A Place For the "Open" Web and the "Closed" Web

Posted on by

In catching up with some of my trackbacks I found a great post by Chris Messina about the importance of view source as Rich Internet Applications start to take off. He wrote it as an addendum to his panel at Web 2.0 Expo in which he lamented the fact that these new technologies were going to move the web from a place where example code is just a click away to one in which everything is obfuscated.

He makes a lot of good, solid points, and as the view source issue becomes more important, I think we all need to look to people like Chris for some guidance and ideas. I’ve talked about how I’d like to see more developers enable their source on RIA projects, but it isn’t reasonable to expect *everyone* to do so. Part of the allure of Flash is that it allows you to keep your code (mostly) private.

So as a community, it behooves all of us to be as open as possible when we can, but also join in the conversation about ways to make Rich Internet Applications more accessible to both budding developers and budding designers. The important thing, as Chris says, is to make sure we can ”learn from, adapt and merge prior art — source code that you’ve found elsewhere — and that, in turn, can be improved upon and release, furthering a virtuous cycle of innovation and education”. View source is a great way to do that, but when view source isn’t an option (for whatever reason) we should think about other solutions which achieve the same goal.

The more people can tinker, modify, hack and tear apart Rich Internet Applications, the more quickly they’ll be adopted. That means more developers and better applications.

[tags]Rich Internet Applications, accessibility, view source[/tags]

Related posts:

  1. Is Rich Internet Application a Bad Term?
  2. Off to Web 2.0 Expo
  3. Apollo is All Over (the place)
  4. Do I Really Care if The Flash Player is Open Sourced? Not So Much
  5. Some Good Thoughts on the Future of RIAs
  • http://factoryjoe.com/ Chris Messina

    Thanks for the pickup, Ryan — and for pushing this point. I think I better captured my thinking on this subject in that post than I did on stage, and I appreciate you provoking me to clarify my intention.

    I would argue that the most important element of this issue is the power of defaults: that is, as you alluded to, the fact that it may not be the default situation that RIAs have their source code available by default but instead, only through developer action. Considering the power of defaults in the browser (like the search box) Firefox has become a lucrative business and Flock was started up with hope that the installed defaults would lead to additional revenue opportunities. All that is to say that the elected options a product ships with can affect behavior and even change markets.

    The open sourcing of Flex is indeed interesting, but not quite as interesting as turning to default the View Source option in all of Adobe’s products.

  • http://flexibleexperiments.wordpress.com Jason Hawryluk

    I have to disagree with the above posters last comment.

    Chris Says: “The open sourcing of Flex is indeed interesting, but not quite as interesting as turning to default the View Source option in all of Adobe’s products.”

    I definitely think that view source should remain a opt in choice, not an opt out choice. Developers know that it is there, and trying to influence this by defaulting it to true, or making it the norm, irks me in so many ways.

    As a developer if I want to share my work, I certainly know how to. I think there are/must be many other ways to influence advancement, and sharing within the community to further the RIA space. Starting the discussion as you both have will certainly generate ideas.

    Comparing this new wave of RIA possibilities to yesterday’s html pages Is like comparing apples to oranges.

    jason

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Thanks Chris, and I’m sorry I missed it before. Jason, I really, really like the idea of turning the view source options on by default. I totally agree that we can’t directly compare RIAs to HTML pages, but I think it would be immensely beneficial to have more view source out there.

    I think part of it is that a lot of developers aren’t quite as smart as you are. I’d be curious to see how many realize you can do view source in Flex, especially as Flex gets adoption outside the MXNA/Adobe bubble.

    But it would be a BIG shift to enable it by default, and I’m sure Adobe would be burned in a couple of cases, but in the long run, I think it would be great.

  • http://flexibleexperiments.wordpress.com Jason Hawryluk

    Ryan says: “I really, really like the idea of turning the view source options on by default”

    Who said that? I said it should remain opt in == not on by default. Opt in ==(off). I think you’ve miss read my comment.

    Where do all the open source folks hope to turn when no commercial eco system is developed for these emerging technologies? It is a benefit to the eco system to have view source, but it is to be controlled by the creator of the source, not the community, not Adobe, not MS. As in any market, content rules, and quality content costs money to produce. Having a commercial eco system is just as, if not more valuable to any product, then a free and open system.

    We are emerging into an entire new application eco system, delivery, look and feel, tools etc.. the tides are indeed turning.

    How many know view source is there, I’d wadger most do know after about 5-10hr’s with Flex (probably less). The first thing most new dev’s do on a blog sample is right click. I’d think by now it’s common knowledge. Going to blogs, checking out samples etc.. It’s their bread and butter, they do know how to do it. Don’t under estimate passion and eagerness to learn.

    The question we should ask is how many want to do it. Development is a tough job. It takes allot of thought and patience. What we need to do is get to work on encouraging these smart folks to share or(gasp) sell their creations. Monetize their efforts. Lest we forget that most people do this stuff for a living, have family to support etc..

    Ryan, this is not html. It’s application development(as you well know), and I don’t care if someone copies my site css, but my application and the assets therein are mine unless stated otherwise.

    Chris seems to think it’s not fair that he can’t directly use that swf (that’s not his I might add, nor does he have permission to use it) without decompiling it. Gosh, I feel for him, I really do. This isn’t all just fun and games, it’s business. Real world stuff. I depend on it to pay my mortgage as do countless others.

