It was such a great experience, we all just stayed a while and enjoyed the moment (missing the Remix session)! One couldn’t help but to see that something had just come to life at much greater level than a wiki and email list.

Now finaly, and this was something I was trying to convey at the OSFlash panel, we’re making sure people understand our intentions. There seems to be this mythical association with linux/windows battle. Given that people have this as their only probable reference, I can understand why they’d wonder where are loyalties are. While I’m not the official spokesmen for OSFlash, I can certainly say that they would agree with Red5′s position: We are, and always have been, working for a completely harmonious relationship with MM. I know Red5 is controversial (can you restrict a protocol?) and I would reitterate that we’ve acted with responsibility when creating Red5 and done nothing illegal that we’re aware of. In saying that, we realize that MM has the right to protect themselves and Red5 will work with MM to resolve any and all issues they might have with us specifically.

We, of course, hope they see the enormous value that Red5 would bring to the Flash platform and development community. Not to mention the complete impact it would have on 3rd world, non-profit, educational and medical groups.

And lastly, I’d like to echo Peter’s call. We need an entry point to MM to work with them on OSFlash projects as well as an official stance on Open Source. These 2 things came into sharp focus during the panel discussion.

Anyway, thanks for this blog entry Peter, it was great meeting you at Spark!

However, we may like some projects more than others, or dislike some projects more that others (which should be expected), and we may let people know our views on those projects (as a participant in the open source Flash community). But again, it is up to the open source community to decide what projects they focus on.

Finally, and this point is not really related specifically to open source, but if Macromedia feels that any company or group is violating or appropriating our intellectual property, then we of course reserve the right to pursue that. But again, that applies to any group / company, and is in no way specific to open source.

Btw, Aral, thanks for moderating the round table the other day. While the discussion did get a little warm at times, you did a good job of directing it, and keeping it moving forward.

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

For example, I believe the reason we didn’t see an open source alternative to a FlashComm server emerge earlier is not the lack of interest or skills in the community but more the fear of being sued down the line.

There is the example of open source Flash Remoting for PHP which was embraced by Macromedia (no doubt because they had no plans for porting it to PHP themselves) but as Mike said in the panel that does not mean they are happy with everything that is coming out of the open source Flash community.

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for an independent open source Flash community but if we want to continue to ‘play nice’ with Macromedia/Adobe and respect their intellectual property (whether or not protocols should be allowed to be patented is a whole different discussion) and move forward without ‘fear of retribution’ I think we need some sort of official recognition from the mothership about the position of open source in relation to their commercial interest.

As I mentioned at the OSFlash panel too, I see the relationship between the open source community and Macromedia as a symbiotic one. Macromedia has recently positioned Flash as a platform. This means that it is no longer aims to be a single product or a a handful of products by a single company but rather a foundation on which applications, servers, solutions, etc. can be built. Such a move, to be successful, necessarily involves welcoming other products and technologies based on that platform and the protocols of that platform with open arms.

The fact that there is such a large and vibrant open source community for Flash is a primary legitimizing factor for Flash as a platform and it is definitely encouraging that Macromedia has been supportive of the Open Source Flash initiative. However, as I mentioned at the panel, I do not believe that we need any sort of a policy document from Macromedia/Adobe with “guidelines on what open source developments they accept”. The open source community is not a group of non-paid Macromedia/Adobe developers. They are, for the most part, comprised of Macromedia/Abobe customers who are passionate about the Flash Platform, passionate about Rich Internet Applications, Internet games and the potential of the web and, furthermore, have ideas that they want to realize and tools they want to build to help them (and others) realize these ideas.

The OSFlash community is comprised of key figures in the Flash community and we love the Flash Platform, but Macromedia/Adobe does not dictate our policy and nor is that something that we require or desire.

I was somewhat disappointed that so much of the panel was taken up with this discussion so I won’t go on for too long here. Suffice it to say that Open Source is a Good Thing ™ for the Flash Platform and, if Macromedia/Adobe is serious about Flash being a “platform”, I don’t think that these mundane issues will be discussed for much longer as we all move on to making kick-ass tools while shaping the future of the Internet as an application platform. As Nicolas mentioned at the panel, the important thing here is not the lose the long-term relevance of Flash in Web 2.0 because we maintain too short-sighted a view on immediate-term profits.

For an example of a platform that already has legitimacy, I would encourage you to look at Java. There are many parrallels between Java and Flash, so a good reference would be the relationship that Sun has with its developer base and open source community.