Open Up
Today, Adobe released the source for its ActionScript Virtual Machine to the Mozilla Foundation.
That's what Adobe did. Since this blog is a common stop for open source-minded folk, I thought it might be pertinent to use this space to discuss what Adobe didn't do:
- Adobe did not open source the Flash Player.
- Adobe did not incorporate the Flash Player into Mozilla.
- Adobe did not license Mozilla's HTML rendering engine.
- Adobe did not purchase Mozilla, or vice versa.
The project is specified by the name Tamarin, as in the monkey, in keeping with Mozilla's primate-naming conventions. Fun fact: Adobe is contributing around 135 KLOC (thousands of lines of code) of source code to the Tamarin project. So, in the grand tradition of open source collaboration, I invite you to jump right in.
Comments
That is fantastic news. *does a happy dance*
Posted by: Optic | November 7, 2006 12:55 AM
I suppose we'll be seeing soon how that one goes.
Posted by: Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves | November 7, 2006 02:48 AM
Another step in the right direction. Me thinks that some people at Adobe are more and more understanding that they are not giving up anything by opening up their code but gaining a lot.
Good move, Adobe - BUT NOT ENOUGH! Open source the Flashplayer! It is in your own, vital interest!
(and accelerates the predicted world domination of Linux ;-) )
Posted by: amd-linux | November 7, 2006 03:21 AM
And open the dng converter as well !
Posted by: Anonymous | November 7, 2006 07:50 AM
Great, this is a step in the right direction.
What I'm not sure about is:
1. Why do this? What's the motivation to free ActionScript?
2. Why does the development community need ActionScript (specifically in browsers) when it already has Javascript?
Posted by: Liam McDermott | November 7, 2006 09:58 AM
I'm really happy to see this. It's a step in the right direction.
Thumbs up.
Posted by: Ben | November 7, 2006 10:35 AM
Why does the development community need ActionScript (specifically in browsers) when it already has Javascript?
Actionscript and Javascript are both based on the ECMASCript specification. This avoids duplicate coding.
Posted by: Josh | November 7, 2006 01:06 PM
It appears Adobe's strategy is to make ActionScript the "razor" and Adobe applications the "razorblades."
Posted by: Analyst | November 7, 2006 01:34 PM
Given that the ActionScript JIT is the major portability stumbling block for x86_64 and ppc versions, I suppose that if enough dedicated people jump in to get it working in their platforms of choice, the higher the chances to see ports of the Flash player. Great move, Adobe! -- now the ball is in the community's field.
Posted by: h. | November 7, 2006 02:54 PM
I would just like to state the fact that the hover-over menus on Adobe's homepage work perfectly on Konqueror with the beta of Flash ;).
Posted by: Aaron | November 7, 2006 03:15 PM
IMHO Adobe want integrate Flash directly into Firefox, because I think that Microsoft Expression will integrete the graphic engine directly into Internet Explorer.
Posted by: Malix | November 7, 2006 03:56 PM
All thumbs up!! That's fantastic news. I hope Adobe makes more great decisions like that - thanks, guys!
For answering the question _why_ this is needed - one reason is because the spidermonkey-engine (which is afaik the "parent" of actionscript) is quite outdated and the OOP-features of AS are far more powerful and mature. The benefit for Adobe obviously will be a wider spreading of AS and a bigger developer-community when it is used as scripting-engine by other apps than the FlashPlayer ... (plz correct me if I am wrong).
best regards
RYX
Posted by: RYX | November 8, 2006 03:01 PM
first thought- x86_64 version baby!
second though- how will this affect the release mechanisims for the flash player? does this mean that adobe is moving to a nvidia style binary portion + locally compiled helper libs?
Posted by: tony | November 8, 2006 03:22 PM