The Open Screen Project is an industry-wide initiative, led by Adobe with the participation of other industry leaders, with one clear vision: Enable consumers to engage with rich Internet experiences seamlessly across any device, anywhere.
Open Screen Project partners are leaders in the mobile, desktop, and device ecosystems, each contributing unique knowledge and expertise in an environment of collaborative innovation. Among the participants are Adobe, ARM, BBC, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel, LG Electronics, Marvell, Motorola, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, NVIDIA, OpenTV, Palm, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, The New York Times, Toshiba, and Verizon Wireless. View a list of current partners.
Partners in the Open Screen Project are working together to provide a consistent runtime environment for web content and standalone applications — taking advantage of the Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe AIR® runtimes — that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops, mobile phones, televisions, and other consumer electronics. The Open Screen Project will address potential technology fragmentation by enabling the runtime technology to be updated seamlessly over the network on mobile devices. The consistent runtime environment will provide optimal performance across a variety of operating systems and devices, and ultimately provide the best experience to consumers.
To support the mission of the Open Screen Project and as part of the company's ongoing commitment to enable web innovation, Adobe will continue to open access to Adobe Flash technology. This work will include:
Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications: Effective May 1, 2008, Adobe removed the entire licensing agreement from the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications. These licensing restrictions had meant that no one could build software that would "play" SWF content.
Publishing the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol (formerly known as the Flash Cast® protocol) and the AMF protocol for robust data services: The AMF protocol was published in February 2008 as part of the BlazeDS open source initiative at opensource.adobe.com. Developers can use the AMF binary format for exchanging data. It is most commonly used to transfer data between an application built with Adobe Flash or Flex® software and a database via a remoting request. Published in September 2008, the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol is a communication protocol that provides a mechanism for data to be synchronized between mobile phones and a network-based server in an efficient, mobile network–friendly manner.
Publishing the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) specification. Published in June 2009, the protocol is designed for high‐performance transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe Flash Platform technologies.
Removing licensing fees: Adobe is making the next major releases of Flash Player and AIR for devices royalty free — across all platforms, desktops, and devices — for Open Screen Project participants. Current products such as Adobe Flash Lite® software are not affected.
Providing a standard open framework, code named "Strobe", for creating Flash video players: Strobe code is expected to be released in Q3 2009. Strobe has a pluggable and extensible architecture and supports the workflows around video playback, like advertising and reporting, and enables the latest features of the Flash platform. Strobe will provide an open standard video player – production-ready code that can be incorporated into customers' websites.
Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player: The device porting layer APIs will enable Flash Player and Adobe AIR technologies to be delivered on devices without direct support from Adobe and will be published on the Adobe website when the APIs are finalized. More details will be available in the coming months.
The digital explosion across multiple screens is raising consumers' expectations for engaging experiences wherever and however they connect with content. Web browsing on mobile devices is becoming commonplace, but delivering a complete rich Internet experience on devices remains a challenge, and fragmentation and deployment barriers still limit innovation in applications and services. Adobe and the other companies working on the Open Screen Project want to provide an environment in which consumers can engage with great content and applications without boundaries from any device. For this vision to become a reality, a consistent application runtime should be available across desktops and devices.
The Adobe Flash Platform is the de facto standard for delivering breakthrough applications, content, and video on the web. Flash Player and Flash Lite are on 98 percent of connected computers and more than 1 billion devices, and deliver more than 80 percent of web videos worldwide, helping to ensure that content and applications are presented consistently in the format users want.
Companies contributing to the Open Screen Project share the vision that a consistent runtime environment will remove barriers for delivering content and applications across screens. A more open and universal runtime across devices will drive rapid innovation that will ultimately be good for consumers. By removing barriers to the deployment of rich multiscreen experiences, all parts of the industry value chain can benefit from new revenue opportunities, cost efficiencies, and faster time to market in delivering more engaging devices, software, and services. Participants in the Open Screen Project have an opportunity to contribute to achieving this vision in collaboration with other thought leaders in the mobile, personal computer, and consumer electronics industries.
