Will Open Source Video Finally Kill Adobe Flash? Steve Jobs May Be Sorry What He Wished For
Open source video is poised to kill off Flash in HTML 5, but Steve Jobs may not be as happy as you would think
By Alan Shimel on Thu, 03/18/10 - 1:00pm.All the buzz is that HTML5 will signal the death knell for Adobe Flash. Many would say good riddance, especially Apple's Steve Jobs, whose steadfast refusal to support the technology has left many iPhone users with a crippled web browsing experience (including this blogger). But Jobs should be careful of what he wishes for. The eventual winner of the HTML5 video standards debate could be an open source standard. This will leave Jobs and his black box, closed system henchman in Cupertino in a bind.
The Open Video Alliance yesterday announced a Lets Get Video On Wikipedia campaign. Wikipedia supports an open video format which is in contention to be supported in HTML5. If so, folks could use open source tools like Kaltura (open source video publishing platform) and Miro (open source video and bit torrent client) to play video right in most web pages. No more Adobe. BTW, both Miro and Kaltura teamed with the Open Video Alliance in bringing the lets get video on Wikipedia campaign going. Also Mozilla Drumbeat is a supporting member of the campaign.
You can watch a video about The Open Video Alliance:
The OVA describes their mission as:
As internet video matures, we face a crossroads: will technology and public policy support a more participatory culture—one that encourages and enables free expression and broader cultural engagement? Or will online video become a glorified TV-on-demand service?
Open Video is a movement to promote free expression and innovation in online video through open standards, open source, and open content.
Readers, don't think the irony is lost on me that we are using the non-open source YouTube to play this video on why video should be open. But that is what open standards are all about I guess.
Theora is the open video standard that Wikipedia, Kaltura and Miro support. As I mentioned it is one of the contenders for the video tag in HTML5. However, opposition to it is coming from an unexpected source. You would think Steve Jobs and the Apple crew would be doing back flips about a viable alternative to Flash. But that is not the case evidently.
The Apple team says Theora doesn't have what it takes to run video on the mobile web. With HTML5 specs not finalized they are against any specific codec being in the HTML. I think open source is as repulsive to Apple as Flash is. I think "video for the iPhone won't be done, until only Apple will be able to run".
In the meantime iPhone users will watch with video envy as our Android friends run videos other than YouTube and we are shut out of both Flash and open source video.
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More blog posts from Alan Shimel:
- Open Source, preferred by 9 out 10 Supercomputers
- Getting Gist of Twitter's Love of Open Source
- Will Oracle's Open Source Efforts Die of Brain Drain?
- Bang, Zoom, Is Open Source The Right Way To The Moon?
- Are You Ready For An Open Source Car?
- Open Source: Why You Care
- Open Source Friday Focus: Pidgin
- Apple and Microsoft As Underdog? I Don't Think So
- Welcome to the Personal Cloud, Thanks to Open Source and Pogoplug
- Smartphones, the Next Great Open Source Battleground
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As co-founder and Managing Partner at The CISO Group, Alan Shimel is responsible for driving the vision and mission of the company. The CISO Group offers security consulting and PCI compliance management for the payment card industry. Prior to The CISO Group, Alan was the Chief Strategy Officer at StillSecure. Shimel was the public persona of StillSecure as it grew from start up to helping defend some of the largest and most sensitive networks in the world.
Shimel is an often-cited personality in the technology community and is a sought-after speaker at industry and government conferences and events. His commentary about the state of security, open source and life is followed closely by many industry insiders via his blog and podcast, "Ashimmy, After All These Years" (www.ashimmy.com). Alan is now also a regular contributor to The CISO Group’s security.exe blog and podcast.
Alan has helped build several successful technology companies by combining a strong business background with a deep knowledge of technology. His legal background, long experience in the field, and New York street smarts combine to form a unique personality.
Disclosure: The CISO Group sells a software-as-a-service PCI compliance application called SAQPro. The company is independent and does not represent any other vendor's products as a reseller.
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