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Graphics Software The Internet

Macromedia: More FUD About SVG 392

Posted by timothy from the incentive-examination dept.
Robin Berjon writes "Macromedia recently announced that its latest version of Flash Lite (a limited Flash for mobile devices) was to support SVG Tiny 1.1, and support it fully (though no one has yet been able to verify that assertion). For a moment, the Web community wondered if they might be playing nice at last, after yielding to massive pressure from the mobile market to support W3C and 3GPP standards, or if they simply meant to use SVG as a trojan to get Flash into mobile devices. An article freshly published on Macromedia's web site clearly makes the case that they're after the latter, speading as much FUD as possible along the way. Thankfully, Antoine Quint decided to respond in a brief O'Reilly Net article in which he debunks Macromedia's marketing lies one by one, and expands on the wondrous features of SVG Tiny 1.1 and the shortly upcoming SVG Tiny 1.2 that make people drool before their mobile phones. "
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Macromedia: More FUD About SVG More

Macromedia: More FUD About SVG

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  • "debunks Macromedia's marketing lies" (Score:4, Funny)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:42PM (#9754828)
    Lies filled with bunk are the worst lies of all.
  • Flashturbators those Macromedia people are. We'd much rather drool before SVG on our mobile phones.

    Second thoughts, euuw ...
    • Yeah, even though SVG is incapable of half the stuff Flash can do and isn't really what anyone should be comparing it with.
      • Flash includes vector graphics (so they're scalable to different size screens). It also includes a lot of other multimedia libraries, like video, MP3 (and othre format) audio, sprites, and full event models for all objects. Its ActionScript 2, a complete logical object programming language, is (open standard) ECMA-script compliant. Its cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) VM is more stable and predictable than Java (on multimedia clients), as well as more widely installed (for targetting as a product develo

  • Flash Lite (Score:3, Insightful)

    by corngrower ( 738661 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:46PM (#9754872) Journal
    Tell me more so I know how to keep it off my systems.

  • Gosh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trillan ( 597339 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:46PM (#9754874) Homepage Journal

    For a so-called debunking, there's an awful lot of "Yes, this is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story" in the article. Quint's article reads like a panic attack waiting for a problem.

    • Indeed (Score:2, Troll)

      by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 )
      A grammer error in the opening line, a photo that makes the guy look like he's smoking crack, and a writing style that makes him sound like a disgruntled MACR ex-employee. FUD from Macromedia? I think I know where the real FUD is coming from here.

  • Who Needs Flash? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anomalous Canard ( 137695 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:47PM (#9754881)
    Most Flash content I've seen is ads or novelties. I've found very few sites where Flash contributes anytihng to the site.

    The last thing I want on my web enabled phone is crappy Flash content slowing my downloads even further.

    I went to an online commerce site where all the merchandise was viewable only in Flash animations. I saved some money that day and the website operator lost a sale.
    • I've managed to eliminate flash support from my version of Netscape. This was for the same reason you state. Most flash content is those very annoying ads. Flash slows the downloads as well. Tough nougies for those sites that expect my browser to support flash.
    • Most javascript content I've seen is for annoying popup ads and popunders, especially from porn sites that make it almost impossible to clear your screen without quitting the browser. Scarcely a day goes by when I don't get irritated by at least one popup, and popunders are just evil. Who needs javascript?

      And if it's Flash helping the content and functionality you want, go to www.broadmoor.com [broadmoor.com] and click 'reservations.' Show me a _single_ web technology that can do all of that without having to combine te

      • Re:Who Needs Flash? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mprx ( 82435 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:28PM (#9755190)
        Microscopic text (zoom is worthless here, fixed size page layout) and irritating animation is supposed to be an example of good use of Flash? Web pages are not supposed to look the same in all browsers. The text also can't be copied and pasted, and individual pages within the Flash can't be bookmarked. This site only illustrates why Flash sucks so bad.

        • Re:Who Needs Flash? (Score:5, Informative)

          by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:08PM (#9755858)
          "Microscopic text (zoom is worthless here, fixed size page layout) and irritating animation is supposed to be an example of good use of Flash?"

