Mozilla Prism and the disingenuous web
I just noticed this article posted about Mozilla Prism over at Mozilla Labs. Prism is essentially the idea of a desktop runtime built on top of Firefox that allows web apps to run on the desktop (Im not sure how it related to XUL Runner).
Anyways, it is cool to see some acknowledgment from Mozilla that some apps may provide better experiences if they run outside of the browser, and closer to the desktop.
However, the tone of the article and some of the comments threw me off:
Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web.
First, Silverlight and Adobe AIR really are not related at all, and don’t target the same things. As I have said a million times before, if anything, the comparison is between the Flash Player and Silverlight. However, that is not what jumped out at me.
Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don’t have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we’re also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.
Do you see where I am going with this? You could describe Adobe AIR in exactly the same way (just replace Prism with Adobe AIR and Firefox with Webkit).
So, I guess the thing I found odd was Mozilla appears to be building something very similar to Adobe AIR (which is fine and cool), but somehow it is inherently good when Mozilla does it, and inherently evil when Adobe does it.
Adobe AIR is built on top of web standards and can run existing web applications and content. It runs on Windows and Mac (and soon Linux), and it also provides additional desktop functionality. So, is the main difference between something like Prism and Adobe AIR, that Adobe AIR is being primarily developed by a company (Adobe), and that Prism is being developed by Mozilla?
Come on Mozilla, the web development community deserves better than that. Adobe has been an active supporter of the web development community, of open source, of web standards and of Mozilla (donating the ActionScript virtual machine from the Flash Player (Tamarin)). Adobe AIR leverages a number of open source technologies (including Tamarin, SQLite and WebKit) and we actively participate in both of those development communities, and we have been open with our development process for some time.
Adobe AIR is not meant to “replace the web”, and I don’t believe there is any indication from Adobe that it is. However, as the Mozilla Prism article and project acknowledges, there are some apps that may provide a better experience if they are running out of the browser, and closer to the desktop.
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptI just noticed this article posted about Mozilla Prism over at Mozilla Labs. Prism is essentially the idea of a desktop runtime built on top of Firefox that allows web apps to run on the desktop . [...]
Ghillie Suits » Mozilla Prism and the disingenuous web
25 Oct 07 at 3:50 pm
Great post, Mike. I completely agree with you. Seems to me that one of our (Adobe’s) biggest challenges is simply educating people about what AIR is and isn’t. There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in the RIA space.
Mike Downey, Adobe
Mike Downey
25 Oct 07 at 4:42 pm
[...] Mozilla Prism and the disingenuous web » This Summary is from an article posted at Mike Chambers on Thursday, October 25, 2007 I just [...]
University Update - Firefox - Mozilla Prism and the disingenuous web
25 Oct 07 at 4:49 pm
Well, I believe those are “pre-knowledgable” articles. In the enterprise application space, developers still believe AJAX is the savior until one day the insufficient DOM and old JavaScript standard hit their limit. Flex/Flash, on the other hand, has shown promise that I have seen many companies start looking into that. However, Flash has been carrying a baggage of some platform not meant for enterprise spaces. In fact, some federal agencies block Flash since most of IT folks are ignorant about the latest trend.
This is something hard to blame some of the stone heads, I hope Adobe should channel some marketing efforts to help people realize the SWF/AIR world is different now.
Tangent
25 Oct 07 at 5:03 pm
>I hope Adobe should channel some marketing efforts to help people realize the SWF/AIR world is different now.
That is the thing though, Adobe AIR is as much about JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc… as it is about Flash / Flex.
Maybe we need to do a better job of getting that info out there, but I would expect (and suspect) that someone working on a similar project would know that.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
25 Oct 07 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for catching this, and the even tone, Mike… that “proprietary & evil when Adobe does it, open & good when Mozilla does it” line does seem jarring.
I haven’t heard Mark Finkle talk that way, but maybe this uncredited text was written by Myk Melez, aka “myk”, aka “Lab Rats”, and may not speak for the entire group of stakeholders.
To me, Mozilla seems a Google company, and Google is in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. It doesn’t seem intrinsically more good than Adobe, which sells various types of publishing solutions to creative people. That “proprietary” pan doesn’t work anymore.
tx, jd/adobe
John Dowdell
25 Oct 07 at 5:45 pm
Guys,
I think you’re biggest hurdle with AIR is you’re not packing it right. Your messaging is all over the place and you leave yourself open to comments like this. Adobe and Apple have a very similiar attack posture with their respective products, difference is with Apple is they are extremly good at the packaging. You buy an Apple product, the experience starts from the moment you open the box, installation through to the end execution.
You need to work more on the packaging, focus strongly on messaging - discontinue the posture of “what AIR is”, but instead “What AIR does”. Keep ramming home the “does” route instead of the “is” but package it better.
Deliver the positives with your own product, as until you adopt Adobe.com inside AIR, you’re not really putting forward a convincing argument. You need to seed your ecosystem through your own pain (experience matters), thus inspire your target audience… get back to basics.
You’re fighting Mozilla, Apple, Google, Microsoft and on lots of battlefronts, and you need to put down the blog battles and focus on the story around the products. If you continue to fail at this, you will see more and more of the RIA, Mozilla crap that floats to the top. You are being ignored by everyone but Adobe community (they are giving you at times a false positive).
Anonymous.
This ones free, ignore it, use it..
Better You don't ask.
25 Oct 07 at 8:09 pm
I don’t think I read as much vitriol into the mozilla labs post as you did…
Laying aside notions that one might be too “proprietary”, AIR and Prism really don’t look that similar to me at all, so maybe you have a marketing problem. Having just looked at both projects for the first time tonight, the Mozilla project appears to be something that allows users to integrate existing web applications with their desktops. The first thing I see on the AIR page is
“Adobe® AIRâ„¢ lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.”
That sounds very different to me. It screams that developers have to do something different (but using their existing skills) to achieve the goal of getting web applications closer to the desktop.
Reading the mozilla post, it sounds like they want me to hit a menu item in my web browser when I see a web application that I like, to make it part of my desktop experience. Does AIR share that goal? If so, I completely missed it looking at what’s available on the Adobe labs site.
geoff
25 Oct 07 at 9:10 pm
[...] Mike Chambers and Mozilla Prism [...]
GiuseppeSorce » Blog Archive » Mozilla Prism e il web sul desktop
25 Oct 07 at 9:22 pm
>Laying aside notions that one might be too “proprietaryâ€, AIR and Prism really don’t look that similar to me at all, so maybe you have a marketing problem.
Well, I think that if you approach it from moving existing web apps to the desktop there is a lot of overlap, albeit slightly different approaches. However, as you pointed out, with AIR you can also build the desktop apps from the ground up (but I imagine you could do something similar with Prism).
Don’t get me wrong, I think the stuff they are doing is really cool (although I think they have could have moved in this direction more aggressively with XULRunner), but I think the way they characterized what we are doing with AIR was wrong (and hypocritical when compared to how they defined Prism).
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
25 Oct 07 at 9:52 pm
It seems that alot of people think that AIR and Flash is the same thing.
And that is also why I never really read up on what AIR does or how it works.
The only use Flash has for me is as a Video player, or maybe a Game or two.
Never really liked it for anything else.
Guess you guys have some work to do getting people educated.
