Not too long ago Adobe started a “We love Apple” campaign, as a response to Apple’s continuous negative remarks about the company. With Flash 10.1 slowly but surely appearing on more and more mobile devices, it seems like the company just doesn’t care about it any more. Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen has said they’ve “moved on”.
Narayen has told the Telegraph that he believes the whole thing has been overplayed (well, your campaign certainly played a role in that, now didn’t it). He explains that it’s a simple case of some companies wanting to control the entire environment, end-to-end, whereas other companies choose a more open approach in the mobile space.
“There are companies that are choosing to provide a complete end-to-end experience and control every aspect of it and want all the business model gains from it,”he said, “There are other companies that have chosen to say that the open eco-system is the way to go and that’s how you would contrast Apple and Google’s business models. We’re on the side of the open.”
“They’ve chosen to keep their system closed and we’d rather work with partners who are interested in working with us,” he continues, “We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about their decision at that point. They’ve made their choice. We’ve made ours and we’ve moved on.”
That’s probably the wise thing to do for Adobe. As much as I believe they’ve got lots of work to do on various products in their portfolio, we still live in a free world where people should make up their own minds about whether or not to install Flash or use any of Adobe’s other products. Narayen also emphasised that Adobe is working together with 19 of the world’s top 20 phone makers.
“The reality is that Flash continues to be one of the most ubiquitous pieces of software used in the world,” he says, “You’re seeing announcements every few weeks about new devices that are shipping with Flash. That’s going to keep us incredibly busy, so I think this is now a story that people understand. It has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with business models.”
He further added that the door is still open, but it’s quite clear that Adobe is no longer going to complain about Apple not wanting to get in. Good on ‘m.
It’s amusing how Adobe plays the “open” vs “closed” game speaking as a consumer, but not as a provider.
In other words, they talk about how open or closed the OS platforms they support are, while only offering a semi-closed platform for Flash developers and consumers.
If Adobe ever provides an open-source reference platform for Flash – then maybe I’ll seriously consider them an “open” platform. At that point, we may even finally see a good flash player available for Haiku.
Open sourcing Flash would take away content protection which is one of its primary advantages over HTML5.
From a business perspective open sourcing Flash would be a poor move.
I don’t care for Flash either but HTML5 was designed without considering the needs of content producers which is why even Google has said that Flash isn’t going anywhere.
Are you sure Google didn’t just say they were in love with Flash and how it was going to be integrated into Chrome + Android simply to spite Apple and try and increase their market share? Up until that point Google seemed to be ready to dump flash and move to HTML5 video, and for what Youtube does, google does not need protected content.
No because Google also offers video rentals.
They want to undermine itunes which means offering protected content.
Why would releasing the Flash source code mean removing DRM? They can go GPL, write there own license or adopt any other OSS license that has no issue with including DRM be it a clised binary addition or open source itself. Heck, if they release the DRM source also then they stand to gain from people improving it; DRM sucks but it’s still a security mechanism that can only benefit from transparency.
Actually, the problem is – DRM of this type simply doesn’t work. Everything needed to decrypt the file is provided to the client machine. In order to display the video on the screen, it has to be decrypted by the player – and once decrypted, it can simply be streamed to a new file without the encryption (I wouldn’t be surprised if this can already be done with existing Flash player software via screen-scraping software, but I haven’t investigated whether anyone has attempted to so so). Thus, an open source DRM-enabled flash player would essentially allow anyone to modify it and make a perfect digital rip of DRM-encumbered content.
That is the other issue with it and one that can’t be held against any platform since it affects all of them. Security on the local machine that does not trust the local machine owner just doesn’t work. It’s the very definition of security theater; mean to feel safe rather than be safe.
Yup, but for the time-being, the content producers *think* they’re safe – or at least, they feel relatively secure that very few individuals know how to rip their content from an encrypted stream.
It’s quite maddening.
They know their movies are ripped easily from dvds and torrented but they still prefer some protection to none when it comes to streaming. The arguments for moving away from Flash just aren’t very strong from the producer’s point of view. It isn’t as if Adobe gets a cut from each stream.
And, I mean ignorance in the “lacks relevant information” rather than an insult. Bless them for it because it’s maintaining some amount of fair use for the consumer. As a security geek though, I also have to recognize that false security is even worse than no security at all. DVDs should be rip-able; I bought the content on disk, I retain fair use to watch that content on any device so long as I have the physical disk. In terms of flash though, it’s not even that some users can get the content; with Download Helper, anyone can, and does, do it. The embedded flash object becomes a download link you can watch while you wait.
