OStatic

This morning, Adobe (together with a supporting cast of other industry players) announced its new Open Screen Project. The stated goal is to enable a "consistent runtime environment" across a wide variety of devices - and, not incidentally, to further increase the already-huge penetration of Flash. But even though this isn't "open" in the sense that we'd most like to hear, it's still good news for open source advocates.

There are four pieces to this announcement:

• Removing restrictions from the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications.
• Publishing the device API specifications for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe FlashCast protocol
• Removing licensing fees from Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices

Of these, the first two are actually of some significance to open source projects such as Gnash. While the SWF and FLV specifications have been available, there have been restrictions on what you could do with them; removing those restrictions removes any uncertainty that open source projects have had about using that information. Having the device API specifications similarly available should make it possible to develop readers for the Flash formats that run in a variety of places.

Of course, in our dream world the existing Flash player might become open source. Adobe has instead chosen to play the "open standards" card again - and no wonder, given the success they've had with the Acrobat format. But even open standards help open source, making it possible for us to fill in the gaps that a big player might otherwise ignore.

• Adobe
• Flash