Fredrik
25 Oct 07 at 10:57 pm
“Come on Mozilla, the web development community deserves better than that. Adobe has been an active supporter of the web development community, of open source, of web standards and of Mozilla (donating the ActionScript virtual machine from the Flash Player (Tamarin)).”
Adobe has not been an active supporter of the web from what I can see. Flash is the only consumer product I know of that’s webbased from Adobe and it hasn’t much changed in al those years. Flash is a disconnected box in a webpage that provides functionality that isn’t possible with webstandards. Flash can’t integrate with either the browser or the web.
Donating Tamarin to Mozilla under an opensource licence is cool but it is a very new development and doesn’t prove that Adobe is opensource friendly. Only recently did you provide a modern Flash version for linux and you still don’t provide a 64bit version. And because Flash is closed some kind guy can’t provide an unofficial Flash version for 64bit linux.
off topic: I don’t know you and I’ve never read your blog but this blog post makes you seem really arrogant and makes Adobe look like a company that doesn’t get the web or opensource.
Ferdinand
26 Oct 07 at 1:17 am
Hi there
From your post over on Mozilla’s site,
“You do realize that Adobe AIR is as much about HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc… as it is about Flash / Flex?”
Just as a point of feedback: I had no idea of this. I’ve seen a lot of mentions of Air around the Web of course, but not dug into its official docs. Well I assumed AIR could probably handle HTML, maybe even bits of SVG if you’ve got webkit in there, but I somehow had the impression it was primarily all about Flash. Quite probably I didn’t bother to read up on it properly because, for better or worse, I somewhat expected a Flash-centric agenda, and so didn’t take the time to investigate what I unreflectively figured was “Adobe’s new Flash-based thingy”. If it is more standards-friendly, there’s a chicken and egg problem in getting this news out to developers who may tune out when they hear “Adobe toolkit” on assumption it’ll be Flash-flash-flash. I’m happy to be re-educated anyway :)
Will Air support (interactive) SVG to any level? Or the W3C widgets work (http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/) ?
Dan Brickley
26 Oct 07 at 1:21 am
If AIR is all about standards, then how about working with Mozilla and other players to standardize these features?
Presumably (I don’t really know this, but I’m guessing) both Prism and AIR will allow webapp developers to add features that better help integrate their apps into the desktop. It would be great if I could take advantage of such features as a webapp developer and be assured that the features would work properly whether my users chose Prism or Air on the client side.
Ami Ganguli
26 Oct 07 at 2:58 am
Mike, I think it’s one of perception. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about Adobe because when I do, I think proprietary Photoshop/Illustrator/Flash/AIR?. I wasn’t even sure if AIR was open source, assuming it wasn’t until I googled. It isn’t, is it? It just leverages to and from open source, right? If there’s a difference, I’d say it’s that Adobe is perceived as a part-time open source company trying to move open while Mozilla are open. At least in perception. Mark Pilgrims post on GoBuntu and the recent Google revenues are interesting, not to mention your snide comment relating to Mozilla and the latter.
I also think the distinction between the Adobe Flex/AIR products is poorly marketed as well. I really hated trying to figure out what AIR was when it was released. I’ve had the same problem differentiating other Adobe product lines in the past as well. I don’t look forward to visiting your web sites because of the marketing drivel.
Straight out of the gate I get Prism even after the rename. Webapps in a box, extended to the desktop. AIR feels like the other way around.
I’m still grappling with what Thermo is useful for, which, by-the-way, looks fantastic. If only it worked natively on the web and not as an AIR app. Are there open standards in there doing all that hard work? I think this is where the perception is; that in order to get the benefits, you have to buy into the Adobe or Microsoft extensions to the web because your pushing it, because the standards aren’t there in browsers and the community is tired of it. The only difference I can see with Mozilla, Prism and XUL, is that it’s open source and Adobe and Microsoft for the most part aren’t. And that open as in the web, as in view source, is the way forward… and because your platform isn’t, the community perceives you as having ulterior motives.
I think Ian Bicking sums up nicely, the hate that you have to get past if your to earn the web’s trust.
Craig.
Craig Overend
26 Oct 07 at 3:10 am
PISSFIGHT!!!
foo
26 Oct 07 at 3:31 am
I don’t really think “Standard” is being an issue here. Have people ever questioned about “Standard” when they jumped into the bandwagon of Java, or .NET? Have any CIO’s questioned about standards when they set IE6 being the agency or corporate “Standard”? And later on got shot in the foot when IE7 is a totally different beast?
The problem here is that things sound a little better because some technologies gain favor because they are from companies who are traditionally developer-oriented such as Microsoft and Sun. Most of the blind-faithfuls in Silverlight I have talked to are just because they don’t want to leave Visual Studio.
Adobe, on the other hand, has been viewed as a designer-centric company which gains a little recognition in the developer world. Flash has been viewed as a good tool to promote video, movie trailers, and something fancy. Most outsiders still don’t know what’s the difference between Flash and Flex.
If Adobe touts an idea that whatever developers write is just like writing a Winform or Java Applet, but will run 1000% faster, run in 90+% browsers (more than IE share), and guarantee on all platforms, de-emphasize the fact that it is Flash, it might help adoptions among some stone heads. Because Microsoft developers love Winform, and Java dudes just love their applets. But they both face deployment and compatibility issues
Tangent
26 Oct 07 at 3:44 am
Ami: “Presumably (I don’t really know this, but I’m guessing) both Prism and AIR will allow webapp developers to add features that better help integrate their apps into the desktop. It would be great if I could take advantage of such features as a webapp developer and be assured that the features would work properly whether my users chose Prism or Air on the client side”
This sounds a lot like the Microsoft “Embrace and Extend” tactic that was going on when Netscape was still around (and still is in other places). Both MS and NS took HTML, and added their own features to it to supposedly make things easier for developers. Now, if AIR and Prism do this, what makes it less “evil”? Even if they do it together, they’d have to do it in such a way that it would still be compatible with bog-standard browsers. Prism being a Mozilla thing would make it easy for FireFox to be sorted, but what about IE, Opera or Safari?
What I think we’re seeing here is the beginning of an “Embrace and Extend” strategy from Mozilla, and I’m not sure I like it yet.
BenN
26 Oct 07 at 4:29 am
It seems to me like AIR and Prism are same the basic concept, executed in opposite ways. AIR is RIA functionality added to a desktop app, whereas Prism is desktop functionality added to a RIA. Does that make sense? Prism adds the additional stuff (filesystem access, etc) to the RIA that’s already running in the browser, and whereas takes the additional from the browser and allows it into a desktop app. Different means, same end, I guess. I did get a bit of a negative vibe from that article, too.
chris
26 Oct 07 at 4:50 am
AIR and Prism might be trying to do the same thing but I would rather support Mozilla than Adobe.
sikander
26 Oct 07 at 5:11 am
They are trying to break into a market, just as Microsoft is with Silverlight. I think Chris provided a good high level understanding of the major differences between the two. Understanding what AIR does vs. Prism “desktop to RIA” and AIR being a delivery medium for RIA delivery. I am not really sure how I would use this technology, and I highly doubt I would ever even consider delivering a desktop application with it. Ill stick with adobe, great product everyone and thanks for being ahead of the game. You guys are definitely on it!
ryan@boneah.com
http://www.broneah.com
Ryan Roberts
26 Oct 07 at 5:50 am
Some of us really do believe that when Adobe begins developing a standard, it is inherently evil, and when Mozilla does so, it becomes at least a little bit less so. For those of us that really believe in Free software, anything Adobe develops can be almost immediately discounted. If Adobe is so interested in helping the community, then why is Flash a closed standard? Why do I need to install a plugin for which I can’t obtain the source and which is in desperate need of attention to basic performance and stability issues in order to view 90% of the video content on the web?
