Pepper API

[dE .]

Hello everyone!

I'm a long time FF user & since 2 years I've been using Linux. Recently
I've started marketing & training of Debian.

In the default installation of Debian, we use Firefox as the primary
browser in KDE DE.

A few months ago it had been announced by Adobe that it's going to
discontinue Flash Linux for NSAPI, and instead only be available for the
newer and better PPAPI which's jointly developed by Google. I think
Adobe is trying to see the reaction of it's discontinuation this way via
Linux, it being the most unused platform, and used by the most
experienced. If they go through inconvenience, it doesn't matter to
Adobe... so it's a good testing ground.

On the other hand Mozilla announced that it'll currently not develop
PPAPI, and it appears that the devs are interested in improving
reliability of other APIs instead of implementing PPAPI, which's a long
and difficult job.

The major consequence of this is that it'll discourage use of Linux in a
similar way when a user visits a IE specific website in FF and is
discouraged to use
FF for compatibility purposes. This's going to hinder adoption of Free
software.

I understand that Adobe is itself deprecating flash in favour of HTML5
and has itself released a HTML5 WYSIWYG, but removing flash support
completely from Firefox is a bold step.

The reason why I'm concerned about this so early cause making this API
is going to take time (although... don't you think the existing NSAPI
code base can be modified for the purpose?) and by that time Flash
player 11 will deprecate.

So my question and concern is -- by what time will be see testable PPAPI
in FF?

[Henri Sivonen]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 11:49 AM, dE . <de.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A few months ago it had been announced by Adobe that it's going to
> discontinue Flash Linux for NSAPI, and instead only be available for the
> newer and better PPAPI which's jointly developed by Google.

Adobe announced it will provide security updates for NPAPI Flash
Player 11.2 for Linux for 5 years. See
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2012/02/adobe-and-google-partnering-for-flash-player-on-linux.html

> The major consequence of this is that it'll discourage use of Linux in a
> similar way when a user visits a IE specific website in FF and is
> discouraged to use
> FF for compatibility purposes. This's going to hinder adoption of Free
> software.

Note that the Flash Player roadmap
(http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html)
suggests that the features that will be unavailable via NPAPI on Linux
are gaming features. Gaming features have been added and are being
added to the Open Web Platform itself. If you consider WebGL vs.
Molehill/Stage3D, you'll notice that Firefox shipped with support for
3D game graphics before Flash Player did.

Considering that use of Flash premium gaming features won't be
royalty-free, there's a good chance that game developers will use the
Open Web Platform instead of Flash Player. See
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/premium-features.html

> I understand that Adobe is itself deprecating flash in favour of HTML5 and
> has itself released a HTML5 WYSIWYG, but removing flash support completely
> from Firefox is a bold step.

It might not be bold 5 years from now. Also, 5 years from now, there's
a good chance that Shumway will work well enough to deliver .swf
support in Firefox without Flash Player. See
https://github.com/mozilla/shumway

--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

[Ted Mielczarek]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 4:49 AM, dE . <de.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand that Adobe is itself deprecating flash in favour of HTML5 and
> has itself released a HTML5 WYSIWYG, but removing flash support completely
> from Firefox is a bold step.

A bold step...by Adobe. Mozilla is not the one making changes here.
We're continuing to support the NPAPI as we always have, it's Adobe
who is changing their plans.

It seems really difficult to argue that Mozilla should commit to
implementing a completely new, probably underdocumented API to support
a single plugin that Adobe hasn't even said they plan on publicly
releasing. Their announcement said that they would ship a PPAPI Flash
plugin with Chrome, not that they would ship it on its own. (Which
makes sense, because Chrome is the only browser with plans to
implement PPAPI.)

-Ted

[Kyle Huey]

>
> So my question and concern is -- by what time will be see testable PPAPI
> in FF?
>

There are no plans to support PPAPI in Firefox at any date in the future.
See links such as
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/plugin-futures/2010-April/000088.htmland
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=729481#c10 for the reasoning
here.

- Kyle

[Chris Coulson]

On 10/04/12 10:24, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> Adobe announced it will provide security updates for NPAPI Flash
> Player 11.2 for Linux for 5 years. See
> http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2012/02/adobe-and-google-partnering-for-flash-player-on-linux.html
>
>

I don't think that their 5 years of support amounts to a lot really,
when they won't fix fairly serious regressions (such as
https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3120888 and
https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3109467) that occurred
between Flash Player 11.1 and 11.2, leaving Linux users with NVIDIA
hardware out in the cold already. It seems that they just close all 11.2
regressions as "Status: Withdrawn, Reason: FeatureRemoved" with a nice
comment that says "thanks for your support Adobe Flash and report this
issue. But we do not support Linux anymore post 11.2".

