> I complete my open source Flash player. It can play back any > swf correctly. > Mr X writes a browser plugin for it - assign .swf MIME in > your browser to it and it will be used instead of Macromedia's player. > It becomes hugely popular because of its superior speed > (hello pixel shaders! ;) I live in Sweden. Mr X and the > download server is in Nauru. It's all open source. Nobody > makes any money from it. > Adobe gets upset. > > What happens next? >
Assuming it does become hugely popular, what happens next is that Flash developers have to worry about not only which version of the official Flash player users have, but which version of which Flash player people have. Of course, you might say it will be 100% compatible, so developers won't have such a worry. Assuming (again) that you could make it 100% compatible, then what's the use? There must be something that makes it preferable. Superior speed? OK, then it's not compatible. If I create a swf that utilizes this superior speed, then I have to make sure my viewers have this superior plugin. It's no longer just a swf, it's a swf++. The discussion of a third party player has come up a few times on this list. I maintain it's a horrible idea. One of the biggest selling points of Flash is that there is a standard player that has 90-whatever percent penetration. When I make a Flash app, I don't have to worry too much about whether or not people will be able to view it. As far as speed, every version of the player has massive increases in speed. By the time you built a player, and Mr. X built the plugin, and it got decent enough penetration for doing anything other than experimenting, Flash Player 10 will be out and kick its ass anyway. Don't take it as an attack. Just my viewpoint. Keith _______________________________________________ osflash mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
