Re: Flash

Aral Balkan wrote:
> I have been reading some of the messages on here from companies and
> individuals who apparently do not see any implications of this verdict. I
> was wondering if anyone here uses Flash?
> 
> As someone who runs a small business making web application front-ends in
> Flash, this ruling has the potential to hurt us terribly, if not completely
> shut down the business.
> 
> Sure, we could return to making application front ends in DHTML and
> Javascript but that seems as appealing to us as would a return to the
> Victorian era (I had to stop myself from saying "stone age.")

As a former Flash user, I understand your concerns. However, the case of Flash 
seems less pressing to me. Flash is a neat authoring tool, that has the ability 
to save to several formats (primarily SWF as of now, but also for instance 
Quicktime). Due to its curent dominant use of SWF, it is threatened by the 
plugin issue. However, the authoring tool and its primary output format are not 
coupled together, and switching its output to, say, SVG would allow developers 
to embed their animations and applications directly within the pages they serve, 
thus nullifying the plugin issue. Supporting both while end-users upgrade would 
probably not be a problem.

It would be a slightly bold move, but better that than see Macromedia lock 
themselves up in their own proprietary format!

-- 
Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@expway.fr>
Research Engineer, Expway        http://expway.fr/
7FC0 6F5F D864 EFB8 08CE  8E74 58E6 D5DB 4889 2488

Received on Sunday, 31 August 2003 13:01:47 UTC