Flash Goes Open-Source

Adobe and Mozilla Join Forces

[trillianjedi]

The goal of the "Tamarin" project is to implement a high-performance, open source implementation of the ECMAScript 4th edition (ES4) language specification. The Tamarin virtual machine will be used by Mozilla within SpiderMonkey, the core JavaScript engine embedded in Firefox®, and other products based on Mozilla technology. The code will continue to be used by Adobe as part of the ActionScript(tm) Virtual Machine within Adobe® Flash® Player.

[mozilla.org...]

[jtara]

Actually, "Flash" hasn't gone open-source.

It's Adobe's implementation of ECMAScript, which they call ActionScript(tm).

Some of us remember when it used to be called Javascript. :)

Presumably, the Mozillia people feel it's a superior implementation of ECMA/JavaScript.

[incrediBILL]

Considering it's the Flash creation tools, not the Flash player, that actually makes Abobe money this isn't so exciting.

Make the creation tools OpenSource, then we can talk ;)

In the "It's a small world after all" dept, my wife was on the Macromedia Authorware team back in the days when they first introduced Flash and her group installed it in their product.

Seems like a decade ago, oh hell, it WAS a decade ago!

[edited by: incrediBILL at 5:04 pm (utc) on Nov. 7, 2006]

[Metaphorically]

Pretty cool, but it sounds like it's just the scripting VM. I wonder if that's enough for people to be able to port their Flash apps to SVG.

[lexipixel]

Flash, SVG and other multi-media are based on SGML (and PostScript).

Check out: ANSI X3.110, NAPLPS -- it did a lot of what flash does --- and did it in the mid 1980's... and you could code it with a plain text editor.

I love when these companies junk up open standards, make it dependant on their own tools, (editor / parser / viewer), then pat themselves on the back when they give away some source under the guise of being "open" and supporting development -- the truth is flash will die when real "video" is mainstream and tools support it (no, I'm not talking about the buffered overdubbed stuff on YouTube).

[bcolflesh]

...back in the days when they first introduced Flash

Just a nitpick, but Macromedia purchased another companies product and renamed it:

[en.wikipedia.org...]

[vincevincevince]

Make the creation tools OpenSource, then we can talk

Exactly right. Flash is much more about creation than display. Until the creation tools are OpenSource Flash is still a closed source technology.

[incrediBILL]

Just a nitpick, but Macromedia purchased another companies product and renamed it

They bought a lot of stuff and renamed it, nothing to nitpick, that's the way of the industry.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 12:36 am (utc) on Nov. 8, 2006]

[wackybrit]

Make the creation tools OpenSource, then we can talk ;)

Adobe's Flex 2 SDK (not 'open source' but free to download and use). It has MXML and AS compilation to SWF, for example. It's not a cutesy IDE, but it's still what you can use to get results.