ActionScript.com writes: Apple Sues Sorenson to end license with Macromedia

Apple says Sorenson breached a contract that prohibits it from "developing, marketing, or licensing'' any version of the compression software used in QuickTime to competitors such as Macromedia, according to court papers filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, California.

This is bad, Apple seems to think they should be alone in having access to Sorenson's technology, and seems peed off about Macromedia's Flash MX video technology. Maybe they have understood that it will make it much easier for people to make available video content on the web, without the need for their Quicktime player? After all, the download of the Flash 6 player is a lot lighter than the Quicktime download.

Every day I am checking Macromedia for a new version of their Flash 6 player (which should have been out by now). Its worse than waiting for the gifts on christmas eve.

The reason for this eagerness for a new version of their Flash player? When I was in San Francisco earlier this spring (in the beginning of April) I was allowed a video interview with Jeremy Allarie for Flashmagazine.com. Allaire and I sat down and talked about what is going on these days with the release of Macromedia MX. (Of course, only after I had signed an NDA, agreeing not to say a word about what I would get to know before the 29th of April).

Now the news is out, and every day that goes the news worthiness of the interview diminishes. And all because we can not see ourselves making available broadband content based on the Flash MX video streaming capabilities now.

A streaming bug in the current Flash 6 player causes the player not to cut downloads unless the user actually shut down their browser, just leaving the page with the content will not stop the download. The implications when it happens with enough users is easy to see: For the user its an inconvenience that their bandwidth is hogged up without any apparent reason. But for Flashmagazine it would be devastating, many thousands of users starting feeds that they would just continue to run, even without having any interest in seeing the content - would jam the server and run the costs for hosting through the roof. (Actually, more like to outer space, since Flashmagazine.com already have a pretty hefty bandwidth bill).

So Macromedia, please make the new Flash 6 player available soon!

(I wrote about the streaming bug on the 20th of April)

Mike Chambers just noted (see the comments of this post) that the player will be available this week sometime. He referes to the security note about the streaming bug. He is right, it does state that the player will be available by the end of this week. (It states 7-10 business days from the date (19th of april), and that translates to within friday the 3rd of may).

The last days, trying to keep updated on the Macromedia Studio MX releases, its been fun to keep updated with the Google API. The resources at Macromedia instantly showed up at Google almost at the time they were released, and the search result for "Macromedia MX" changes all the time, if not hour by hour so day by day.

(The top 10 search results for "Macromedia MX" is shown on the right side a little further down on this page).

Wired writes today: Grads Want to Study on EMacs, Too

Too bad its not for sale in Norway. A G4 for $1.000 would have been something. If you are a student in the US; congrats!