Petition to open source Flash

Re:Petition to open source Flash by simion314 on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @05:08PM (#14860371)

I can't understand why people are against open sourcing some proprietary code, why would it affect you? If you hate Flash that much you will have the opportunity to see the source code and confirm that is bad. All the open source reimplementation are incomplete, so with the opening up of Flash the open source ones could have a look (if license allows) and finish the reimplementation.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by chickenfries on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @06:21PM (#14860912)

I can't believe what I'm seeing. People on HN don't want something to be open sourced? Is it opposite day?

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by 80211 on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @09:49PM (#14862016)

Because it's Flash and their God Steve Jobs said that Flash was bad. It's really as simple as that.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by chickenfries on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @09:58PM (#14862068)

I want to believe that you're not right, but you might be. I just can't understand why a massive proprietary codebase becoming open wouldn't be a Good Thing

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by watwut on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @05:36PM (#14860596)

Hate does not have to be rational - just as any other emotion. It also does not matter whether flash code quality is good or bad. It influences nothing at this point. They want it bad, so they will see it bad. And since all bigger projects have dirty places here and there, flash is pretty much guaranteed to have some too.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by notacoward on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @06:05PM (#14860794)

> why would it affect you?

Security affects everyone. Even if I can keep my own machine uninfected, I can't do the same for my bank's machines. Nor can I do the same for random strangers whose machines get 0wned and then used to launch new attacks against me, my bank, and everyone else. Insecure software needs to be replaced by more secure software, not put on indefinite life support.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by nextlevelwizard on Thursday July 27, 2017 @06:33AM (#14864038)

You do know that Chrome, Firefox, and Edge (at least) have all stated that they will drop support for flash as soon as it's EOL'd. So why again would open sourcing Flash after that point make a difference in your security?

Only thing you can argue is that if someone is using old out of date software they would be at risk, but they are already at risk. Open sourcing Flash would not make it any less secure if it's not being used anywhere anymore.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by notacoward on Thursday July 27, 2017 @07:50AM (#14864357)

Do you suppose that nobody will use the open-source version of Flash to make a spin of Chromium with Flash support, to serve the very kind of people who just can't seem to live without their legacy apps? If the browsers are open source and Flash is open source, millions of systems will be left vulnerable in this way.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by simion314 on Thursday July 27, 2017 @08:41AM (#14864702)

So you don't want some code to be open source because you care about some tech people may used that open source code and get infected? Java was open sourced and you don't have an open source Java plugin forced upon you.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by notacoward on Thursday July 27, 2017 @09:28AM (#14865014)

Yes, I do, quite often.

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by simion314 on Thursday July 27, 2017 @11:15AM (#14866057)

What do you mean is Firefox and Chrome forcing Java on you? Did Java getting open sourced affected you in a negative way? how?

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Re:Petition to open source Flash by nextlevelwizard on Thursday July 27, 2017 @10:01AM (#14865308)

What is preventing them bundling the old out of date Flash with Chromium?

Why even bother worrying about Chromium? People who are going to want the legacy Flash stuff are running Windows and there isn't even Windows build of Chromium. How come people on HN always come up with some ridiculous edge case that has zero baring on reality.

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