I came across an interesting article about Apple claiming intellectual property rights regarding the bitmap canvas used in HTML5. I had no idea that the canvas is proprietary technology, but apparently that’s the case, at least according to wikipedia:
On March 14, 2007, WebKit developer Dave Hyatt forwarded an email from Apple’s Senior Patent Counsel, Helene Plotka Workman, which stated that Apple reserved all intellectual property rights relative to WHATWG’s Web Applications 1.0 Working Draft, dated March 24, 2005, Section 10.1, entitled “Graphics: The bitmap canvas” , but left the door open to licensing the patents should the specification be transferred to a standards body with a formal patent policy.
…The disclosure means that Apple is required to provide royalty-free licensing for the patent whenever the Canvas element becomes part of a future W3C recommendation created by the HTML working group. [Source]
When it comes to video playback in HTML5, Apple is pushing for h.264. And they are one of the licensors behind the technology.
In this light it becomes a bit absurd hearing how people not only promote HTML5 on the basis that it is an open standard, but think Flash has no place on the web because it’s proprietary. Especially when coming from Apple fans.
First of all, “flash” is not proprietary. The SDK, compiler and Flex framework is FOSS. Swf and RTMP formats are open, and the VM is open.
Why don’t they open source the player as well?
I guess one reason could be that it contains proprietary code that Adobe have licensed, and that’s obviously not theirs to open. HTML5 hands over the responsibility of selecting codecs to the browser developers, so if you want to watch video on for example youtube without the Flash Player you need a browser containing that licensed code instead. Moving the proprietary code to another part of the system does not make the web more open.
So who do we want to trust? Is it better to have Apple in control over the technology than Adobe?
Adobe is a very open company compared to Apple in every aspect. They are allowed to blog about their work quite liberally, they released a lot of code as open source and are cooperating with a lot of software and hardware manufacturers to ensure compatibility across many platforms.
Flash is a platform in it’s own right today, but it’s a platform that has been achieved by cooperation and interoperability which makes it a bit different from many other platforms. In a sense it’s wrong to say that Adobe is in control over Flash, because Flash depends on so many parties for it’s success.
Looking at Apple, while they have open source projects like Darwin and WebKit, it’s not code opened by Apple, but forks from already open code. They are obviously very much focused on proprietary solutions and I doubt is any company that compete with them when it comes to profiting from DRM systems. Adobe donated AVM2 to Mozilla, but Apple “reserved all intellectual property rights” for the canvas.
If anything HTML5 will give Apple more control over the net requiring licenses not only to display video, but also to draw graphics. Flash technology does not require licensing and is under control by a far more open company who seems a lot more in tune with the spirit of the Internet than Apple.
In the end I think both technologies will have their place, but choosing HTML5 on the basis that it would make for a more open Internet does not make a lot of sense.
Related posts:
A bit of a twisted argument…
“… so if you want to watch video on for example youtube without the Flash Player you need a browser containing that licensed code instead.”
… instead of a flash player containing the exact same licensed code (but not hardware accelerated). Isn’t flash using h.264? Why do I need an extra Adobe layer that suck my CPU?
“In a sense it’s wrong to say that Adobe is in control over Flash…”
And it’s a plain lie to say that Apple is in control of h.264! Your own link list about 25 licensors. As for the canvas elment, look at the w3c Patent-Policy,
“… it’s not code opened by Apple, but forks from already open code.”
what about libdispatch, launchd, iCal Server, llvm and the quicktime streaming server? Are you saying that Adobe’s contribution to open source is more important than Apple?
There are advantages to Flash over HTML5 (like a Streamable format, good development environment and compact size of swf). But openness is not one of them (at least yet). Adobe should move their awesome tools to generate full HTML5 sites.
Thanks. It’s about time someone noted that Apple has always been about proprietary & closed, to the point where they almost killed the company in the late 90′s. Really more Microsoft than Microsoft, but they’ve always had delusions of grandeur, been overconfident, and overestimated their influence to the point where for several years you never saw the name “Apple” in the press without the prefix “beleaguered”.
