Mozilla cries like an ungrateful child
I was just going to comment on this article but CNET doesn’t support OpenID and I am not about to go making another account, so I’ll post about it here.
In the article Mozilla speaks out against the free-but-proprietary Web apps the author discusses the problems with free but proprietary software. In a quote from the Mozilla Europe’s founder:
“Both Adobe and Microsoft have been willing to give (Flash and Silverlight away) for free. But maybe they have an agenda. They’re not here for the glory; they’re here for the money.”
I really think this is ridiculous. With all of the products that Adobe has open sourced in the last two years, for them to even consider that they have an alternate agenda is just a little bit ridiculous. Not to mention that the core strength in the Flash player is the AVM2 (Actionscript Virtual Machine) which was donated to the Mozilla foundation (tamarin project) and is slated to provide the core functionality for the JS implementation of Firefox 4.
The recent news the article mentions that makes this statement total bullshit is that Adobe has released the full specification for SWF and FLV formats. And while there is not (yet) a viable Open Source alternative to the Adobe Flash Player, there is nothing stopping someone from building one now. They even have the the core technology for making it work in the Mozilla Tamarin project.
So while not all of Adobe’s tools are Open Source they have provided free and open source components to almost all of the technologies that the open source community might care about. Mozilla needs to quit it’s crying, they choose to go open and not for profit. They choose the life of the meaningful and enlightened (but poor) software provider. And they cry afoul when other companies don’t do the same. But I think the real problem for them here, is that a for profit company that is very successful in building great software and client relationships has also seen the benefits that can be received through opening up software. And now they are upset that not only does Adobe make lots of money on great software they are also giving great software away just to enrich the developer community.
Perhaps if Mozilla had gone the other way and built software to sell they could pay someone to fix the problems with Firefox crashing all the damn time. At least when a new flash player comes out its faster, feature-ful and stable. I am still looking for a version of firefox that can load up Gmail without crashing. If that is what software built with no agenda does, then I don’t see the point. What is the purpose of building software with no agenda. Especially if it leads me to use tools that are not based on open standards just so I can get through my day without wanting to through my computer.
amen!
Interestingly, Flash Player gives me far more browser crashes than all other causes combined. GMail is not without it’s memory leaks, but Firefox remains stable using it – the OS starts swapping after having it open for a few days before Firefox gets grumpy. Flash, on the other hand, will segfault loading pretty much any Flex app on my Linux machine.
More to the point of the post, however, is that Flash is absolutely proprietary. Adobe is in complete control over all aspects of it. Period. It’s free (beer and speech) to use, and a lot of the tooling around it is free (beer and speech) as well, but Flash itself is proprietary. That being said, the same argument can mostly be leveled at Sun (about Java).
Russ, I hear you brother.
Barney, you and I go back and forth on your problems with flash. And I agree that I have witnessed you having more problems than any one else I have ever seen. But you are also the only person I have met that had irreconcilable problems with their powerbook. So maybe its just you :)
So while I have had none of the problems you have had with flash crashing, twitter scan tells me I am not alone in my problems with firefox.
As for Flash being proprietary. That can not be contested. The player is proprietary. But there are no longer any restrictions on building another player. Anyone can build a SWF player and distribute it as they wish. So if you don’t like flash player build your own. Mozilla didn’t like the offerings for proprietary browsers so they built there own. But I have to say I have not been happy with the way that worked out lately.
At some point people started the believe that any product that was built for commercial gain is “bad” and anything built for the purpose of giving it away for free is “good”. Clearly this isn’t the case. As far as being proprietary… So what? There is really no reason to believe that Flash being proprietary is a bad thing as long as it serves its purpose… which it does very well. The “Flash player crashes” vs. “Firefox crashes” debate is really irrelevant since for most people Firefox and Flash player both work as well as they need to. That being said, if anyone thinks they can build a better Flash Player, feel free to do so and give it away for free if you want.
“With all of the products that Adobe has open sourced in the last two years, for them to even consider that they have an alternate agenda is just a little bit ridiculous.”
How about this for an alternate agenda:
1. Make Flash ubiquitous, across all devices.
2. This ubiquity will attract developers (this is already happening today).
3. Most of those developers will pay for the Adobe dev tools (either Flex or Flash, and some of them will even buy other tools like Photoshop).