Regards
Chris

[dE .]

On 04/10/12 14:54, Henri Sivonen wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 11:49 AM, dE .<de.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> A few months ago it had been announced by Adobe that it's going to
>> discontinue Flash Linux for NSAPI, and instead only be available for the
>> newer and better PPAPI which's jointly developed by Google.

> Adobe announced it will provide security updates for NPAPI Flash
> Player 11.2 for Linux for 5 years. See
> http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2012/02/adobe-and-google-partnering-for-flash-player-on-linux.html
>

>> The major consequence of this is that it'll discourage use of Linux in a
>> similar way when a user visits a IE specific website in FF and is
>> discouraged to use
>> FF for compatibility purposes. This's going to hinder adoption of Free
>> software.
> Note that the Flash Player roadmap
> (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html)
> suggests that the features that will be unavailable via NPAPI on Linux
> are gaming features. Gaming features have been added and are being
> added to the Open Web Platform itself. If you consider WebGL vs.
> Molehill/Stage3D, you'll notice that Firefox shipped with support for
> 3D game graphics before Flash Player did.
>
> Considering that use of Flash premium gaming features won't be
> royalty-free, there's a good chance that game developers will use the
> Open Web Platform instead of Flash Player. See
> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/premium-features.html
>

>> I understand that Adobe is itself deprecating flash in favour of HTML5 and
>> has itself released a HTML5 WYSIWYG, but removing flash support completely
>> from Firefox is a bold step.

> It might not be bold 5 years from now. Also, 5 years from now, there's
> a good chance that Shumway will work well enough to deliver .swf
> support in Firefox without Flash Player. See
> https://github.com/mozilla/shumway
>

So from everyone's responses it appears that they're relying on the fact
that flash will be deprecated and succeeded by a combination of HTML5
and WebGL which has better performance, less bugs and more security.

But this assumption may be risky... we don't know the future but a lot
of stupid devs may continue to develop in flash for the same way no one
uses Blender by everyone knowns Maya/AutoCAD etc...

So we cant be sure that flash will be out of the way.

[dE .]

Also another thing I forgot is that, just when Linux started to look
like a good gaming platform once online games started to come up,
everything crashed. Thanks to Adobe.

So if you wanna play games on Linux use Chrome(ium) cause it supports
all -- html5, webgl and flash.

[Mike Hommey]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 12:18:32PM +0530, dE . wrote:
> Also another thing I forgot is that, just when Linux started to look
> like a good gaming platform once online games started to come up,
> everything crashed. Thanks to Adobe.
>
> So if you wanna play games on Linux use Chrome(ium) cause it
> supports all -- html5, webgl and flash.

Here's the breaking news: Chromium won't support flash. Flash won't be
shipped separately from Chrome, and being proprietary, won't be shipped
with open source Chromium. It might still be technically possible to
take the flash plugin from Chrome and use it in Chromium, but in all
likeliness, the flash plugin won't be distributable by third parties
separately from Chrome, legally speaking.

Mike

[Robert O'Callahan]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 6:46 PM, dE . <de.t...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So from everyone's responses it appears that they're relying on the fact
> that flash will be deprecated and succeeded by a combination of HTML5 and
> WebGL which has better performance, less bugs and more security.
>
> But this assumption may be risky... we don't know the future but a lot of
> stupid devs may continue to develop in flash for the same way no one uses
> Blender by everyone knowns Maya/AutoCAD etc...
>

It's not risky. If Flash surprises us by taking on a new lease of life, we
can always change our strategy. In the meantime we're better off investing
in Web standards instead of Pepper, since we have to do them no matter what.

Rob
--
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. ... If you love those
who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors
doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more
than others?" [Matthew 5:43-47]

[dE .]

Does anyone here thinks that the plugin's future release will be
suspended for Windows and Mac also? And if so by how much time.

It appears Google's playing pure politics here... I think it's trying to
make Chrome a gaming gateway. They want to make an impression that
Chrome is for games in the same way PC means Windows.