Adobe is by far the more open, flexible company. Really no hidden agenda, no axes to grind. Just trying to make a living. Not perfect, but earnest. Honestly. Print to PDF anyone? What Apple product has become a verb in the English language? (They totally photoshopped Britney in that pic.)
Apple seemed reformed when they adopted USB, PCI, Intel. But now, with Mini Display Port, “Blu-ray is a bag of hurt” “Flash is buggy” etc. we’re going back down that old road again.
Flash forward in this universe (no pun intended) and AC current will be deemed “unreliable and obsolete” by Apple and Mac users will need to install power invertors in their homes and redo the wiring to provide pure 17.3 Volt DC current to all their Apple appliances.
As an individual, I can recall drinking the koolaid & telling people how superior the PowerPC & RISC processors were to Intel’s legacy ridden, obsolete technology. But my Intel Macs have been the most stable, zippy, Macs ever. From the very first generation. Opened my eyes to the Reality Distortion Field and I will NEVER echo Apple’s talking points like a robot again.
Yes, Microsoft got away with this strategy in the 90′s. But this is the 21st Century, and as big and successful as Apple is (and deserves to be) now, I don’t think it will work.
“As an individual, I can recall drinking the koolaid & telling people how superior the PowerPC & RISC processors were to Intel’s legacy ridden, obsolete technology. But my Intel Macs have been the most stable, zippy, Macs ever. ”
Well, isn’t it ironic that when Apple moved to Intel, both Microsoft and Sony moved to the IBM PowerPC chip for their game consoles. I guess they bought the ‘koolaid’.
fact #1 – Adobe was one of the biggest backer of the SVG standard before they had any web graphic technology of their own (before they bought Macromedia) and then simply stop talking about it once they had their own (closed) technology? It was even *forbidden* to write a flash player by the license until about a year ago. Now that critics and competition is coming they changed the license.
fact #2 – Apple is giving their web graphic technology for free (the canvas element) to a standard (html5).
conclusion – Adobe is open, Apple is closed.
@Martin
“… instead of a flash player containing the exact same licensed code (but not hardware accelerated). Isn’t flash using h.264? Why do I need an extra Adobe layer that suck my CPU?”
Why there is no hardware acceleration on OSX is as I understand it not only down to Adobe. Apple is not giving access to the API’s, and it’s only the quicktime renderer that enjoys that privilege.
On Windows, Flash tends to me more efficient than HTML5.
“And it’s a plain lie to say that Apple is in control of h.264! Your own link list about 25 licensors. As for the canvas elment, look at the w3c Patent-Policy,”
Maybe not in full control, but being a licensor they do have some control as well as a financial interest in h.264, which without a doubt is a proprietary technology that need to be licensed.
And I don’t know how relevant W3C’s patent policy is since WHATWG is behind the HTML5 specification. By replacing Flash with HTML5 you are replacing a technology which is license free and open to a technology which does require licensing from Apple.
“what about libdispatch, launchd, iCal Server, llvm and the quicktime streaming server? Are you saying that Adobe’s contribution to open source is more important than Apple?”
One big difference between Apple and Adobe is that Apple is using open source code to power their operating systems. They are therefore required to give something back sometime.
Adobe has for example not taken Gimp and made it into a commercial product and really is not obliged to contribute anything to the OSS community, buy they give away the SDK to develop Flash/Flex content and provided the source for the VM to Mozilla.
“There are advantages to Flash over HTML5 (like a Streamable format, good development environment and compact size of swf). But openness is not one of them (at least yet). Adobe should move their awesome tools to generate full HTML5 site.”
With the canvas being proprietary technology that needs to be licensed from Apple it seems to me like Flash is more open.
Using Flash I can do everything, from development to publishing and rendering the content, for free using open source tools without needing any licenses.
With HTML5 that is not the case, since I need a license from Apple to render the graphics.
Since when does technology being proprietary and requiring licensing make it more open?
And care to explain why Adobe should move away from a technology which is very widespread and much in demand, and which has a lot of capabilities that HTML5 will not replace?
My impression is that Adobe is targeting creative professionals. HTML5 is cool for experiments, but is nowhere near widespread enough to be your main means of delivering content.
@Sherlock Holmes
#1) By the time Adobe bought MM, Svg already proven to be a failure long ago, and it was not only Adobe who had stopped talking about it.
And to allow competing Flash players is something a lot of their customers where against. The beauty of the Flash Player is that you can write once and deploy everywhere, and they where afraid that the Flash Player would become like the browser where you need to sit and check what feature is compatible with what player. But in the end the cries for opening it became stronger and that is what they did. But of course that is history, and what matters is the status of the technologies today and what direction they are going.Today the Flash Platform is open, and clearly not going towards being more closed.
#2) It’s not giving away when you license someone to use your technology and still claim IP-rights. Lending would be a more correct way of describing it.
Giving away is what Adobe did when they gave AVM2 to Mozilla foundation.
@Martin
“Adobe should move their awesome tools to generate full HTML5 site.”
hmmm let me research that for you ….
http://www.9to5mac.com/Flash-html5-canvas-35409730 <— Awww … wait .. adobe does generate HTML5 hmmm lousy homework Martin ?
@Sherlock Holmes
oh yes apple is open … let me check this nonsense … ok let’s give a quicktime streaming server … that makes us open … but yet .. quicktime is closed …
and quoting from apple “The QuickTime File Format Specification is provided for informational purposes. Apple may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. The furnishing of this document does not give you a license to any patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.”
talking about openness.
Fact #1) Apple is not going to open up the iPhone to Flash. It might be wrong, it might be stupid or it might be brilliant but it WILL NOT happen.
Fact #2) Adobe can pout and hold its breath in the corner all it wants, Apple still ain’t gonna open up the iPhone to Flash
Fact #3) 85 million users don’t have Flash on their mobile device and they don’t really care because they keep buying the things and keep downloading apps that make Flash unnecessary. You can call these people stupid, misguided, whatever, Flash is irrelevant to them.
Fact #4) Adobe is running out of time to make Flash a “must-have” feature in the mobile space. Flash should have been optimized for mobile 4 years ago BEFORE the iPHone came out.
You don’t have to like Apple or Adobe to understand this.
Conclusion, Adobe should either figure out other ways of becoming part of the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad universe of 85 million users (100 million by 2011) that don’t involve Flash and/or it better make Flash the greatest, most omnipresent development environment on all the other smart phones. Currently, Flash is simply not a player in the mobile space and is not even on the majority of smartphones, much less the majority of cell phones.
Adobe crapped all over the Mac through the 90s and 2000s, but it was “just business.” Apple learned its lesson and built a universe over the last 15 years which doesn’t depend on Adobe (or Microsoft/Avid/Circuit City/Sears/etc.) anymore. It’s just business.
@Hugo: you mean *when* Adobe stops trying to prevent HTML5 from happening with its foot-dragging with the canvas tag?
And why doesn’t Adobe just push THIS as the technology for getting apps onto the iPhone instead of their awful idea of a metacompiler for Flash-to-iPhone-”native” apps?
To say nothing of how “hover” mechanics are supposed to translate to touch devices. Did Adobe nail down the HIG for that?
Hugo, you rail on and on about the supposed lack of openness of QT streaming server, but is there such a thing as a Flash streaming server that’s 100% without license whatever? Implementation of a server AND the licenses for it?
For your information, you can download, build, install and run QTSS on linux boxes (dreamhost.com offers it as a one-click install), generate content for it, and go on your merry way without paying a single dime or making a single mention of QT anywhere. What’s your point here?
But you’re right, and even Apple wasn’t happy about that, so it proposed HTTP streaming last year as an open standard.
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StreamingMediaGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html
Oh, but it uses that horrid, horrid, h.264 codec. You know, the one that Flash supports?
