mention that there are demanding tasks that can’t be executed well on low end hardware and that people with such hardware shouln’t blame Adobe for their plugin if really the cause for the bad experience is the crappy hardware and not Flash. You still haven’t mentioned a single site that you see as proof of how bad Flash is for these low end machines.
This is getting awesome now 🙂
All these HTML5 advocates are telling of how the future will be so HTML galore and Flash will die, because it’s bad now. The Beta of Flash 10.1 is just a download away and will be realeased in the coming months. Look, I want HTML5 to succeed where it makes sense. But stating that Flash is already outdated and can be completely crushed by HTML5 is just funny to me. DISCLAIMER: That was a little off topic and not directly related to what you have said, though 😉
It’s OK to hate Flash. Just don’t pretend that your group is big enough to matter.
Seriously mate, you’re just arguing now for the sake of arguing so I’m not even going to waste my lunch hour debunking your myths.
All that needs to be said is that Flash DOES run like shit on average hardware.
Sure, Adobe might, finally, be doing something to rectify this, but it’s too little too late and it won’t hit most users desktops for years.
So teh fact remains, after 10 years of development, Flash is still a stinking pile of horse manure on the average desktop (and I’m not talking about streaming HD content on a netbook – I’m talking normal usage on normal peoples machines).
Sure, you can list hundreds of reasons why you think myself or users are being unfair to Adobe, but that doesn’t change the fact that Flash still runs like sh*t.
In fact, quite frankly I’m sick of excuses. I gave Flash a fair chance (even built some Flash animations) a few years back, but now we’re 10 years down the line and Flash has only become less competitive as other technology has caught up in terms of features and over-took in terms of performance.
Adobe / Macromedia had a huge head start but failed to progress on it so personally I think they deserve all the criticism they currently get.
As long as they’re not trying to play HD content in fullscreen, they shouldn’t have a problem. I’ve viewed youtube-size video on machines as slow as G4 800 and a P3-M 1.3Ghz.
In principle, I agree with you. But that’s a problem that existed well before Flash gained widespread use for web video – and even if Flash were completely vanquished today, the problem would still exist.
There’s a fundamental flaw in that argument. People who would dislike a technology for such an irrational reason probably lack the technical literacy to actually recognize/identify when said technology is being used.
In other words, anyone clueless enough to reach that conclusion (“Flash unilaterally sucks because it’s been used for annoying ads”) is probably, at the same time, too clueless to even reach that conclusion in the first place. For that matter, they’re probably more likely to blame the problems on their OS, browser, the brand of computer they use, or the alignment of Mercury and Jupiter.
Can you point to a single example of wargum actually expressing that sentiment? Believe it or not, there are actually people who hold positions on Flash other than staunch advocacy or shrill anti-fanboyism.
I’ve got a Q6600 (quad core core2duo @2.4GHz) and I’m forced to run Adblock if I don’t want my browser to crawl to a halt. Why? Because I surf heavily and typically have 50+ tabs open at once. Try running any browser with hundreds of flash plugins open playing ads, and then tell me how fast your computer is.
Now, I don’t actually know how much of a slowdown those ads would cause if they were using HTML5 instead of flash, but I’m pretty sure it would at least be quite a bit better, even if it did still cause a slowdown.
Dude, you are talking about between 50 and x-hundred tabs active at once.
That is not a relevant benchmark.
It’s completely relevant to me, just not you. Even if it’s a little overkill compared to the average user, I think the performance of a bunch of ads is more important than playing a single video, since that’s what people are going to run into most of the time they’re browsing. And if a heavy browser can run into issues on a modern machine, it follows that someone on an older machine is going to have problems as well even if they don’t surf as heavily.
The question is: Does your scenario really show how crappy the Flash Player is? To me, this just sounds like a lot of work for a computer, even these days. Something one must understand is that the Flash Player has to compute even invisible things, or at least I assume that. Why? Since the Flash Player can’t guess if an invisible tab contains Flash content that is only relevant when the tab is visible. This is a make-or-break scenario. So when having 50+ tabs open you might well have 100 or more Flash elements open at the same time, all needing to be computed. That’s a lot! 🙂
Only time will tell, but I have doubts that it will be so much better.
Edited 2010-02-15 21:32 UTC
You’ll hear no argument from me there – FWIW, the only two Firefox extensions I use are Session Manager and FlashBlock. But what we were talking about was video playback/decoding via Flash.
