Open Screen Project aims to put Flash everywhere

Tuesday, 02 June 2009 08:01

Today Adobe announced the Open Screen Project which aims to bring the Flash player to as many different devices as possible.

Cutting through the jargon on the press release, the most significant points are that Adobe are removing restrictions on usage of the Flash and Flash video specifications (SWF, FLV, and F4V), publishing the device porting layer APIs, and removing the licensing fees for the next major version of the Flash Player and AIR for devices. Which means that developers will now be able to port Flash to any device, and distribute and deploy it for free. Additionally, the Flash Cast and AMF data transfer protocols will be published.

While Flash Player has long been an almost ubiquitous platform for desktop PCs, this new move aims to do the same for phones and portable devices. Ryan Stewart and Dave McAllister from Adobe have both written blog posts on the announcement.

Essentially, the Flash player is now about as open as it can possibly be without being open source. It’s an interesting move by Adobe, and I’m sure many will be watching to see what comes out of it.