One of the primary goals of the Open Screen Project is to reduce fragmentation by providing a consistent application runtime for developers. With the ability to update Flash Player and Adobe AIR over the air and via the network, developers and content providers can create content that leverages the latest features and functionality of the runtimes, without having to wait months or even years for the latest version to be embedded on devices, or for devices with the latest runtime preinstalled to reach significant market penetration.
With a consistent runtime environment deployed broadly across devices, millions of developers and designers will be able to distribute content to consumers worldwide, on virtually any device, much more easily than they can today. The Open Screen Project aims to maintain compatibility across devices, supporting rapid innovation and enabling devices to be seamlessly updated with the latest runtimes. As a result, time to market and development costs for rich Internet applications, interactive content, and video will be dramatically reduced. Tight integration between the runtimes and Adobe's award-winning software tools helps ensure the ability to develop once and deploy everywhere through an agile design and development workflow. Developers and content providers will also benefit from new revenue opportunities through increased customer reach and more open distribution models for content and applications on devices.
By including and optimizing the consistent runtimes into reference architecture designs and systems on a chip, chipset vendors can provide a more complete and integrated solution for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Chip makers can expect increased chipset demand and value through an integrated, consistent runtime environment that takes advantage of new hardware capabilities and encourages millions of developers to create rich content and applications. This should result in greater adoption of their platforms for engaging with rich media.
Consistent runtimes across devices and open distribution models will allow OEMs to tap a vast network of creative talent that can deliver more innovative and richer content and applications efficiently. The expectation is that this will ultimately result in driving sales of feature-rich, higher average selling price (ASP) devices and incremental service revenues. Moreover, OEMs will benefit from lower bill of materials (BOM) costs through royalty-free runtimes.
The Open Screen Project aims to enable seamless delivery of rich content and applications across multiple screens, placing operators in a position to provide more engaging and integrated "triple-play" telecom services across broadband, mobile, and TV networks. As a result, operators can expect accelerated data services adoption and revenue growth. Also, operators should benefit from lower content management costs and version complexity by leveraging a consistent runtime environment across device models.
End users will benefit from more consistent rich Internet experiences that are connected across devices, as well as from greater choice in content and applications. Ultimately, the Open Screen Project will bring about new ways for end users to engage with ideas, information, and people across all screens —— playing to personalized interests, communities, and interactions.
Open specifications, licensing restrictions, and royalty fees
Publication of an unrestricted SWF file format has been requested by the Adobe Flash developer community. The long-standing publication of the SWF specification has fostered a vibrant ecosystem of companies and developers that create experiences with Adobe Flash technology, and by removing the SWF licensing restrictions, we are allowing that growing ecosystem to use the file format for any purpose, including the ability to play back SWF content. Additionally, Adobe intends to make Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices royalty free as part of the Open Screen Project, starting with the next major releases for devices, along with publishing the device porting layer APIs and providing open source code around video player development. As a result of these moves, OEMs, software developers, and content owners will be able to deliver content and applications built with Flash and AIR technologies without concerns about device restrictions. By removing the licensing cost and restrictions, as well as opening up the protocols and porting layer, Adobe is making it easier for developers and partners to deliver more engaging experiences to more of their customers and is helping to ensure that audiences can engage with content no matter what device or medium they use.
Adobe is active in working with open source, open specifications, and open standards. Over the last year, Adobe has released major technology programs as open source, such as the Flex framework, the Flash Ajax Video Component, BlazeDS, and XMP. Additionally, Adobe contributed the ActionScript® Virtual Machine to Mozilla's Tamarin project, and Adobe is working with Mozilla on "Tamarin-Tracing," a recent release to the project that is focused on better performance across a wide variety of devices. Adobe also opened the specification for AMF and completed the commitment to move PDF into ISO, which is now international standard ISO 32000. Adobe is a member of the Linux Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, and the SQLite Consortium. Adobe also recently introduced a public Flash Player bug and issue management system that allows greater community participation and transparency in the Flash Player development process. Early work on projects is also available openly on Adobe Labs to encourage early feedback and iteration. More information about Adobe open source efforts can be found at opensource.adobe.com.
