[OpenLayers-Users] OpenScales 1.1

[Bouiaw]

I understand your point of view, standards and getting Flash platform
more open is important for us too.

Flash Player is the most important piece of Flash platform, and
getting it open source is a key point, but we must also admit that
Adobe have opened a lot of other pieces of its platform. Typically, we
can develop OpenScales framework and OpenScales applications with a
complete open source stack.

On our dev platform, we use Linux, OpenJdk, Hudson, Flex SDK, AMF3
protocol, Maven, Subversion, Flex Unit. All these are really open
source. This is not enough, but that's a good starting point. Flash
platform is not as closed as it was a few years ago.

You talk about standards, we take care about standards too. One main
reason for OpenScales creation was the browser hell when we developed
some OpenLayers based projects, dealing with different browser
implementation, cutting off some functionalities because our users
want their mapping application work the same on all browser. We can't
accept anymore to use only raster data because vector rendering is too
slow on some browser.

Standards are great, and we develop most of softwares with HTML/CSS/JS
technologies. But when time come to do a real graphical application
like in GIS software and not just website, I think the ActionScript 3
may be more "standard" than all these custom browser HTML/CSS/JS
implementations. Another point is that since Javascript is not really
Object oriented, every framework or application reimplement this in a
not standard way by definition.

I also think that Adobe position about open sourcing player will
change in the next months. Adobe guys are clever, they have seen Sun
story with Java. They have no choice, there will be a time where they
will be forced to Open Source Flash, because they are a company that
is drived by money. There business is to sell Photoshop, Illustrator
and server stuff. There will be a time when not open sourcing Flash
will cost money to Adobe if other technologies like Silverlight or
HTML5 will challenge it  enough.

I think Adobe technically and legally can't open source current Flash
player code (9 or 10) like Sun was not able to opensource all JDK
sources a few years ago because there were some patent encumbered
code. Last year, Adobe started to rewrite ALL the Flash player in
order to allow it to run with the same quality and speed on all
platforms including mobile devices. In January when we started
OpenScales with mobile in mind, a lot of people didn't think this was
possible. Few weeks ago I meet Adobe guys and test OpenScales on a
Palm Pre, it run at the same speed than on my computer.

Adobe have employed a lot (close to 900 I think) of its engineers to
develop Flash 10.1 in the context of the Open Screen Project
(http://www.openscreenproject.org). Mobile was not their only goal,
Flash 10.1 will allow Adobe to build a Flash player with exactly the
quality for all the platforms easily. All platforms include your
mobile, your TV, etc.

It is just a thought, but I am convinced another goal of this huge
rewrite is to be able (technically and legally) to Open Source Adobe
player if they need to. I don't say they will, but I really think this
is a possibility.

To conclude, there is a more and more powerful Open Source community
behind a lot of ActionScript 3 and Flex project that put the pressure
on Adobe to continue their Open Source move. Anyway, we are pragmatic
programers and we have pragmatic users, so our choice make sense for
us and, I think, for a lot of other people too.

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Mª®k <mc.prins at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/12/10 Bouiaw <bouiaw at gmail.com>:
>>
>> Any feedback from is welcomed.
>>
>
> Unfortunately Adobe Flash is not an open standard or standards based
> environment, so on some computers it will be very impressive on while
> on others it will fail miserably; open standards will allow you to be
> impressive on any platform.
> This is not to say that you haven't done a great job, but I haven't
> got the faintest wish to lock myself in with Adobe.
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