Fact #1) Don’t flatter your self touting your predictions as fact. I don’t think it’s impossible that they give in if it turns out that they are giving the competitors too much advantage. If they don’t it will mean reducing their market share.
The lack of Flash is a very common complaint already, and it will only get worse when people see Flash running great on other devices with FP 10.1.
Fact #2) That you repeat the same prediction as two different points does not make it more true.
Fact #3) That’s not the impression I get from reading reviews and users opinions. It surely one of the most common complaints about iPhone and iPad. And so far they have not had much reason to be upset since Flash support for mobile devices have been limited, but that is about to change.
Fact #4) Adobe could have brought out a non-lite version of Flash four years ago, the problem is that phones could not handle Flash developed to be used on desktops back then. Now the CPU’s in the latest devices can handle most applications and games, and Adobe is targeting only devices with those CPU’s with 10.1 to ensure that it results in a good user experience.
And it’s in the very nature of being an OS developer to depend on developers and having to cooperate with them, and crying about the fact that you are under the mercy of developers just means your in the wrong business. If they want full control they should have never allowed 3rd party apps of any sort.
To me it seems like Steve want to have the cake and eat it. He wants apps for his platform because they generate more sales, but at the same time he wants complete control over the platform.
@ God of Biscuits
“And why doesn’t Adobe just push THIS as the technology for getting apps onto the iPhone instead of their awful idea of a metacompiler for Flash-to-iPhone-”native” apps?”
Because they have a technology that can do a lot more than HTML5, and that is accessible for users right now, while serious deployment of HTML5 applications is still a dream?
“Hugo, you rail on and on about the supposed lack of openness of QT streaming server, but is there such a thing as a Flash streaming server that’s 100% without license whatever? Implementation of a server AND the licenses for it?”
http://osflash.org/red5
@Leo
“By replacing Flash with HTML5 you are replacing a technology which is license free and open to a technology which does require licensing from Apple.”
So Adobe is using h.264 codec in flv without paying any license fee to Apple ? I don’t think so. No matter what, Apple (and the 25 others) get their cuts I think. And regarding the supposely “secret API”, QuickTime IS an API and *I* can write an app that plays h.264 with hardware acceleration. Adobe can’t and blame Apple, common, this is just 2 businesses that need each other and are arm wrestling for their own interests.
“With HTML5 that is not the case, since I need a license from Apple to render the graphics.”
euh, that is news to me! Does Mozilla and Microsoft (IE9) have a licenses for their implementation? If I write javascript that draw in a canvas, I need a license? Where do I ask for mime?
More seriously, do you have a more recent source than “email from March 14, 2007″ on this? The canvas API was introduced in the WebKit to suit Dashbaord widget rendering in Mac OS X 10.4. It was then standadised and as part of this w3c actually *changed* the API and many widgets were broken when Apple updated it in Mac OS X 10.5. This change was obviously not in Apple or Apple’s customers best interest. So the “Apple wants more control than Adobe” mentality just elude me in that *specific* case. Yeah yeah, I know of all the other cases like AppStore lock-in, etc, let’s discuss that some other place.
@Hugo
“…adobe does generate HTML5 hmmm lousy homework Martin ?”
Interresting, actually, I was saying that exactly because I read this before and think they should really go for that. There is no good fully integrated tools for all this new technologies and that is one reason that Flash is still relevant. But yeah, that puts Adobe in a weird position I guess, competing with itself…
@Martin
“So Adobe is using h.264 codec in flv without paying any license fee to Apple ?”
No, they are paying to MPEGLA, but that was not the point.
If you want to play h.264 you depend on using licensed technology regardless of what container format you wrap it in.
But you do not depend on licensed technology to render graphics with Flash, but with HTML% you do.
“And regarding the supposely “secret API”, QuickTime IS an API and *I* can write an app that plays h.264 with hardware acceleration.”
Native applications is a different matter.
But as I understand it no 3rd party applications support hardware acceleration in OSX, only Quicktime X.
