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Alex Hudson | 7 Nov 10:29

Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation


I'm not sure if people will have seen this with all the other noise
about Novell etc.:

	http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2006-11-07.html
	http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/faq.html

The scripting engine of Flash (which, from what I've been told, is very
much like Javascript anyway) has been donated to Mozilla, and will be
part of their future JS implementation (I gather).

In other Adobe news, people may have seen that they're building on other
free software like WebKit:

	http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo

	(RIA's == "Rich Internet Applications", FYI)

.. and Microsoft's XML Paper Specification seems to have scared them
into doing:

	http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Mars

While Adobe haven't been terribly free software friendly in many ways in
the past, it does seem like now is an opportune time to talk to them:
they may be becoming more receptive to the needs of the free software
community.

Cheers,
(Continue reading)

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Jon Grant | 8 Nov 04:25

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

Hi,

[...]
> 	http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Mars
> 
> While Adobe haven't been terribly free software friendly in many ways in
> the past, it does seem like now is an opportune time to talk to them:
> they may be becoming more receptive to the needs of the free software
> community.

All looks like a little improvement, hope they release the rest eventually

I got this reply from Matt Rozen at Adobe:

"Adobe doesn't currently have plans to open source Adobe Flash Player
beyond what's being open sourced today."

"Adobe is committed to contributing to the developer community on
multiple fronts, including the company's work with Mozilla, Adobe Labs
projects, publicly available software development kits (SDKs) and file
specifications, plans to use the open source HTML engine (WebKit) in
Apollo, and our efforts with standards bodies."

Re PDF, it's never been as portable an experience as they say for me.
Many times I get PDFs which render wrong because odd fonts have been
used.  Also every time they bump the version up (currently v1.6?) all my
older GNU+Linux installs have trouble handling the newer files (Like the
power inquiry PDFs).  The same is true when using Adobe Acrobat/Reader as
well in my families experience.
(Continue reading)

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Alex Hudson | 8 Nov 10:43

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 03:25 +0000, Jon Grant wrote:
> All looks like a little improvement, hope they release the rest eventually
> 
> I got this reply from Matt Rozen at Adobe:
> 
> "Adobe doesn't currently have plans to open source Adobe Flash Player
> beyond what's being open sourced today."

That's not totally surprising, and to be honest I don't expect them to
make it free software any time soon either. 

I'm not totally sure why: they argue the standards thing, which is
mostly a bogus argument. Plus, their value isn't in Flash player at all:
it's in the Flash tools. 

>From that point of view, while I would like to be able to view Flash 9
content with free software, for me it wouldn't make the actual freedom
situation much different. Better, but not much different.

> Re PDF, it's never been as portable an experience as they say for me.
> Many times I get PDFs which render wrong because odd fonts have been
> used. 

Depends very much how the PDFs are made. You can do things like
embedding fonts, but then you get into copyright / patent issues :/

The move to an XML-based PDF format - and one which seems to have some
level of inspiration from OpenDocument, at least in the container format
- to me would be a huge step forward. There is a lot of competition in
this area, too, and Adobe aren't the automatic winners: Microsoft's XML
(Continue reading)

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Chris Croughton | 8 Nov 12:05

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 09:43:32AM +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:

> On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 03:25 +0000, Jon Grant wrote:
> 
> > Re PDF, it's never been as portable an experience as they say for me.
> > Many times I get PDFs which render wrong because odd fonts have been
> > used. 
> 
> Depends very much how the PDFs are made. You can do things like
> embedding fonts, but then you get into copyright / patent issues :/

Anything which uses fonts has that problem, it's because the fonts
themselves aren't free (and are big, which affects portability in the
sense of transferring it).  The only way round that is to convert
everything to graphics, but that's also big and is uneditable (I often
use pdf2txt and the like to extract text versions).