When Adobe treats the community this way, I’m predisposed against it. If Flash is any indication, AIR will be dissapointing - and the Mozilla people obviously share my views.
I may not be in the majority, but please don’t claim to be “helping the community” until you’ve actually done so.
Joe
26 Oct 07 at 6:12 am
Errrr… I think the description of the “proprietary-ness” of AIR from moz labs is spot on… I mean… how is AIR *not* proprietary? The runtime is completely controlled by Adobe… it would be impossible (legally) to duplicate or extend the AIR runtime, because of all the non-web-standard-compliant things it does with its Flash/Flex integration (I’ve seen Flash blur filters applied to common HTML forms in AIR… That’s amazing, but try that on any other platform!). I’m sure you don’t really think that an AIR app (using a good portion of the AIR API) could run unmodified on a different platform. The fact that AIR is proprietary is simply inarguable. Whether that matters to your customers (the developers) remains to be seen.
So then you go on to explain how much Adobe does for web development, and I agree that Adobe has done a lot, but I really don’t see the point. Are you suggesting that developers should choose your less open platform based on Adobe’s other contributions? (Are you honestly trying to suggest that Adobe’s relationship with open source has been a one-way street?) Think about this from a developer’s perspective, and not a company spokesman perspective, and you’ll start to understand your customers. I don’t think anyone thinks Adobe is evil, but I guarantee there are some developers that think “Why make my app dependent on a corporation, when I don’t have to?” If you don’t see the dangers, talk with some VB6 guys…
Cainus
26 Oct 07 at 6:18 am
Cainus is exactly right. AIR is completely proprietary even though it leverages open standards. Calling AIR “open” is like calling Internet Explorer “open” — it leverages open standards (Javascript, HTML, etc) too.
Can I distribute an application built on AIR without paying Adobe? Do I have access to all of the source code so I can fix bugs in the runtime? Why does simply downloading the SDK make me sign an onerous license agreement?
Adobe wants to make money, fine, but don’t get mad at people that don’t buy your bull about “openness”.
ChrisW
26 Oct 07 at 6:58 am
First, yes Adobe has been friendly to Open Source by donating the action script/javascript engine. Thank you. But you are still a proprietary platform, owned by one capitalistic corporation. Where Mozilla is a orginazation/foundation that is beholden to users and developers. I don’t think that Adobe is “inherently evil” but I do think the Mozilla has my best interests in mind, and Adobe does not.
It’s nice to hear that a Linux version of AIR is “coming soon” but that is not soon enough. I would love to develop with AIR it seems to be very cool. But since you don’t ship a Linux version of the SDK I am falling behind all the other developers who run OS X or Windows. And even if you did ship a Linux AIR SDK that wouldn’t be enough. Would the apps I develop with it work on the Nokia N810? What about the iPhone or the Wii or any of the thousands of other hand held devices out there?
I believe that the web is the platform. That doesn’t mean it is perfect and we do need people like Mozilla and Google to add things like off line storage and 3D support. I applaud Adobe for stepping up and wanting to push the web forward. But it needs to be done in a way that is open to everyone.
jay
26 Oct 07 at 7:22 am
I just read Cainus’ comment. “Why make my app dependent on a corporation, when I don’t have to?” Is spot on how I feel 100%.
jay
26 Oct 07 at 7:42 am
Mike, I think Adobe still has a ways to go to really understanding open standards, and your post reflects that.
The Adobe tradition has been to develop an internal spec or technology, publish it, and then call that “open” (PDF, XMP, etc.). That’s not good enough, and until Flash is a truly open technology, many developers will rightly be nervous about committing to AIR.
As another commenter said, I’d prefer to see Adobe engage with Mozilla on how to solve these problems.
Bruce D'Arcus
26 Oct 07 at 7:43 am
“I[']m not sure how it related to XUL Runner”
…
“I think they have could have moved in this direction more aggressively with XULRunner”
Prism *is* WebRunner [1] and WebRunner is based on XULRunner [2].
[1] The article you are responding to: “The first of these experiments is based on Webrunner, which we’ve moved into the Mozilla Labs code repository and renamed to Prism.” http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/
[2] That article links to: “WebRunner is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface.” http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner
Stefan W
26 Oct 07 at 7:44 am
Prism…
The buzz on the web today is all about Mozilla’s new experiment, dubbed Prism. At first, I was thinking, ”
Hey - this is just like Adobe AIR, minus the flash, but it’s probably open source.” I think competition for AIR is health…
largeplates
26 Oct 07 at 7:51 am
Mike, I completely see where you are coming from and I think that the article is trying to make Adobe (and Microsoft for that matter) look like evil corporations. That is a little underhanded of them. However, I would like to point out that I think we should wait and see if the proof is in the pudding for Prism. From what it looks like if you want to run Gmail or whatever ‘on the desktop’, looks like Prism is the way to go. But, if you want to make powerful a RIA (Rich Internet Application) then obviously AIR is the way to go. I was at onAIR Toronto and I am so drinking the AIR Kool-Aid!
AlTucker
26 Oct 07 at 7:58 am
Just to be clear, which it looks like I wasn’t from the comments, this post isnt a knock against prism. I think it is cool that Mozilla is finally moving into this space, and frankly have been surprised that they haven’t done this earlier.
Again though, my issue was the tone of the post, especially vis-a-vis AIR, where Adobe is characterized as trying to “replace the AIR”, but yet Mozilla, which is doing something very similar is building on top of it.
One thing that I have gleaned for the comments though is that a lot of people still don’t realize that Adobe AIR is as much about HTML / JavaScript as it is about Flash / Flex. We have been pretty focused on getting this message out, so if you have any suggestions how we can do it better, post them here.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 8:14 am
Firstly, I’d like to say that Adobe has definitely been a good friend of open source and freeware, what with everything that comes out of Labs, and all the tools developers get to use to build for specific platforms. I’d also like to state that AIR is absolutely great. I’m so glad it exists. However I do find the redundant name a little off. I mean come on, Adobe Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)? Back to the point…
When Mozilla creates something everyone and their mother has access to the source code which is what I think the Moz fanboys want. I can relate to that. Does it bother me that Flash and AIR and other products have some closed source? No, I built apps, not the apps to build the apps. Adobe can keep on doing what they do. As long as they keep cranking out useful tools I’m in.
Cheers.
Derek
26 Oct 07 at 8:45 am
Mike, after reading Geoff’s post ( http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2007/10/25/mozilla-prism-and-the-disingenuous-web/#comment-9533 ) I just wanted to say ditto.
I’m in the same boat as Geoff. If you’re saying AIR and Prism are the same thing then i think Adobe needs to re-evaluate the way it describes what its doing.
I read the Prism page, and thought of a lot of ways we could use this at my job. When I first read the info on AIR a while back I thought ‘oh, thats neat, but I’ll never use that’.
