Comments on: Flash makes its move

By: Raph’s Website » Flash on TVs

Raph’s Website » Flash on TVs — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:23:31 +0000

[...] briefly noting that the Open Screen Initiative, which I have mentioned before (1, 2), seems to be moving into higher gear. The company will on Monday announce its latest version of [...]

By: guaiguai

guaiguai — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:47:55 +0000

Great article!Thank you!

By: Ola Fosheim Grøstad

Ola Fosheim Grøstad — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:36:49 +0000

I am not entirely convinced that Adobe is telling us what their intent is. My guess is that they are trying to fight off SVG and Silverlight on the mobile platform and that there are issues here that are not reported in the news. I could be wrong, but as the format has been available for a while with fine-print-added, I’d be suprised if they turn 360 degrees and go full open source.

I view Flash as a least-common-denominator technology. If they start to require expensive hardware to play all Flash files then they are shooting themselves in the foot IMO. I hope for their own sake that they don’t try to be OpenGL. They should try to be a client-side “Java console” for casual/business, i.e. stay pervasive, but forget about the hardcore minority. Flash files should be bounded by the CPU and average memory configuration, not GPU and other specialties. I like the hassle-free write-once run-anywhere philosophy even if it means sacrificing performance on more capable platforms.

By: Peter S.

Peter S. — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:32:34 +0000

This is Adobe. One thing to factor in is their previously successful strategy with PDFs. This would fall in line with the Flash-as-console line of thinking: PDFs are to documents what packaged Flash apps will be to cartriges.

Not that consoles use cartridges any more, but still. :p

By: Raph's Website » Open source Silverlight

Raph's Website » Open source Silverlight — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:03:22 +0000

[...] about Raph · contact « Flash makes its move [...]

By: len

len — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:53:42 +0000

The “flash player as universal console” idea can be seen as the plan, or perhaps this is Adobe surrendering to the inevitable and wanting to be ahead of the curve this time instead of trailing. The thin-is-in meme is dieing on the sword of the rich client experience for the common users who see the web as a source of entertainment. This is not true in the business systems where high rates of exchange of just-in-time information are the products. There the creeper technologies are the db-to-RAD-to-app products that enable a SQL Server/Visual Studio team to get to publication with medium large database systems fast and cleanly without the cat-herding problems.

As to it coming down to ‘one provider’, I think it like the ‘one world government’ fear. It just won’t happen. Alliances are too fragile and greed is too strong a motivator. This is like the political parties in America: loose coalitions of petty groups that hate each other but hate the other party’s coalitions more. It is a reliable source of chaos and chaos is still the engine of evolution.

By: Christopher J. Rock

Christopher J. Rock — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:44:43 +0000

With flash as a console and running on all kinds of hardware, it would create interface issues like none we’ve ever seen. I think it would be fantastic.

You could make a game that works with your mouse and keyboard, a touch screen, a remote (or wiimote), and so on. You could specialize your game for any one of those if you wish.

The whole concept of console wars and peripherals would begin to evaporate, or transform, or do something crazy.

I like all of this.