Submitted by Adobe Systems plans to open-source Flex, its development framework for building Flash and Apollo-based applications. The company on Wednesday is expected to announce the move, which will start when it releases a beta of the next version of Flex, code-named Moxie, in June.
Adobe to Open Source Flash Tool ‘Flex’
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Thanks Microsoft ?
Wish they would open source Flash too.
Since Flex has a compiler, reverse engineering Flash to produce an improved open-source implementation will be a lot easier and faster.
They should have open sourced flash player at first place. If they want flash to become some sort of standard, like OSI or ISO, they must do it. On the other hand, recent cooperation with Mozilla Foundation can be a good sign.
It doesn’t include the eclipse-based IDE:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex:Open_Source:FAQ#What_comp…
I’ve never worked on Flex so I don’t know how useful the SDK itself is.
It’s just the SDK. Which means not the IDE, as pointed already by Maners, and also not Flex Data Services.
… at least it is a step in the right (ok, this depends on the observer’s feelings about open source, let’s not flame about this piece) direction.
I wouldn’t expect much more than what they’re giving now. At least not for starters. If the tool is really widely used, it wouldn’t take long before Open Source developers wrote a new IDE to use it, and that could teach Adobe about how useful a better relationship with the open source community could be.
Let’s all just wait and see how that goes.
Geeze, does *anyone* read the article?
Flex is the SDK, the new IDE will be based around Eclipse, the data side of it will eventually be based on opensource technologies.
Why do people *assume* and IDE has yet to be written when it is clearly writtein the article what the future intentions are?
The company said it will open-source the Flex software development kit, which includes a compiler and libraries designed to speed up development. It plans to continue to sell Flex Builder, an Eclipse-based development tool, and Flex Data Services, server software for accessing corporate databases.
IDE is done by Eclipse, Dataservices closed source, but possibility of having it written by the opensorce community, and SDK which includes compiler etc. So really, the only missing link is dataservices.
Geeze, does *anyone* read the article?
Obviously not…
Flex is the SDK, the new IDE will be based around Eclipse, the data side of it will eventually be based on opensource technologies.
There is no “new” IDE.. The IDE for Flex is a plugin for Eclipse *now*. It already exists. That isnt changing – nor is the fact that the IDE costs $$$. The SDK is the only thing that is going to be opensourced, and it doesnt include the Eclipse plugin or the Data Services.
Why do people *assume* and IDE has yet to be written when it is clearly writtein the article what the future intentions are?
No one “assumed” anything. The post you so ineptly replied to was just pointing out that the opensource community would likely want to build their own IDE since Adobe’s will remain commercial.
From the article:
…It plans to continue to sell Flex Builder, an Eclipse-based development tool, and Flex Data Services, server software for accessing corporate databases.
You misread the article and decided to post a flame based on your incorrect understanding of it. Congratulations!
I’m more interested to see what (if any) effect this will have on the lazlo community.
…I would actually like to feel good about this as Flex was/is a very nice product, but it is hard considering that they have screwed the pooch on this one for so long giving away the SDK wont save it.
Flex is going on like 5 years old, and has pretty much zero market penetration. Why? Macromedia priced it into oblivion. $20,000 per CPU if your website faced the internet… I would really like to know what idiot came up with that pricing. It killed ANY chance of it ever becoming successful.
In a nutshell they would OWN rich internent development by now if they had just priced it reasonably… Now, 5 years later, we have OpenLaszlo (which is ok) and Microsofts WPF (which is STILL mostly vapor) and NOW they decide to do something like this when it is way too late for it to do any good. Flex was more advanced than either of those products are now 5 years ago but its pricetag guarenteed its failure…
Hopefully Adobe is slightly less retarded than Macromedia going forward… But I doubt it.
I don’t really know much about Flex but… if the possible contenders are, as you said, ‘ok’ and ‘mostly vapor’, then I don’t think it is too late for a big change in direction hehehe
Well a _big_ change it direction would be correcting their pricing disaster… Giving away a command-line compiler and SDK is a token gesture, nothing more.