*shrug*
Christopher
26 Oct 07 at 8:56 am
[...] today I stumbled upon a post by Mike Chambers talking about Mozilla Prism and the fact Mozilla is referring to AIR as different and proprietary. [...]
mkeefeDESIGN & Photography » Blog Archive » Mozilla Prism targetting AIR for no great reason
26 Oct 07 at 8:58 am
>I just wanted to say ditto.
I’m in the same boat as Geoff. If you’re saying AIR and Prism are the same thing then i think Adobe needs to re-evaluate the way it describes what its doing.
Geoff,
Thanks. That is really good feedback. (we have had an debate about this very subject for some time).
Btw, I think that AIR and Prism overlap is some areas (i.e. allowing you to bring web apps to the desktop), but do have slightly different focus (at least from what I understand of Prism).
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 9:05 am
I don’t think Adobe are inherently evil, but they are inherently, “for profit” and by the time it comes to ship, probably not as extensible, tweakable, and tied too.
By tied, I mean tied to other products.
Which is not to say that that is bad, but I for one get bored/tired or telling the Quicktime updater that “no” I actually don’t want iTunes. I’m perfectly hapy with the standalone player.
This is not to say that Mozilla isn’t profitable either, it’s just a matter of what it spend the money on. This is “us and them” and you’re “them”
praxis22
26 Oct 07 at 9:15 am
Serves you right; that’s what you get for revolutionizing & innovating.
Ever since Actionscript got slammed for not adhereing to standards, it’s been clear that folks have not only understood where & what the Flash platform is, but that they’ve also feared and resented it.
You’re visionary, consistently innovative, and have revolutionized the industry once again. I can imagine how jarring it must be to the nay sayers that in addition to sanely debunking the drivel of detractors, you continue to actually deliver tools and solutions that fundamentally change the way we work, the way we play, and how we feel about it.
thinman
26 Oct 07 at 9:25 am
[...] Squad, WebProNews, CyberNet, Digital Trends, TechBlog, Compiler, RIApedia, Google Blogoscoped, Mike Chambers, The Universal Desktop, Jeremy’s Blog, Mashable! Technorati Tags: prism, mozilla, firefox, [...]
Desktopized Web-Applications are a Great Convenience| Zoli’s Blog
26 Oct 07 at 9:28 am
Mike, I am a UG manager and Community Expert, so yes, I get what AIR is. As a non-Flex person I was/am and still are excited about AIR being as much about HTML and Javascript as Flex. That does seem to get waylaid though by Flex being the selling point.
You’ve done the AIR tour, what more can be done? Can’t imagine. Some people will just ignore Adobe because their interested in making a profit. That doesn’t mean they aren’t doing something worthwhile, but to some people it might just mean that. It’s the ole, hear what you want, not what was being said routine.
Dee Sadler
26 Oct 07 at 9:33 am
They wrote “proprietary”. You read “evil”, but that’s not what they wrote. Proprietary means lock-in, and who in his right mind would voluntarily lock himself into a proprietary platform if there is a non-proprietary equivalent available? Lock-in means giving a third-party the opportunity to be evil. Is that why you are so defensive.
Prism does not compete with AIR - I would never consider developing in AIR (or Silverlight, or .NET, or Flash) in the first place. If on the other hand Adobe makes easy to use development tools that target an open-sourced Prism runtime, I would certainly consider using them. Then again, my opinion of Adobe has soured since I installed that buggy piece of bloatware that is CS3 with Acrobat 8 on my computer, however, so maybe not. The only decent product you still make is Lightroom.
Fazal Majid
26 Oct 07 at 9:48 am
>They wrote “proprietaryâ€. You read “evilâ€, but that’s not what they wrote.
Actually, its not the proprietary part, but the:
“building a proprietary platform to replace the web”
The “replace the web” part, which is a wrong, and mis-guided characterization.
>If on the other hand Adobe makes easy to use development tools that target an open-sourced Prism runtime,
Well, we make a ton of tools that target HTML / JavaScript development, which can be leveraged in the browser, in Adobe AIR or any other environment that supports HTML / JavaScript.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 10:08 am
Parxis: “This is “us and them†and you’re “them—
I’m a “Me” and I’m staying that way. I’ll use whatever tool i sbest for the job, whether that be writing a desktop app in C/Java/.NET, a web app in HTML/Javascript/Flash/ASP/PHP or something in between for AIR/Prism. I don’t buy this stuff about a corporation being evil cause it’s not “open”. The important thing is “Does it do what I want?” and the answer that question doesn’t necessarily mean an open or closed product/tool/company.
BenN
26 Oct 07 at 10:09 am
For the “replace the web” part, I think the test should be, will “AIR” applications work with any standards compliant browser? Or do I have to be running Adobe software to use applications written for AIR?
If it’s the latter, then you are in fact trying to replace the web. I think it’s fair of you to argue that replacing the web in certain cases might not be such a bad thing, but you shouldn’t be offended when people point out what you’re doing.
Or it’s possible that I have no idea what AIR is. If it’s a development environment for standards compliant webapps, then my mistake. I should look into it seriously in that case.
Ami Ganguli
26 Oct 07 at 11:36 am
Mike,
I agree with you, their tone is needlessly Marxist, and just as misguided (as it’s literal adoption, not as a philosophy). But, I do see where that tone comes from. Anybody familiar with Flash for more than 2 years or so can remember when Macromedia went out of it’s way to obfuscate the inner workings of the Flash Platform. This tone is still present in a few of the Flash CS3 docs.
So, because a company’s business objectives can interfere with a developers, that equates evil.
Annoyance, rather. Web developers have a deep rooted distrust of software companies because many of them feel insecure about their dependence on them.
But, in actual fact, there is one fundamental difference. If you ask Adobe for the source code to the Flash Player, they will emphatically say no, whereas Mozilla is founded on principle to say yes.
Chris Hinkle
26 Oct 07 at 11:47 am
>I think the test should be, will “AIR†applications work with any standards compliant browser? Or do I have to be running Adobe software to use applications written for AIR?
Well, by that definition, then Mozilla is also trying to “replace the web” as they are adding extensions and functionality within Prism that will not run within web browsers.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 11:50 am
Mike: Nobody says you can’t add functionality.
Since the end of the original browser wars the browser vendors have focused on adding value in ways that doesn’t conflict with standards. Tabbed browsing, for instance, doesn’t require you to add non-standard extensions to your web site for them to work.
Maybe a better example is the favicon. I don’t think it’s standardized, but the convention doesn’t break anything. Web sites without site icons still work, and browsers that don’t read the icons can still render web pages.
Features like off-line storage will break things, but in those cases Mozilla tries to work with other vendors to define standards. The new WHAT-WG standards seem to have a lot of support, and will likely be widely implemented. Then they become part of the Web rather than breaking it.
I expect that the steps Mozilla takes to enhance Prism will be along these lines. At least it would be out of character for them to do otherwise.
Ami Ganguli
26 Oct 07 at 12:53 pm
As other have said, and I felt the desire to chime in, Adobe is proprietary software. Adobe AIR, from what I can see (my Explorer.exe crashed promptly after installing it) is proprietary, too (where’s the source?).
