Recently there have been a few mentions of an open source Flash player under development. There may be more than one group working on such a thing, but here’s one:
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
I’m curious what the Flash developer community thinks about this. My off-the-cuff opinion is that it could wind up being a pain in the butt for Flash / Flex developers.
Now, before I have the Open Source crowd picketing outside my apartment, know that I am a huge proponent of Open Source Flash. I feel pretty confident in saying that I’ve probably given away more free ActionScript code than anyone else out there. I have a project on OSFlash.org, and Aral is my friend, so back off!
I don’t have a problem with an open source Flash player, but I do have an issue with having a different Flash player out there on the net. One of the big benefits about writing Flash or Flex applications is that you don’t have to worry too much about the end user’s configuration. There are amazingly few differences between the Mac and Windows players (other than performance), and between the Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox plugin vs. the ActiveX control. Not saying that there are no differences, but compared to the hoops you have to jump through to get a simple JavaScript program running on all those browsers and platforms, we are in a pretty sweet position.
The biggest problem we, as Flash developers, have to worry about is which version number of the Flash player the end user has installed. Flash 9? 8? 7? A lot of projects are still forced to stick to Flash 6 compatibility. There was even a time when you had to worry about whether the user had version 6.0.65.0 or whatever that magical release was.
The thing I see about a new and different Flash player is that it is somehow going to be different. I’m sure people are going to pop up and say, “No, it’s going to be completely compatible with the Adobe Flash player. It’s going to run all of your existing Flash content without a hitch. Completely compatible….only better.”
It’s that “better” part that worries me. It’s got to be better, right? I can’t imagine that people are going to go through all this trouble to make an exact clone of the existing player. No developer has that kind of discipline. They know they can add that one killer feature that the existing player doesn’t have. Or make it faster, or more efficient, or whatever.
OK, so what, as long as it doesn’t break your existing movies, what’s the problem? Well, if it has some “better” feature, people are going to start using that feature. Or if it’s faster, people are going to start coding things that take advantage of that speed. And then they are going to have to say, “Oh, this only works in the open source player.”
And the wedge gets driven in.
Anyway, it’s not the end of the world. It’s not something I’m freaking out about. And it’s not like anything anyone can say is going to stop people from building this thing. So we’ll live with it, and learn all about it, and make even more money because we’re experts on the differences between the different players out there. Just food for thought. And if I’m missing some viewpoint or aspect of the situation, I’m all ears.
Maybe the solution is for Adobe to just open source their own player. That keeps the OS crowd happy and it stays the standard. I’m sure there are all sorts of legal and corporate implications that they have to consider about such a move, but I don’t see how it would be ultimately harmful to the company.