[shad0wfax]

I cannot see how they can be serious about Flash if they are going to ignore Linux.

It makes sense from Adobe's point of view, because the adoption on Linux is minimal, but for someone creating content on flash (for example - for video, games, or even some old school websites), this is just making it harder. Now these content creators have to worry about their clients on Linux platform.

Adobe might as well say that Flash is done on all platforms.

Note: I am not taking sides, if Flash is good/bad but just trying to argue that if Adobe wants their Flash platform to be taken seriously on Windows/Mac, they really cannot ignore Linux this way.

[lparry]

"Now these content creators have to worry about their clients on Linux platform."

The sort of content creators who care about this (ie good ones) already had to worry about the tens of millions of ios devices out there. Linux is barely a blip on the content consumption radar

[snissn]

Flash on linux has always been bugging and CPU inefficient..

[shad0wfax]

Yes, but if this is an admit of defeat by Adobe's engineering (like how to some extent you can say it was on Tablet/phone platform), it just is a bad sign for them.

What as a consumer of flash platform I need form Adobe is clarity and commitment. Today I see it has gone another step backward. Just reinforces the public opinion of wanting to move away from Flash even more.

[snissn]

Big picture they are trying to kill flash! I just don't think that this particular story is that big of a deal because it really only affects linux firefox users. So it's sort of a neat way to for them to re-prioritize on maintaining a product that they anticipate deprecating in the long run.

[shad0wfax]

I think as an outsider to Adobe, logic dictates what you say. But here is Adobe's thoughts on Flash and their platform: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/articles/recent-up....

The section on Flash player for desktop does say they are keen on making it better, especially with on the multimedia front (I have to admit there are some pain points they do solve for multimedia). Nevertheless, I am with you in predicting that this is a sure sign of their slow but sure move towards killing it. I just hope people read it faster than we can and not pour money on building flash based solutions. (A lot of enterprise still use flash).

[djeikyb]

How does it only affect linux firefox users? I think you're right about Adobe's motives, but it certainly affects any linux browser that could use libflashplayer, no? Ie Chrom*, Opera..

[BlackAura]

They're dropping the NPAPI (Netscape Plugin API) version on Linux.

Chrome currently ships with both an NPAPI version of Flash, and a PPAPI (Pepper - basically a replacement plugin API developed by Google, as an offshoot of NaCl) version. The PPAPI version will still be updated, so when the next version of Flash comes out, Chrome will just use the PPAPI version.

But the PPAPI version will only be shipped with Chrome, and only Chrome / Chromium support PPAPI plugins. Any Linux users using any browser other than Chrome will basically be out of luck.

[cpeterso]

When evaluating the bugginess of Flash on Linux, consider that Adobe was releasing a single libflashplayer.so with binary compatibility for a variety of Linux distros compiled with different versions of gcc, with different library versions, ALSA or OSS audio APIs, buggy OpenGL drivers, and NPAPIs for multiple versions of Firefox and Chrome browsers. And the Flash Player codebase dates back to FutureSplash circa 1993-1995. Developing "consumer" software for Linux is a challenging (and expensive) proposition.

[batista]

Now these content creators have to worry about their clients on Linux platform.

I don't thing many content creators worry that much about clients on the Linux platform.

Some don't even care about OS X clients (like those that rushed to adopt Silverlight back in the day), and that platform has 10x the Linux desktop share.

[DrJokepu]

It's not like it matters anymore, but Silverlight worked just fine on Macs ever since it was originally released.

[batista]

Yes, but only after manually installing it. Which the majority of Mac user's didn't.