Am I misinformed, or is it just that no 3rd party bothered with it?
“euh, that is news to me! Does Mozilla and Microsoft (IE9) have a licenses for their implementation? If I write javascript that draw in a canvas, I need a license? Where do I ask for mime?”
I’m not certain how the licensing procedure works. But you certainly do not need a license to develop or deploy applications built with HTML5, and for browser developers the license is royalty-free.
So right now it does not matter that much in practice for a developer, but the fact that Apple did not donate the technology looks very bad. Why do they retain IP-rights if they don’t want to use them to exert power or profit from?
“More seriously, do you have a more recent source than “email from March 14, 2007? on this?”
If you look the sources in the Wiki you find a link to W3C showing current disclosures for HTML5:
http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/40318/status#current-disclosures
“But yeah, that puts Adobe in a weird position I guess, competing with itself…”
I think they are smart enough to understand that the web will not be dominated by a single technology. They have it as a core principle of their business to offer ways to create for different technologies and platforms and it’s not a threat to their business if people start using HTML5 for some tasks. And anyone thinking HTML5 will be able to completely replace Flash is either delusional or clueless about the technology.
“But as I understand it no 3rd party applications support hardware acceleration in OSX, only Quicktime X. Am I misinformed, or is it just that no 3rd party bothered with it?”
I think you are misinformed. But I’ll double check this weekend. I haven’t done any quicktime code for a while.
@ Leo,
I’m telling you, remember when Steve Jobs came in and decided the Mac clones were “parasites?” I’m getting the same vibes here. Clones were history. And remember when Microsoft whined and moaned about Apple not letting WMV on iPods even though they were perfectly capable, technologically speaking, of playing WMA files. And remember when Real wanted to be a part of the iPod ecosystem? And then Palm? And everybody gnashed their teeth at mean ol’ Apple for being so “closed.”
Beyond the technical issues of getting Flash optimized for a mobile platform, Steve Jobs has clearly decided that it is a very bad strategic decision to let Flash in on the 85 million user iPhone/iPod touch ecosystem. Sure I’m making a prediction, but my prediction is based on Apple’s recent history and Job’s documented statements concerning Flash to Apple employees, publishers, stockholders and the SDK agreement. Your predictions seemed to be based only on the possibility that Flash might become a force in the mobile space on other platforms, and then Apple will “see the light” but not on anything Apple has said or done, ever.
The only way I see Flash ever being remotely considered by Apple is if it were opened sourced, so that Apple could tweak Flash whenever it wanted and not wait on Adobe. Apple has repeatedly shown that they would rather have smaller market share and be in complete control of their own destiny than be at the mercy of a third party.
@synthmeister
Agreed that allowing Flash is not something Apple are considering right now.
But the position of having a closed ecosystem depends on having a large market share, and if that share crumbles very few will bother to develop specifically for the iPhone when they can target other platforms much easier without being under the mercy of Apple in the app store.
Basically their hand looks strong now, and they are betting to protect it. But with so many strong players involved it’s far from certain that it’s not a misplaced bet.
My radar tells me that Apple will loose it’s dominance in the smartphone market. iPhone is loosing it’s trendy appeal somewhat, and Android is growing very quickly. And FP 10.1 will certainly be an a reason for a lot of people to decide for other platforms than iOS.
And if Apple wanted the source for the Flash Player they could become part of the Open Screen Project, but it seems pretty clear that their motivation is not performance but keeping their ecosystem closed.
Exactly, no one knows for sure what compelling SJ to do what he does. Maybe it’s a grudge from the 90s, maybe he’s just a control freak, maybe there are future plans Apple already has in the works, and Apple is laying the groundwork for those plans right now. My personal feeling is that it is a combination of all three scenarios and maybe some scenarios no one outside of Apple leadership knows about.
As far as the iPhone already losing some of its appeal, I’d agree with that but only because we’re in the last quarter before the next iPhone upgrade and by all accounts, this one will be a significant hardware upgrade, bringing the iPhone back to the forefront, especially with OS 4.0. There are also strong rumors that a Verizon iPhone will be out by the end of the year, and although I”m a little skeptical, but that event would be significant for iPhone marketshare.
