Archive for the ‘open source’ Category

Open Sourcing Flash, in the pan

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

There is some buzz about the possibility, chance and point of open sourcing Flash.

As a web-developer I tend not to use Flash. If I can implement a feature without Flash I will. If I have to use Flash I keep it minimal. If people show me full-Flash apps. I want to know why they did it in Flash. The only two places Flash truly shines in my opinion are; as a video player in web-pages ala YouTube and for small, tricky, slick controls that are too finicky to do well in JavaScript/CSS/HTML.

Why do I try not to use Flash? Because I like text and am not a binary fan. Images (JPEG, GIF and PNG) are binary but they aren’t source. They aren’t applications, they don’t contain logic or have functionality like an SWF can. I can’t view-source on an SWF easily, I can’t hack a few characters, rerun it and see the change. I can’t easily mold an existing Flash into something else.

For me this is what CSS, HTML and JavaScript do so well. You can hack them, save them, view source, pipe them through a cheese grater and get something usable on the other end. Anything you see done with them you can figure out.

So open sourcing Flash isn’t going to make me sing hallelujah and start using it. A pity but there you go.

(As for Apollo I am really, really happy it isn’t a Flash container. It is a web container, it can house CSS, JavaScript and HTML without an ounce of Flash in sight.)

Posted in HTML, JavaScript, Post, css, flash, open source | Comments

The Three

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

Over at O’Reilly Nat Torkington asked what the three most important open source projects were.

I (and many others) listed:

  • Linux
  • Apache
  • Mozilla

I said those because with them you have an end-to-end solution that can do pretty much anything. You have the OS, you have the internet server and you have the client that can talk to the internet server. Missing, possibly, is a programming language and environment but I see less of a threat of death against programming languages than I do against the operating system, server and client.

Naturally the OS covers quite a range of sub-projects including all the bits that make TCP/IP, routing etc. go on the internet. Within Apache too you can argue what is integral to it and what are sub-projects or add-on modules. I also listed Mozilla and not just Firefox because an email client, Thunderbird, is quite important and Mozilla also covers XUL and other supporting frameworks that can be used to create new and existing client applications.

I would have liked to have included Ruby on Rails and Java in the list because they are why I am employed. But I am just one person and the other three projects have broader scope.

Though one could say if you just listed an operating system and a programming language and environment you would have everything covered as together they could create the server, clients and everything else. But that is a bit too high-level and so much has been already done in Apache and Mozilla that to loose them and start again would be a severe blow to computing technology.

What are your three?

Posted in AAA, Linux, List, O\'Reilly, apache, mozilla, open source, three | Comments