Could someone please explain to me how Flash isn't open? To my knowledge, everything about flash is open other than Adobe's IDE. The spec has been released, the sdk is OSS and anyone is free to compile to SWF... Am I mistaken here?
And the argument that anyone is free to re-implement is just as valid for anything. The fact of the matter is that thousands of man-years have gone into building Flash Player, and replicating them is far from a straightforward task. The spec is huge, and there are millions of .swf files to which an alternative implementation needs to be compatible. It's a bit like suggesting someone re-implement Windows if they don't like Microsoft's version of it. It's open, right? Anyone can look up the ABI for user space executables, kernel drivers, etc., so how hard could it be? ReactOS (or Wine) hard, as it turns out.
Note also that for the supposedly open components, Adobe controls them so tightly, they are only "look but don't touch" open. Openness is only useful insofar as you can actually do something with the information or code. They maintain this control precisely because they have an iron grip on the player. There is no point for a third party to extend the Flash spec or compiler, because they can't realistically build an implementation that actually runs code obeying the forked spec. It's as ridiculous as creating a driver to run on a hypothetical version of Windows. Yes, you can do it, but it's also completely pointless.
Thanks for the link, you are certainly correct that adobes player is proprietary, but I provided you with a link to an alternate player... Just because something is hard to reproduce doesn't make it closed. Do you consider java closed because Sun/Oracle makes the best applet viewer?
I am not trying to say Adobe is guilt free or anything, but it looks to me like they are making it as open as they can, unless I am missing something.
No, I consider Java to be open because it is licensed under the GPL, an Open Source/Free Software license.
but it looks to me like they are making it as open as they can
With all due respect, you're either trolling or extremely ignorant for someone reading HN. In case of the latter, please educate yourself and read up on the difference between proprietary and open source software. Also take note that "freeware" does not fall under the definition of "open" software.
I am sorry if you are offended by my ignorance. I am not currently arguing that the flash player provided by adobe is open. I conceded a while ago that the flash player provided by adobe is proprietary. However, an alternate flash player exists and you can program SWF without ever touching an Adobe product. There is a spec and open tools for doing so. I was simply under the impression that Flash was open minus Adobes implementation and am trying to see why everyone is saying it is not.
edit: I don't understand why me disagreeing with you automatically makes me a troll. People are quick to jump on people who don't agree with their viewpoints.
Did you really read the links? I can't do your homework for you.
"I'm not even a Flash developer, so please forgive me if I am not understanding properly."
Me neither I am just an average guy that likes computers. I am not even a developer of anything. But it is very clear to me that flash is not open and Adobe does not intent for it to be other than for PR. So far I haven't seen evidence to the contrary.
If Adobe would open source (GPLv2/BSD/Apache, etc) flash and would give the future development and implementation to an independent party (W3C?) made of various corporations, organizations and individuals that have stakes at flash I'd be all for flash.
P.S. I think a BSD/MIT/Apache license would be better.
Which part of the definition does flash violate? Also, Apple doesn't give much credit to KDE with WebKit, they certainly like to imply that they are very open with it without mentioning its origins...
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