          Irritating animation , nope, that's no good example of Flash : Trying to add to one's experience of going to a certain website (for instance , a game site) is better achieved with Flash, than with a clean html site with some cool MIDI song underneath it :P

          "The text also can't be copied and pasted"

          Depends on what kind of text the designer uses : It is perfectly possible to have text selections within Flash documents.

          "Web pages are not supposed to look the same in all browsers"

          Ohwait, now we -aren't- looking for uniformity in browsers anymore ? What did I miss ?

          ", and individual pages within the Flash can't be bookmarked"

          Again, this would be a design choice of the webdesigner.

          "This site only illustrates why Flash sucks so bad."

          Then why haven't you started using some sort of Flashblock extension yet ?

          • "The text also can't be copied and pasted"

            Depends on what kind of text the designer uses : It is perfectly possible to have text selections within Flash documents.

            And why on earth should it even be possible for there to be any text on any computer system which cannot be selected? More importantly, why should that be the designer's decision, rather than mine?

            Ohwait, now we -aren't- looking for uniformity in browsers anymore ? What did I miss ?

            Um, apparently the part where "we" never started look

      • Broadmoor? They named a hotel after Britain's most famous maximum security hospital for the criminally insane [wikipedia.org]?

        With that kind of gift for marketing, no wonder they use Flash on their web site.

        Maybe next they can start the Love Canal Motel and make it so you can only book if you have ActiveX turned on.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • And if it's Flash helping the content and functionality you want, go to www.broadmoor.com [broadmoor.com] and click 'reservations.' Show me a _single_ web technology that can do all of that without having to combine ten other technologies and looking the same in all browsers.

        Java applet. That wasn't so hard, was it?

      • Yep, I agree: ecmascript is also pretty thoroughly pointless, and accomplishes much much more evil than good. That's why I generally have it disabled, or use a browser which doesn't support it in the first place.

        And since when is looking the same in all browsers a feature? In fact, isn't that pretty contrary to the entire point of the Web, which allows <strong> on my system to mean something entirely different than <strong> on yours?

        I'd say that any design which only works when things look pre
    • People who do usefull things [xical.org] in Flash?

    • Re:Who Needs Flash? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) *
      Believe it or not, I don't need flash either. I've gone on rants here before about it and I think it still sucks. In fact, I disable ALL plugins by default, and only load them when I get a pretty much blank page and I'm for some reason, interested in the java or flash that they might have.

      I think that all plugins are evil for browsers. Back in the damned plugin craze of the mid to late 90's that sucked. Every site had their own cute plugin that you had to install. Ha! Remember VRML [vrmlsite.com]? Havn't seen that
    • My two-year-old daughter needs Flash. Teletubbies games [pbs.org] in DHTML would be pretty crappy...
    • (i see where you are coming from : I block my own flashmovies with firefox though : That said :)

      Besides thinking of the flash contributing to usabilities/importances to sites : I also don't think you should underestimate how much of an impact the releases of Flash had on the amateur cartoon makers and other visual artists.

      Stuff that first would have taken weeks for an animator to do, now can be done (fairly easy) within hours in Flash.

  • NIV (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Queer Boy ( 451309 ) <<dragon.76> <at> <mac.com>> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:48PM (#9754894)
    Macromedia has an EXTREME case of non-invented-here that they have been fighting for YEARS. They are desperately trying to be Microsoft by locking people into their file formats, when they are late to market on abilities. Problem as I see it is that they don't realise their tools are wonderful and that's the reason to use Macromedia. Everything Director does can be done in QuickTime and was done in QuickTime BEFORE Director came out, it's just that the Director tool is so good.

    If they would just realise people would use their products to create QuickTime/SVG over Director/Shockwave, they would be OK.

    Macromedia has never been a first to market company, they just create great tools.

    • Re:NIV (Score:4, Informative)

      by obi ( 118631 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:57PM (#9755434)
      I don't agree. They've often tried to use existing languages/techniques for flash. Examples: they were probably one of the first to use the new ecmascript 4 in a major product. They could've rolled their own language, but they picked something familiar, and kept up to date with it. I hear the format they use for Flex is based on Mozilla's XUL. And their Flash VM (the plugin) is really quite good.

      Now, as someone who has to use the tools quite often, I absolutely HATE Flash MX. It's buggy, bloated, the code editor sucks, FLA files aren't really portable, it crashes often, and it slows you down all the time (crap usability).