> The move to an XML-based PDF format - and one which seems to have some
> level of inspiration from OpenDocument, at least in the container format
> - to me would be a huge step forward. There is a lot of competition in
> this area, too, and Adobe aren't the automatic winners: Microsoft's XML
> Paper Specification is going to be shipping in real software (Office
> 2k7) and real hardware (various printers, for example) very very soon,
> so Adobe are actually behind in technical terms at the moment.

Is it a programming language, like PDF?  PDF's big selling point was
that it is a language in itself which makes it very powerful with a
relatively small emulator, are the XML formats as powerful?

> Since Adobe have a lot to lose, and aren't necessarily in a winning
(Continue reading)

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Rob Myers | 8 Nov 21:49

Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

"It has been suggested that there would be some value in CC entering the 
field of software licensing. I am skeptical (there are plenty of 
software licenses) but the explosion of mixed code/content platforms 
(e.g., Flash) has led me to at least get feedback about the idea. So if 
you have thoughts about this, I'd be grateful if you could send them to 
software-licensing <at> creativecommons.org"

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6133

- Rob.
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MJ Ray | 9 Nov 11:37

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

> "It has been suggested that there would be some value in CC entering the
> field of software licensing. [...] get feedback about the idea. [...]"

As I understand it, CC is already in the field of software licensing, as 
CC licences are already useful and used for software in general, but not 
recommended for programs. However, CC has a so-called "neutral" position 
about some of the big questions of software copyright at the start of 
the 21st century and its partner iCommons built anti-commercialism (the 
"creative flowerbed" approach[1][2]) into its foundations.

This compares badly within the clear leadership, open-access and 
pragmatism of the Free Software Foundation[3], so I am against CC 
increasing its software licensing effort.  Doing so would inevitably 
distract people from the free software effort and limit the size of the 
software creative commons unnecessarily.  I'd be disappointed if CC's 
objects permit it to harm an existing creative commons in this way, but 
I didn't find CC's foundation documents on http://creativecommons.org/

References
1. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/cc#flowerbed
2. http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/2006/11/08/why-the-nc-permission-culture-simply-doesnt-work/
3. http://www.fsf.org/

I await your decision with interest.
--

-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
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IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble
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Jon Grant | 9 Nov 14:53

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

Hi

Rob Myers elucidated on 08/11/06 20:49:
> "It has been suggested that there would be some value in CC entering the
> field of software licensing. I am skeptical (there are plenty of
> software licenses) but the explosion of mixed code/content platforms
> (e.g., Flash) has led me to at least get feedback about the idea. So if
> you have thoughts about this, I'd be grateful if you could send them to
> software-licensing <at> creativecommons.org"
> 
> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6133

My 2p.

CC staff, including Lessig were very poor at responding to any issues I
raised with them previously. If you don't just pat them on the back they
appear to just ignore you. The same goes for people like Paula DeLieu they
hired, a shame really.

Also, I wish they wouldn't put stuff out in proprietary formats like
Flash. IMHO They should get their own house in order before they offer to
help others!
Jon
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Matt Lee | 9 Nov 17:11

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 01:53:21PM +0000, Jon Grant wrote:

> CC staff, including Lessig were very poor at responding to any issues I
> raised with them previously. If you don't just pat them on the back they
> appear to just ignore you. The same goes for people like Paula DeLieu they
> hired, a shame really.

I find Lessig quite responsive.

> Also, I wish they wouldn't put stuff out in proprietary formats like
> Flash. IMHO They should get their own house in order before they offer to
> help others!

I called them on that, including RMS on my email and asked specifically why
a board member of the FSF (ie. Lessig) would promote non-free software...

24 hours later, it started to be fixed.

matt

--

-- 
Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/

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rob | 9 Nov 17:42

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

Quoting Matt Lee <mattl <at> gnu.org>:

> On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 01:53:21PM +0000, Jon Grant wrote:
>
>> CC staff, including Lessig were very poor at responding to any issues I
>> raised with them previously. If you don't just pat them on the back they
>> appear to just ignore you. The same goes for people like Paula DeLieu they
>> hired, a shame really.
>
> I find Lessig quite responsive.