[Joshua Cranmer]

On 4/12/2012 9:03 AM, dE . wrote:
> On 04/12/12 13:18, Mike Hommey wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 12:18:32PM +0530, dE . wrote:
>>> Also another thing I forgot is that, just when Linux started to look
>>> like a good gaming platform once online games started to come up,
>>> everything crashed. Thanks to Adobe.
>>>
>>> So if you wanna play games on Linux use Chrome(ium) cause it
>>> supports all -- html5, webgl and flash.
>> Here's the breaking news: Chromium won't support flash. Flash won't be
>> shipped separately from Chrome, and being proprietary, won't be shipped
>> with open source Chromium. It might still be technically possible to
>> take the flash plugin from Chrome and use it in Chromium, but in all
>> likeliness, the flash plugin won't be distributable by third parties
>> separately from Chrome, legally speaking.
>>
>> Mike
>
> Does anyone here thinks that the plugin's future release will be
> suspended for Windows and Mac also? And if so by how much time.

All reports indicate that the reason that Adobe dropped Flash on Linux
is because they don't want to expend the resources chasing down a tiny
market share--it's Chrome who is doing the Flash-on-Linux-via-Pepper
support, not Adobe. Killing Flash on Windows and Mac in the near future
would probably be one of those things hailed in MBA textbooks for years
to come as "stupidest decisions ever". Chrome does not have a majority
market share, so killing Flash on other browsers would mean that nobody
would be willing to be future versions of the developer tools for Flash
since most of their clients couldn't use them.

At this time, there is no reason to support Pepper. If the things you
say would happen do come true, it may be worth reevaluating the
decision. But while your comments are mere hypotheticals, there is no
reason to change the current strategy.

[dE .]

On 04/12/12 17:21, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 6:46 PM, dE . <de.t...@gmail.com
> <mailto:de.t...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> So from everyone's responses it appears that they're relying on
> the fact that flash will be deprecated and succeeded by a
> combination of HTML5 and WebGL which has better performance, less
> bugs and more security.
>
> But this assumption may be risky... we don't know the future but a
> lot of stupid devs may continue to develop in flash for the same
> way no one uses Blender by everyone knowns Maya/AutoCAD etc...
>
>
> It's not risky. If Flash surprises us by taking on a new lease of
> life, we can always change our strategy. In the meantime we're better
> off investing in Web standards instead of Pepper, since we have to do
> them no matter what.

Changing strategy cant be done at an instance.. it takes time to build
an API, and that's the reason why I notified about this now.

For starters, look at the amount HTML5/WebGL games available -- it's
negligible. Although Google trends is showing some good signs -

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=learn+flash,+learn+html5+|+webgl

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=html5+|+webgl+games,+flash+games

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=html5+|+webgl+games&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1

[Robert Kaiser]

dE . schrieb:

> Does anyone here thinks that the plugin's future release will be
> suspended for Windows and Mac also? And if so by how much time.

From all the signs, this is their target, but they only will drop them,
esp. the Windows variant, once they get usage on the web down
significantly. Dropping Android and Linux support (Adobe completely
dropped Linux, Goggle, who has access to the full Flash source code,
will continue support for Chrome on Linux only) is IMHO a step to reduce
their investment in Flash while giving web developers a strong sign that
they shouldn't build new stuff on Flash but use HTML5 technologies
instead (of course, Adobe hope they'll use their tools for that HTML5
development).
I'm pretty sure they will drop Mac at some point, and later even
Windows, i.e. de-support Flash completely, but this still will take
multiple years and will completely depend on how usage of Flash by web
developers will evolve. Dropping Mac or dropping Flash completely right
now would be ridiculous for them market-wise right now, but I'm sure
it's the long-term target. This is the start of the long road of Flash
going out of business, but it will be around for several more years.

Robert Kaiser

[Robert Kaiser]

dE . schrieb:

> For starters, look at the amount HTML5/WebGL games available -- it's
> negligible.

Sure, it just became a valid choice a short time ago, or is still in the
phase of becoming one. Just like the road to de-supporting Flash
officially has just started a short time ago, the road to HTML5 gaming
being widely deployed has just started as well.

Things are moving in the right direction now, and with the speed that
the web tends to move, HTML5 gaming could be mainstream very soon, but
then, it also can take some time. We'll see, but Mozilla wants to be
ready for it for sure - more than for deprecated technologies. ;-)

Robert Kaiser

[Martin Best]

Let me just echo this. There is a lot of attention going into how HTML5 + WebGL need to develop to support games really well. This attention level is well past what we have seen on the web historically. The standards are still maturing but demand is driving this process forward at a rapid pace (by browser standards anyhow). You can track out efforts at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/AreWeFunYet. There are also plenty of solid game projects out there in the pipeline, many should start to hit the market later this year so keep an eye on the trades as the bigger name developers start to release their HTML5 offerings.

Martin

[dE .]

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Thanks for the info devs, hope it works out this way.