Well I haven't actually had a nice rant in a while, but after reading Geoff Stearns post this morning about the name change of his embed script (now known as SWFObject) that allows swf files to play in a browser without all the alerts and warning I just couldn't help myself. This has to be one of the most asinine moves I could imagine on Adobe's part. What the hell are they thinking? How could allowing the name (the "F" word I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say in public) remain part of this script name (that he gives away freely and is not profiting from) hurt anything. In fact I would think it helps with the association to the technology, and by proxy, the Company.

The timing of all this is also unfortunate. At a time when Microsoft releases a "patch" to their browser which makes using the "F" technology more obtrusive without a script like the one Geoff created. At a time when the "F" platform is gaining competition by the minute from AJAX frameworks and Microsoft's Expression Suite . You would think that they'd want the "F" word used as much as possible.

Rather than force Geoff to change the name (a name by the way that not only has familiarity throughout the community but a name that relates to the product and in no way harms or dilutes the product it was created for) what they should be doing is trying to write him a check and use his method in their own publishing templates. It's much better than the detection method that ships now, overcoming many of the shortcomings of the current publishing templates.

Great move Adobe, way to go. Show the community how supportive you are by making things harder on the people progressing your technology (or the technology you bought cause you couldn't make it right on your own).

I think the best quote I've read so far is from Aral Balken in his comment to Geoff when he said "Sounds to me like Adobe's legal department needs to have a good long talk with their PR department". Only I think its more like "Adobe's PR department needs to have a good long talk with their legal department".

It makes me wonder, would any of this be happening if this was still a Macromedia product?...I doubt it.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 21st, 2006 at 9:42 am and is filed under Flash, JavaScript. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.