Just a few days after Adobe announced that its Flash Player will be killed off, developers have created a petition to open source the software.
The software, which will be stopped in 2020, has been criticised for the regular vulnerabilities found.
Despite this, developer Juha Lindstedt wrote on GitHub demanding that the software should stay as it is because it’s “an important piece of Internet history and killing Flash means future generations can’t access the past. Games, experiments and websites would be forgotten.”
The developer, who goes by the name ‘Pakastin’, added: “Open sourcing Flash spec would be a good solution to keep Flash projects alive safely for archive reasons. Don’t know how, but that’s the beauty of open source: you never know what will come up after you go open source!”
Although, appearing adamant to save the failing software, Lindstedt provided an alternative solution of how it can be used; “There might be a way to convert swf/fla to HTML5/canvas/webgl/webassembly, or some might write a standalone player for it.
Read more:RIP Adobe Flash Player: End of life announced for 2020
“Another possibility would be to have a separate browser. We’re not saying Flash player should be preserved as is. We understand that there are licensed components you cannot release. Simply leave them out with a note explaining what was removed. We will either bypass them, or replace them with open source alternatives.”
In plans to kill off Flash Player, Adobe has confirmed that security support will end on December 31st, 2020.
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Adobe Flash Player, which was first released in 1996, has encountered a number of shifts due to the number of security vulnerabilities such as Google Chrome which blocked the software and made HTML 5 its default plugin.
However, Lindstedt still sees the good to the software as “Flash was a platform for creative expression in an exciting new medium with global reach at a time when sound and moving images were barely breaking into the internet.”