It’s a theater show.
There is screen capturing software for video but it is expensive and requires a high-end machine. The plug-ins for Flash that exist only work with unprotected video. An open source flash would allow a ‘make local copy’ checkbox which would encourage casual piracy.
The other problem is that you could re-write the player to detect advertisements or stream and remove them.
Now of course you can argue that content producers should just ignore all this and release naked video anyways but that isn’t a compelling argument when Flash has a 97% install base. You need to provide a technical advantage or increased market size for the producers. That’s the big problem with HTML5. It not only has a smaller install base but the technical advantages are really for the users. Even Silverlight has technical advantages for both sides but still can’t compete with the install base of Flash.
When you are talking about DRM you are really talking about encrypting data and limiting access to the end user.
You can’t release this type of encryption scheme along with keys to the data. It’s like giving away keys to a house with a note that says please only use if you have permission.
Actually, the current situation is pretty much like hiding the keys under the door mat and praying nobody figures that out.
Slightly more secure, but not really.
Maybe if there is a note on the door that says: Keys are around here somewhere, but please don’t look for them.
Then open source it all except for the DRM binary blob which can be provided and linked against as a separate library rather than being in the plugin itself – you know, that strange practice of modularisation? There are solutions – Adobe just doesn’t want to do it because they would be shown up in 5 minutes by some keen coders creating a superior open source implementation.
Coming from someone as insightful as you usually are, this feels almost like trolling.
Any kind of digital content protection is based on math that makes is impossible (or really hard) to untransform the protected data without the key or partner key which transformed it.
For example a GPG or SMIME encrypted email is always equally secured independent on whether it passes through a close or open source mail server. If it weren’t there would be no point in using encryption for email at all because it is highly likely that it will pass through an open source one on its way to the receiver.
Well, you are right, encryption written as Open Source is not weaker than written as closed source.
It’s just that once you have rightfully decrypted the information you would be able to save the original content without the encryption.
I believe that lack of standardized hardware is the biggest problem. Adobe does not help in this direction and accusing Apple is the worst thing to do. But I also believe that Apple is doing the same.
plaid -> played
Plaid is an awesome british electronic music duo.
“Assault On Precinct Zero” is an amazing song.
Edit: For those who aren’t enlightened yet: http://vimeo.com/1463104
Edited 2010-08-16 20:34 UTC
That’s a bit rich coming from a company that hasn’t got any of it’s major software products on Linux.
Android is based on the linux kernel. Linux on the desktop is a different story because it isn’t a standardized platform.
Sadly, Android is rather fragmented within it’s own distribution thanks to hardware vendors customizing it and implementing it in ways that promote buying a new device to get the newer version release rather than updating the firmware. I like differences between distributions but arbitrary fragmentation within a single distribution sucks.
So good they’re over Apple. When will you stop crashing my web experience on OS X? I’m a customer, and I’m calling for it.
Thank goodness I won’t get that experience on iOS.
you have a choice on OS X, if it crashes your web experience and you dont like it, remove the plug-in and you will have a crash-less experience on your OS X, same as on iOS. Some are, however do not experience the crashing experience you are having on OS X and would like to have flash support in their iOS.
Dont want to be able to choose for yourself if you want flash or not on iOS? why do you still have it on OS X if it “crashes your web experience”? why dont you simply remove it and be done with it? or you cant devide for yourself and you think you will be better off if apple also disabled flash on OS X?
This is 2010, a browser crashing on a buggy plugin is a browser’s fault, no excuses.
+1
What’s wrong with people?! If you don’t like it, uninstall it. It will make your system woek just like iOS, which you obviously think is so great.
The stupid, it burns!
if the goal of Flash is to delivered exceptional user experience on multiple platforms, as it should be, then they must find a way to improve it on the MAC. As the owner of flash on 3 MAC systems and 2 windows system, I find its high level of resource consumption to be unacceptable. This is especially true on the MAC.
It causes my otherwise high performance MAC machines to drag and frankly i don’t like. And the solution isn’t to tell me to uninstall it. If they want to be a universal platform will the associated bragging rights then they need to fix it.
I don’t care if it’s an Adobe only solution or a joint Adobe/Apple solution. But until it performs better i will continue to criticize it.
Standard Apple reply would be … Mac OS X is faulty (taken from standard reply repository when asked when will Apple fix iTunes on Windows)
Don’t sweat the small stuff. WebKit2 is coming along and will be ready very soon to keep all 3rd party plugins from ever holding the browser hostage or worse crashing it.