4. Millions of Flash developers means $$$ for Adobe.
Microsoft is doing the same thing with Silverlight, and all of their other platforms that attract developers. I don’t think it’s any secret that Adobe has a money driven agenda with Flash.
By the way, I too have had a few Flash problems in Linux.
Hey Jake,
I agree its no secret, I think Flash Player everywhere has always been the primary agenda from the very beginning.
What has changed is that Adobe has given away the tools (Flex SDK and Blaze DS) for building the apps, as well as opened the spec so that if someone wants to build an alternative to their player they can. I personally don’t want to see that happen because think half the value in flash is that there is only one. But I see value in competition as well. I don’t think that the competitions in the web browser space has done much for us because we still are limited by the least common denominator or else we hack our code for compliance. That even with an established spec and open formats. Lots of good its done us. :(
And although you can use silverlight on linux through mono, Microsoft is doing little to further that movement themselves. However Adobe is at least trying to commit to all three of the major platforms to create that ubiquitous web environment for developers and users. And I value that effort.
I do think Adobe is making a lot of good decisions in regards to Flash (and I DEARLY wish they’d do the same things with ColdFusion). But you still have to buy Flex builder and/or Flash CS3, which is what Adobe wants. Yes, I realize you can make Flex apps without Flex builder…but honestly, who wants to code in notepad? Every Flex developer I’ve talked to (admittedly, I haven’t talked to many) says that they use Flex Builder.
As far as competition in the browser space…the “least common denominator” has been IE 6 for the last few years, and Microsoft only recently started developing IE again. There was virtually NO competition for IE from IE 5 up until Firefox started taking away market share in the last couple of years. And Firefox’s rise in market share directly coincides with Microsoft’s reinstatement of the IE dev team, and the subsequent release of IE 7. If Firefox (or some other browser) hadn’t started taking Microsoft’s market share, we’d web developers would still be living with the stagnant, outdated IE 6 rendering engine. Well, for that matter we still ARE living with IE 6 (it’s not really Microsoft’s fault that their customers are slow to adopt IE 7), but at least Microsoft is making strides towards standards compliance with IE 7 and IE 8.
So I, personally think competition is great, particularly in cases where the monopoly company lets their products stagnate, and thus the consumer suffers, and then a competing product starts to take away market share. Would Adobe let Flash stagnate? I don’t think so, especially since they are NOT a monopoly, by any stretch of the imagination. The don’t only have to compete with Silverlight, but they also have to compete with Ajax, not to mention static websites (a lot of developers today still don’t see the value in RIA).
I think we still may disagree on the tools issue but on the rest I think we are fine. If I am writing MXML code, then I love having flex builder. But quite often if I am tasked with building an AS3 only application, I use TextMate and the Sprouts Project. For some reason when I am writing just as3 I dont feel like I need the safety blanket that Flex Builder provides. But then again, if I am not using the flex framework I dont have nearly as many attributes and methods to remember so the code completion is not as necessary.
Is Flex builder required? No way. Is it worth every penny? Absolutely :) I think Flex builder is an amazing product and I have purchased a license because its worth it. But I also did flex development on my mac with flex 1 and 2.0 (pre 2.0.1) without the use of flex builder, so maybe its just that I have not always been so blessed that I think its a requirement.
But I do appreciate your comments. Thanks Jake
So let me ask you this. What do you think Adobe’s goals are with Flash? Because I seriously doubt that they are spending millions of dollars on Flash and it’s cousins out of the goodness of their heart. Is Flash cool? It certainly has a lot of very cool things to offer. But in my opinion, Adobe is ultimately trying to make money with Flash. And considering that the only way (that I know of) for Adobe to make money from Flash is when they sell developer tools and related products, it seems to me that their ultimate goal with Flash is to sell developer tools. Unless you know Adobe has a different goal for this stuff…
I do realize that you don’t HAVE to buy Adobe’s tools if you want to create Flex/Flash apps. But don’t you think Adobe would prefer it if you DID buy their products, instead of using TextMate?
I think the same equation holds true in other markets. Why do game developers release free demos? People don’t pay for demos, but the developer hopes you will ultimately shell out some cash for the full game. The same thing happens in the music industry with free singles, with drug dealers, etc. The point is, if Adobe can convince the majority of web developers to use Flash, Adobe will ultimately make a lot of money, in some way or another.
