Avalon, Flash, PDF, SVG.
Posted Apr 21, 2005 1:38 UTC (Thu) by
xoddam (subscriber, #2322)
Parent article:
Macromedia, Adobe make peace for bigger fight (News.com)
Not being particularly interested in Microsoft's vapourware, I haven't
looked up what Avalon might entail, but if it is likely to compete with
the 'convergence' of Flash and PDF, I'm very interested to see the
new Adobe's next moves on SVG.
Scripted SVG, while less concise than either pdf or Flash, is the only
properly free format which is comparable to either. Adobe has been
pushing SVG gently as a Flash competitor, but that is obviously over
now. If Adobe chooses to continue to push the open standard over/against
Microsoft, free software stands to gain from better implementations
(by the community, or by Adobe if it's feeling generous). If, on the
other hand, Adobe drops SVG, open standards for these applications may
die a quiet death for a decade or so.
OTOH perhaps *Microsoft* is interested in embracing and extending SVG
to crush Adobe? That would be interesting to watch, and possibly
actually bring forward the time when free software and open standards
capture this space.
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