Looking at the thing like that, I can’t say I don’t agree… they should really cut a few zeroes of that pricing tag.
Microsofts WPF (which is STILL mostly vapor)
Mostly vapor? What are you talking about? Thank WPF if you have a free SDK now… 😉
Other than that, I agree they’ve just been crazy in their pricing and waste their time while WPF was years away and Flash was the only big thing in Web. I remember when I browsed to Macromedia website to check pricing and read about the 20,000$ per CPU… Whaaaattt? 😉
Now that Windows developers have WPF as simple as installing Flash, probably cross platform, better than Flash in a few things (while Flash is better for other things), even a Flash fan like me will have another choice.
Why Macromedia decided not to be a VERY big player in Web development, more than it is now, it’s beyong me…
Edited some typos.
Edited 2007-04-26 21:24
“”probably cross platform,”
>>>>sorry….ther is NO way MS is going to keep WPF cross platform!!!! it may start off that way… just for the PR…. but give it a few revisions… and MS will be saying stuff like… “due to the limitations with on OSX (or liniux for that matter) WPF 2010 will be strickly for windows!
“Why Macromedia decided not to be a VERY big player in Web development, more than it is now, it’s beyong me… ”
um… between Flash, dreamweaver, and cold fusion… i think they ARE a very big player. do you think adobe would have paid SO F’N much for them if they were’nt such a huge player?
Flex 2.0 came out with an entirely different pricing model almost a year ago. Guessed you missed it.
don’t know how long ago you priced it. But flex2 sdk has been down loadable for free for close to a year. Of course flex is no longer a server side product as well so cpu pricing has no meaning any more.
Well, then it is still more advanced than OpenLaszlo and MS WPF, isn’t it?
Don’t get mad, I’m just pulling your leg
I have no clue about Flex, OpenLaszlo, MS WPF, whatever…
Please check your facts. That was true regarding Flash1 & Flex1.5, not so anymore. With the release of Flex2 in 2006, the cost per CPU went down to $0 (you *can* buy a serverside component but no need to anymore plus there are free alternatives) and the SDK was available for free. Now the SDK will be open sourced as well, kudos to them. It’s better than nothig.
Edited 2007-04-27 10:30
Ok.. I knew this kind of reply would pop up. Yes, as of Flex 2 you can now build Flex application without the server side component. But the server-side component is STILL $20,000 if you want it.
I would argue that Flex without the server is crippled. Lots of people use it this way because they simply never had a chance to use the server… If they knew what they didn’t have they would be seriously up in arms about it.
Flex without the server is like PHP without a database or an Office Suite without a word processor… Sure, it might be useful for somethings but it sure the hell isn’t ideal. It reminds me of when MS and Borland sold 2 versions of their entry level programming tools (VB/Delphi). There was a standard addition and a professional of each. No one in there right mind once having used the professional version for a few projects could go back…
The difference is that the jump between versions wasn’t twenty f@*$ing thousand dollars…
Edited 2007-04-27 14:24
Aside from several-years-old built-in capability to make itself full-screen, latest Flash player also ensures that commercials cannot be skipped in video content. Flash is already a hated, ad-spewing web parasite, blocked by many users by default.
Hardly doubt this move can make Flash-based technologies any more appealing.
I wonder if Microsoft’s announcement of Silverlight is putting some heat on Adobe. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Flash engine is released under the Mozilla license too. When Microsoft pushes their plugin release onto Windows Update overnight millions of users will support it. A similar thing happened to the Real media plugin. A lot of the news sites I used to visit switched from Real to Windows media. Monopolies are tough to stand against.
Edited 2007-04-27 01:10
Realmedia partially buried themselves too. Let’s face it, the audio/video quality was largely very poor, and iirc the installer was pretty much infested with adware. I know lots of people were very very happy to ditch that thing.
a better format than flash with super easy to use tools, then flash just might go away.