      I wish I had a compiler that would take some XML files for graphics (a subset of SVG maybe?) and some .as files, and would generate an SWF.

      Flex is a bit like that, but it's not exactly there yet. And it's incredibly expensive.

      • Re:NIV (Score:3, Insightful)

        by joshmccormack ( 75838 )
        Using existing languages and standards within your product reduces development costs (of the application), gets users (of the programs) up and running fast, and makes companies seem like they play nice.

        This issue is more about source files, players, and output formats. The argument is that Macromedia doesn't want to make the best editor for a standard file format - they want to make a ubiquitous file format that they own, and crush others.
    • Karma is an angry black woman in a beat up Plymouth Reliant with two flat tires that only turns left.

      is a bit offensive, don't you think?
      • is a bit offensive, don't you think?

        It's a stolen quote from my friend Kwame's e-mail sig.

        The rest goes, "You may think she missed you this time, but next time around the block she'll take out you and two of your friends." but slashdot limits sigs.

    • > Everything Director does can be done in QuickTime and was done in QuickTime BEFORE Director came out

      Sorry to be rude but you're talking out your *ss here.

      QuickTime didn't add any sort of interactive scripting capabilities until *well* after Director was in its seventh (IIRC) version.

      And unless QuickTime added things like bitmap blitting (the most obvious difference I know of) I don't think that it can even do the same things that Director can.

      I shudder to think about trying to build projects like
    • Who is this "Karma" who you're complaining about?

  • Macromedia's great asset (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:48PM (#9754895)
    Nothing beats a great product naming scheme for grabbing mindshare. Today they launch Flash Lite, but they still have the following absolutely smashing names at their disposal:

    - Flash Flood
    - Flash Gordon
    - Flash Card ...

  • Is there a Flash editor/creator yet? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:53PM (#9754939) Homepage
    Is there a Flash Animation editor for Linux yet? I don't mean stuff that'll save to SWF like the drawing tool for OpenOffice or sodipodi. I'm talking about stuff that'll make animations, deal with actionscripting, and support embedded sounds.

    It seems a natural progression from the projects that are creating libraries to be able to do such things. Is it ming? I don't remember.

    I know the whole "Flash Sucks" thing and the "Macromedia is evil" thing but there are uses for it in one form or another..especially for artsy/multimedia-based projects. Are there any Open Source projects out there that can substitute for Flash MX or will WINE still be the only way to get through?
    • Sorry dude, there's not much market to gain with that. Every flash developer I know uses a mac. SWF is an open format, so perhaps, yes, some good coders could write the app you're looking for but I don't think there's much demand for it.

  • Ah Yes (Score:5, Informative)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @07:54PM (#9754949)
    Summary:

    "Macromedia must be lying because they make Flash and we all hate Flash because someone used it for a banner ad."

    No matter what play on words and rewrite of definitions Macromedia folks can come up with, Flash Lite is not standard.

    Macromedia Flash is standard, whether "Flash Lite" is or isn't. There are thousands of Flash developers and hundreds of millions of Flash player installations. Flash MX managed to accomplish what no other platform has: cross-platform web multimedia with a WORKING AUTHORING APPLICATION and a WORKING PLAYER at the SAME TIME.

    Just because Macromedia is making money doesn't make everything they say FUD. They make the best web development tools in the business, period. They don't have to support open standards, but they are supporting SVG, and Fireworks+Flash have the best commercial support for PNG on the market. These are good things(tm). The anti-Macromedia-because-they-make-Flash thing is getting REALLY old.

    • Re:Ah Yes (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rzbx ( 236929 ) <slashdot@rzb x . o rg> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:14PM (#9755091) Homepage
      "They make the best web development tools in the business, period."

