Q: Isn’t Adobe just abandoning Flex SDK and putting it out to Apache to die?

A: Absolutely not!

This and more on http://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2011/11/your-questions-about-flex.html (scroll down for the latest updates to the original post)

How’s that for a controversial title? But… It’s true… Hear me out!

First of all let me say that I have absolutely nothing against HTML5! Innovation and competition is always good and keeps everyone on their toes. UPDATE: I also want to emphasize that this is not a fight. HTML5 and Flash can live together just fine and can even complement each other!

One of the first blog posts I read this morning was one on AppleInsider. An Apple spokeswoman claimed that Adobe’s Mike Chambers got it all backwards when he blogged about Apple’s closed system. That’s not the part that made me cringe though. She said that “it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary“.

Ok… So… Let’s analyze that a little bit… Let’s begin with the biggest claim here: H.264. Last time I checked, H.264 was far from open. It is owned by a private organization known as MPEG LA who said earlier this year that “Internet Video that is free to end users would continue to be exempt from royalty fees until at least December 31, 2015“. Nobody knows what is going to happen after 2015. The patents awarded to MPEG LA don’t expire until 2028. So… to make this clear… H.264 is not open.

So what about HTML5, CSS and JavaScript… Those are open, right? Well yeah. The specs are open meaning that everyone can download those specs and build an application around it to display that language. Hey… Wait a minute… That sounds a lot like Flash! The specs for FLV (Flash video), SWF (the file format for Flash Player), AMF (the binary format for exchanging data) and RTMP (the protocol used for transmission of audio, video, and data) are all published and can be downloaded by anyone.

The specs for HTML5 are decided by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). The WHATWG was founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. Anyone can participate as a Contributor by joining the WHATWG mailing list. The same goes for Flash. Our bugbase is open to anyone and anyone can view bugs and add feature requests.

But the Flash runtime is closed! Ok… Sure… Flash Player is not open source although some parts are. That said… Ask yourself this: Is your browser open source? The only browser that is completely open source is Firefox. Safari is only partly open source (only the WebKit engine). The same can be said about Chrome (in the Chromium project). However, the biggest HTML runtime out there –Internet Explorer (still used by over 50% of all internet users)– is as closed as Flash Player. And so is Opera (even though they are part of the WHATWG).

And with that, I come back to the title of this post: Flash is as open as HTML5 = HTML5 is as open as Flash.

UPDATE: You should also read “HTML5 canvas proprietary Apple technology?” by Leo Bergman and “I’d rather be a Woz” by nothingGrinder. Hat tip to Philippe and Aaron who posted this in the comments.

Note: I’m sure many of you will have some comments on this topic and I have no problem with your comments as long as you keep them constructive and on topic.

Note 2: For those who saw a drop in the comment count: I just disabled and deleted Topsy trackbacks. These are not comments but automatic pingbacks from RTs on Twitter.

(Image credit: Justin Marty)

What is “open”? It’s a question I’ve been asking for quite a while now and I can’t seem to find a definitive answer.

Dave McAllister (Adobe’s Open Standards Evangelist) actually sums it up nicely: “Open is the currently most misused word in the IT space,” he says. “Open really comes down and says it’s accessible, extensible and can be freely used by anyone. Most companies define open as a single dimensional aspect. For Adobe it’s all aspects of communications and technologies. For us, those are open source, standards and community.”

Check out this video to learn more about the open initiatives at Adobe and just how open the Flash Platform really is.

Today we also released the Open Source Media Framework (formerly known as Strobe) and the Text Layout Framework on our Open Source website.

Before we start and just so we get this out of the way… For 2 years now, Adobe pays my paycheck. That said, I “saw the light” of Flash more than 13 years ago. Because of my long history with Flash, I feel I can say that this is an unbiased post.

Everywhere
First of all, Flash is everywhere. I’m not just talking about its ubiquity but also about the variety of devices it is available on. It’s not just a browser plugin anymore. The Flash Platform now extends from desktop to mobile to consumer electronics. There are already more than 1 billion devices in the market today that support Flash content. While this is a “lighter” version of the Flash Player, it already has a lot of its bigger brother’s features and is already used for lots of mobile applications, games and promotional content. Together with the Open Screen Project partners, Adobe aims to bring the same consistent runtime that you’re used to in your browser to a broad variety of devices. In the not too distant future, you’ll be able to repurpose the code base across multiple devices. I’m actually doing a workshop about that very topic at MAX this year!

