A Flash player is a lot more like a Java virtual machine + libraries or a Web browser than it is like a video codec.
I have not heard that rumor about Shumway. As a former Mozilla distinguished engineer, I think I would have.
Thanks for pointing out Lightspark is progressing. I thought it had stalled, but I was wrong. Still, if Lightspark is doing well it's not ideal to split efforts into multiple projects.
I’m a program manager at Mozilla and I helped manage the Shumway project for a year or so. A couple jobs before Mozilla, I was an engineer on the Flash Player team at Macromedia and then Adobe. Since I was not writing Shumway code or guiding the team’s implementation decisions, Mozilla’s lawyers did not feel there was a conflict. If Adobe really wanted to shut down Shumway (or Ruffle or Lightspark), they could cite numerous obscure Flash patents regardless of who’s working on the project.
Mozilla stopped working on Shumway primarily because:
1. Flash compatibility was going to be a lot of work and full compatibility was impossible (e.g. matching Flash bugs, closed-source codecs, system APIs not available to JavaScript)
2. Content creators were already moving on from Flash. They were slowly heeding the “Flash is a dead end” messaging from browser makers and Adobe itself.
So Mozilla saw multiple engineer-years of work ahead to support a proprietary technology that was shrinking and decided the Shumway engineers’ time would be better spent on other Mozilla projects. Even if Firefox bundled a Shumway with great Flash compatibility, content creators would choose a technology that is going to work in Chrome and IE.
Fun fact: before working on Shumway, one of the engineers built another JavaScript Flash Player called Gordon. The Shumway name is thus derived:
Flash -> “Flash Gordon” -> Gordon -> “Gordon Shumway” (the alien ALF’s real name) -> Shumway :)
I have not heard that rumor about Shumway. As a former Mozilla distinguished engineer, I think I would have.
Thanks for pointing out Lightspark is progressing. I thought it had stalled, but I was wrong. Still, if Lightspark is doing well it's not ideal to split efforts into multiple projects.