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April 26, 2007

Adobe Open Sources Parts Of Flex Platform

Nik Cubrilovic

46 comments »

Adobe have announced tonight, via Robert Scoble and the ScobleShow that they are opening up the Flex platform under a Mozilla Public License (an Open Source license). Flex is a group of technologies (much similar to .NET or J2EE etc.) that provides a more programmer-friendly development environment for Flash, rather than a graphics-driven environment that Flash was associated with.

Previously the source code to the ActionScript components in the Flash SDK were available, and from tonights release Adobe will also open source other components of the SDK such as the compiler, debugger (written in Java) and the class libraries. When compared to other development platforms, Flash/Flex has always been more closed and controlled than other alternatives, while a few open source projects have attempted to reverse engineer parts of it (although the server components aren’t being opened up). The schedule is that the development community and all code will be available by the end of the year, and while having code is great, the better part is that Adobe will be putting all their weight behind the open source projects with developers, support etc. (something you might expect them to do).

This announcement can be taken out of context, and it is important to understand that Adobe are opening up tools that help developers build applications - the runtime will remain closed (Flash itself). I actually can’t imagine a platform being able to survive *without* all the developer tools and class libraries being completely open, and perhaps this is what has spurred Adobe to open up Flex. If you look at other popular development platforms such as even Win32, the analogous tools to Flex have usually always been open or at least accessible, as it greatly assists developers.

Adobe are opening up part of their ecosystem, which is great, but don’t hold your breath for an open source Flash runtime anytime soon (unlike Java). If you are a Flex developer, this is great news for you, as you will now be able to dig a bit deeper and contribute to the tools such as the compiler and debugger - but this announcement will definitely be met with calls of ‘not enough’ from the open source community and those waiting for a fully open and cross platform rich application platform from Adobe.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 12:40 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Abhishek

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:11 am

    First to comment :D

  2. pr0xy k1ll3r

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:12 am

    Second to comment :D

  3. pr0xxy k1ll3r

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:14 am

    second to comment! :D

  4. smokey

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:14 am

    Third to comment :)

  5. Rian

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:30 am

    Fourth to comment and I’ll actually try and add something more than just that ;)

    I’m honestly wondering just how ‘cool’ flash/flex is in this day of age.. I’ll believe there’s value in the posibilities but with our so populair Web 2.0 Ajax applications.. is there still room for heavy flash apps?

    Could the fact that Mickeysoft is coming up with their own flash also push Adobe into this? perhaps just sooner than they initially wanted to..

  6. Rick

    April 26th, 2007 at 4:25 am

    Who said Flash / Flex apps are always ‘heavy’? Only in the wrong hands I would say.

  7. Abhishek

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:29 am

    That’s true, there are tons of beautiful light weight flash sites, which are so because of the designer.

    And then there are the super heavy sites, which never load and give flash all its infamity. Ajax is cool, but the feel of flash/flex is so much more different and comfortable and intuitive.

  8. Joshua

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:43 am

    Flex isn’t used to build flashy intros and such. But rather full rich applications. Such as http://maps.yahoo.com/index.php

    At any rate if you don’t have any familiarity with Flex you should spend a few minutes checking it out and especially the products and sites built with it.

    As a developer first tests with it were very impressive. I dislike flash for the sake of flash, however this really is another animal.

  9. Bill

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:45 am

    Rick, why is Adobe’s the wrong hands. Just curious what you meant…

    I’d like to think this is at least in part a response to Silverlight. Finally, there is some real competition in this area and I’m excited to see some results.

  10. Julio Garcia

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:51 am

    Those of us who still remember the “small” variations that Microsoft did to their Java Virtual Machine on the early Internet Explorer, and how that practically killed Java on the Browser, do not want an open source Flash player.
    I mean, if Adobe were to open source the flash player, how long do you think it would take Microsoft to release their own MSFlash or Visual F or however they call it with just the right amount of incompatibilities to render all but the most basic Flash apps unusable.
    I don’t know if Ajax is cool, but the amount of code needed in any Ajax Framework to compensate for those incompatibilities is NOT cool. So while those Ajax coders are working on how to compensate between the different Table Object Models, just to mention one example, I’d rather be doing nice apps on a consistent platform. So please don’t open source the flash player.

