Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

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Yes, Silverlight and Flash, we're coming
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Yes. We (Adobe) have been very active for some time helping to dramatically improve JavaScript performance. Indeed, a lot of the performance improvements coming down the line in Firefox were significantly helped by Adobe working with Mozilla, and contributing key pieces of code.

Although it seems that from time to time, people either seem to forget this, or choose to forget it.

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

Mike, I certainly haven't forgotten.

Tamarin Tracing's Nanojit has been a key piece of our TraceMonkey progress and I doubt we'd be where we are if Adobe hadn't opened Tamarin.

Are you suggesting that it's inappropriate for us to use Adobe's contributions to take on some of Flash and Silverlight's perceived strong points?

I'm certainly not too proud to see Mozilla utilize contributions from others to move the Web forward.

- A

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Are you suggesting that it's inappropriate for us to use Adobe's contributions to take on some of Flash and Silverlight's perceived strong points?
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Not at all. Flash is a key part of the web, and thus a stronger, faster browser is good for everyone.

I guess I just dont see it as so much of a competition. Flash is really good at some things (video, media, rias), and HTML javascript is really good at some things (documents, layout, rias).

Eventually, the browser will get good at things that Flash is good at (which is a good thing), but at the same time, Flash will continue to innovate and evolve and add new features. If they are useful, then they will get standardized eventually, and move into the browser (similar to video in html 5). Everyone wins.

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

>I'm certainly not too proud to see Mozilla utilize
>contributions from others to move the Web forward.

I could have worded that better. I mean to say that I think it's a great thing that Mozilla is open to using and integrating the good work of other projects to move the Web forward. Thank you.

Mike said:

>I guess I just dont see it as so much of a competition. Flash is
>really good at some things (video, media, rias), and HTML javascript
>is really good at some things (documents, layout, rias).

I guess I just disagree. I don't think that flash integrate well with the Web (and yet it's being used for features that people really want to be a part of the Web.) So I do see it as a competition and browser vendors need embrace those useful flash features and genuinely integrate them into the Web.

>Eventually, the browser will get good at things that Flash is good
>at (which is a good thing)

Ok. We do agree then. Maybe with the exception that I don't preface it with the "eventually' because I think it's happening a lot faster than most people realize.

>Flash will continue to innovate and evolve and add new features. If
>they are useful, then they will get standardized eventually, and move
>into the browser (similar to video in html 5).

And the browsers will continue to innovate and evolve and add new features. A big difference here is that they will start out in the cooperative, cross-vendor, standardizing processes, and they will be designed and implemented as a part of the larger open Web and not as a single-vendor bolt-on to the open Web.

Everyone wins because no single vendor owns the roadmap.

- A

I'm with Asa on this one. The whole premise of the open Web breaks down when a single vendor has a choke hold on a key technology used for presumably open interchange.

The problem with Flash is that it is very un-webby. It cannot be indexed. It has no document parts to it. It is opaque and cannot be processed easily by independent tools. Flash cannot be extended and tweaked by others. None of this is true of the truly open Web technologies, which are all open source as defined by OSI or free software as defined by FSF.

Web's authentic commons are a result of voluntary cooperation and not a result of a dictat by a single vendor. Anyone can extend Firefox to do anything they want. If enough people do it, the Web will change, but it does so in a voluntary and open fashion. When Microsoft extends IE or when Adobe extends Flash, extensions become a way to trap people, instead of a way to move everyone forward, since such extensions are unilaterally controlled and dictated by a single set of people; a set of people which is not very open or easy to enter into for "outsiders".

Closed source vendors do not represent seamless melding of intentions of all users.

I think closed source vendors have no role to play in the technologies that drive the commons. Closed source vendors will have to move into niches where voluntary melding of intentions is not essential -- for example entertainment. If I buy a game, I just want to entertain myself. I don't care if it can be inspected or indexed or whatnot. A game is disposable. It's entertainment. While entertainment as a whole is essential, no particular piece of entertainment is essential. All entertainment is disposable from a cultural point of view. So it's fine for games to be closed source and proprietary. On the other hand, if I use something to talk to others, if it's a technological road system that connects all people -- it is way, way too important to belong to any vendor.

Any vendor that fails to recognize this is simply suffering from tremendous greed or hubris or both.

@Leo

Well, we will just have to disagree then.

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I think closed source vendors have no role to play in the technologies that drive the commons.
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Well, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but it is one that Mozilla does not appear to share (at least based on their actions). As the original comment I made indicated, Adobe has been (and continues to) be working very closely with Mozilla to significantly improve JavaScrpt performance.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/

Whether you like Flash or not, those improvements are a good thing for the web (as Asa's post notes).

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

Thank you Mike, I take it as a compliment that you just left it at "disagree". :)

Now, when Adobe helped Mozilla by open-sourcing Tamarin, Adobe was playing as a good net citizen! So that action was definitely a good one(with one caveat, see below) because open-sourcing Tamarin is the opposite of trying to grab a choke hold on the technology that drives the commons.

But in the regular day-to-day operations Adobe is anywhere from black to various shades of gray when it comes to how it impacts the open Web.

Of course Adobe is not irredeemable, and for that matter, Microsoft can redeem itself as well, if it wishes. Adobe is fully capable of doing good things for the Web, it's just that delivering a closed-source solution cannot possibly be it for the reasons I have outlined.

Caveat: The action of open-sourcing Tamarin is only good as long as it's not a game play to improve the public image of Adobe with the end goal of pushing more closed-source solutions onto the commons, thereby effectively cordoning it off and controlling it for private gain at the public expense. So if Adobe doesn't have a pure motivation, you can be sure you'll burn in hell for this one. Just kidding! I don't believe in hell, but still, you will have your own dirty duplicitous mind to live with.

Hey Mike!

I love some of the work Adobe does, as a mathematician I don't know where I'd be without PDF for sending my papers to friends and peers (mathematicians don't have a concept of all using the same software or Operating System).

I think Flash has a place, but it's not really a part of the web like images or text are. It's just a box in a page, I write a lot of sites which need to be highly accessible, Flash would be a complete nightmare to use for such situations yet I see web developers use it on similar sites. It doesn't respond to browser zooming or set colour themes so certain dyslexics can read it etc... Furthermore it doesn't really integrate well with a page, you can't move it around the page, set it as a background, you can't expand it, you can't shrink it, it's always just a box in a page. I can't set a program to parse through its text when it's on another persons web page.

I think Flash does a lot of good things, it's certainly far ahead of the curve compared to what browsers on their own can do. But I think it's use is highly abused and really shuns some people away from websites when really the sites should be more open and accessible. Not because of some ideological "that is what the web was built on", I have nothing against closed source programs, but some people simply have special needs that it's very hard to cater for in a closed box and not an open page.

I guess you all are aware that the point here is how much Google and/or Mozilla will be able to enter in the corporate field. Until the Web and related technologies are seen like "toys" not suitable for "serious" business, well, we aren't going much far.