Yes I've found Paula and the others I've dealt with quite responsive. They
haven't always agreed with me, but they have taken input onboard and explained
when they have differed.

I haven't had any direct dealing with Lessig so I can't really comment 
on him on
that level. I'm not happy with the trajectory he seems to be planning for CC
though, and I've yet to talk to anyone who is...

- Rob.
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Jon Grant | 11 Nov 13:02

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

Hi Rob,

rob <at> robmyers.org elucidated on 09/11/06 16:42:
> Quoting Matt Lee <mattl <at> gnu.org>:
[...]
>> I find Lessig quite responsive.
> 
> Yes I've found Paula and the others I've dealt with quite responsive. They
> haven't always agreed with me, but they have taken input onboard and
> explained
> when they have differed.

That's good then, at least some of us are getting responses.

> I haven't had any direct dealing with Lessig so I can't really comment
> on him on
> that level. I'm not happy with the trajectory he seems to be planning
> for CC
> though, and I've yet to talk to anyone who is...

It appears like they are just trying to incorporate another area into
their all encompassing CC vision. I'd prefer them to stick to dong one
thing well.

Cheers
Jon
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Jon Grant | 11 Nov 13:17

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

Hi guys,

>> Also, I wish they wouldn't put stuff out in proprietary formats like
>> Flash. IMHO They should get their own house in order before they offer to
>> help others!
> 
> I called them on that, including RMS on my email and asked specifically why
> a board member of the FSF (ie. Lessig) would promote non-free software...
> 
> 24 hours later, it started to be fixed.

Maybe I should have tried that then. I only ever emailed them
individually as
I recall.

I emailed Lessig about QuickTime files on his site:
http://free-culture.org/freecontent/

Lessig links to Leonard Lin's page with remixes of the "free culture"
presentation, I sent Leonard a PDF of the Powerpoint slides, and an ogg of
the mp3, emailed a reminder or two, but he never put them up.
http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/

Cheers
Jon
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Jon Grant | 21 Nov 12:45

Re: Should Creative Commons Make Software Licenses?

Hi
Just a quick update on this. I emailed Lessig again with RMS on the CC,
it spurred a fix:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6157

Sounds like you also got in touch after my email Matt! Pleased they
solved it after our reminders ;)

Cheers
Jon
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Jon Grant | 10 Nov 02:20

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

Hi,

Alex Hudson elucidated on 08/11/06 09:43:
> On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 03:25 +0000, Jon Grant wrote:
>> All looks like a little improvement, hope they release the rest eventually
>>
>> I got this reply from Matt Rozen at Adobe:
>>
>> "Adobe doesn't currently have plans to open source Adobe Flash Player
>> beyond what's being open sourced today."
> 
> That's not totally surprising, and to be honest I don't expect them to
> make it free software any time soon either. 

RMS divided some examples I had given quite succinctly into two
scenarios which could cause them to free/open Flash player as far as I
can see.

* When Adobe loose to MS or W3C etc they will open up :-
  i) as demonstrated by Netscape's browser
  ii) RealNetworks Helix project.

* When Flash gets a competent replacement in the form of Gnash
  or an alternative plugin etc.
   i) As demonstrated by Troll releasing Qt X11
   ii) and then Qt win32 only when a team are working on their own
implementation.
   iii) Sun now freeing/opening Java because GCJ is a competent replacement.

> I'm not totally sure why: they argue the standards thing, which is
(Continue reading)

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MJ Ray | 7 Nov 13:46

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

Alex Hudson <home <at> alexhudson.com> writes:
> The scripting engine of Flash (which, from what I've been told, is very
> much like Javascript anyway) has been donated to Mozilla, and will be
> part of their future JS implementation (I gather).