And just look at this article:
“This week Apple confined developers to a specific set of tools (XCode),” Steve Cheney blogs for steve’s blog. “A lot of people think this is to kill Adobe Flash. Sure, that is a tactical reason, but there are much broader strategic reasons. By telling developers to move to XCode tools, Apple is setting the stage to potentially switch architectures.”
“History often repeats itself: In 2003, Apple advised developers to switch to XCode tools,” Cheney writes. “This was not a coincidental move—2 years later Apple moved to Intel across its entire Mac line. Developers who complied could simply press a button and applications would run natively (full performance) on new Intel Macs.”
“Now consider this – Apple may have already switched without people knowing. Here’s an anecdote – the innards of Apple’s A4 (powers the iPad) have been speculated ad nauseum by experts, but the reality is no one knows what’s actually inside. This week, there was very surprising analysis that the A4’s die size far exceeds what it ‘should’ be (single core ARM Cortex A8 with a 64 bit memory bus and GPU).
“This analysis is not yet mainstream, but will add tremendous fuel to the fire that perhaps the A4 is NOT an ARM architecture,” Cheney writes. “In fact, it’s highly possible that the A4 is a dual core Power Architecture, which is what the PA Semi team worked with, prior to Apple buying them in 2007.”
“If this is indeed the case, then iPhone OS 4.0 would bring incredible speed improvements to the iPad, since it would no longer run applications on an ARM processor emulator,” Cheney writes. “Can you imagine if OS 4.0 improved the iPad’s speed by 50% on day 1? Apple would be heralded as a software God. But in order for these speed improvements to be realized, apps would need to be written in objective C—which is exactly what Apple is now telling developers to do.”
Cheney writes, “We will likely find out what’s really inside the A4 soon. But one thing is already clear: Apple is sowing the groundwork to make architecture changes seamless—developers will only need to flip a switch to give their apps blazing, native performance…
Interesting points.
Compared to MS, Apple tends to often make drastic changes with no regard to backwards compatibility, and while that is frustrating for developers it makes it a lot easier keep the platform up to date.
And when it comes to mobile devices they are replaced very often, meaning that a lot of people will just get a new phone if they want to have the latest OS and features.
The problem is the 3rd party apps, which will break if you you don’t maintain backwards compatibility. Being in control of the dev tools they can plan ahead to minimize the risk of that happening.
But the crux here is not if it makes any sense, and if it can make life easier for Apple.
Sure, it makes life easier for Apple, but it makes it harder for companies and developers wanting to reach out to an audience, and it makes it harder for consumers with a fragmented proprietary market.
Again, it’s a case of wanting the cake and eating it.
People want apps, and they don’t want them to break with each update to the OS.
Hence Apple needs apps to sell devices to people.
Apple wants to be very secretive about future updates, which means they will not let 3rd parties like Adobe know in advance about those changes so they can update their compiler. And Apple don’t want to make the effort needed to assure backwards compatibility.
If they want long term success for the platform I think they need to spend the effort on assuring a reasonable degree of backwards compatibility as well as cooperate with 3rd parties.
Controlling everything from development to distribution is another approach, but it’s not one that makes the platform very attractive to neither investors, companies or developers.
It only works if you have a very substantial market share, in which case it can be worth taking the risk of being at the mercy of Apple.
“The only way I see Flash ever being remotely considered by Apple is if it were opened sourced, so that Apple could tweak Flash whenever it wanted and not wait on Adobe.”
http://www.openscreenproject.org/
Flash is Open Source if you are a company. And you can build your player from scratch anyway, swf is open.
Apple just don’t want to, it’s company full of lies (from my 20 years of IT experince).
