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Why Won't Macromedia Release 64-bit Flash?

Posted by Cliff on Wed Oct 19, 2005 03:35 PM
from the plenty-of-demand-but-no-supply dept.
Linux Business Graphics Software
Flashless Dancer asks: "Despite numerous online campaigns, blogs and forum postings, Macromedia has failed to release a 64 bit version of it's popular Flash Player for 64 bit architectures. Growing outcry in the Linux community recently spawned the online petition at PetitionOnline, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears. A recent posting to Macromedia's technotes, back in September, offers this explanation and advice to users and developers who are growing increasingly concerned that users with 64 bit architectures are unable to view online content created with Flash. It explains that users must downgrade to 32 bit browsers and use the 32 bit plugin. This simply isn't a good option for most users, in fact many Linux distributions, including FC2/3/4 install 64-bit browsers with their 64-bit distributions. This seems to breathe new life into the old GplFlash Project which is now back, after some time on the back burner. Future development of GplFlash2 promises support for Flash 6/7 but remains in development for now. Open speculation in chatrooms and web forums alleges all sorts of conspiracy theories but, what I'd like to know is: What's the real difficulty here for Macromedia?"
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Why Won't Macromedia Release 64-bit Flash? 50 Comments More /

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  • Developer Conference (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stupidcomputers (852188) on Wednesday October 19 2005, @03:43PM (#13830256)
    Today is the last day for the Macromedia Max conference. I had some coworkers attend the conference. Before they left, I asked them to ask the developers directly what the deal is. Hopefully some good will come out of it.

  • No problem at all (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Phillup (317168)
    I don't have flash installed, and you know what?

    I've found browsing to be much more injoyable!

    Flash: mostly crap.
  • Nothing's been committed to CVS in a few months. One of the developers has a blog [blogspot.com], and he said he'd be busy with other things through the end of September, but even so, it's been three weeks since. The dev mailing list has only had five posts in October to date.

    New code is not necessary, but I for one wouldn't mind hearing something---anything---recent.

    • a correction (Score:3, Informative)

      by bersl2 (689221)
      I just noticed that a few things have been committed to CVS in the past week. Yay!

      And just when I think that I've done enough fact-checking...

  • Flash Worthwhile? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by finkployd (12902) on Wednesday October 19 2005, @03:49PM (#13830328) Homepage
    Homestarrunner aside, does anyone here actually go to flash sites? (especially when presented with a non-flash alternative upon entering the site?)

    I have never found flash enabled sites to be any easier to navigate or more informative, usually the opposite.

    Finkployd
  • I run AMD64 Debian sid, and I consider it a boon to my web browsing experience that I no longer have to deal with Flash. I've even gone to the point where I wrote a generic letter which I've sent to a few sites where the requirement for Flash has impeded my progress. I have yet to receive anything but a generic 'thank you for your input' response, but I still consider the letter to properly address the real issue at hand - Flash's pervasiveness as a replacement, rather than augmentation, of a reliable text-

  • Simple economics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bastian (66383) on Wednesday October 19 2005, @03:54PM (#13830379)
    Flash player users pay $0 per copy to Macromedia. Last I checked, the Flash player is neither adware nor spyware-encumbered, so they aren't making any money there, either.

    Flash player users on 64-bit platforms are a vanishingly small percentage of Flash player users.

    If Flash is not 64-bit clean, then it will probably be reasonably expensive for Macromedia to clean it up.

    What can Macromedia expect for a return on this investment? Well, zero times 0.005 is still zero.
    • Flash player users on 64-bit platforms are a vanishingly small percentage of Flash player users.

      Good arguments, but it falls right there. 64 bit use isn't vanishing at all. With Dell and other manufactures pushing their 64 bit systems for workstations more and more people have 64 bit systems. Hell the newest of our office computers are 64 bit though they are all still running 32 bit operating system. That doesn't mean the demand to switch isn't there, just that we can wait.

