| Adobe/Mozilla Tamarin goes open source |
Nov. 08, 2006
There's a new primate in town. On November 8th, it became official: Adobe Systems Inc. has donated source code for its ActionScript Virtual Machine to that open-source champion of the people, the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla promptly converted it into the Tamarin project to prop that standard wide open.
What does that mean to you? Well, on the simplest level, it will probably mean a richer, Flash-ier Firefox experience. Before this, ActionScript spoke only to Adobe Flash Player 9. SpiderMonkey, the core JavaScript engine in Mozilla's Firefox, is C-based. Now, SpiderMonkey programmers will also have access to ActionScript source code.
With this move, added Brendan Eich, chief technology officer of Mozilla Corp., "Web developers have a high-performance, open source virtual machine for building and deploying interactive applications across both Adobe Flash Player and the Firefox Web browser." Games, movie trailers, and countless graphics programs will move out onto the open seas.
On a deeper level, this may mean a Web-wide revolution. The greater goal of the Tamarin project is to launch a full-fledged ECMAScript Edition 4 standard.
Mozilla and Adobe alike are afire with enthusiasm for this goal. According to a statement, Eich feels that "Adobe's work on the new virtual machine is the largest contribution to the Mozilla Foundation since its inception." Eich, it should be noted, is the team lead on the ECMAScript working group.
Adobe's grand gesture is being hailed from without and within. Secretary General Jan van den Beld of ECMA International stated: "Adobe is taking a huge step forward in driving standards-based Web development by open-source licensing their virtual machine technology."
Kevin Lynch, senior VP and chief software architect at Adobe, clearly agrees. "By working with the open source community," Lynch proclaimed, "we are accelerating the adoption of a standard language for creating and delivering richer, more interactive experiences that work consistently across PCs and mobile devices." (Cue triumphant marching music.)
Does a simple source code donation really go that far? Maybe not.
Adobe could've done more if it truly wanted to welcome Web-weavers with open arms. As Mike Melansen, Adobe's leading Flash Player engineer, blogged, said, "Adobe did not open source the Flash Player, incorporate the Flash Player into Mozilla, license Mozilla's HTML rendering engine, [or] purchase Mozilla, or vice-versa." So, Adobe isn't exactly handing over the keys to the vault or Web 2.0, either.
Even ECMA 4 may not bring about a full-fledged home-brewed Internet. To quote ex-Mozillan Jamie Zawinski, as cited in Eric S. Raymond's famous The Cathedral and the Bazaar, "Open source...is not magic pixie dust."
In fact, according to Mozilla, Tamarin isn't expected to be included in SpiderMonkey and Firefox until 2008. But it's definitely a good beginning.
-- Rachel Schmutter
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