digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

Adobe Makes API Available For Flash Player 9 On Linux

kaourantin.net — To enable Flash Player to adapt to Linux component variations, Adobe is providing default implementations of audio, secure sockets, and Unicode and making an API available for developers to adapt these areas to any particular Linux configuration. Adobe is delivering a support layer as an open-source dynamic library called flashsupport.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • cgriffin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Very, very intriguing. It is steps like these that will help proprietary companies and the open source community work well together.
    • shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17next up...... photoshop?
    • AhronZombi, on 10/12/2007, -23/+2hopefully enough proprietary company's will suck are community off like this and let everyone see who really matters
    • Nitrodist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17"hopefully enough proprietary company's will suck are community off like this and let everyone see who really matters"

      What???
    • bieber, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5Why should the free software community work together with corporations that don't care about our freedom, and only seek to make money off of us? If they really want to cooperate with our community, it's easy; all they have to do is release the sources. Until then, I'll pass.
    • Flamekebab, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11AhronZombi, try and make sense next time.
    • pozzoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"You really want OSS don't you? And you probably think that you can write better code than we can, don't you? ;-)"
    • pozzoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I don't know but... can companies like ATI and nvidia do something like this?

      I realize this is a whole different problem... but maybe they can?
    • revisrev, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3@bieber

      Awww, what the hell? Will you not be happy if they make money? Does them making money hurt you in some way? Money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of all progress. Before we had money the only way to get what you wanted were underhanded methods like stealing, or taking by force. Money is what has allowed society to evolve to the level that we have reached. It has also spurred innovation in every field. Free Software is great, and I'm a Linux user, but, there is nothing wrong with a company trying to make money.

      This situation here? Win win. They keep their source, and I can finally keep my Ubuntu on full time because my wife won't have to switch to Windows to enjoy the full MySpace experience. Boo the booers.
    • greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@pozzoe: nVidia does precisely this for the GPLed interface code for the kernel driver.
  • searayman, on 10/12/2007, -15/+1this is old news
  • AhronZombi, on 10/12/2007, -17/+3guess we set those jack asses straight
    • subgeniusd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4guess you forgot to take your meds again.
  • kyrre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I know we are the minority of a minority. But how about they release flash for GNU/Linux PPC? It should not be much more difficult than a simple recompile. Debian is able to recompile for at least 11 hardware platforms. Adobe could support PPC.

    Guess I will continue to use Gnash. (Which is fine)
  • WorldGroove, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5http://www.kaourantin.net/flashplayer/flashsupport.c

    When I was in school, every teacher I had told me never to use "goto" in C/C++. They said there was *never* a need for it; that anything could be accomplished by a well-written function. I find it very odd to see gotos in this code.
    • krumms, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Virtually every goto I could find (from a quick scan) were being used for error handling: this is actually a good use of goto (at least, it's as good as it gets :)). Use of goto in this manner relieves the programmer of the mental burden of trying to remember which variables need to be deallocated at each potential failure point.

      To give one case study, you would have seen a similar thing in the AST code for Python 2.5 before they started using arenas/pools (they moved to arenas due to reasons unrelated to goto), so don't go shooting down Adobe's code - what they're doing is actually pretty common. :)

      There's never a *need* for it if you want to be stubborn about it, but sometimes goto actually does make your code more maintainable.
    • Marthinus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@WorldGroove

      Also whenever a language does not support exceptions natively, gotos may help you out.
    • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"They said there was *never* a need for it"

      Never say "never". There are a few situations where a "goto" is a reasonable approach.
  • WaterSoul, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15So, it finally paid out to sign that Flash Petition for Linux years ago!

    Really nice, flash player 9 beta is working great here on my Gentoo Desktop and Firefox
  • bcswartz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11This move makes perfect sense. Adobe is moving to make Flash into a development platform for rich, interactive applications, so it's in their best interest to make it possible to run Flash on any flavor of Linux.
    • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"This move makes perfect sense."

      Yes, it makes sense in an upside down and backwards sort of way.

      Instead of writing your software to the operating system's API (which varies slightly from distro to distro); provide your own API and make the distro and browser vendors write to you. Brilliant --- if the vendors will play along. Sad in that such an odd and unusual approach is necessary to create software that will run on all the slightly incompatible distros in circulation.
    • greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Gentoo will most probably take advantage of this and slap a few new USE flags on the ebuild, provided they are allowed to distribute the new API files.
    • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If I were Adobe, I'd look at building my own specialized OS geared strictly toward Rich Internet Applications. Call it FlashOS or some such. Basically, it would consist of a minimal Linux with FireFox or other Flash enabled web browser as the *only* user interface. Then take it one step further and offer a Flash enabled thin client hardware appliance.
  • mike503, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0adobe wins big points here, at least in my opinion.

    creating a library and opening the APIs to something that a few months ago people claimed would never be available... good job adobe.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.