And yes, it leap frogs Google’s solution.
Safari already has OOP already but the problem is that it isn’t available on 32bit platforms and even when it is enabled it isn’t the silver bullet given that it can still pull down the browser. These are just bandaid solutions which fail to address the elephant in the room.
Safari already has OOP already but the problem is that it isn’t available on 32bit platforms and even when it is enabled it isn’t the silver bullet given that it can still pull down the browser. These are just bandaid solutions which fail to address the elephant in the room. [/q]
http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2
Internals
There are two key subsystems that support the process division :
* CoreIPC – an abstraction for general message passing, including event handling. The current implementations use mach messages on Mac OS X, and named pipes on Windows.
* DrawingArea – an abstraction for a cross-process drawing area. Multiple drawing strategies are possible, the simplest is just a shared memory bitmap.
There are two other important abstractions, which may be pushed down to WebCore or WTF over time:
* Run Loops
* Work Queues
Current Status
WebKit2 should be considered an early technology demo. It is not yet production quality. But it’s possible to try it out and see how it works at this early stage.
How to try it Out
Use build-webkit –webkit2 on Mac OS X or Windows to build everything. WebKit2 will not work with the shipping version of Safari. Because WebKit2 is an incompatible API break, it requires a custom testbed to run it. A basic web browser application suitable for testing WebKit2 will be landed in the near future.
The WebKit2 documentation page hasn’t been updated recently. The source has grown extensively to include the Qt port of it, as well.
It’s a different bird than Google’s approach.
Thank you for the link; it appears that even if the plugin runs out of process with Webkit1 there is still the ability to tear down the browser due to a a number of other factors that could cause the browser to crash if the plugin crashes. With further process seperation of the Webkit2 stack it should mean a more robust experience – so far from what I have seen there is no way to test it right now. Hopefully within the next year we’ll see webkit2 make its way in the form of Safari 6 or something because its one of those features that are really required these days given how dependent a lot of work is on a robust internet experience.
It’s easy really just UN-Install Flash from you Apple Computer? You do know how to remove things from your computer do you? If not maybe you can ask Apple if they would be so obliged to remove it for you. They may even do it for a fee.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
All these proprietary formats and platforms will kneel before Android. It’s inevitable. And with google behind VP8, you can kiss any relevance Adobe ever had goodbye.
I for one cannot WAIT for a truly open, truly anonymous, and truly standards compliant web. It’s going to happen, and when it does, our species will evolve and improve much more quickly!
I would agree with you, except for the fact that flash is on Android now, so I’m REALLY hoping it doesn’t take off on that platform. Flash is like telemarketing – it just needs to go away entirely.
I really wished Google would’ve taken an anti-flash stance like Apple did. IMHO, that’s one thing that Apple did right, despite whatever ulterior motives they might or might not have had.
Note: I’m not an idealist; I really don’t care if flash is ‘open’ or not. What I do care about though are the myriad of security holes, and the hijacking of my right mouse button.
This. And the hijacking of my scroll!
An Android tablet would actually appeal to me over the ipad simply for having Flash. Reading news sites on a tablet without Flash would annoy the hell out of me.
Thanks for the laugh. People want to get on the internet and watch Hollywood crap as quickly as possible and could care less about how it works.
I also see no evidence that humans are evolving into some higher state of consciousness. The smartest people I know have the fewest children and this seems to be a constant throughout the US.
And what crapliy made news sites are you using that require flash? 99% of news can be found elsewhere easily on sites that don’t require flash.
I hate flash for the same reason I hate jscript, it’s a slow, buggy, security hole laden turd.
Neither of which are necessary, and using them simply for the sake of using them get us horrendous shit storms like Google’s new image search site which manage to scroll at the incredible speed of 1 “page” of images per minute.
If you think you need flash you are sorely mistaken, you can get your free porn fix quite easily from any myriad of rapidshare, megaupload etc, torrent sites or usenet.
The only use for flash was the animations found on sites like newgrounds or on South Park.
Local news sites still make significant use of flash.
But thanks for telling me what my browsing needs are. Maybe you should work for Apple.
Oh am I? I like to visit Gametrailers.com and there isn’t a non-Flash alternative.
Flash isn’t going anywhere. Both you and Jobs are going to have to deal with this reality.
Try again next time pal, I don’t use a Mac, I’ve been running Linux for the past 6 years as my only OS.
Flash is a useless turd, its the only reason Firefox would crash on any OS I’ve used up till the last few updates that pulled the flash plugin out of the process tree, but it’s still capable of slowing any system to a crawl.