In http://fortytwo.ch/blog/archives/2006/11/#e2006-11-07T08_56_44.txt Adrian von
Bidder writes:
> Now the only part that bothers me is that this likely means the Mozilla 
> license will be used, which is AFAIK GPL-incompatible, which means that
> Konqueror will not get native flash in the foreseeable future now.
> Especially because I think that this move will cause work on the free
> flash player front (Gnash, and I believe there were others) to slow down.

Are Adobe and Mozilla helping or hurting other free software players?

--

-- 
MJR/slef
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
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Shane M. Coughlan | 7 Nov 13:58

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation


MJ Ray wrote:
> Alex Hudson <home <at> alexhudson.com> writes:
>> The scripting engine of Flash (which, from what I've been told, is very
>> much like Javascript anyway) has been donated to Mozilla, and will be
>> part of their future JS implementation (I gather).
> 
> In http://fortytwo.ch/blog/archives/2006/11/#e2006-11-07T08_56_44.txt Adrian von
> Bidder writes:
>> Now the only part that bothers me is that this likely means the Mozilla 
>> license will be used, which is AFAIK GPL-incompatible, which means that
>> Konqueror will not get native flash in the foreseeable future now.
>> Especially because I think that this move will cause work on the free
>> flash player front (Gnash, and I believe there were others) to slow down.
> 
> Are Adobe and Mozilla helping or hurting other free software players?

Uh, guys...please check the sources.  The engine is being released under
tri-license (MPL, GPL, LGPL), just like the rest of the Mozilla code.

Regards

Shane
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Alex Hudson | 7 Nov 14:01

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

On Tue, 2006-11-07 at 12:46 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> > Now the only part that bothers me is that this likely means the Mozilla 
> > license will be used, which is AFAIK GPL-incompatible, which means that
> > Konqueror will not get native flash in the foreseeable future now.
> > Especially because I think that this move will cause work on the free
> > flash player front (Gnash, and I believe there were others) to slow down.
> 
> Are Adobe and Mozilla helping or hurting other free software players?

In terms of "Tamarin" (which is the Mozilla name for the Adobe
contribution, unless I'm wrong) the licensing is the standard Mozilla
license, but that's the LGPL / GPL / MPL tri-license, not the MPL alone:

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

So, I would say Adrian is probably worrying about nothing - the code is
GPL'd (as an option).

It's questionable how much help Tamarin actually is - while undoubtedly
useful, it only solves a small part of the Free Flash problem - but I'm
pretty sure that it's not harmful. I would also say it's unlikely anyone
working on Free Flash would start developing Tamarin per se either -
they may well use it, but they'd be worrying about different parts of
the problem. 

Cheers,

Alex.
(Continue reading)

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strk | 9 Nov 23:37

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

On Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 01:01:33PM +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-11-07 at 12:46 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:

> > Are Adobe and Mozilla helping or hurting other free software players?

Adobe is hurting free software players in that does not yet
provide an official interpretation of their EULA. What free software
players developers need to know basically is: will Adobe sue us for
*using* their player or generator tools for debugging our free software
player ?

Mozilla is hurting free software players in that does not provide
gnash with it's plugin finder service.

> So, I would say Adrian is probably worrying about nothing - the code is
> GPL'd (as an option).

The whole idea beyond GPL is to be *tainting*.
If it is *one* of *three* options, it will never taint anything.
Adobe, or whoever else, will still be able to include in
non-free applications.

--strk;
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Alex Hudson | 10 Nov 10:01

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

On Thu, 2006-11-09 at 23:37 +0100, strk wrote:
> Mozilla is hurting free software players in that does not provide
> gnash with it's plugin finder service.

Last time I tried gnash, it was definitely not ready for public use.

> > So, I would say Adrian is probably worrying about nothing - the code is
> > GPL'd (as an option).
> 
> The whole idea beyond GPL is to be *tainting*.

It would be better if you didn't refer to copyleft as "tainting" - the
GPL doesn't taint anything.

> If it is *one* of *three* options, it will never taint anything.
> Adobe, or whoever else, will still be able to include in
> non-free applications.

