[thelist] Macromedia.com redesigned

[Erik Mattheis]

On Wednesday, March 5, 2003, at 06:33  PM, Paul Bennett wrote:
> As a wireless developer, I can assure you that "arcane" is no solid
> reference to the multitudes of handeld  / mobile devices that can and
> will rely upon *well formed XHTML or xml* to display information.

... contrasted with ...

> The (public) internet was established to connect different networks on
> a
> common protocol and allow the easy and common sharing of information
> and
> ideas. Requiring users to have a proprietary (albeit free) plugin to
> access even portions of that information is not only contrary to the
> ideology of what the internet is, but also (as we have seen) alienates
> a
> proportion (however "small" it is) of the internet population.

Is interesting.

Clearing things up, the SWF  file format spec is freely available
<http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/licensing/fileformat/>.

Anyone can make an app that creates SWFs without paying any licensing
fees.

There are a ton of tools/utilities out there that for lots of tasks
work a "he11" of a lot better than the Flash authoring environment.

Flash is the de facto standard for sharing information that includes
animation or sound. MM's a member of the W3C.

You can build an entire Flash application on well formed XML. I've done
several. Works nicely.

Not everybody has or is interested in having (or capable of using) the
Flash player, whether it's a web browser version or a handheld version.
So what?

Not everybody has or is interested in having (or capable of using)  a
handheld or mobile device that can access the Internet. So what?

I seriously don't see a distinction between what you're saying about
"handheld/mobile devices" vs. the Flash Player other than you say Flash
is contrary to the ideology of the Internet and alienates people.

I'm being nice here, but I have say that from what you've written
recently, I believe your animosity towards Flash is caused by lack of
knowledge.

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Erik Mattheis
GoZz Digital
<http://goZz.com/>
Flash and ColdFusion Development
Minneapolis, MN
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