Strobe is an Adobe-provided standard framework for creating Flash video players. Strobe has a pluggable and extensible architecture and supports the workflows around video playback, like advertising and reporting, and enables the latest features of the Flash Platform. Strobe will be Adobe's standard video player – production-ready code that can be incorporated into customers' websites.
Why did Adobe create Strobe?
By providing open standards around video player development, Adobe is reducing fragmentation and complexity in creating video players in the marketplace and advancing the Open Screen Project vision with the ability of its participants to further their online media efforts. Content partners can now focus on the overall user experience of video on their sites, and spend less time on the technical details and under the hood plumbing of building video players.
The Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is designed for high-performance and efficient transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe® Flash® Platform technologies. The open specification is available on the Adobe Developer Connection at the RTMP Technology Center.
The SWF file format specification is used to deliver vector graphics, text, video, sound, and interactivity via Flash Player and Adobe AIR. SWF files can reach over 98% of Internet-enabled desktops and more than 800 million handsets and mobile devices.
An FLV file encodes synchronized audio and video streams. The audio and video data within FLV files is encoded in the same way as audio and video within SWF files. The F4V format is based on the format specified by ISO/IEC 14496-12, the ISO base media file format. The FLV/F4V specification documents the file formats for storing media content used to deliver audio and video for playback in Flash Player and AIR. FLV and F4V are the de facto standards for web video today. More than 75% of broadcasters who stream video on the web use the FLV/F4V formats.
The SWF specification has been published since 1998. Until now, the specification had a license agreement associated with it, which said that developers could write software to output SWF but could not make software that would "play" SWF files. These license terms were initially included to prevent fragmentation, which most client technologies have experienced. These terms have worked well for Flash Player over the past decade as it now reaches over 98% of personal computers on the web with a consistent runtime, enabling things such as the video revolution we see today across the web. With this announcement, Adobe is removing this restriction from the SWF specification, as we have established a consistent runtime and we want to ensure the industry can confidently continue to support the SWF format. This will permit the development of applications that play SWF files. Adobe will, of course, remain focused on making the best, most reliable, and most consistently distributed implementation across desktops and devices.
The license restrictions were removed as of May 1, 2008. More details on using the specifications without the previous license restrictions are available on the Adobe Developer Connection at the SWF Technology Center and the FLV/F4V Technology Center.
The Mobile Content Delivery Protocol is a communication protocol developed by Adobe as part of its client-server solution for mobile operators. It is available at the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol Technology Center. The protocol provides a mechanism for data to be synchronized between the mobile phone and the network-based server in an efficient, mobile network–friendly manner. The protocol is used in the Flash Cast solution that has been deployed with multiple operators around the world and is used transparently by millions of consumers as part of an engaging mobile experience.
AMF is a binary format for exchanging data. It is most commonly used to transfer data between an application built with Adobe Flash or Flex software and a database via a remoting request. The AMF specification is available at opensource.adobe.com.
What Adobe announced is the release of the SWF specification without the license agreement. The specification has never included a license to third-party technologies like codecs, which is still true today. Thus, developers of SWF-compliant applications are responsible for ensuring that their implementations do not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others, including those of codec providers.
Licensees and users of Flash Player and Adobe AIR do not need to obtain a separate license or pay codec royalties for the use of the codecs when included in Flash Player and AIR. Organizations that wish to employ the codecs for any use other than as part of Flash Player or AIR will need to obtain the appropriate codecs from their owners, and license them as necessary.
Adobe has removed the entire license agreement from the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications. The only remaining restrictions are on copying and distributing the specifications themselves and on the use of Adobe trademarks, including the Flash trademark. The copyright and trademark restrictions are on the copyright page of the specification. Developers are now free to implement what is documented in the specifications without restrictions from Adobe.
