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Adobe Joins Linux Foundation, Develops AIR For Linux
2muchcoffeeman writes "Adobe announced Monday that it is joining the Linux Foundation and alpha-released a Linux version of its new Adobe Internet Runtime environment, which allows Internet-enabled applications to run on Windows and Mac OS desktops, for Linux. According to Adobe, the alpha version lacks some key features that will be available in the final product and only runs with Sun Java, not GNU Java. Adobe also released an alpha of Flex Builder for Linux Monday."
... "You think that's AIR you're breathing?"
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Not meant as a troll, but it is hard to find an objective explanation of how AIR is going to fill a huge need or bake better bread.
I once saw an elephant mother grieving over her dead calf. The calf had died due to thirst on the savannah and though the herd moved on to newer pastures, the mother elephant stayed with the dead calf until the mother too died of thirst, and I suppose sadness.
It was a terrible thing to watch. The emotional stress that the mother elephant went through was so tangible and human-like that I was really moved.
Kinda like I am with Adobe fans.
What is GNU Java? GCJ?
Yea, they really dropped the ball on coreutils, huh?
64-bit Flash!
For those of you who don't drink the Adobe kool-aid, a quick explanation.
AIR is a desktop runtime environment. You can run either Html/Javascript or Flash based applications inside it. AIR provides a few interesting features beyond HTML/Flash including:
1) File I/O
2) SQLLite Support
3) An integrated web browser (based on WebKit) that you can use inside applications.
4) A fairly good distribution mechanism
5) Desktop integration (OSX Dock icons, Win32 systray support, etc.)
It's a great technology if you're using Adobe products to make web applications and you want to branch into making desktop apps.
It's a great technology if you want to make a desktop app that may later become a web app and you want to share most of the code.
It's a horrible technology if you're a desktop developer who's looking for a different technology.
It's way more write-once run-anywhere than Java ever was.
It does not pick up the system's native UI widgets.
This is excellent news. We've never had the resources to port our panoramic image stitcher to Linux, but as it's now an AIR app, this means we get it for free. I can finally use my own app on Ubuntu! Anyone who hasn't taken a look at AIR yet should seriously check it out, especially now that Flex is open source.
Wow, something that is written in Java, runs on Linux. *CHEER*
Oh, well, it isn't compatible with GNU Java, but it runs on Linux *duh*
Shouldn't it be default that something written in Java runs on ALL platforms which got a JRE?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
AIR doesn't come preinstalled, so it's just another piece of software people can choose to use, not an existing platform to target with content.
Meanwhile, the GNU implementation of SWF is GNASH, which just released a new version. GNASH is also not preinstalled, but it's in some ways superior to Adobe's Flash, while remaining compatible (with practically all features found in the wild, and adding the rest) - and free, including not adding DRM you don't want. And GNASH was announced to be part of the new KDE, so it will in fact be preinstalled on lots of Linux machines.
--
make install -not war
It may actually be possible to create a PDF viewer using AIR. It has some native support for the format, which means you may be able to create a lighter-weight app which uses this. Significantly, Adobe have said that they plan to move their apps gradually over to AIR, so this could mean that Photoshop and others may finally be available for Linux.
In other words, "We'll let you play in our sandbox, but don't try to figure out how we built our sandbox so you can build your own sandbox that looks just like our sandbox."
Prevent Windows piracy. Use Linux instead.
PDF is ISO standard now. Maybe you were living on another planet. I haven't use Adobe Reader is YEARS and I still read PDF files without any glitches on Linux.
Wrong battle dude.
Hub
GNASH also includes a FOSS version of Adobe's proprietary FLEX media streaming server, that's compatible with Adobe's Flash players. Now that is a FOSS product that doesn't suffer from the "not preinstalled" problem, because it uses the preinstalled Adobe Flash players as its target installed base. You can just install it on your server instead of installing FLEX.