    • Re:Simple economics (Score:3, Informative)

      by dtfinch (661405) *
      Macromedia sells to web developers, who might want their creations to run anywhere. They might even want to test/debug their creations on their own 64 bit desktops.
        • the video editors you know- who are doing work on 64-bit machines? ask them what apps they use?

          I cannot find any windows NLE video editing apps 'designed' and working well under 64-bit.. some will sorta work..

          Amazingly enough, video editing is one of the 'major fields' touted at microsoft, but it seems no app uses 64 bit.
            • What is VirtualDub?
              VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms
              (that I know does have a 64 bit port)

              BUT I WANT TO EDIT VIDEO, thanks.....
    • It's difficult to be sad when the prime competitor is Microsoft (the other is SVG), but if they went to the trouble of nailing down all of the corners, they would be protecting Flash's crown as most ubiquitous web animated gaudiness language.

      Somewhere along the line, they seem to have lost the plot to that particular story, else a Linux port of Shockwave would have been here two years ago.

      Locking competitors out is important because it sells Macromedia's expensive (AUD$760+GST for Dreamweaver 2004) developm

    • Re:Simple economics (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dimwit (36756) *
      They have a 64-bit version for Solaris and SPARC.

      And they have a 32-bit version for Solaris on Intel.

      I'm positive there are more Linux 64-bit users than 32-bit Intel Solaris users. Seriously. So, I don't get it.

  • Probably the usual difficulty (Score:5, Interesting)

    by roystgnr (4015) <roystgnr AT ticam DOT utexas DOT edu> on Wednesday October 19 2005, @04:00PM (#13830446) Homepage
    Writing good code is hard and expensive.

    This is the same difficulty that's kept Mozilla bug 156493, "Browser should tolerate plug-in (plugin) malfunctions, like with a separate (own) process", unfixed for the past three years. I'm reminded of this in particular, because starting plugins as separate processes (which was requested to prevent buggy plugins from crashing the entire Firefox/Mozilla process) would simultaneously have made it much easier for 64-bit browsers to support 32-bit plugins.

    So it is true that Macromedia is lagging behind the leading edge of technology... but do you have to sound so self-righteous about it? If our browsers used interprocess communication instead of cooperative multitasking (a concept far more outdated than 32 bit binaries) then this wouldn't be a practical problem.
    • Actually that is a very good idea. If the people willing to invest their time rewritting GNU flash for 64 bit would just fix this problem in mozilla, they would save everybody a lot of agrivation.

    • If our browsers used interprocess communication instead of cooperative multitasking (a concept far more outdated than 32 bit binaries) then this wouldn't be a practical problem.

      I agree with what I think roystgnr was trying to say, but...

      "You keep usinging that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The conditions under which a context switch may be initiated is an orthogonal issue to the number of OS-level processes/tasks used to achieve a goal.

      In pretty much any OS apart from MS D

  • Considering Macromedia's reticence to release a Shockwave (*NOT FLASH*) player for anything other than Windows or MacOS, why would they release a 64 bit version of ANYTHING?

    (For the clueless /bots - there is a BIG difference between Flash and Shockwave - Shockwave is a superset of Flash).

  • The real difficulty for Macromedia... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mnmn (145599) on Wednesday October 19 2005, @04:25PM (#13830657) Homepage
    ...is to keep up with the changes of architectures and OSes. I imagine moving flash player to x64 is tougher than moving it from Windows ME to Windows XP, since it contains multimedia codecs using at least some assembly language.

    That oughtta force them to move the core of the player to opensource so people would do most of the porting jobs for new OSes, while they just build on that code to make it a 'professional' version for selling.

  • Flash doesn't work on 64b procs!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by RingDev (879105) on Wednesday October 19 2005, @04:46PM (#13830831) Homepage Journal
    I so need to upgrade!