How nice it is to see some common sense in the blogosphere. Never fails to amaze me the narrow minded self-defeating loyalty so endemic to the Apple fanboy crowd. It’s truly amazing. They still haven’t figured out that Jobs is a conniving expert capitalist for which there is no equal, and nothing more. I want to just scream at them: YOUR UNWAVERING APPLE-SUPPORT IS SELF-DEFEATING. But religion is religion, you can’t convince them against their will.
This is FUD. You removed the most relevant line from your quote: “Apple later disclosed the patents under the W3C’s royalty-free patent licensing terms.” Why did you cut that line out?
See–in 2007, HTML5 was the work of WHAT-WG, a group *unrelated* to W3C. WHAT-WG did not have a policy on patent licensing. But later, WHAT-WG started working with W3C, which *does* have a patent policy. And now Apple does adhere to that policy with respect to Canvas, just as they said they would.
Ask Mozilla if Canvas is Apple proprietary. Ask Opera if Canvas is Apple proprietary. Ask anybody who actually knows what the hell is going on with HTML5. They will tell you that you’re wrong.
@Nick
You seem to be confusing free as in beer with free as in speech. The fact that you don’t need to pay a fee to use the canvas does not make the canvas open.
Say I want to develop a “canvas 2.0″ with some changes and added features.
Would the W3C license allow me to do that?
As a layman, looking at the W3C terms it doesn’t seem like it.
Why do you think Apple does not donate the canvas, rather than licensing it?
If it’s the same thing as you seems to claim, wouldn’t it look better when trying to make them self look like proponents of open standards?
Adobe is an Open Company. Apple is closed everybody knows that. Apple is one evil company.
Well to further Apple’s proprietary control over these technologies, they’ve taken out the invalid patent of converting JavaScript into any intermediate representation:
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100153929
In this case they quote LLVM IR (no surprises given they have been contributing to this open source project even though they are going to seal off the project with these sorts of patents). Completely invalid as they are just patenting the whole UCSD p-System.
Any JavaScript frontend for generating IR would violate this patent (they even mention LLVM IR explicitly in this patent). The patent harms anyone considering using LLVM as an intermediate between JavaScript and back-end machine specific executables.
Given this is one of the prime means of accelerating their HTML5+JavaScript efforts it seems they are just as much about empire building as Adobe’s proprietary efforts (i.e. you can’t call Apple highminded in this discussion … just more attempts at accumulating market power).
You’ve gotta bi kidding, saying that Flash is open ?! Have you tried to get a legal description of _anything_ connected with Flash from Adobe? I’ve tried – a several years ago, indeed. After several step registration, with steps among which I’ve had to testify that I’m not going to use the documentation for creating a SWF player (!!) I’ve received a link to download SWF format description, shortly after it became outdated and there were NONE for the new version.
Not even speaking for FLA description. I’ve liked Flash a lot – it had a great potential for making web AND desktop applications much more user-friendly, interactive and intuitive. It had the potential of bringing the interactivity we have now on iPhone (and similar) several years before iPhone appeared. But they failed. They wanted to suck the market as much as possible making no real efforts in developing the technology and like each company doing so they got f*** and I’m happy with that.
Why didn’t they make a decent, hardware accelerated SWF player for all platforms?
Why didn’t they make at least an open API so that SWFs can be embedded and integrated with something else?
Why didn’t they opened the SWF standard so someone else can write a fast player if they can’t do so?
HTML5 is open, as open as every other standard on the web – it has a absolutely free, available description on the web – free of any registrations too. Just like HTML, SVG, XML, etc. I still think that Flash has something very advantageous in its platform – the development GUI, but I’m pretty sure that Adobe’s pinheads won’t make any effort and will loose completely, which is a pretty normal consequence in the market.
Hi Ivan, I went through the same with Adobe. But they changed the restrictions not long ago (a year, or so). You can now freely download the spec and make a swf player. They were probably feeling the pressure on their closed ecosystem and change it just enough, kind of like Microsoft now doing opensource. Of course, because it still a closed development your player would always be playing catch up with Adobe’s one. I agree swf should be open like PDF is now. Would be fun to see Apple’s reaction to that!