And what is wrong with a company making money? Would you prefer that every software company on the planet operated as a non-profit?
It’s *great* that Adobe makes money off of Flash. They created a great product that is responsible for a lot of commerce and creates a lot of jobs. Why shouldn’t they reap some of the benefits of this? Why should people who create Flash content get paid for doing so, but Adobe shouldn’t?
Hey Jake,
I think you are right that Adobe wants to make money and hopes people will buy their tools. But here is why I think Adobe is brilliant. They know developers hate to spend money. We are cheap.
But as wrong as it is, if we want the tools we know we can get them without buying them. So they know no one will pay for the player. And the realize that if the tools cost money then people might steal them. But if they give some tools away for free the people who would have stolen might use those instead.
And you are sooo write. Flash is a gateway drug. You use it and you build a couple RIA’s and everything works great. The interface is rich, it was quick to build, and it works cross platform and cross browser. Now you need a backend. Well everybody cried about the price of LCDS, but the truth is that the people complaining where buying one license of the cheapest version. So you know what? They cut down the negative chatter and gave a way a version that would satisfy those people. Now the big enterprises are still buying lots of LiveCycle DS and ES Licenses but the cheap skate small companies have been pacified and are still filling the market with applications that spread Adobe’s tool usage. And sure there are free alternatives to the free stuff adobe put out, but none of it integrates as tightly or as easily.
Livecycle is where Adobe wants to make its money on us. And if all we are gonna do is complain and create a negative buzz about the products then we are not worth the price of a license to them. But if we use the free tools and spread the world then the enterprises will get behind and buy more licenses of LCES based on the industry buzz. We win through good free tools. Adobe wins buy us stopping our bitching and crying and getting us to advertise and build tutorials on our blogs, and sell more enterprise licenses.
But I still think that *this* is the primary agenda and that making great free tools is part of it.
@Roland,
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Adobe trying to make money with Flash. I am just making the point that Adobe /does/ have an agenda with Flash, and that is to make money, which was the original point that the cnet guy was trying to make from the article linked in the original post above.
@Simeon,
Great point about LiveCycle. And again, that just furthers the point that Adobe has an agenda with Flash. Is this wrong? Does it make Adobe a bad company? I don’t think so. But in contrast, Mozilla’s primary agenda is to make the Internet better, and one of their primary vehicles for doing this is to push open standards. That is why they see Flash as a threat. Adobe doesn’t care as much about standards as they do about making money. I didn’t say that Adobe doesn’t care about standards, just that standards are not as big of a priority as money is. Does that mean Adobe will thwart standards, or do anything to hurt the Internet with their dominance in Flash? No, it doesn’t automatically mean that, but it /could/ mean that. In Adobe’s efforts to make money with Flash and it’s cousins, they could create side effects that hurt the Internet. Therefore, I think you can see why Mozilla is afraid of Adobe’s motives with Flash.
Look at the damage Microsoft did to the Internet when they abandoned IE6 for a few years. Mozilla is very wary of large Corporations that do anything proprietary on the Internet, because in the past companies like Microsoft, Netscape, and others have seriously impeded the progress of open standards with their proprietary products. And in my opinion (and Mozilla’s), this in turn hurts the common Internet user.
Again, I am NOT saying that Adobe IS going to damage the Internet, because I know that Adobe could just as well advance the Internet while making boatloads of money with Flash and it’s cousins. I’m just trying to illustrate why Mozilla is afraid of Flash and SilverLight, and personally I think they have good reason to be wary of such proprietary products.
Hey Jake,
And you may be right. At this point Adobe has spent a long time being a company focused on making money and not as concerned about building community and making things better. But I think things have changed. I think that with the influx if folks from Macromedia and the strong community they gained in that acquisition, Adobe may have changed some of its focus.
Is it gonna start giving away all its software? No way! But I think they see the benefit in making the ecosystem around their products strong. And that means making the internet a better place. So while Mozilla may have started with that goal, I think they share that with Adobe now.
But again, only time will tell :)
Simeon,
I think you and I have come to an agreement on most terms. But I just saw that Mozilla’s Asa has posted a reply to this blog entry. I do find it interesting that he says a lot of the same things I was saying (and no, he doesn’t know me). :)
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2008/05/its_not_about_t.html