I've just submitted this comment (we'll see if it gets posted):
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Hello Mr. McAllister,
I'm glad to hear that Adobe has opened as much as they have. That's the right direction; I'm glad you're doing it.
I'm a little concerned about your claim that anyone can implement SWF, RTMP, and so forth. Didn't Adobe issue a DMCA takedown when someone implemented RTMP?
I recognize that that the takedown notice says it was issued because the implementation "can be used to download copyrighted works," not because it's an implementation of RTMP. That's a silly argument-- every web browser that uses a Flash player downloads content before it plays it. How could one implement RTMP, the "Real-Time Messaging Protocol" without sending any messages?
I'm willing to believe that there might be some misunderstanding here-- maybe there are two parts to the RTMP spec, and only one is open, or something like that. But at the outset, I can't reconcile what you've written with the rest of the evidence that I see.
I now agree. Judging by his Twitter account, Dave McAllister has been awake for at least 3 hours this fine Monday morning. My comment does not appear on his blog yet.
I just tweeted at him. Maybe it's caught in a spam trap or something.
Your comment is extremely interesting because it
seems to be the first time Adobe has publicly acknowledged
that the real reason for that DMCA takedown was the
encryption scheme NOT *potential* copyright infringement.
Meaning that Adobe deliberately mis-used the DMCA and mis-led
the entire community about the real reasons for the takedown
right?
Thanks for that. It seems like Adobe could actually refute the accusation pretty well if they wanted to. My impression from the exchange you link to is that Mr. Nack (the Adobe guy) has a point, but I can't say that I understand it, since he's only written a couple of sentences.
It looks to me like some of the folks at Adobe are genuinely trying to be open, but others aren't, so it looks like the genuine folks are lying, since you can't tell who's really doing what. It's weird, because I don't see how Flash could possibly win in the long term without becoming completely open. (I do think a non-open option can win, but it doesn't look like it will be Flash.)
Or maybe you did, but their "Open at Adobe" moderator didn't approve it.:)