It's more important that Adobe made it free software than they made it
only copyleft IMHO.

Cheers,

Alex.
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 7 Nov 14:03

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

   In
   http://fortytwo.ch/blog/archives/2006/11/#e2006-11-07T08_56_44.txt
   Adrian von Bidder writes:

   > Now the only part that bothers me is that this likely means the
   > Mozilla license will be used, which is AFAIK GPL-incompatible,
   > which means that Konqueror will not get native flash in the
   > foreseeable future now.  Especially because I think that this
   > move will cause work on the free flash player front (Gnash, and I
   > believe there were others) to slow down.

From the looks (FAQ, headers in the source code), the code that was
released is tripple licensed (MPL, GPL, and LGPL), so konqueror can
use that code, same for Gnash.
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Ciaran O'Riordan | 7 Nov 14:37

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation


"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> writes:
> From the looks (FAQ, headers in the source code), the code that was
> released is tripple licensed (MPL, GPL, and LGPL), so konqueror can
> use that code, same for Gnash.

And when Gnash moves to GPLv3?

Is the code that will be freed to be distrubted under "v2 or any later
version" of the GPL?

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 7 Nov 15:28

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

   Is the code that will be freed to be distrubted under "v2 or any
   later version" of the GPL?

Yes.
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Sean DALY | 7 Nov 14:45

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

Ciaran - the Mozilla license policy says GPL or any later version (see section heading "Acceptable Licenses":

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/license-policy.html

- Sean

> Message du 07/11/06 14:41
> De : "Ciaran O'Riordan" <ciaran@...>
> A : discussion@...
> Copie à : 
> Objet : Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla	Foundation
> 
> 
> "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> writes:
> > From the looks (FAQ, headers in the source code), the code that was
> > released is tripple licensed (MPL, GPL, and LGPL), so konqueror can
> > use that code, same for Gnash.
> 
> And when Gnash moves to GPLv3?
> 
> Is the code that will be freed to be distrubted under "v2 or any later
> version" of the GPL?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
> http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
> http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
> _______________________________________________
> Discussion mailing list
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Ciaran O'Riordan | 7 Nov 14:57

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation


Sean DALY <sean.daly@...> writes:
> Ciaran - the Mozilla license policy says GPL or any later version (see
> section heading "Acceptable Licenses":
> 
> http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/license-policy.html

That's very good news.

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
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Sean DALY | 7 Nov 17:10

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation


> Message du 07/11/06 15:03
> De : "Ciaran O'Riordan" <ciaran@...>
> A : discussion@...
>
> That's very good news.
>

I understand the IRC chat below scheduled for today will provide an opportunity to discuss this.

http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2006/11/02/developer-chat-with-the-creator-of-javascript-and-mozilla-cto-brendan-eich/
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MJ Ray | 7 Nov 17:34

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

Sean DALY <sean.daly@...> wrote:
> http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2006/11/02/developer-chat-with-the-creator-of-javascript-and-mozilla-cto-brendan-eich/

Seems to have moved to
http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2006/11/07/developer-chat-with-the-creator-of-javascript-and-mozilla-cto-brendan-eich/
(7 instead of 2) but apparently mozilla.org URIs aren't Cool.
(see http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI )

I'd be very happy if anyone wants to ask them whether it's on the 
Mozilla 2 roadmap to improve support for GNU platforms and/or let 
distributors call bugfixed versions "Mozilla" "Firefox" or similar.  
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/debian#iceweasel has some background, 
but I don't think I can be on the channel at that time.

Hope that helps,
--

-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble
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Andy | 7 Nov 17:50

Re: Adobe make Flash scripting Free Software with Mozilla Foundation

for those people who aren't American then the standard time for the talk is:
18:00 UTC Tuesday, 7 November 2006

on irc.mozilla.org in #javascript

to find out what time it is where you live you can look it up on
timeanddate.com:
<http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=7&month=11&year=2006&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=256>

- Andy
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Gmane