    -Rick
  • Last time I checked, web browers were not even taking advantage of 32bit architecure. I don't see a lot of high performance 64 bit web browsers out there.

    Anyways, the question is moot as there are few HOME desktop based 64bit only solutions out there, really. None actually. All have a 32bit support mode. Why cater to a small market of 64 bit only powerhouse enterprise servers, people using these systems are not interested in browsing websites, just serving them to millions.

    If 64bit web servers were unab
  • I saw a page on macromedia's site awhile back. They were looking to hire someone to port the player to Linux properly.

    What bothers me more is that there is no director player for Linux. While it isn't used often, it is quite annoying when someone links me a new director game I can't play.
  • WTF? There hace been versions of Flash for Solaris for a while now. Why not 64b Linux.

  • Because 95% of the market isn't demanding it _right now_. They may be soon-ish, but right now, it's a very select few linux nerds who can't run the 32bit plugin somehow. Not the market MacroDobe caters to.
  • I'm sitting in front of my 64 bit box right now running flash.

    1) Just go to getfirefox.org, run the automatic installation of that
    2) Download the official macromedia flash tarball
    3) Untar it and follow the manual install instructions in .txt file in the tarball (it involves copying some files into the plugins subdirectory) rather than doing the auto install (which will bomb).
    4) Restart firefox.

    Is tihs really that hard? Is there some mystical advantage to running 64 bit flash on my 64 opteron bit box when the 32 bit version works just fine?
  • "users with 64 bit architectures are unable to view online content created with Flash..."

    Yeah, when I try to visit homestar runner on my 64-bit PowerMac G5, I... oh, wait--it works.

    • Re:*ahem* (Score:2, Informative)

      by Slashcrap (869349)
      Yeah, when I try to visit homestar runner on my 64-bit PowerMac G5, I... oh, wait--it works.

      That's probably because OSX is still almost entirely 32bit.

      I'm sure that once Apple catch up you'll experience the same issue.

  • Difficulty? No... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly (148874)
    There's no difficulty, read my lips: They Don't Care. You have 1991 signatures, thats less than the enrollment at some high schools. If there was a business case, i.e. if they actually made money on it, then Macromedia would do something. To appease 1991 geeks running a fringe OS on (admit it) fringe hardware? C'mon...

  • I know this is hard to understand.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Suppafly (179830) <slashdot.suppafly@net> on Thursday October 20 2005, @01:01PM (#13837759)
    I know this is hard for some of you to understand, but everything from PetitionOnline falls on deaf ears. No one cares about internet petitions, it takes almost no effort to fill out an internet petition. If you want someone to take you seriously, send a fax and follow up with a certified snailmail.
    • I use it now, Troll. Running XP, 64 bit edition. There are an awful lot of 64 bit processors on the market now, but most of them are running x32 systems. That's going to change as time goes on-- I'm just one of the early adopters.

    • Re:Probably this (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Surye (580125)
      of porting to 64-bit

      My bet is it would take little more then a recompile. If anything, a new branch of support is the real issue.
      • My bet is it would take little more then a recompile.

        You're presuming that they did a good job of writing portable code. Like OpenOffice.org.

        Oh, wait. Never mind...
      • Macromedia actually supports the Linux flash player ???

        I know I have to run a prebuilt 32 bit binary on my AMD64 box (with flashblock), but there still regularly are sites that don't work. It might be a Flash vs Macromedia player issue though... Or broken IE JavaScript, or a number of things...

        But there still are lots of sites that are flash only, including some corporate ones the could be marginally useful (I tried McDonalds France recently because of a story posted here, no luck).

        All in all though, I reck
      • OTOH, there is a Flash player for Mac OS, can MacOS run 32 bit binaries ?

        I have had my iBook G4 for a couple months but I'm not familiar enough with the system enough with the system yet to be sure about this. Otherwise, this would mean that a 64 bit binary Flash renderer already exists.

