Adobe Flash 10.1 + AIR 2.0 on the XO

[Carlos Nazareno]

Hi guys.

I know most people here prefer free as in Libre as opposed to free as
in beer, but what do you think of coordinating with Adobe to get Flash
10.1 + AIR 2.0 on the XO?

Adobe already supports a lot of open-source initiatives and have
already open-sourced the Flex SDK which you can use to compile SWFs
using text files and a command line a la JDK (or in Windows, using an
open-source IDE like Flashdevelop (needs .NET runtime)).
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk

Flash's spec is open, but they cannot opensource the Flash Player or
AIR because they contain technologies which Adobe does not own but
pays licensing fees for.

With stuff like Youtube (using the camera to record a video, something
you cannot do with HTML5), UStream and games (which kids dig a lot),
the internet experience really isn't complete without Flash.

Moreover, the big difference is that with the Actionscript Virtual
Machine 2 which uses Actionscript 3, the speed difference from the
AVM1 (Actionscript 1/2 like GNASH) is 10x or more, which is very
important since we're talking about low-speed/power devices here.

Also, Flash Player 10.1 has been engineered for mobile devices so it
should run very efficiently on the XO 1.5 (you can only do so much
with the XO-1, but Flash 10 beats GNASH's performance on it
nonetheless).

Also (sorry John, Rob), Actionscript 2 is a dead technology which
needs to be put to rest (and there are few practical open source tools
to generate AS2/AVM1 SWFs). GNASH simply cannot catch up with the
features that are being implemented with each new release of Flash..

Also, Adobe is actively pushing Flash on as many devices as possible
via the Open Screen Project http://www.openscreenproject.org and I'm
sure they'd be more than happy to have Flash get bundled on the XO.

Also, Flash is the most commonly used toolset for building educational
apps. Not everyone has the skill or patience to programmatically
animate objects in e-learning applications. What I mean is that it's
very efficient.

What do you guys think?

-- 
carlos nazareno
http://twitter.com/object404
http://www.object404.com
--
interactive media specialist
zen graffiti studios
http://www.zengraffiti.com
--
"if you don't like the way the world is running,
then change it instead of just complaining."