Adobe Open Screen Project
Today, Adobe announced the Open Screen Project a project dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. Adobe is partnering up with a group of industry leaders and leading content providers, including ARM, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics Inc., Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal.
The Open Screen Project is aimed at creating a consistent and ubiquitous runtime environment based on the Flash player and (in the future) Adobe AIR across desktops and devices to enable developers to publish once and distribute everywhere.
The 4 major announcements are:
- Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
This is a big one! These specs have been available for quite some time but you couldn’t really use that information for anything. With removing these restrictions, device manufacturers in particular can now use this information to better understand the internals of SWF files. That will enable them to make a better Flash player for their device. - Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
Another big one! In particular for device manufacturers. They can now use these API’s to more easily embed the Flash Player in their devices. - Publishing the Adobe Flash® Castâ„¢ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
The release of the AMF protocol specs was already part of the release of BlazeDS. We’re now also opening up the Flash Cast protocol. - Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free
Anyone can now distribute and deploy the Flash player without having to pay Adobe.
What does all this mean for developers?
The Open Screen Project aims to maintain compatibility across devices, supporting rapid innovation and enabling devices to be seamlessly updated with the latest runtimes. Along with the cross-screen authoring workflow capabilities of Adobe creative and developer tools and frameworks, a consistent runtime environment will reduce time to market for RIAs, rich media content, and video and enable developers to more easily deploy content across screens.
More information:
Adobe press release
The Open Source Project site
The Open Source Project FAQ
Kevin Lynch about the Open Screen Project (video)
Ryan Stewart about the Open Screen Project
Bill Perry about the Open Screen Project
Dave McAllister’s blog
1 Comment
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- marcelfahle.com » Blog Archive » Adobe Open Screen Project - [...] at Serge Jespers Blog. Go there for further information on Adobe’s Open Screen [...]
Feel free to follow me on: 
Hey, really interesting stuff! Especially the stuff on opening the specs for FLV/F4V. But what’s interesting, too is what happens to AIR in the future. Does that mean, that developers can deliver the runtime with their applications? I’m asking because at my clients this has already lead to a decision against AIR for one particular application.