In a move no doubt welcomed by Flash developers worldwide, Adobe and the Mozilla Foundation have announced that Adobe has donated source code for the Flash ActionScript Virtual Machine to the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla will host a new open source project, named Tamarin, to accelerate the development of this standards-based approach for creating rich web apps. The announcement is being made this morning at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.The code donation is the largest of its kind to Mozilla since the foundation's inception in 2003. The code covers the ActionScript scripting language in Adobe's Flash software. "By working with the open-source community 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," said Kevin Lynch, Adobe's chief software architect. The Tamarin project will implement the final version of the ECMAScript Edition 4 standard language, which Mozilla will use within the next generation of SpiderMonkey, the core JavaScript engine embedded in the free Firefox web browser. Tamarin implements the ECMAScript standard used by languages such as JavaScript, Adobe ActionScript, and Microsoft JScript, the primary languages developers use for building rich Internet applications. Adobe and Mozilla are both active participants in the ECMA International Programming Language technical committee (TC39-TG1) developing the ECMAScript Edition 4 (ES4) standard. The Flash ActionScript Virtual Machine, while enjoying a broad install base -- Adobe claims the Flash player is installed on over 700 million PCs and mobile devices worldwide -- has historically been a bit feature anemic, lacking such things as Regular Expression support, full XML processing, and robust debugging capabilities. By opening the code up to a broader body of developers, software landscapes, and opinions, the ActionScript engine is sure to make up some lost ground and round a few of the rougher edges. The project will be jointly managed by developers from Adobe and Mozilla. And the improvements eventually will be incorporated into the Firefox browser, probably in an upgrade scheduled for the first half of 2008, said Frank Hecker, the Mozilla Foundation's executive director.
About the Author
Brice Dunwoodie is the founder and CEO of Simpler Media Group, publisher of CMSWire, Reworked and VKTR. With more than 25 years of enterprise software experience at the intersection of technology, business operations and executive-level strategy, Brice maintains a focus on clarity, evidence-based analysis, visionary thinking and practitioner relevance. His academic background spans California Polytechnic University and the University of Michigan with a focus on psychology, computer science and leadership practices. Connect with Brice Dunwoodie:
