
Apple's Flash policy is a breach of Postel's Law - brilliant
http://scripting.com/stories/2010/07/25/applesFlashPolicyIsABreach.html
======
pohl
If Flash were standing on the same RFC-based ground that TCP is (Jon Postel
was speaking of a principle that implementations of TCP should do) then Dave
might have a point.

Heck, I'll be generous and say that Dave might have a point if he were
referring to an independent implementation of Flash, and what it ought do.

But mobile Safari is not a flash runtime, it's a web browser, and so its duty
to the robustness principle is to be strict about what it sends (HTTP GETs and
POSTs) and permissive about what it receives (HTTP responses,
HTML/CSS/Javascript documents). It is no more obligated to include a Flash
plugin than it is to have a plugin for Iterated Fractal Systems image
compressor.

I think it's worth noting that there's an important class of software that
needs to be strict about what they receive — compilers — and I often find
myself wishing that browsers were more like compilers. But that's just when I
get sour thinking about the excessive permissiveness of IE.

~~~
radley
Comparing the scope, history, and benefits of Flash to a fractal compressor is
childish. It's posts like this than make HN look like a bunch of techno-
babbling trolls.

"Supporting plug-ins" is clearly a well-tested and marketed phrase to divert
attention from the real issue: a business blockade. Only the weakest (or most
biased) of programmers fall for it.

~~~
pohl
That's a lot to digest: childish && (week || biased) && troll? Is this subject
really worth that much vitriol?

On what basis is a browser author obligated to support any plugin system
whatsoever? I don't want an answer as to why Apple must...I want to know why
any arbitrary browser vendor, in your world, should not be free to make that
product decision.

Edit: I submit that if you cannot answer that question, having removed Apple
from the equation, that it is not me who is biased.

~~~
radley
It's not your terminology that I found childish & trollish; it was the
comparison of Flash to a fractal generator along with an all-too-obvious
deviation from the original point, i.e. a straw man*

It's not a lack of plugin support that prevents Flash from working on iOS.
It's strictly business rules (which was the point of the article). Your first
comment makes hay over the former and your second comment dismisses the
latter.

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman>

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an
opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of
having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar yet
weaker proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having
actually refuted the original position."

------
grantheaslip
By Winer's logic, shouldn't the iPad also support Java, Silverlight,
Realplayer, Shockwave, Windows Media Player and Quicktime? There's definitely
useful information locked into each of those formats as well.

Arguing that browsers should support plugins because they might be necessary
to display useful information is a _really_ slippery slope, and would be a
wonderful way for Apple to get stuck in business relationships with
notoriously incompetent companies like Adobe for little to no actual benefit.
I'm not convinced that there are a significant number of people who would let
the lack of Flash influence their decision to buy an iPad--certainly not a
significant enough number of people for Apple to cede a portion of control
over their platform to a company that has repeatedly demonstrated a complete
inability to make Flash work on mobile (or really, any) platforms.

~~~
thewileyone
The iPad need not support Java, Silverlight, Realplayer, Shockwave, or Windows
Media Player by default; I believe that Quicktime is supported through the
Video player. But it should be allowed to be made to support Java,
Silverlight, Realplayer, Shockwave, and Windows Media files if desired.

"... cede a portion of control over their platform ..." I can't help thinking
that if Microsoft had restricted Quicktime from Windows machines, with the
excuse that it's utter crap and no good, there would be an intense amount of
lawsuits pending from Apple already.

------
petrilli
The brilliant Jon Postel was speaking of the implementation and design of open
standards. Flash may be ubiquitous, but it would never be called a standard by
anyone subscribing to the IETF rules-of-the-road.

BTW, Apple also does not implement Wordstar and WordPerfect readers, nor do
they accept TARGA images. As much as I do wish 1) Adobe had a version of Flash
that didn't suck; 2) Apple supported it, let's not attempt to invoke Jon's
memory for this kind of stuff.

~~~
brilliant
You're wrong. Postel's Law is a principle of software design.

------
tptacek
We could spark a whole discussion about whether Postel's "law" is a universal
good thing (it makes more sense in early-stage standardization efforts than it
does in software design), but do we really need to dignify the asinine
argument that Postel meant browsers must support specific plugins?

~~~
radley
Of course we should dignify the argument: the Flash plug-in is a standard used
billions of times a day by millions of people.

It's only asinine to pretend it's not a modern standard by reducing it to
"just a plug-in" because it's unpopular (and virulently _envied_?) on _this_
forum.

~~~
Groxx
"A standard technology" is not the same as "a standard". Flash is not a
(public) standard, however standard it may be.

~~~
radley
I <3 HN.

------
jacquesm
Invoking Jon Postel does not make a wrong argument right. The only thing that
makes apple 'wrong' in this case is that they restrict the deployment of
browsers that would support flash.

------
moxiemk1
I realize it makes me a pompous ass, but being a pure mathematics student has
caused me to recoil whenever anyone quotes a "law" of the soft sciences and
uses it as proof.

I am quite glad to be in a field where deductive logic is used; these sorts of
tirades where its up for debate whether or not what you're saying applies (or
was even correct in the first place) don't really happen.

~~~
KirinDave
Forgive us compsci folks our lack of rigor and correctness here. We're
emboldened by the likes of Moore who, through remarkable intuition, created
predictions that match the facts with startling accuracy.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, though. Calling everything a "law" is a nasty
habit that has crept into compsci's pop literature over the last decade.

------
masklinn
Let's imagine Postel's law applies. Postel's law would say that if
MobileSafari had a plugin system (or one extensible by third parties anyway),
Flash should not be refused.

Well, MobileSafari doesn't have a plugin system available to third parties.
Thus solving the issue: Postel's Law applies exactly nowhere in this case.

------
quesera
The comparison between Apple's business decisions and Postel's comments on a
protocol implementation is invalid.

Other people might invoke Postel's name to amplify their own message, but
that's just not what he was talking about.

Furthermore, if you believe for a second that Jon Postel would have been a
supporter of Adobe Flash, then I assert that you weren't alive when he was. I
imagine he'd have equally strong objections to Apple, but that's neither here
nor there.

------
Encosia
Whether or not that was headed anywhere compelling, he ruined it when he
insinuated that market cap is comparable to market share.

~~~
jacquesm
For me he ruined it when he tried to use Jon Postel to further his agenda.
It's a not very veiled attempt at using Jon Postel and his reputation to
'trump' the reputation of Steve Jobs, which you might be able to apply if
Apple decided to come up with a non-standard version of HTML tomorrow morning
but has no place in the 'should the ipad/iphone/somegadget built in browser'
support flash, yes or no.

And I actually think it should (simply because that would be a convenience, if
flash is to be replaced it can happen without resorting to user inconvenience
as a means of applying pressure).

------
gmlk
The whole flash discussion is purely hypothetical: Whether Apple would/should
allow some of Adobe's vaporware, might it one day be realized, on the iOS
platform?

And this is not even considering that the iOS version of Safari (afaik)
doesn't even have a plugin infrastructure to support 3d party plugins.

Personally I don't think Adobe can actually make a stable, efficient, full
implementation of the flash plugin for a iphone/ipad style mobile device?
After years of trying they still can't make one for any full power Mac, so why
should anyone assume that they can for much slower mobile-devices?

I think Adobe's strategy is to make as much noise about the relevance of
flash, keep promising an implementation of Flash "really soon now", while
they'll wait until the hardware of mobile devices has become fast enough to
handle flash without draining the battery.