It looks to me Mozilla was extremely accurate in mentioned non-proprietary.
Philip G
26 Oct 07 at 2:07 pm
“Well, by that definition, then Mozilla is also trying to “replace the web†as they are adding extensions and functionality within Prism that will not run within web browsers.”
I think theres a lot more we need to know about Prism before I can really give a thumbsup or thumbsdown on the whole thing, but thats a fallacious point of argument. XUL is true OSS and while I would like them to make Prism available to other browsers (don’t know their plans there) your AIR EULA doesn’t exactly seem to scream open web:
“2.1 General Use. Subject to the terms of this agreement, including the important restrictions in Section 3, you may install and use a copy of the Software on one compatible computer. The Software may not be shared, installed or used concurrently on different computers
2.2 Distribution. You may not sublicense or distribute the Software.
2.3 Backup Copy. You may make one backup copy of the Software, provided your backup copy is not installed or used on any computer.
2.4 No Modification. You may not modify, adapt, translate or create derivative works based upon the Software. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software except to the extent you may be expressly permitted to decompile under applicable law, it is essential to do so in order to achieve operability of the Software with another software program, and you have first requested Adobe to provide the information necessary to achieve such operability and Adobe has not made such information available.”
For better or worse many OSS developers and users have little trust for Adobe and its not entirely without reason either. Flash is freely available but that doesn’t make it open and it has numerous problems under Linux in particular such as lack of a 64-bit version and general stability problems.
Thats not the only thing though, how often have people requested a Linux version of Photoshop or other Adobe software and for how long? You have great software there, but you aren’t offering it even with the very apparent desire for it out there and that makes people believe you aren’t listening.
For the record, I do not believe Adobe is “evil” but theres a general attitude out there which you have played a part in building up through your actions as a company or lack thereof. So while AIR does look interesting and seem to have promise I (and many others I expect) would rather go for the more open choice.
Samuel
26 Oct 07 at 2:23 pm
>It looks to me Mozilla was extremely accurate in mentioned non-proprietary.
Again, I dont think anyone was debating whether Adobe AIR contains proprietary code / software. It does. It also contains a lot of open source projects, that Adobe either contributed (Tamarin) or actively contributes to (WebKit).
But I don’t think that that then follows that the goal of Adobe AIR is to “replace the web” and the article suggested.
Im not questioning why an open source project might be attractive to some developers, but what I am questioning is the notion that just because something isn’t open source, that that means there are evil / bad intentions behind it.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mike chambers
26 Oct 07 at 2:32 pm
Mike Chambers: “Im not questioning why an open source project might be attractive to some developers, but what I am questioning is the notion that just because something isn’t open source, that that means there are evil / bad intentions behind it.”
I understand how you could be offended, but I am not seeing that implication in the Mozilla Labs posting. Flash is a good technology, its capable and its efficent, but it is not the web.
They are accurate is their assertion, Flash follows different rules than HTML, XML, FTP, and all the other web standards out there. Flash websites for all their attractive looks and interactive features do not act like web pages, they act like an interactive flash video.
Considering that AIR is built in part off of Flash which doesn’t follow the same rules of the web, its not of the web and so saying that it “replaces the web” is at least in a general sense, accurate.
Samuel
26 Oct 07 at 3:00 pm
>Considering that AIR is built in part off of Flash which doesn’t follow the same rules of the web, its not of the web and so saying that it “replaces the web†is at least in a general sense, accurate.
ok. I think this is where we just come to a fundamental disagreement.
Adobe AIR is just as much about HTML / JavaScript / CSS, etc… as it is about Flash, and thus if you don’t care for Flash, then you dont need to use it.
However, you can also leverage Flash / Flex within Adobe AIR (and I wouldnt be surprised if you could also do it within Prism). The reality is that Flash is very much a part of the web, and an important part. Perhaps it is not 100% in the “open” web, but it is a part of the web nonetheless.
Flash content can run within Firefox, but that in no way means that Firefox or Mozilla is somehow aiming to replace the web.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 3:50 pm
I’m working with Flash and other Adobe software for many years now and ever since the OSFlash movement opened my eyes to open source software, I can say that Prism is something I’m going to be paying close attention to. Saying that you’re using WebKit, SQLite and Tamarin in AIR doesn’t make it any more open, because in the end it’s the Adobe employees, or their enterprise customers, that decide what contributions go into AIR, not the community (unless they scream really really hard on blogs and ‘wishforms’). I think Prism is a very good initiative, it offers developers more choice, and puts pressure on Adobe to open source AIR. Numerous people have tried to extend AIR to make it do more than it can at the moment (see the Artemis project) but it looks like this won’t be possible at all. I’m not saying this will change in the future (probably around the AIR 1.5 or whatever release) but it’s just preventing me from making the apps that people want right now. I hate waiting for Adobe to release cool stuff because their Q&A can’t handle all the testing or the product managers don’t have enough time to review and approve feature X. Sure, enterprises need that kind of assurance but it’s slowing down innovation and this is very frustrating for people trying to push the limits. We’d rather decide ourselves, based on open development, testing and QA, wether something’s ready for production or not. If Prism lacks a certain feature we can fund and/or develop it ourselves and not be dependent on Adobe. When it’s truly open source it doesn’t matter if Adobe (company) or Mozilla (organization) recieves the community’s help, we’ll all benefit from it in the end.
AIR == IE && Prism == Firefox?
Thijs
26 Oct 07 at 4:07 pm
Mike Chambers: “ok. I think this is where we just come to a fundamental disagreement.
Adobe AIR is just as much about HTML / JavaScript / CSS, etc… as it is about Flash, and thus if you don’t care for Flash, then you dont need to use it.
However, you can also leverage Flash / Flex within Adobe AIR (and I wouldnt be surprised if you could also do it within Prism). The reality is that Flash is very much a part of the web, and an important part. Perhaps it is not 100% in the “open†web, but it is a part of the web nonetheless.
Flash content can run within Firefox, but that in no way means that Firefox or Mozilla is somehow aiming to replace the web.”
Fair enough Mike, though I still consider it a fallacious argument. Flash is supported by Mozilla because in practice, Flash has to be supported for fully-functional web browsing. That doesn’t mean that its native to the web any more than WMV or MOV are native to the web, they are just supported because they are widespread and they are useful (something I have never disputed about Flash).
Samuel
26 Oct 07 at 4:15 pm
>Saying that you’re using WebKit, SQLite and Tamarin in AIR doesn’t make it any more open, because in the end it’s the Adobe employees, or their enterprise customers, that decide what contributions go into AIR, not the community
That is simply not true. First, at least around Flash, we have always been very active in working with the community to define the feature set for Flash Player, Flash Authoring, AIR, Flex, etc… We have always been very active within the community.
We have been very open with Adobe AIR for precisely this reason (and developer feedback is the reason we added SQL Lite support (among other features / changes).
Does not mean that every feature requests gets in? No, but that is the same for any project, open source or not.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 4:19 pm
[...] somehow it is inherently good when Mozilla does it, and inherently evil when Adobe does it,” Chambers wrote in his blog. During Adobe’s Max conference earlier this month, Adobe Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch [...]
Usersky Daily News Network » Mozilla’s Prism to bring Web apps to desktop
26 Oct 07 at 4:23 pm
Also Mike, my apologies for incorrectly understanding the optionality of Flash in AIR..unfortunately I haven’t had a ton of time to look into it, but I’m certainly in the process of doing so.