      They have the best known throughout most of the world tools for their purpose, but that does not make them the best necessarily. Btw, who is to say they will continue making such "great" software? A business has no interest in progress unless they have no choice. Business-wise, they are what Microsoft is. They sell software. The internet is leaning the business world toward services, not sale of software. Any company that resists this is going to be up against a lot of pressure. This pressure exists everywhere, from end users that don't want to pay over and over to "upgrade" their product, to the large corporations that wish to lower their TCO. One can argue all they want about software as a "shrink wrapped" product all they want, but it doesn't change what is happening. Macromedia is going to be up against some very stiff competition. What keeps them alive is interesting in a way. They have a large user base for starters. They offered what people wanted at the time and quickly took control over a nice piece of the market. They exist because just like the MS Windows OS, people are stuck with it. There are many flash sites. They are not exactly a standard, they are simply popular. When people say standard, they generally talk about a technology that is NOT controlled by one company. A standard is agreed upon and used througout the world by many. Flash is simply a "popular" (depends on how you define popular too) technology being used by many, in many cases forcefully(not physically, etc. don't twist what I say please).
    • Nice summery. It's a shame the article itself has nothing to do with banner ads specifically or how either technology is used in general. Then there's all that techno-mumble-jumble about features are or are not present in said technologies. You missed that too. But otherwise, spot on. Other than, you know... the facts. But we all know that those just get in the way.
  • SVG really is a great standard, and is incorporated into so many good standards-based products.

    I'm not against Macromedia by any stretch of the imagination, but SVG really is a breakthrough. I look forward to a day when bitmap graphics are only needed for photographic representations on web sites.

  • Hmm, let me see:

    Flash: Widely supported, good tool set, easy to use, looks good, performance varies but is generally acceptable if the artist didn't go massivly nuts.

    SVG: Slow as hell no matter how fast your machine is, poor support, I /GUESS/ there is a tool set out there, but who in their right mind would want to use it?

    Honestly, I think the SVG toolset is larger than the Flash toolset, but Flash, umm, well, works.

    And there is the difference folks. Flash and Shockwave are easy to install, frequentl
    • Next time, RTFA.

      They're talking about SVG-Tiny. This is a spec you cannot implement half-heartedly. You must implement the entire thing or go home. There are plenty of cellphone vendors waiting in the wings to push this out.

    • Re:SVG is so good how now? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Hibernator ( 307430 ) * on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:29PM (#9755633)
      Flash: Widely supported,

      Not on cell phones

      easy to use

      Like hell. Converting SQL database queries to SVG is trivial with existing free tools. Converting anyone else's data to Flash is a major pain and requires that you give big sacks of cash to Macromedia for proprietary server-side tools.

      performance varies but is generally acceptable if the artist didn't go massivly nuts.

      The exact same thing can be said of SVG, especially with the new implementations on cell phones.

      SVG: Slow as hell no matter how fast your machine is, poor support, I /GUESS/ there is a tool set out there, but who in their right mind would want to use it?

      You're living in the past. SVG Tiny renders blazingly fast on the new cell phones that use it, and there are lots of great tools out there.

      Flash and Shockwave are easy to install, frequently updated...

      That's not a virtue on cell phones and other smart small devices, which is where the future is at.

  • Well, of COURSE it's a trojan... so? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mad.frog ( 525085 ) <steven@cr[ ]link.com ['ink' in gap]> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:02PM (#9755019)
    Yeah, it's a "trojan", but you say that like it's a bad thing.

    Look, a lot of phone makers want SVG-Tiny support on their phone. Macromedia wants to put Flash Lite on a lot of phones. This is an obvious way to make that happen.

    But geez, there's no big conspiracy to get proprietary stuff on phones just to Stick It To You Open Source guys... we just have a technical solution that we happen to think is pretty damn good, that will suit the mobile market well. So what if it's proprietary? I defy you to show be ONE SINGLE PHONE in existence that runs on Open Source software; phone makers seem to be pretty happy with using whatever will get the job done, without getting all religious about this.

    Honestly, I read Slashdot daily, but I'll never understand the peculiar Flash-Is-Evil bias. Yes, there are annoying ads that use it. There are also annoying ads that use animated GIF, and even HTML. It's just a tool, folks, and like the song says, every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

    And for the expected flood of responses saying, "You can do this with SVG+DHTML+SMIL+etc,etc"... bollocks. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's practical.

    Look: 98% of interesting interactive animated stuff on the Web is done using Flash rather than that something else. I submit to you that this is not a coincidence! Artists aren't stupid, and they sure as hell aren't going to spend hundreds of dollars on Flash if there really was a superior (or even comparable) solution available for free.