Possibly – although if there were a shift away from Flash for “rich media” ads, it would probably be towards things like Javascript, Silverlight, or (deity help us) Java applets. Rather than HTML5, that is.
Stay way from the porn sites, dude.
While I’m certainly in the flash-hating camp, and I agree with your other points, I just have to point out, this, at least, is just as much the fault of the page designer as it is the fault of Adobe:
There could conceivably be safe-and-sane uses of Flash in web design — i.e. if provision is made for fall-back in the event that the user does not have (or has disabled) Flash. Mis-use of Flash in a pathological design is more the fault of the designer.
it’s all just a storm in a teacup.
Don’t you just hate it when a phrase gets nationalized and you don’t get it? That’s the British version of the American “Tempest in a Teapot” phrase. Of course, this begs why Thom doesn’t use “Storm in een glas water”?
Of course, this raises the question why Thom doesn’t use “Storm in een glas water”?
;).
Still sounds weird, or maybe it just sounds weird in American English. I’d have expected that to read:
Of course, this raises the question why doesn’t Thom use “Storm in een glas water”?
edit: The word order would work in a sentence like: I wonder why Thom doesn’t use “Storm in een glas water”?
Is this just another way we crazy people screwed up English again?
Edited 2010-02-15 10:45 UTC
Adobe’s formal objection was originally posted on a private list. It’s available publicly now, but it wasn’t when the claims you are referring to.
The main HTML 5 document isn’t held up directly by this action, but apparently modifying the charter is no trivial task. If they have to go back and do that as a result of this objection it could lead to substantial delays. Further, while Canvas has been split out into a separate document it’s still a part of the larger HTML5 project and arguably one of the more important ones.
There is some legitimate concern about the scope of RDFa and Microdata which is even visible in the current drafts for those standards (namely whether RDFa as it applies to HTML5 should be handled by the RDFa people and whehter Microdata should be pursued given that RDFa shares a similar purpose). However, the issues with scope for Canvas and whether splitting it out into a separate document would require charter modifications have apparently been resolved for a couple of years now. It seems odd that Adobe would bring it up now unless they’re just trying to get in the way.
You are mistaken about the availability of the objection. It’s quite clearly detailed in the article that the objection was sent to a public mailist list February 5.
Come on people, I don’t want to defend Adobe
. I’m already going to hell because of all the times I’ve been drunk, AND THIS ISN’T HELPING.
Adobe believe that Flash is a necessary technology. They believe what they are doing is right (you can hardly operate a company where you don’t believe in what you do).
Adobe make money through the selling of tools around the licencing of a runtime. Because of being bundled with Windows, Adobe can (successfully) argue that Flash is a part of the ‘Web and that consumers will not be able to fully operate on the web without the Flash runtime.
Adobe want device manufacturers to come to them and pay for a Flash runtime for their new device so that the device manufacturers can appease users. This is at odds with HTML, which any device manufacturer can support out of the box without any body’s permission.
Adobe have made claims that they are open, but open does not mean that they don’t have control. You can look, but you can’t touch–only they can steer the SWF format, and there has been no success of any kind of any third party adding to the SWF spec on their own accord. Most HTML5 features were proprietary implementations in other browsers before being adopted by all.
What Adobe do not understand about open is that for Adobe to be open, it means that nobody should rely upon Adobe. That is not a business model they are interested in.
Flash is at odds with HTML5 because its design and programming model leads developers to eschew accessibility and fallbacks. In HTML5 you get native controls for free, accessibility is easy to do from the start and not difficult to adapt to. In Flash you have to put in a ton of extra effort to add accessibility, and even then you have to design all your content twice for the fallback. HTML is the bane of Flash developers. Because these factors are extra work and often get left out, Flash is bad for the web. It does not encourage any good habits, nor openness or interoperability (good luck mashing up SWF content. Would RSS ever existed with Flash?).
Flash is a developer trap to get people locked into an Adobe ecosystem. It’s business 101, and the web cannot depend upon any one business.
The experiments Adobe have done exporting SWF to Canvas are interesting, but ultimately are an internal conflict that if anything, will be the wake up call that their licencing revenue stream is going to dry up in the wake of the iPhone/iPad dominating everything and developers waking up to HTML5 and ditching Flash.