Samuel
26 Oct 07 at 4:24 pm
Just to set things straight, none of the links or blogs said “Adobe is evil” in any way. It only said Adobe and MS made proprietary systems as quoted in this blog.
Rob
26 Oct 07 at 4:31 pm
“We have been very open with Adobe AIR for precisely this reason (and developer feedback is the reason we added SQL Lite support (among other features / changes).
Does not mean that every feature requests gets in? No, but that is the same for any project, open source or not.”
Mike, I meant that being able to add a feature, and submit a patch for it that can be incorporated by any developer, whether it’s the developers at Adobe or Joe Developer, is something I can do without anyone’s permission if the sourcecode is available.
I’m not disagreeing with the fact that Adobe is very active and listens to the community, but this will just never beat the freedom to adapt the software to my own needs and the freedom to improve the program and release those improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits from it.
Thijs
26 Oct 07 at 4:32 pm
[...] needs to approach their competitors differently, and Mike’s latest blog post didn’t do him any favors (I understood his points, I in part agreed with him, but never ever pick a fight with Mozilla crowd [...]
MSDN Blog Postings » Mozilla, Adobe and Silverlight. Shall we dance?
26 Oct 07 at 7:16 pm
Hello,
You might have percived the Prism as similar to AIR but to me (and many other by what I read), they are totally different.
From the Adobe Labs website :
” Adobe® AIRâ„¢ lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop ”
So with AIR, you develop an app that use both the web and desktop resources.
With Prism, you simple make a link in a browser without button to a web app, and at one point, use offline SQL. For an existing web app, I don’t see the point for going to AIR unless I really find the app ugly and want to redesign it. For a desktop app the use the web for it’s data, then yes AIR is cool.
Personally, I don’t need either right now as I have a broser perfectly capabre of using my web app.
stephane
26 Oct 07 at 8:47 pm
Prism also provides access to desktop resources:
From the Prism post:
–
And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we’re also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.
–
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
26 Oct 07 at 9:05 pm
I read the Mozilla article and then this article and I have to say, I did not detect any ill mojo from Mozilla towards Adobe. All Mozilla did was give us, the community, a more “open” option for helping integrate rich Internet content onto our desktops. No matter how Adobe tries to feed it to the web community, AIR is not really an open platform. Even now while reading the Adobe AIR FAQ, I ran across a section that stated AIR was not available for mobile devices. As long as Adobe controls the source code, there will never be a version of AIR out for those devices unless Adobe has the resource to assign to creating it. What about a BeOS version? Will Adobe ever use the their resources to get this up and running on those users desktops? With Mozilla’s project, someone can just download the source and attempt to port it over. Prism just has more opportunity to grow as it is extending the Internet to us users by offering an open software solution to get it out in the hands of ALL web users. No matter where their desktops might lie at the moment.
Rocco
26 Oct 07 at 9:53 pm
Maybe the distinciton isn’t about the core technologies, but the delivery. I don’t know why you don’t see the distinction. Pretend for a moment or two that you’re “just” a consumer. Note that, according to the developer of each, Prism is a client application, and AIR is a runtime.
“Adobe® AIRâ„¢ lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.”
Here’s what I “get” from Adobe on AIR. With AIR, developers can build applications that bridge my desktop and a web app, or even build applications that leverage the web into a rich desktop application. This is cool. But I can’t navigate to these applications from a browser on another computer, and I need to install a specific runtime to run AIR applications. I would not be able to use these applications everywhere I go, unless everywhere I go these applications have been downloaded and the runtime is installed. I can’t download AIR and run any web app I want in the window, only the ones that developers have adapted for this. (Which at minimum takes only a slight effort by the developer.)
AIR gives me web apps with powerful desktop integration, or completely new and seperate hybrid apps. Very nice. But it doesn’t give me “the web”. It leverages it.
“Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.”
Prism is a desktop frame that presents a web application. It’s the same web app that I can use from any browser, anywhere. It’s the same browser I use, whittled down. There’s no runtime or plug-in. There are some web apps I would like to run without the rest of my browser, or in a version of my browser fine tuned to that web app. GMail is my perfect example. Maybe some day Prism will hook into my desktop environment for offline storage and other non-browser features. That’d be nice.
Prism gives me the web apps I like to use, in a narrowed view and without locking up my browser (or being locked up by my browser). I’m looking forward to this. If I want my web app to be refactored or enhanced, I need to use something else. I may be able to use Greasemonkey scripts (or similar) in Prism if I want modifications, but that’s hardly going to have the reach and shift that something like RoadFinder does.
If I want to run my favourite web app, I’m using Prism and not AIR. Maybe I “can” describe AIR and Prism as the same thing - but I wouldn’t, that would be too awkward to do. If they are the same thing, the first place to look to correct the misunderstanding is Adobe Labs.
Now, if I could edit an XML file (using a simpleton’s editor or GUI) and AIR to put GMail on my desktop with what AIR can bring - that could be just the ticket. But if I have to wait for Google to do it, that’s telling me that AIR fills a different role on my desktop.
I don’t get the vibe that you do, that Mozilla is attacking Adobe (and Microsoft) for doing something different. Just that they’re doing something different. (And I find the similarities and differences quite interesting.)
To put it another way - AIR runs PeekAgenda and Prism launches Basecamp. When I use AIR I’m not using the web app, I’m replacing it with something else (and it’s a really good something). The promotional copy on Mozilla was accurate, and I think you’re adding hostility to it that isn’t in the copy. Perhaps because you’re so close (I assume) to the Adobe project. The first person to raise the idea on that page that “proprietary = evil” was actually you.
And finally, as a developer, I wouldn’t develop for Prism - I would develop for the web. And I would develop for AIR, maybe something as simple as an XML file to frame my app in (which I gather from one of your comments is possible) or maybe I’d build something completely different and unique that added value in the desktop context.
I think you should celebrate the differences - you’ve got such great sample apps already. Drag’n'Share, Salsa, MapCache are permanently on my hard drive now (and I’m thinking seriously about Signet …), and Prism shows no hints that it will be built to bring that kind of experience to me. The intentions, the aesthetics, and the architecture are different. This is a good thing!
MP
26 Oct 07 at 11:26 pm
[...] Mike Chambers 在他åšå®¢ä¸çš„è¯ï¼š“Mozilla想è¦åšå’ŒAdobe [...]
Web2Desk: 从Mozillaå‘布Prism谈新桌é¢ä¹‹äº‰ | Forgot the Milk … è†å¬çª—外
27 Oct 07 at 4:55 am
@jay, I agree.
“and soon Linux” seems to be one of the favorite platform independent shout outs used by companies. Joost anyone?
As an Ubuntu users when I see Mozilla working on a project like Prism I’m more confident they have Linux in mind than a company like Adobe.
Robert MacEwan
27 Oct 07 at 7:06 am
MP - well put.
I would like to see a sample AIR app that does nothing more than wraps up a web app like gmail… which apparently can be done by some simple changes to the application.xml file.
When AIR was first released, that was actually my first test. I was not certain how to wrap a server-side web application (would it use native browsers… IE on windows and safari on mac?) so instead I created an AIR app with an html page that only contained an iframe to a webpage. It did bring up the page ok. I did this to tesif certain objects would run, such as java applets (it didnt).