    I'll tell you what: why don't you go off and write a nice, free authoring tool for SVG that is good enough for the Homestar guys to completely replace all those Strong Bad Emails with. (I will, of course, expect the final result needs to be just as bandwidth- and processor-efficient as Flash.) Until then, please, give it a rest.

    (Disclaimer: I work for Macromedia (though not related to the Flash Lite effort in any way), so I expect to be ignored or dramatically modded down...)

    • Re:Well, of COURSE it's a trojan... so? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by boomgopher ( 627124 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:22PM (#9755150) Journal
      Honestly, I read Slashdot daily, but I'll never understand the peculiar Flash-Is-Evil bias. Yes, there are annoying ads that use it. There are also annoying ads that use animated GIF, and even HTML

      It's not the ads I bitch about, that's actually an appropriate application IMHO. It's lame ass sites like Ray-Ban's [rayban.com] where Flash is used as a replacement for HTML.
      Especially when there's very little here that needed Flash, as in this case. Site-as-snazzy applet-thing should die a painful death.

    • "I defy you to show be ONE SINGLE PHONE in existence that runs on Open Source software; phone makers seem to be pretty happy with using whatever will get the job done, without getting all religious about this."

      Here's a page that lists several such phones [linuxdevices.com], in various stages of availability from Now to In-Development.

      Re: the "Flash is evil" meme, well, I don't find it evil. I just like graphics formats (including creation tools) to have at least some free / open-source equivalent, so there's some chance of
    • Nerds are suspicious of anything (incl. people) good looking.

      (Disclaimer: I am a geek, and very good looking. Love me for my mind; don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful!)

    • Re:Well, of COURSE it's a trojan... so? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nothings ( 597917 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @01:01AM (#9756805) Homepage
      Yeah, I have to give Macromedia props on Flash. Bitching about ads or other abuses is insane; if there was some popular open source Flash-like thing, that would be getting equivalently abused. Flash is small, it works, and it's a lot better through than most "web standards".

      An example of that last thing: stuff I access off the web is "untrusted content". Good window managers understand that as much as possible, the user (not the app) should be in control of the windows and the window location on the desktop. The same is true in the browser: the status line is for the user; the buttons are for the user. HTML and javascript goes crazy with allowing opening of new windows without status bars, without scrollbars (even when the client can detect that a scrollbar is needed anyway, most don't provide one if the code requested none), etc. See those dopey "vibrate your window" javascript apps. Flash can't do this; the flash application is sandboxed not in terms of disk, but in terms of screen real estate. Here you go; here's your client space. This has been a mess for years with javascript; w3c has sided with a "trust the author" paradigm with CSS, and browsers (e.g. Firefox) still don't sensibly override all of it (e.g. with needed scrollbars); whereas Flash picked a "safe" model from day one and hasn't changed it.

  • Found this entry on a blog at svg.org, a nice look at the shortcomings of Macromedia Flex's SVG coverage [svg.org]. Odd timing (Posted July 1), but it fits.

  • Uh... when will OSS support SVG for real? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CajunArson ( 465943 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:08PM (#9755054) Journal
    OK, so Macromedia makes a viewer for SVG but they have a preference for their own technololgy. That's like attacking OpenOffice for making a system that can read MS Word documents while encouraging its own document format. Right now Macromedia appears to have done a hell of a lot more to support SVG by making a viewer for it than all of OSS who talks about SVG all day long but I have yet to see a single OSS utility to employ SVG beyond a couple of gimmicky static images. So should we say that open source developers are trying to kill SVG??