  11. Rostislav Siryk

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:54 am

    That’s right, Adobe does the wise turn, because there’s so much feature requests and complaints about current state of Flex 2 Framework that only one Adobe company could not handle each of them.

    About runtime — there’s a good news about it too, some months ago Adobe and Mozilla have announced their shared Tamarin runtime Project — this is not about making Flash runtime completely opensource, but about providing its source codes to the community.

  12. Solon

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:01 am

    as a Linux user, what I’d really like to know is when will they solve the wmode=transparent problem.

  13. pallet jack

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:42 am

    I agree with the CSS / non - alignment problem in between browsers.

    - Honestly - Its something that even if fixed today (with new browsers released) .. then it would take 2-4 years for 80% to have it.

  14. nomadicalloy

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:43 am

    This is a good move from adobe. Hope this will open new doors.

  15. Jim

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:48 am

    @Julio Garcia - How about if they promise to open it in x years? Developers might use Flex more because they -now- know the tools are not going away, but what about Flash? If developers think a company can pull the rug out from under them (because of quarterly profits, or any other reason) they will be less likely to rely on the technology. I’m sympathetic to having a strong central platform that really works, but the benefits of Opening the source rest more on developer confidence in the future of the technology, then bug fixes and the other benefits.

  16. PurpleCow

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:55 am

    Dekoh had always touted their open-ness as compared to Flex, since they have been in news. I’d like to see, How Dekoh will continue to build momentum when it comes to being a differentiator.

  17. Rostislav Siryk

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:17 am

    Also, don’t miss this “Adobe Flex Opensource FAQ” page.

    My favorite point from there:

    Q: What are the plans for receiving contributions to the code?

    A: Initially, we will begin to accept contributions as attachments to bug reports and enhancement requests in our public bug database. To contribute source, developers will be asked to first agree to a contribution agreement as part of the submission process.

    As attachments to the bug reports! Pretty cute i think.

  18. K.Kaviraj

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:35 am

    Cant wait to see Microsoft’s reaction to this - am sure that they will release their new product ( which is much like and has more features than FLASH ) … and tightly integrate it with thier .NET 3.0 framework - thus giving the ADOBE guys a tof stand in the market … - or else AS USAUAL we can expect their MONOOLY game ( which is latly being followed by GOOGLE also ) and aquire 51 % stakes for the Flexi thing ;-)

  19. Vijay

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:13 am

    #16

    This is a good move from Adobe, I hope this is the beginning and Adobe will open up the entire run-time and Flash for developers.

    As for Dekoh and Apollo comparison, today’s announcement is not about Apollo, so open source continues to be one of the differences between Dekoh and Apollo.

    There are several more and you can read the comparison on Dekoh blog. You can also try Dekoh alpha version and see how desktop and offline applications can be written using web standards.

    Vijay
    Dekoh

  20. lol

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    Did anyone see President Bush dancing with Africans on TV??

    It’s really funny!!!

  21. wally

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:47 am

    Does anyone notice the irony between this story and a blurry, pixellated adobe logo accompanying it?

  22. sammy

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:50 am

    Adobe is just a big slow lame corporate dinosaur that doesn’t get it. This is just another attempt to be relevant. They are struggling and their is lots of infighting among the enginerring teams - esp. pdf vs flash. What are they gonna do when no one buys Cs3 or Acrobat anymore cause there’s good options for free??

  23. Vijay Chakravarthy

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:57 am

    I wish Adobe were more proactive than reactive. The whole msft push around XAML, XPS, WPF/E (now silverlight) has them responding…
    Adobe as a platform has so much potential, but they really need to fix a few things:
    1. Decide what they want to push - flash, pdf, svg? Unify the disparities between them, each has advantages and disadvantages..
    2. Fix the whole nellymoser codec crap. Geez, if only one could take flvs and convert them to mp3 easily, you would see a whole crop of interesting applications develop. Especially with the nice capabilities Actionscript 3 brings to the table.

    Just my two cents…

  24. Chris Chan

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:01 am

    Good news, now if they also plan to open source their eclipse plugin, I’d be ecstatic. That would go a long ways to get developer support, else, I would assume someone would or may develop another open source plugin to compete since the compile/debugger is open source.

