Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on June 07, 2004 11:29 AM
> [Why doesn't Macromedia open-source the Player code?]
I know that the word "open-source" stirs definitional debates, so forgive me if I define some of the possible uses of the term instead:
-- For "tweak my own code like Apache" that doesn't quite work as well when the code is running on someone else's machine... one of the advantages of a known consumer capability is that you can design against it with less testing. (The case of the various VRML engines was very instructive, and we all know what happened to DHTML and "standards-compliant browsers"... having a known capability "out there in the world" is a bit different than being able to inspect the code that runs on your own machine.)
-- For "why not publish the Player source?" then Macromedia did do that for the first few versions, and Oliver Debon and friends did some good work porting, but there wasn't the action hoped for overall. Right now the Player itself can be licensed to hardware manufacturers to help pay for that development. The biggest reason overall, though, is likely the inclusion in recent versions of external technology... Fraunhoffer MP3, Nelly-Moser voice, Sorenson video, I think these are some of the outgoing fees for technology. It's up to someone else to publish that and remove their revenue streams for the work they've done.
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Re:Macromedia Flash Player EULA
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on June 07, 2004 11:29 AMI know that the word "open-source" stirs definitional debates, so forgive me if I define some of the possible uses of the term instead:
-- For "tweak my own code like Apache" that doesn't quite work as well when the code is running on someone else's machine... one of the advantages of a known consumer capability is that you can design against it with less testing. (The case of the various VRML engines was very instructive, and we all know what happened to DHTML and "standards-compliant browsers"... having a known capability "out there in the world" is a bit different than being able to inspect the code that runs on your own machine.)
-- For "why not publish the Player source?" then Macromedia did do that for the first few versions, and Oliver Debon and friends did some good work porting, but there wasn't the action hoped for overall. Right now the Player itself can be licensed to hardware manufacturers to help pay for that development. The biggest reason overall, though, is likely the inclusion in recent versions of external technology... Fraunhoffer MP3, Nelly-Moser voice, Sorenson video, I think these are some of the outgoing fees for technology. It's up to someone else to publish that and remove their revenue streams for the work they've done.
Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support
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