    As applications move to the cloud having the choice is the most important aspect of letting loose these creations. No choice would mean no applications except open source, which counts for a very small percentage.

    The read/write web vision is about exposing api’s to the underlying data, not the code that controls or creates it, not that super cool icon that would look great in your application, but to provide an ability for mush up and to create composite applications from that data.

    We need to allow developers and companies to monetize their efforts. If the prospect can’t afford 50-800$, to bad, develop it yourself. I’m quite happy to pay 50-800$ for a component or tool that’ll get me what I need to make the deliverable, and I fully understand the requirement for those that develop that professional component to charge $ for it.

    For Flex I’ve seen but a few professional component developers, most of which are solo operations. This will not win over the space. What will is professionalism, quality, and quantity at an affordable price. Microsoft has this, Adobe needs this.

    Hopefully this is not coming off as to much of a rant..

    Cheers.

    jason

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    No, I got what you were saying, I was just disagreeing with you :)

    I’m not saying I totally agree with Chris either, and you are absolutely right, it’s totally acceptable for you or other developers to not want to share the source. That’s part of application development and that’s part of the ecosystem. I’m not advocating some kind of free RIA model where no one gets paid. If you do the work, it belongs to you and you should have the freedom to do what you want with it (that’s part of the beauty of Flash).

    But I do wish there were more view source enabled Flex applications. I just think it’s a good way to learn and it’s frustrating for me when I come across something that appears very public but doesn’t have view source enabled. It’s not for me to make that decision for them, they built the app, they do what they want.

    I like your point about the read/write web being about APIs. I’m just fighting for a middle road, and opt-out seems like a way for the people who want to keep their applications closed can do so without much fuss. And maybe nothing would change, but if a few more developers shared their source as a result, that would be a good thing in my book.

    Thanks for taking the time to comment Jason. Good stuff.

  • http://flexibleexperiments.wordpress.com Jason Hawryluk

    It’s psychological on a whole other level. Every coin has two sides.

    If opt out becomes the norm it gives a façade of why did you not do it, as opposed to thanks for doing it (as it should be). If opt out is the norm it becomes expected and those that don’t provide it, are not reflected upon in the same light (this is how it is, we are human).

    Opt in shows good will in the form of a gift. The developer or company has provided you with a tool that’ll save perhaps hours of work, or provided information you’ll learn valuable information from. This is given to you without strings, and of pure kindness.

    It’s a gesture that say’s I appreciate what I’ve gotten from the community and here is something in return.

    Much like your blog, and though seldom we say thank you for the effort, it rarely goes un noticed. It takes just a couple of comments that say “hey thanks for this” that make it all worth while and encourage you to do more. Others reading may also start a blog (as I have) for the sole purpose of giving back.

    This is spirit we need to aspire to.

    Honestly, from another perspective, I wholly enjoy stumbling on a blog post showing something really cool and right clicking to see if I can get at the source. If no source is available it’s not that big of a deal (I may mumble); but those times when there is source.. well.. those are wow moments. Passion sets in and discovery takes way.

    How would my perception of all this change if source was expected?

    I do agree that it would be great to see much more of this good will, but feel however that there may be other better way’s to achieve the goal.

    You’ll have a hard time disagreeing with that ;)

    jason

  • http://flexibleexperiments.wordpress.com Jason Hawryluk

    Ryan, thanks for this. No joking, I’ve spent a great evening thinking about this subject. I do appreciate both yourself and Chris bringing the subject to light as I do feel that it needs to be discussed.

    p.s. Flex Rocks

    jason

  • David

    I’m in total agreement with Jason on this one (no, we don’t know each other!). “View Source” was great in the pre-blog days, when that was the only way to see what was going on. Nowadays, there are so many more options – attaching code to a blog post, message boards, wiki’s, etc.

    Oh, and while we’re at it – “view source” hasn’t worked in a long time. If you tried it on a CFM or ASP(X) page, you would just get HTML, and wouldn’t learn anything about the code used to create it.

    Davo

  • http://www.zeuslabs.us Josh Tynjala

    View Source should NOT be available by default. However, I believe the option should be more prominent. I probably have a dozen or more examples of Flex applications on my blog, and maybe one or two have View Source enabled because I usually forgot about it. It’s a great feature to include for an example, but the most important Flex apps will not be examples. They’ll be live business-related applications, running in the “wild”, and most should be hiding their source.

    I’d rather forget to turn it on than forget to turn it off!

  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    I’d defer to Mike Chambers or others who implemented this, but I believe the “View Source” option for SWF file cannot be enabled by default, because it requires the developer to put a package of their code up on their server.

    (Rephrased, to my understanding, none of the SWF-producing tools automatically grab all relevant source files and upload them… if that menu item were default-on, then you’d end up with many cases where the menu item is enabled but no package is available to inspect.)

    Ditto Davo’s comment on “View Source” not really working these days… wading through multiple .JS and .CSS files and framesets and text-refreshes isn’t very practical. Highlighting the relevant areas in dedicated webdev sites seems to be how more people learn.

    For general philosophy, I strongly agree with Jason that terms-of-delivery should be a free contract between the creator and their audience… source files are not a mandate from the viewpoint of most audiences, and creators definitely differ in what rights they prefer to distribute with their varied works.

    jd/adobe

  • Pingback: A Place For the “Open” Web and the “Closed” Web » SHARING IDEA WEBLOG