Adobe has removed the restrictions on the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications, not on Flash Player itself. Future versions starting with the next major versions of Flash Player and AIR for devices are royalty free as part of the Open Screen Project. However, a license (contract) still needs to be in place between Adobe and the licensee.
The Open Screen Project Fund is a $10 million market development fund designed to accelerate the creation of applications, content, and services that leverage the Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop, and consumer electronics devices. The global program was created to fuel innovation by directly commissioning select developers to create innovative apps, and by providing developer education and support. Adobe and Nokia are the first contributors to the Open Screen Project Fund.
At least 50% of the US$10 million fund will be used to directly finance development activity. The remaining funds will be used to provide education, developer support, training, events, and program promotion.
The Open Screen Project Fund is seeking applications in the following focus areas: entertainment, business, social networking, productivity, gaming, travel, multimedia, health, finance, weather, sports, news, education, and
more. Submissions to the Fund must work across multiple devices — one of which
must be a Nokia device — and leverage Adobe Flash Lite® software, the Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe AIR® runtimes. Submissions for Flash Lite applications that only work on Nokia devices and that do not have a desktop AIR application component will also be considered.
As stated above, the goal is to fund applications that work across multiple devices with at least one of those being a Nokia device. In order to be considered for approval, projects must have a Nokia powered mobile component at
a minimum.
Projects will be reviewed in terms of how fresh and compelling the user experience is, how robust the application or planned implementation is, and how well it exploits the capabilities and features of the Nokia platform and the Flash Platform.
All submissions will be reviewed by a steering committee comprised of representatives from Adobe and Nokia, and be kept entirely confidential. Irrespective of whether a project is funded or not, developers will retain all intellectual property rights to the idea, any prototypes or other related
materials.
Adobe and Nokia are committed to keeping the Open Screen Project Fund active
for at least two years starting February 2009. There are no deadlines and you
can submit your proposal any time during this active period.
We recommend submitting your proposal when you believe that it is complete
enough for the steering committee to evaluate.
We will evaluate all submissions thoroughly; due to a high volume of requests, you may not hear from us for several weeks. If you have not heard from us within 28 days, feel free to contact osp-fund@adobe.com.
We will be publishing examples of successful applications as the fund gains momentum. The examples will provide some guidance on the type of submission that has been successful. In the interim, follow the guidelines on the submission form.
Developers will retain all intellectual property rights.
Adobe and Nokia will require rights to market and promote the applications. The specifics of this are detailed in the statement of work contracts that a developer will have to sign before receiving any funding.
Visit the Adobe Developer Connection for details as well as Forum Nokia to get access to tools and support for creating applications on Nokia platforms.
Companies, individuals, and teams may participate. Entrants must be 18 or older.
Employees of Nokia and Adobe or affiliated companies are ineligible to participate.
Payment to developers is subject to taxes, which are the sole responsibility of fund recipients. Recipients must comply with all the applicable local tax laws and filing requirements. Consult your tax advisor for more details.
What is the difference between the Adobe Investment Fund and the Open Screen Project Fund?
The Adobe Investment Fund is a means for Adobe to make venture capital equity investments in promising private companies. The Open Screen Project Fund was created to jointly invest in developers creating Flash and desktop AIR applications that will run across multiple devices.
There are a variety of ways to distribute Flash Lite content, including: marketplaces such as Nokia's Ovi Store; off-deck aggregators such as GetJar, Thumbplay, and Zed; and directly to consumers via any existing channels. Each channel has its own unique requirements. Before you begin, make sure you get the latest information on how to package and distribute your content through Nokia's Ovi Store. Please visit Adobe for additional off-deck distribution and packaging details.
Are there any limitations on what, how, and where the application is distributed?
No, although we are looking for applications that will be distributed across mobile, desktop, and consumer electronics devices.