So any direction toward documentation or samples on how to construct the xml to simply wrap a website in AIR would be helpful.
Prism and AIR are as much different as they are the same… as has been pointed out by those who actually took time to understand the two technologies. I cannot believe how many blog posts made comments that displayed the authors lack of awareness that Webrunner (http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner) IS Prism. And of course all of the typical responses that dont take into consideration the roadmap of Prism, and just look at what is can do right now.
And what Prism can do right now is interesting and important, albeit not groundbreaking just yet.
Once it becomes seamlessly integrated with Firefox 3 and offers deeper offline capabilities along with possibly reading server-side configuration (.ini or xml) files and on-the-fly creation of .webapp or .prism, then the true power of what Prism is will be better realized. Still, its very cool and worth watching and experimenting with, just as AIR is.
sull
sull
27 Oct 07 at 9:11 am
Mozilla’s version is open source and therefore available to anyone who wants to use it. Adobe’s version is prorietary and therefore available to nobody except those willing to comply with whatever restrictive licence terms or fees Adobe chooses to place on it.
That’s why people are treating Mozilla’s version more positively than Adobe’s.
David Russell
27 Oct 07 at 12:36 pm
[...] Chambers напиÑал о том, что Mozilla запуÑкает новый проект - Mozilla Prism. Майка [...]
Ð’Ñтречаем новинку Mozilla Prism. | RIA crumbs. RIA development related blog
27 Oct 07 at 1:06 pm
>That’s why people are treating Mozilla’s version more positively than Adobe’s.
I am not sure if you read my post, or just came over and left a comment, but my post wasn’t about how people were reacting to Prism, but rather, about Mozilla’s characterization of Adobe’s efforts as trying to “replace the web”. I found this odd, as we havent done anything to indicate that, and there is a lot of overlap between Prism and AIR.
There are a lot of comments in the thread, which is a positive thing, but very few of them adress the post. I understand why someone might choose a 100% open source project vs one that is not completely open source. Again, I was questioning mozilla’s characterization of Adobe’s intentions around Adobe AIR. A characterization they made without any explanation.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mike chambers
27 Oct 07 at 1:36 pm
[...] I don’t know anything about software marketing, but if I had to give an impromptu lecture on the subject right now, I’d use the following two posts (with comments) as virtual handouts: Mozilla Labs on Prism and Mike Chambers (of Adobe) on Mozilla Prism and the disingenuous web. [...]
Mike Linksvayer » RIA marketing follies
28 Oct 07 at 4:57 am
You say that AIR is as much about open standards as about Flash/Flex. But people will use the whole AIR, right? Not only the open standards part of it. Then they’d use a browser. So actually it’s about web standards extended by Flash/Flex. And Flash/Flex isn’t standardized.
If Adobe sometimes in future should decide (I’m not saying they will do so!) a Linux version isn’t worth it, then say will just drop it.
And nobody in the world could jump in and say “for me it’s worth it!” and write his own implementation. Developers just have to trust Adobe they will continue to support Linux in future.
That dependence on one single (profit-driven) vendor is what Mozilla people are concerned about.
malte
28 Oct 07 at 3:56 pm
AIR extends the web and offers businesses new ways to deliver value to their customers. In my opinion, AIR development (using Flex) is much faster than traditional “Standards-based” development (html, javascript, etc). I jumped on the “Standards” bandwagon years ago and was preaching it for some time. The request/response model of web programming is archaic and Adobe has an attractive alternative to that. Adobe offers products that help companies deliver applications that can differentiate themselves and create the “WOW” factor. “Standards” are the reason we’re in the mess we are today.
Tom
29 Oct 07 at 7:48 am
Proprietary is not the opposite of open source.
Firefox extensions are proprietary, yet Firefox (and most of the extensions) are open source.
From what I saw at Ajax Experience last week, I think the key problem with Adobe AIR is the message.
AIR is about leveraging your existing web development skills to develop desktop apps. You can do Flash if you want to, but you don’t need to.
What reallly needs to happen is for Adobe, Mozilla, Google, Opera, Apple and others to get together and create standard APIs for offline/desktop apps and then we wouldn’t be having this discussion…
Mike Kaply
29 Oct 07 at 8:25 am
[...] just stumbled across this weblog post about how great Adobe is, and how evil Mozilla is for daring to refer to an Adobe product as [...]
Chad Perrin: SOB » Adobe AIR and the overly defensive Web
29 Oct 07 at 11:48 am
http://blog.godshell.com/blog/index.php
pretty much sums up the difference between AIR and prism.
A
29 Oct 07 at 11:53 am
I think adobe (MM) has been doing an amazing job in the last years.
I’m a flash/flex/air developer and I couldn’t be more excited.
However I have to agree that these are difficult times for people to differentiate who does what and where it crosses.
Most people want to summarize a technology by a few words and it’s easy to over-simplify what one is aiming at.
The closeness of Flash and Air has definitely pushed it that way.
Some branding strategy and marketing needs to be re-thought and maybe changed to clarify what you’re aiming at.
It is hard to justify buying the licenses of adobe products to familiarize with a newish technology and get one’s head around it (and hard to produce AIR with freebies)
Mozilla has the advantage of the whole community-approach, it may or may not be as open as Adobe, but the difference is that people have the feeling of freedom, of open-source, etc.
That said, please preach the right sentences in the right ears, and don’t go flaming with posts like these. Obviously if it happened, you did something unintentionally wrong.
There is no point discussing it more, it’s just a matter of taking a look at the big picture here, and aim more precisely.
Thanks for reading.
Nicolas Noben
Nicolas Noben
29 Oct 07 at 10:55 pm
[...] alla tecnologia AIR non è andato a genio a Mike Chambers, product manager di Adobe. In questo post Chambers contesta non soltanto l’accostamento di AIR a Silverlight, che a suo dire sono [...]
BlogZilla » Mozilla sposa applicazioni web e desktop
30 Oct 07 at 12:24 am
Mozilla Labs Blog: Prism
Mozilla Labs announces Prism—an application that allows you to run Web apps on the desktop—and immediately stirs passions over in the Adobe AIR camp.
…
beTech :: Evolve Already
30 Oct 07 at 5:22 am
Wherever Adobe is doing.. I really don’t care.
The only thing I care is OPEN SOURCE ! Because that’s the future for our children.
And your ideas is good only for inspiration.
Nice try, anyway ;o)
Adrenalin Moldova
30 Oct 07 at 6:03 am
[...] Donc, tout va bien :-), on est bien sur la même ligne. Mike Chambers a réagit à chaud sur son blog. L’article et les commentaires sont [...]
Mozilla et le projet PRISM « Code moi un mouton
30 Oct 07 at 1:48 pm
[...] to Flash and has nothing to do with this argument as it relies on a browser plugin. Secondly, as Mike Chambers points out, “You could describe Adobe AIR in exactly the same way (just replace …. In fact, I actually found a web site that produces AIR apps from URLs just like what I expect to [...]
Mozilla Heads To The Desktop With Prism :: Unintentionally Blank
30 Oct 07 at 4:46 pm
[...] Mozilla labs new project called Prism. I especially made note when the waters were stirred when Mike Chambers said “somehow it is inherently good when Mozilla does it, and inherently evil when Adobe does [...]
