

Mozilla warns of Flash and Silverlight 'agenda' - bdfh42
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-3515_22-199508.html?tag=nl.e550

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jrockway
_He conceded that "if you want to have a commercially viable website, in most
cases you need Flash,"_

What?

Anyway, it's true that Flash is "The Next Frontier." Remember when you
couldn't bank online from Linux? Those days are mostly over, but now it's "I
can't use Scribd from Linux."

What someone should do is make javascript + svg as easy to develop in as
Flash. I assume that means some shiny IDE, but I've never used Flash so I'm
not sure. Basically, make it easy for people to do things portably, and they
might try. (Then again, some people don't really like learning, so they'll use
Flash forever.)

Oh, as always... some great comments on the site:

 _Quit trying to paint proprietary software as some dark evil and open source
and open standards and open everytyhing as the only true way of the "good
people".

It was a closed network in teh beginning and only those that want to make
their code, site, whatever open should do so. Those that do not, have no
obligation. Proprietary software has created a huge amount of business for the
world at large and has been nothing but beneficial by and large.

Socialism is nice, if you don't mind suffering through crushing government
control.

So in the same light as things like this: Proprietary software is patriotic
and good and keeps the government out of our lives, where it belongs. Less
government control and a free society is GOOD..GOOD..GOOD.

Open software relies too heavily on the government and government control and
living under the government's thumb. It's is socialist software. Socialism is
BAD. BAD BAD..._

Stuff like this makes me want to cry.

~~~
Jesin
Gaah. I'd really like to know how this guy came to the conclusion that FOSS
relies on the government. WTF?

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jsjenkins168
_"HTML 5 is currently a work in progress. Although the specification can be
used in some cases now, it is not likely to reach completion until 2010 at the
very earliest."_

Flash and Silverlight WILL take over if the W3C cannot decide on HTML 5
standards faster than that. People aren't going to wait around for some
standards committee to deliberate years on a final spec. 2010 is sooo far away
in internet years its ridiculous.

~~~
bprater
Yerp, but not a word about this. Flash and Silverlight are here, ready-to-go
now. How long before HTML 5 even remotely has any kind of saturation on the
desktop, so that we can program against it? 5 years? There is some magic about
an "upgradable browser" via plug-ins.

~~~
thorax
Our next app is using Flash. Another one goes that way..

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marketer
Adobe is already one step ahead. They just announced the "open screen
project", which opens up the swf and flv file formats. This also lets people
create their own swf runtimes.

Nitot seems to be a little disconnected. He mentions "In HTML 5 there will be
video and audio; you won't need Flash for video and audio". However, video and
audio are only a small subset of sites that require flash. I think there is a
general need for an optimized runtime, especially for things like web-based
games and rich presentations, and HTML has a long way to go in supporting
these.

~~~
jcl
_However, video and audio are only a small subset of sites that require
flash._

Granted, in terms of "number of Flash files downloaded" or "number of sites
serving Flash content", the percent of video/audio-only Flash files may be
small.

But in terms of "number of Flash files downloaded that people actually came to
the site to see" or "number of Flash files people would watch even if they
were running Flashblock", I'd guess that audio/video-only files account for
almost all of them.

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CapnObvious
As a developer and an end-user, I don't like anything that requires a plugin,
and I feel that is the consensus among everyone but desktop developers.

Well written AJAX & Java just work better and don't require some annoying
plugin, download, or upgrade.

And on a sidenote, if you're on a Mac pay attention to CPU and memory usage
anytime the slightest amount of flash is being used on a page, it skyrockets,
totally inefficient for no particular reason. It seems SLIGHTLY better in
Windows but it's still a total resource hog.

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wensing
Should Flash and Silverlight really be put into the same boat?

~~~
bprater
They are both plug-ins, but Flash has been around for at least a decade. Flash
is used for YouTube, ensuring it has nearly complete saturation. Flash should
be considered part of everyone's browser these days.