Consistent
With Flash, you never needed to worry about how your application will look in browser X or on operating system Z. And you still don’t have to worry about that. If Flash Player is installed, the application works and behaves consistently across all browsers and operating systems. Even applications/sites built with Flash 1 still work as designed. If you want to use any of the new features that are available with a new release of Flash Player, you (as the developer) can use express install to transparently upgrade the Flash Player. The same thing goes for desktop development with AIR. A single AIR application installer runs on Mac, Windows and Linux machines without having to worry about operating specific settings or features.

Community
Even back in the early days of Flash, the community around it grew every day. Just about all of the early community sites around Flash are still alive and kicking. Ultrashock and FlashKit, for instance, are still going strong. If you get stuck somewhere, there’s always someone around to help out. If you’re looking for a particular ActionScript library, chances are that someone has already created one. Some of these ActionScript libraries have even caused some amazing innovations on their own. Papervision 3D and FLARToolkit are just a couple examples. Many sites and applications like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter even have dedicated ActionScript 3.0 libraries.

Open
Yes… Open! Not only is Adobe very open about what it’s doing and future roadmaps, the file formats used by Flash Player are also open. The specs for the SWF and FLV file formats are open as well as the specs for AMF (the binary format for exchanging data used by the Flash Player) and RTMP. Adobe also uses and supports many open source projects like Eclipse and WebKit and also contributes to the open source community.

But the most important reason is actually pretty simple. The Flash Platform is just a lot of fun to develop for and it’s very clear that the future is looking very bright for Flash Platform developers. Flash on!

Lately, I’ve read and heard a lot of conversations about how “HTML 5 is going to kill Flash” and how Adobe is bad for “breaking the open web” with the “proprietary” Flash Player.

So… Let’s think about this for a second. People have been talking about HTML 5 for quite some time now and it seems that it will be just that for still quite some time more. The release for HTML 5 is scheduled for 2012. Sure… Internet Explorer 8 already has some HTML 5 features enabled but the full blown “Flash killer” is not going to be available until 2012… and even that is an optimistic schedule. If I look at what HTML 5 is going to bring to the table, it seems that its features can be compared to a smaller feature set of Flash Player 7. That version of the Flash Player was released in September 2003… So those features have been available for at least 6 years now. Sure, HTML 5 will still evolve but so will the Flash Player. Every 12 months or so, a new version of the Flash Player is released bringing new features to the web. People have been installing updates faster and faster and within just a few months developers can use those new features in their sites/applications. So by the time HTML 5 gets to critical mass, the Flash Player will be at version 12 or 13 with even more functionality and exciting features that will not be available in standard browsers.

So why is Flash evil? The “skip intro” era is already far behind us and it’s not just about advertising. These days developers are also using the power of the Flash Platform for full blown online/offline applications. Just have a look at Picnik, Sumo Paint or Hobnox. Even organizations like NATO for instance use the Flash Platform in ways that you would not be able to do with HTML 5.

Flash has also greatly improved the video experience on the web. Remember the old days where you had to choose between Windows Media Player, Real Player and Quicktime? And when you made your selection, you still had to pick your connection speed. And when you finally got through all your selections, chances were you still didn’t have the right codec and you still wouldn’t see the video. With Flash, ‘play video’ actually means ‘play video’ and today over 85% of all the video on the web is viewed using Flash Player. YouTube, CNN, Vimeo, NY Times, Flickr, Last.fm, Facebook and many many more all use Flash.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the Open Web is a bad thing. I welcome all forms of innovation but Open Web supporters also need to open their eyes and see that Adobe is not as bad as they think.

So why don’t we open source the Flash Player? Well… First of all… I’m not sure what good that would do? That said, Adobe doesn’t own the rights to every single bit in the Flash Player. We don’t own the rights for the video and graphics codecs for example. It also seems that not many people know that we opened up the specs for the SWF and FLV file formats as part of the Open Screen Project. We also published the specs for AMF (the binary format for exchanging data used by the Flash Player) and announced that we’ll also publish the specs for RTMP. We also have a bunch of Open Source projects within Adobe. The Flex SDK being one of them. On top of having our own Open Source projects we also support and contribute to existing Open Source projects like WebKit, the Mozilla Foundation and Eclipse.

I know… Adobe pays my paycheck but I honestly think that we are trying our very best to be a good web citizen. However, I also think we don’t get much credit for it. Hopefully this blog post can change your mind a little bit. Feel free to comment.

UPDATE: Ryan Stewart just posted a list of HTML 5 features and when similar features were introduced in the Flash Player.