(2003-03-12) Flash Rich Client

Marc Canter on Flash as Rich Client platform (along with Jeremy Allaire and Kevin Werbach). Personally, I think development platforms should be Open Source, or at least not vendor-controlled. You want to sell the tools, that's fine, but it should be possible to develop and deploy with other tools without paying. We need more people to get behind open cross-platform languages (e.g. Python) and cross-language GUI frameworks (e.g. WxWindows, TkInter, etc.) (and get the hardware OEMs to bundle them!).

Lots of people already make SWF-producing tools. Some have even created their own Flash renderers, although as the years have gone by more have just relied on the widespread distribution of a single predictable player. Key concept: Consumers choose their installations, so for client-side activity the mass public controls choice of engines... it's different than your own computer or server, where you can control your implementation.