I live in south east Wisconsin, there are no less then 6 local news stations, for news sites there are several more when you take into account the local papers and newsletters, all up thats something like 15 local news sites, there isn’t much I can’t find without flash, what I can’t I get off the Mythbuntu media server with the Gray-Hoverman antenna.
Just because someone is anti flash doesn’t mean they drink the coolaid, hell, most of the Mac users I know don’t drink it either and either run OSx86 or run it in a VM simply because the Mac versions of the apps they need for work are simply better then the Windows counterparts.
You should try changing your browser, you could find this new ajaxy “web 2.0” thing quite a change from the old web.
You may want to start your experiments with gmail.
Clearly you don’t have a wife – even if you may not need flash, women manage to find themselves in flash powered websites every now and then (and subsequently complain about your misconfigured computer).
Have a throw away gmail account as well I’m running FF 3.6.8, so yeah, I’m seeing all this ajax garbage, it’s actually making the web experience suck more now then before there was stopscript and adblock plus. Seriously, all of these sites redesigning and ending up with a complicated POS with half of the functionality then they previously had. Case in point, the Newegg redesign, they’ve changed some, but not all of the horrid and deceptive design changes, but compare is still broken with the 5 item limit and power search for most sections is badly broken, showing few to no parts that you can find in stock via other means.
Marriage is the leading cause of divorce. I also like my stuff too much to give someone I hate half of it.
That and yes, I’ve got the social networking time holes blocked at the router as well as on the machines themselves, to force anyone visiting, to, you know, interact with those around them instead of updating their status so someone with more intelligence then them can rob them because they know they aren’t home.
So yes, I hate what the web is becoming, it’s getting more and more “me too” feature creep with no to negative gain for anyone but the web designers that got paid to fuck up perfectly good sites.
Allow me to add another requirement (that I personally consider very important, too): a barrier-free web. This includes the ability to receive content, no matter if you’re blind, deaf, or just have a “nice OS”. Conforming to standards is one of the major steps into this direction, as is the urgent need for free and open implementations of that standards – without involving patents, fees and all the unneeded crap that dictates how we experience the web today. Things like interoperability and compatibility also count, especially when looking at the future.
I don’t think so. Observations point into a different direction: We’re going to vanish into digital medieval times. We have books more than 100 years old, paintings older than 500 years, evidences of history older than 1000 years, and we know civilizations older than 3000 years, from paintings on walls, and so on; but what will stay from our digital “memories”, our encrypted video content and our periodically obsolete media? 😉
Edited 2010-08-16 22:24 UTC
I hope this is tongue-in-cheek. We will always have physical objects. Agreed that maybe too much will be in digital form but never everything.
The most important thing to keep physical for historical reasons are literature and paintings. It’s the best way to communicate everyday life, ideas, opinions, etc. I doubt movies will ever survive for thousands of years and still be playable.
Nah, VLC will likely still be chugging along on quantum computers a thousand years from now, still having the ability to play pretty much every damn thing.
we still live in a free world where people should make up their own minds about whether or not to install Flash or use any of Adobe’s other products.
it’s not that easy, if content provider and developer can publish with flash on iPhone, they will do it (Both are lazy), costumer will not have the choose, but content Provider! you’ll not get an alternative for all the Flash videos so that you can decide between both.
“The reality is that Flash continues to be one of the most ubiquitous pieces of software used in the world,” he says…” of course it continuous, supporting flash will still circle this vicious circle, someone have to begin, this time is apple.
.. they have far more important things to move on too, like denying that the latest ColdFusion vulnerability has serious implications for server security.
I wonder if this means no more Photoshop for Mac, hello Photoshop for Android tablets?
I guess Mac users could always use Gimp…
heh ya, i’m sure they want to blow away half their creative revenue.
Where else they would go? They would switch to Photoshop on Windows.
Highly unlikely, half Adobe’s sales, revenue and profits come from sales in the mac market.
Dropping mac support would be commercial suicide for Adobe. What sane company would drop half its sales based on the prospects of a market that doesn’t yet exist (Android tablets).
It seems that Adobe is envying Apple or something. Then I hope Adobe makes a multimedia-oriented operating system to compete with Apple. Mind as well change its name to Macromedia.
This. I mean, how difficult was for Adobe to realize this?
This is how the conversation should have played out from day one.
Adobe: We’d like flash on the iPhone
Apple: We won’t allow it
Adobe: Oh. Ok.
No silly banners, no open letters (this includes Apple by the way), no ideological campaigns.
It was a business decision. Accept it and move along.