JD on EP

Images of Tamarin monkeys... code name in honor of the Mozilla SpiderMonkey Project.

Press release: "Adobe and Mozilla Foundation to Open Source Flash Player Scripting Engine: Unifies Modern Scripting Across Firefox and Flash and Advances Innovation on the Web" "Adobe Systems Incorporated and the Mozilla Foundation, a public-benefit organization dedicated to promoting choice and innovation on the Internet, today announced that Adobe has contributed source code for the ActionScript Virtual Machine, the powerful standards-based scripting language engine in Adobe Flash Player, to the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla will host a new open source project, called Tamarin, to accelerate the development of this standards-based approach for creating rich and engaging Web applications. 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 Firefox, Mozilla’s free Web browser. As of today, developers working on SpiderMonkey will have access to the Tamarin code in the Mozilla CVS repository via the project page located at www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/. Contributions to the code will be managed by a governing body of developers from both Adobe and Mozilla."

Information Week: "Adobe Opens Flash Scripting Engine Code" "'Between Flash Player and Mozilla, we're unifying the scripting engine and really giving developers a platform that cuts a very wide swath across the Web community,' says Pam Deziel, director of product marketing at Adobe."

CNET: "Adobe to donate script code to Mozilla" "'We can bring together the broader HTML and Flash developer communities around this common language implementation,' [Adobe CTO Kevin] Lynch said. 'Using the same language engine is a huge step.'"

Seattle Source-Intelligencer: "Adobe donates Flash code to Mozilla Firefox" (Adobe is actually donating some of the source code behind the scripting engine in Adobe Flash Player to the Mozilla Foundation, for use in varied projects) "The donation, to be announced today at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, represents the largest contribution of code to Mozilla since the Mountain View, Calif.-based foundation's 2003 inception."

Ryan Stewart: "Adobe partners with Mozilla by open sourcing a core part of the Flash Player" "Perhaps the most important implication from the announcement is what it does for the open source community. By contributing some of the JIT code, they're opening up a core part of the Flash Player. That's not to say that we will see hundreds of different Flash Players out there from the open source community, but it does make ActionScript 3 a very interesting technology from the standpoint of open source projects."

Business 2.0: "Web 2.0 bombshell: Adobe open-sources ActionScript VM" "Another way to read this: Adobe is offering up secrets from its popular Flash player, hoping it will become the de facto standard on which tomorrow's Web applications will be built. Adding weight to the offering, Mozilla plans to release a version of Firefox built from the foundation of this ActionScript VM code sometime in 2008." (The source code is a shareable part of the ActionScript Virtual Machine, and does not include the other elements making up Adobe Flash Player. Authoring is not involved, nor media, just part of the runtime scripting engine.)

When talking about Adobe's ongoing challenge to build its business while also being open with the developer community, Chizen offered some reflections that may illuminate his thinking behind the ActionScript VM move:

"It really is a tension between those who can be blinded by making money, and those who want to do what's right for the [developer] community regardless of the business outcome. My job is to balance the needs of both communities. Where these issues come to a head is in meetings where the champion for a standards body is at odds with those who are responsible for making sure that we deliver the appropriate results for our shareholders," Chizen said. "I have to decide."

Mike Melanson (Adobe staffer): Open Up "Today, Adobe released the source for its ActionScript Virtual Machine to the Mozilla Foundation. That's what Adobe did. Since this blog is a common stop for open source-minded folk, I thought it might be pertinent to use this space to discuss what Adobe didn't do...."

MacWorld: "Web 2.0 Conference: Flash, Firefox to unite" "Tamarin's ultimate goal is to 'unify' scripting across Firefox and Flash and thus give Web developers an open source virtual machine for developing and deploying rich, interactive applications across both platforms, according to the organizations. The effort should yield better compatibility, integration, and stability between Flash and Firefox and make it easier for developers to work with the two environments, said Michael Goulde, a Forrester Research analyst."

Internet News: "Adobe Makes ActiveScript Engine Open Source" (Incorrect title, in name and detail) "Every time you increase performance, people find new things you can do with it. The fact that a broader level of developers will be working with it, we feel will accelerate the pace of innovation,' [Pam Deziel, director of product marketing for the platform business unit at Adobe] said."

Emmy Huang (Adobe staffer): "New open source project with code contributed from Adobe ActionScript Virtual Machine" "No, Adobe is not open sourcing the Flash Player. ;-P We are contributing source code for the ActionScript Virtual Machine, the scripting language engine component within Flash Player. ActionScript 3.0 runs on the Tamarin virtual machine in Flash Player 9."

Tinic Uro (Adobe staffer): "SpiderMonkey's relative Tamarin joins the family" "Today Adobe announced that the EMCAScript 4 compatible virtual machine in the Adobe Flash Player named Tamarin has been contributed to the Mozilla project. It is the single largest contribution to the Mozilla foundation since its inception and consist of about 135.000 lines of source code. The engine is fully open source using the standard Mozilla license, with the Mozilla foundation retaining full ownership." More technical context here too.

Sys-Con: "Adobe Open Sources Flash Player Scripting Engine Code
Unifies Modern Scripting Across Firefox And Flash" "'There is nothing better for a standard than to have it implemented in multiple products,' said Jan van den Beld, Secretary General, Ecma International. 'Adobe is taking a huge step forward in driving standards-based Web development by open source licensing their virtual machine technology.'"