Inspire. Danspire. » Blog Archive » A bit of AIR about PRISM?
2 Nov 07 at 12:24 pm
Speaking as an uneducated person, who would welcome correction…
To the best of my knowledge, AIR is based around Flash. As yet, the only things I’ve seen done with Flash are adverts & so-called “rich content” which seems to mean a lot of pretty cr*p instead of useful information. As such, Flash remains very firmly blocked on my home network, and on my work machine. Additionally, when recommending development platforms and stragies, that pretty much automatically makes me discount Flash.
If anybody has got evidence of useful applications being developed with this, I’d be interested - otherwise, quite frankly, I’ve no intention of attempting to be the first!
The major issue IMO is that somehow the internet has been confused with port 80, and so for some bizarre reason people seem to think that networked apps have to run in a browser - my suspicion is that it stems from bonehead security thinking (port 80 ::= HTTP ::= harmless, anything else ::= unknown ::= risk) making developers such as myself attempt to pervert HTTP to do things it was never intended for.
Pete
4 Nov 07 at 7:33 am
[...] Running web apps from the desktop: Port 80 now does everything 5 Nov 2007 Posted by Peter in Security, quote. Tags: development, firewall, Security, web application trackback Mozilla and Adobe are both developing (separately) tools to allow web applications to run on the desktop (ie no visble browser). More can be found at the Mozilla Prism announcement and Mike Downy’s article critiquing it from the perspective of Adobe AIR. [...]
Running web apps from the desktop: Port 80 now does everything « Spartakan
5 Nov 07 at 5:44 am
Hi Mike,
Adobe AIR will have many competitors in this new field the only thing for Abode to to is to beef up it’s marketing strategries and get users interested in Abode AIR.
I like the new Application and Classic sandbox idea and have even made a suggesstion posted at:
“Air Sandbox Idea”
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=72&catid=641&threadid=1312178&enterthread=y
Should you be able to get such a brigde inside it then it’s a clear winner.
Raymond
5 Nov 07 at 6:46 pm
Oh! Did I ever mention that the flash API is out of this world? It’s just amazing to see that there are so many stuff that I can do with the API.
It’s about time you guys wrap up 1.0, get linux in the mix and promote! promote! the framework!
Raymond
5 Nov 07 at 6:51 pm
[...] Some good thoughts about this project can be found on Mike Chambers blog. [...]
On the Stre@m » Mozilla Prism
7 Nov 07 at 12:43 am
Mike,
the only issue I have with Adobe’s and Microsoft’s solution is that they only support the major OS players. On my FreeBSD desktops I am hard-pressed to even be able to run these things (and only by grace of the Linuxulator can I run various Linux applications if I really wanted to). Flash is still not a native solution under FreeBSD nor will it ever be I guess.
So for people like me, running FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, Haiku or other BeOS-derivatives and similar operating systems, the solution provided by Mozilla in general has source code to compile a native application as directly opposed to any offering from Adobe or Microsoft.
Sorry, I love Adobe and to a lesser degree can appreciate some of Microsoft’s stuff, but when it comes to support for less-common environments, both of your companies lose. And thus the solution becomes less generic for the entire population to use and feels more like a vendor lock-in.
Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven
7 Nov 07 at 3:06 am
Mozilla Prism vs Adobe AIR
A few weeks back, Mozilla introduced into Mozilla Labs an application called Prism, which essentially rebrands the old Mozilla WebRunner as a desktop container for web applications.
As the following image (from the Mozilla Labs Prism page) illustrates…
Open Parenthesis
10 Nov 07 at 2:47 pm
[...] excitement, yawns, typical “Opera has been capable of this for years!” comments and controversy. I figured I would try it out on my Mandriva 2008 system and write about my [...]
Using Mozilla Prism on Linux | Linux Tech Daily
28 Nov 07 at 1:11 pm
To all you open source folks… stop your whining. Adobe, Microsoft and Apple develop products to make money. Why do you feel that they have some moral obligation to donate to your cause?
Why do you need to depend on an evil, corporate monster who’s sole purpose is to increase shareholder value? Because if they weren’t around, you’d have no one to wag your fingers at to say “shame on you!” Show me an open source application that is as robust and used world wide as Photoshop. You can’t. There’s a bunch of crap out there.
If Thomas Knoll was developing PS today, do you really think that he’d offer it up to some community? If you found a $300 million dollar lottery ticket, would you cash it in, only to give 95% away to charity? People make things so they can make money. Get over it.
I for one, want to develop an AIR application and I don’t care if it is proprietary. It’s sole purpose will be to help my company generate revenue. It doesn’t have to be open source compliant. I don’t want anyone creating hooks into it. I want to do usability studies, build and test an app that the target audience can use, and then launch it. After launch, follow up with more testing, user feedback/ surveys, etc. and continue evolving our application.
Adobe doesn’t have to worry about Mozilla… they’ll never be able to make anything worthwhile.
Funny thing is, I’m only evaluating AIR right now… Haven’t done any development, etc. But have seen some killer applications. You open source types just got me wound up…
Grog
3 Dec 07 at 1:36 pm
What gets me is how the Mozilla Foundation compares Prism to Adobe AIR. Am I the only one who doesn’t really see anything that puts them in the same group? I thought that AIR is for making full-fledged applications (you know, what people have been doing for decades) without having to learn the more complex languages like C/C++, whereas Prism is just if you want to see a webpage without a browser shell. From what I’m seeing, Prism just strips off the toolbars. AIR can at least give the developer the ability to create shell-based menus or just abandon the chrome altogether in favor of a customized one.
While I’m all for the open source approach to things, Mozilla should think a little harder on what they’re trying to accomplish by this style of marketing. They should also hurry up and release Firefox 3 so that I’ll have one less non-compliant browser to design pages for.
Alan
4 Dec 07 at 12:05 pm
Actually, adobe AIR does not support the Graphics card right now. So, if prism does I find that a lot more interesting then adobe air. Because, it will bring the web to another level when we starting integrating our video card with it.
Jeff S
5 Dec 07 at 9:03 am
>Actually, adobe AIR does not support the Graphics card right now. So, if prism does I find that a lot more interesting then adobe air. Because, it will bring the web to another level when we starting integrating our video card with it.
Adobe AIR (as does the Flash Player) does offer some hardware acceleration support, specifically for full screen rendering.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
5 Dec 07 at 9:08 am
Mike, a while back I read this and didn’t really have an opinion on the matter. Today I looked at the article for Prism and after looking at AIR a bit and Silverlight in depth, I realize that you are completely, totally dead wrong.
First, on Silverlight / AIR: I don’t know if you’ve looked at the latest Visual Studio, but one of the features of Silverlight development is deploying desktop apps built with JS, HTML & XML (XAML) that can interact with the web, so you can do your iTunes, Gmail, etc. type apps just like one would do with AIR. So yes, they are comparable, and even though people haven’t started building apps like this yet, they can be done (and I have seen examples). Silverlight is both the web runtime (like Flash, etc) and the desktop deployment (like AIR).
Second, on AIR being no different than Prism, ask yourself this… is AIR open source? Is Adobe going to publish the full code base, all the protocols, specs, etc, everything one