  25. Dan Stowell

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    those waiting for a fully open and cross platform rich application platform from Adobe.

    Those so afflicted may wish to avail themselves of OpenLaszlo - it’s open and cross-platform. Disclaimer: I work with OpenLaszlo everyday (it’s my job) and I love it.

  26. Jeffrey

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:28 am

    “I actually can’t imagine a platform being able to survive *without* all the developer tools and class libraries being completely open”

    How many platforms did you consider when you wrote this, Nic? *Most* platforms don’t make their developer tools and class libraries completely open. (See: Windows. See also: most mobile devices and OSes.)

  27. carmen

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:37 am

    one step closer to 64bit flash…not

  28. John Furrier

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:54 am

    Great story except you should embed the video on your site..

    [podtech content=

    http://media1.podtech.net/medi.....a11a504168

  29. Federico Campo Piombi

    April 26th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    I love the fact that Adobe, who’s known for being a “designer’s de facto” brand is supporting Flash developers, and not leaving them aside with what was left from Macromedia.
    I think this is their way to say “hey developers, we know what you can do, and we will support you!”
    They must have a hard work ahead of the whole flash-flex-actionscript thing, since they must please graphic/web designers and programmers.
    Even with the flaws that Flash/Flex might have (as for developers, and for designers) I think they’ve accomplished great things with both tools, and proven they won’t give up on US.
    Also, I think that there’s no point in comparing flash against flex (or viceversa), since those are tools for almost opposite worlds (and purposes).

  30. pk

    April 26th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    29th to comment :-)

  31. Does Stock Owned Company pay you write this?

    April 26th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    I’m not sure why Techcrunch write articles about stock owned companies.
    On Google discription links it says:

    Techcrunch — “Group-edited blog about technology start-ups, particularly the Web 2.0 sector. ”

    Adobe isn’t start-up company. They should publish articles somewhere paid press like Wall street journal, CBS marketwatch, New York Times, and quality press. Adobe should 100% pay us to read it…
    Now, what the heck TC trying to do?
    Why is TC giving super free pass for gaint companies and backed companies?

    We want startup news back!!!
    We want Mike’s startup vengence back!!!
    We want web 2.0 startup news back!!!

  32. John Eckman

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    I’m with Jeffrey from comment 26 - in what sense is Microsoft Visual Studio open?

    Have you looked at the cost of MSDN licenses for developers who work in the .NET platform on a regular basis, plus the ongoing cost of “certification”?

    Win32 development tools that are open source exist, of course, but not from the mothership . . .

  33. Anthony

    April 26th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    @ 30

    Although Adobe isn’t a startup in itself, the products it makes are at the center of many web companies. New web apps are popping up all the time based on Flex. So this is definitely big news in the startup world.

  34. Rodney Aiglstorfer

    April 26th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    I suspect this was a way to better position their solution vs. OpenLaszlo. Still, with all the great AJAX frameworks out there one begins to wonder what the use is for a Flash oriented solution like Flex when you can do much of what Flex offers using said frameworks.

    If it could be used to generate Flash Lite applications, then you have something interesting.

  35. David Mackey

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    Good move on Adobe’s part, and I was excited to originally read about it - but the scope of the release really isn’t that significant. An entire technology needs to be released, not just portions. It is still too expensive to be a beginner with Adobe based technologies and this is where Microsoft and other companies will win.

  36. Fabrice

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:38 am

    A lire…

  37. 37th to comment

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:25 am

    Do I get a prize for being 37th?

  38. burly

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:35 am

    2nd paragraph:
    “Previously the source code to the ActionScript components in the *Flash* SDK were available…”

    Is this a typo? Seems it should read “Flex SDK”…

  39. KaiserJozy

    April 28th, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    Flash programs don’t have to be heavy. If coded right.

    One thing I realized while developling Flash, if you draw in Actionscript Drawing API you can bring down the size of the file considerably.

    Take a look.

    http://www.flashframing.com

    The initial app is 25K. No need for a loader.

  40. Ted Wilson

    May 2nd, 2007 at 4:24 am

    40th comment will get all prizes LOL

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