        So the 64 porting issues are a red herring.
        • *head desk head desk head desk*

          The G4 is a 32-bit CPU.

          Anyway, Tiger has 64-bit hooks, but is a 32-bit OS (read: 32-bit kernel with a little bit of 64-bit duct tape).

          That also means that 99% of the userland is 32-bit. 32-bit browser + 32-bit Flash works fine. 64-bit browser + 32-bit Flash doesn't. THAT is the point of this thread. You can run a 32-bit browser on a 64-bit Linux, but people would rather run the 64-bit browser that takes advantage of their HW.
    • In that case, they don't have enough Linux and Mac users to support them either, and those ports are much harder to maintain than a 64 bit build would be, or would be if they kept them up to date. We still don't have Shockwave for Linux.
    • yea but with a massive amount of 64-bit chips on the way. one would think macromedia would be beta testing flash on 64-bit with the current group of linux users. That way. when MSFt finally releases a 64-bit OS and apple releases a pure 64-bit OS macromedia only has to port to different platforms, and already has the basics taken care of.
    • It's not all that hard to buy an AMD64 machine with Windows XP, and modern Pentium 4 chips are 64-bit capable. The percentage of new Windows PCs with 64-bit processors is only going to increase.

      It's not just about Linux and alternative OS/architecture combinations, it's about running on leading-edge (or perhaps bleeding-edge) hardware, regardless of OS.

      At least, I don't recall seeing that a 64-bit version of Flash was available for Windows. Certainly TFA only refers to "64-bit operating systems." But if
      • "It's not all that hard to buy an AMD64 machine with Windows XP"

        It's not all that hard to buy an AMD64 machine with Windows XP 32-bit Edition. This of course renders most 64-bit goodness moot. I have yet to see a machine in any of the major high street and online shops (read: where most people still get their PC's from) that ships with XP x64, I guess because it's only available in it's 'Professional' flavour - not the shockingly different 'Home' flavour.

        Windows XP Professional x64 Edition [microsoft.com].

        Don't expect the
        • Argh. I'd forgotten that 64-bit XP was *still* only XP Pro.

          As for the Pentium 4's 64-bit capability, a quick Google search turned up a couple of sources and dates. The first Pentium 4 processors with EM64T support -- Intel's version of AMD64 (because there's no way they'd actually use a name with AMD in it!) -- came out in March, and apparently the "majority" of the Pentium 4 line has been 64-bit since June. Maybe PR is keeping quiet because the average user will be using XP Home?

          January: The Pentium 4 a [quepublishing.com]
    • Well, the page at Macromedia certainly suggests that it's 64-bit OSes in general -- it doesn't name Linux or MacOS specifically, so I woud assume that 64-bit versions of XP Pro or Win2003 can only run the 32-bit versions.

      On the other hand, many people commenting here seem to be treating it as a Linux issue. Maybe it's because 64-bit Windows ships with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of IE, and Firefox and Opera only seem to be providing 32-bit binaries so far. The only situation in which you're likely to
      • It may have been resolved, but apparently some 64-bit Linux distros had problems running 32-bit software. Thus they only had 64-bit browsers and no compatibility option, unlike Windows.
        • Actually, the Linux kernel can run both 64 & 32 bit code at the same time. If you run into a problem with a particular distribution, then it is because they don't have 32-bit libraries installed alongside their 64-bit ones (32-bit goes in /lib an /usr/lib, 64-bit goes in /lib64 and /usr/lib64). The easy solution in that case is to grab the 32-bit version of that particular distribution and install the missing libraries by hand (run "ldd" on the 32-bit process you are trying to execute, to see which li

          • Re:wasn't clear (Score:2, Informative)

            by ajs318 (655362)
            Debian is 64-bit only. If you want to run 32-bit applications, you have to do so under a chroot. This keeps it pure in two ways: every userland program is 64-bit, and there's a reasonable chance that every userland program is Open Source.

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