If Adobe make a tool that can run content anywhere, then who can they sell the runtime to? Nobody. Adobe will either cripple this experiment to the point of uselessness (citing their favourite silver bullet, ‘browser inconsistencies’) or if they have a cluestick, embrace it and sell Adobe software as the best designer tool for creating standards-based web content.
From what I’ve seen from Adobe’s blogs, and Flash developers, they are all living in a bubble where Flash is this fautless, great thing that the world absolutely requires to do anything on the web. I really don’t imagine them getting a clue until they’ve severely lost out first.
Flash is going to be around for a long, long time yet, but Adobe’s notion that Flash is required for content is simply wrong. Flash is a runtime *for* content, and as demonstrated when their laughable attempt to make a point with blue legos on the iPad was shown as unrealistic given that all but two sites already had non-Flash versions for the iPhone, Flash is just eye-candy and has little to do with content beyond games (which Apple is betting people will convert into App Store apps).
Flash is dead. The question is whether or not Adobe can turn it into something else instead of beating the same horse and denying its faults.
BSD is dead. Apple is dead. Microsoft is dead. The desktop is dead.
Don’t confuse wish with reality.
The reality is that Flash has no future unless it shapes up.
In the least Adobe should fix their shoddy coding and work toward fixing the well loathed image of the Flash plugin. At best they should open source everything and set up a steering committee for the SWF format that anybody can contribute to.
Addendum: Who is going to develop a Flash site for mobiles, and then have to do it all again with standards (because iPhone is 70% of the browser market) when you could just do it in standards to begin with and target them all?
Edited 2010-02-15 12:31 UTC
If you wouldn’t be so blinded by your hatred, you could see that Adobe does some significant improvements for Flash Player 10.1 and the Open Screen Project.
Edited 2010-02-15 13:09 UTC
Open Screen Project? Hah, don’t make me laugh. OSP has nothing to do with open and is just to get manufacturers and developers using Flash instead of HTML5 video.
I don’t have Flash installed, how can I hate it? I don‘t see it or use it. My mind is clear, HTML5 video is the solution to video on mobile devices, period.
mine isnt ..the market and the technology heavy weights seem to be going for h.264. In effect, the end result will be trading one proprietary technology for another.As a linux user, atleast i will be able to use the codec without worrying about legal issues because adobe already paid for the license. Any other alternative and i will be exposed, just like i am with mp3 or with playing encrypted dvd
Somebody already called me “an unapologetic apologist for Adobe, Flash and all that is unholy with proprietary technologies” without really noticing that we are going to trade one proprietary technology with another. One being more problematic than another in legal terms(flash being better because it covers the license costs) and the other being less problematic in technical terms(native playback of audio/video should be less taxing on hardware)
Most CPUs in mobile phones are too weak to decode anything above VGA resolution and thus use dedicated decoder chips that suck up only a bunch of mW, which is extremely efficient. If the world would go HTML5 tomorrow, we would have to use H.264 (which you’ll probably hate), because Theora just couldn’t be decoded properly. Through these H.264 decoder chips Adobe makes is possible to run Flash video on phones now.
Flash may not be perfect but it has served us well when it comes to content delivery.
What gets me is that people are quick to knock Flash yet Silverlight seems to get away with things. Personally I have found far more issues with Silverlight than any Flash site. Don’t get me started with Quicktime.
What we need is simply a standard that all people can use and no one company or individual owns.
Look at h264 what a joke that is….so we all must pay for a codec to view this content. An absolute joke!!!
Html 5 must be fully open in its nature and anything that plugs into it. That way all browsers can support it fully and truly and we don’t have one company dictating what we can see and for how much.
I just read the mailing lists and IMHO Adobe was indeed holding up “HTML5” for approval. As you can read here:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0016.html
In fact, it was just a month ago that the 2D Context API was split off of the HTML5 spec at all:
http://www.canvasdemos.com/2010/01/08/canvas-2d-context-splits-from…
The Canvas API is probably the most important API (aside from the video tag) for allowing HTML to compete with Flash and Silverlight, and the context is an important part of it. Google is understandably a big ticked off as they have worked a lot to try to get it to be viable. So it really does seem, with all this in mind, that Adobe is, to some extent, “blocking the HTML5 spec”, even if it’s not *technically* true.
Edited 2010-02-16 21:25 UTC