Adobe opens Flash streaming protocol, keeps DRM a secret
26 01 2009
Adobe has announced plans to open its Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), the communication system that is used by streaming video in the Flash browser plugin. The protocol specification will be fully documented and released to the public later this year as part of Adobe’s Open Screen project. Developers will be able to use the protocol to write their own server software that can transmit rich media to Flash clients.
Although Flash itself is still a highly proprietary technology, Adobe has been attempting to lower the barriers for third-party implementors by opening some of the Flash platform’s underlying technologies. The company similarly opened its Action Message Format in 2007 and contributed the core of Flash’s high-performance ECMAScript engine to the Mozilla project in 2006.