  • Ok, quit the stupid Flash bashing allready. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:14PM (#9755089)
    No doubt, MM is a marketing driven company. And one of the rare profitable ones in the pure software business. And Macromedias Flash IDE sucks. It's near unusable for professional large scale developement of flash apps. Like almost every IDE they offer.
    But nevertheless Flash is the most widespread professional rich media plattform. And it's a good one too.
    The recent release of flash's PL ActionScript (V 2) has even has stepped on to a professional level with solid oop and error handling very simular to Java.
    There are even serious OSS projects developing on it. Xical [xical.org] comes to mind as one.
    So quit the flash bashing. There are flash sites that suck a lot. That's because every Idiot can grab a ripped Flash IDE and start clicking some crap together. Ok, I get that. But that doesn't mean Flash is bad. Just like bad Java apps won't make a bad java platform. Keep that in mind before you start ranting on what you don't know whoot about.
    • [My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]

      error handling very simular to Java

      I would say "error handling very similar to Java". I never heard a proper English word called "simular", although I might make one up to mean "having the quality of sameness", akin to "simultaneous" or "simulation".
  • Anyone who has been checking out the latest developments by rasterman (enlightenment) may be aware of the upcoming 'edje' library, which appears to be quite promising for desktop, as well as embedded applications, phones, wonderapps and such.

    http://www.enlightenment.org/pages/systems.html

    "Edje is one of the more unique parts of EFL, combining many things that Shockwave / FLASH can do with some things it can't, but instead of being designed as a player, it is designed as a slave library to be used by an

  • Gimme a break (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DamnYankee ( 18417 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:25PM (#9755173) Homepage
    Since when have Slashdot articles become flamebait? Come on guys - show some editorial restraint!

    I am not a fan of Macromedia one way or the other but gimme a break. Flash has not taken over anything. It is just one of many gimmicks used to make web sites (and now mobile sites) "flashier".

    Perhaps Slashdot's ire might better be spent on ActiveX controls or those who coopt Javascript? Flash is a tempest in a teapot (though the headline is definitely an attention getter :-) ).

  • It's about time.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gtshafted ( 580114 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:29PM (#9755201)
    ... that Flash is on the front page of Slashdot again

    lately I've been hearing alot about this horrible upcoming MS thing called XAML [xaml.net] - and (quoting a nameless slashdotter) how it's akin to VB crack for its power and ease of use.

    I could be wrong, but I think many people have overlooked that the kind of pervasive scary crap is already here, and it has been here for awhile now.
    While I love Java and use it heavily, I admit that Flash is more ubiquitious it runs on almost every major OS and browser. Delivers more on the write once run anywhere.
    -Flash is extremely fast and easy to install. it's literally point and click. I don't even think the player is even a 1mb...
    -Flash is extremely easy to learn and use: my female, graphic designer cousin who hates anything "technical and dorky" makes flash apps all the time; hell most of flash dev is visual drag and drop
    -Flash is getting more powerful by the minute: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro/ development/ [macromedia.com]
    http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro/ video/ [macromedia.com]
    http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/ [macromedia.com]

  • What's FUD? all i can think of is"fudged up data"...Am i even on the right track? it would help my future reading of /.

  • Quit picking on Macromedia. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:23PM (#9755599) Homepage Journal
    Quit picking on Macromedia. If they can get Flash onto every device in the known universe, more power to them: at least Flash does not try to lock you into a single operating system. The alternative to Flash is the next crop of Microsoft lockware (you think they're going to do XAML/Avalon plugins for Linux or Mac?).

    I'll take Flash over the alternatives any day, thank you. And besides, the Flash format is openly documented [openswf.org]. What more could you want?

  • svg is... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sithgunner ( 529690 )
    Since no one mentions it everytime, I'll paste what's significant about SVG I commneted a while ago on slashdot.
    Sure flash works, is deployed in wider audience, but simply lacks the following stuff.

    From what I understand, SVG is superior to flash because,

    1. Not only human, but machines(web robots etc) can read information on graphical content of a web page if SVG is used, because the file is presented in a human readable file as xml text file, opposed to flash delivered in binary format which you can onl

  • There seems to be a hint of suprise in the submission.

    Why? This is Macromedia. Furthermore it's proprietary. What did you expect, a warm fuzzy feeling?
  • My phone can't even display HTML 3.2 legibly [dnalounge.com], why in the world would I want it to be able to run Flash or a Flash clone?

    "The problem for your problem!"

  • Recent additions to the Flash Actionscript Language make it ideal for an application development platform, particularly its database, HTTP, and XML connectivity. There are simply so many developers out there who know Actionscript that it makes sense to support the system on cell phones. Existing cell phone development tools (particularly BREW) are not only difficult to create simple applications for, but they're intense on the processor and therefore battery life. Flash is incredibly light weight in compari

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