Abobe takes a baby step towards open source Flash

Adobe may be close to discovering the fact that going open source is the only way to insure long term wide spread adoption of Flash. At least the Open Screen Project takes a step in that direction.

The Open Screen Project, supported by Adobe and several “industry leaders” and announced today, is supposed to foster the creation of a “consistent runtime environment” that will “remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices, including phones, mobile Internet devices, and set top boxes”. The idea is that such a runtime environment will provide the best performance across a wide range of operating systems.

As part of the Open Screen Project, Adobe announced several changes in their policies towards Flash, “to open access to Adobe Flash technology”:

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
• Removing licensing fees - making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

(OS News)