But I haven't heard how good it is. Is it fully compatible with Adobe's Flash? Feature-competitive with FLEX? Have you heard anything?
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make install -not war
As someone who in the last 6 weeks has been currently developing a flex app for both AIR and the web... dont get too excited.
I am finding the Flex3 framework to be buggy as hell.
* I have been having constant crashes from Flex Builder (It is built on eclipse)
* The ui components are coded like dogshit. (i ended up coding custom elements in flash which are the tenth of the size, and work as intended)
* Some documented features dont work.
* I have spent alot of time figuring out work arounds/undocumented features.
sorry for the rant.. but the claim that it is easy to develop flex apps is bullshit.
I have been using flash since it was called FutureSplash, so after over 10 years of day in day out
developing and making bread with this tech, I think I can speak with some authority.
It seems to me that Adobe is glorifying their steps into open source.
I just have a funny feeling that it is not as good willed, as intended,
but just as a way to get their shit coded/fixed for free,then reimplemented
in their closed source upscale/addon technologies.
Which I might add, allows adobe to compete directly against the very developers
that buy into their software.
From the SWF and FLV File Format Specification and License
-- This license does not permit the usage of the specification to create software which supports SWF file playback.
That's pathetic. Adobe is explicitly trying to control the _format_, while trying to convince (and confuse) people by releasing the runtime and SDK as open source. Which means they still retail all the control of closed-source software, without many people even being aware of it. Once (hopefully not) AIR or Flash becomes a widely accepted platform for applications, Adobe can easily ask people to pay up or do whatever.
These days, I get frustrated by the number of people who mention that Adobe is a major supported of open source, and get excited about it. Java may suck, but it sure is not a lock in.
Life is just a conviction.
Adobe seems to want to jump on the OSS bandwagon, which might make a lot of people smile... although, ....
.0 known bug that plainly doesn't launch when executed without a fix from their website)
- Flash isn't OSS
- The Linux Flash binary-only plugin is still WAY behind the Windows version in quality and stability (remember how long we had to wait for Flash 9.x on Linux??)
- Shockwave Director isn't OSS (and isn't even ported to Linux in a binary-only format, despite the 29511 signatures in the online petition that's been going on forever). Not a peep from Adobe on if this will ever even happen, even though revisions are still being made and it being widely used
- No intention of porting Flash to x86-64 platforms, on Linux -or- Windows (at least AFAIK)
- Just in my experience alone, COUNTLESS other buggy applications (like the other week, installing a version of Acrobat with a
I agree Adobe has a LOT of momentum behind them with the Internet community. With this, however, comes great responsibility. If they want to play in the OSS playground, I think they need to share all of their toys like the others do.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
That's silly; what makes you think Adobe supports Linux? (I mean, because all of their tech marketers and tech evangelists saying that they do.) As far as Adobe cares, the Linux kernel only runs on 32-bit x86 CPUs.
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No offense to the Gnash team -- I thoroughly commend their efforts -- but I've hardly ever got any Flash to load up in it, at all. If you're using 64-bit linux, just use a 32-bit version of Firefox (heard that it works and it saves you the headache).
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Hello there,
I've just posted a review and a comment at my site (translation) where I point that Adobe makes an amateur mistake, by installing all AIR files as the user who launched the installer, despite the fact that it asks for root access via gksu (a graphic sudo replacement). This makes the user owner of the files "AIR root", letting him able to compromise AIR Apps to all users of the system (either voluntarily or by a virus for example). This goes against all security policies I've ever seen. System wide programs must be read only to every one, except for root, which is a user that "is just meant not to be used".
I also pointed at my site to at least two packaging mistakes: broken dependencies and garbage after uninstall.
I wonder: why in hell they have to make that annoying Windows-like installer, more vulnerable to this sort of error, than simply give a package and a software repository? Or at least give direct access to a "traditional" RPM or Debian package... Doesn't they know the KISS rule?
Hope this sort of stuff does not happen when it comes to be final.