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Adobe To Donate Flex SDK To Open Source Community
New submitter ProbablyJoe writes "InfoQ reports that Adobe is to donate its web application SDK, Flex, to an 'an established open source foundation' — suspected to either be the Open Spoon Foundation (who have been working on an open source fork of Flex), or the more established Apache Foundation. Adobe has stated on its blog that they consider HTML5 to be a better technology for the future than its own Flex platform, causing frustration among developers who have used the platform for enterprise applications. Is this a generous contribution to the open source community, or just Adobe offloading another failing technology?"
This is the technological equivalent of donating AIDS infected blood.
Microsoft dumps stuff in favor of HTML5.
Adobe dumps stuff in favor of HTML5.
Can somebody check the temperature in hell, please?
and why shouldn't they? If they already decided that they wouldn't support the product anymore, then it makes sense to donate it to the community. Maybe some enterprising people can make it work for them. Just look at what it did for web-browser technology when Netscape opensourced their - at that time 'almost end-of-line' - product to the opensource community...
Right, so when a company end of lines a product they're criticised for not open sourcing it.
Now when a company open sources an end of lined product, they're "offloading another failing technology".
This is why companies don't give a fuck what the FOSS community thinks, because with the FOSS community you can never do anything right. See all the whinging about Android's open source initiatives for another fine example.
Will this include player components? As it stands, the span of usefulness for the SDK is going to be limited if there isn't a player to run the output.
Is this a generous contribution to the open source community, or just Adobe offloading another failing technology?"
Both, obviously!
WebM is free, H.264 costs money on both the encoding and decoding end. Standards should never require payment to use.
Based on what I've read elsewhere, it's called Adobe Edge, and it's supposed to be an authoring tool for animations to be played back using JavaScript and HTML5's 2D canvas. Tim Langdell will be pissed.
I've used the Flex SDK and FlexBuilder IDE. While the underlying Flash runtime is notoriously bad, the declarative XML structure, ActionScript language and matching IDE are actually quite pleasant to work with. I'd love to see someone replace the dreadful Flash runtime with a native HTML5 runtime but keep the decent bits.
Anybody know what this means for Adobe's AIR platform?
H.264 only costs money if you ship more than 50000 units a year. Also it is royalty-free for non-commercial use.
Even Internet Explorer supports H.264
Windows Internet Explorer on PCs also supports WebM as long as the proper codec pack is installed.
WebM sucks!
Could you please tone it down and say why you feel WebM is inferior? Otherwise, your post is just as much misinformation as the ones you criticize. Does your skin dry out on sunny days to where it feels like rock?
You do realize HTML5 is far far more than just a video player right? Even so "HTML5 Video" doesn't inherently mean WebM nor H.264 as the format isn't part of the standard.
While I agree that HTML5 is better than Flash, it is pretty surprising that they are going down without a fight, and doing so early in the process. I would think they would drum it up as long as possible so they could sell off their stocks. After all plenty of businesses use Flex, and they aren't going to re-factor anytime soon. Likewise, old browsers with bad HTML5 support are not going away soon?
Do they perhaps think that Flash/Flex can out compete HTML5 if they open source it? Do they think Flex development will be a good gateway to AIR development? I guess I just don't get the strategy.
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Now with HTML5 becoming the the preferred nuisance apparatus, can we create something to block them browser side?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Its worse that that: the submitter didn't even say what is being attributed to the whole community. TFS ends with the question -- an invitation to comment in the attached comment thread -- "Is this a generous contribution to the open source community, or just Adobe offloading another failing technology?"
Some people have interpreted this as if it were a statement that "Adobe [is just] offloading another failing technology", but that's not what it says. It poses a question.
And the answer to the question of "is it A or B?" is that it is A and also B. Look, Adobe clearly sees Flex as, from its business perspective, a failing technology. The developers that are upset about it being abandoned in favor of HTML5 clearly see it as valuable. One of the benefits of open source is that it allows technologies to continue to be used and developed by others even when they no longer serve as a profit center for the original developer.
So, yeah, Adobe is offloading what it sees as a failing technology. On the other hand, it could just as easily kill it dead rather than handing it off to an open source foundation. By doing the latter, it is generously providing a way for someone else to maintain what has been an Adobe proprietary technology so that developers can keep using it.
No, companies don't care what the "FOSS Community" says. They're donating it. That means that they say that this incredible thingy is worth $100 billion, and write it off as a charitable donation. It's a smart way to end a software product. Sure, maybe they're glad they get a bit of "geek cred", but that isn't worth nearly the amount that they can write off of their books because of their "donation". Also, they get to dump all of the ongoing support costs for the software much quicker than if they were to let it wind down slowly on it's own. It's purely a financial decision, and probably a smart one at that.
I don't respond to AC's.
Yeah, right. And web devs can stop supporting IE too, right?
Once the market is locked-in, driving away from the standard is almost impossible, because you have to receive or send files to other people who haven't.
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Yes, let's look at that. AOL didn't just dump the netscape source code and walk away, they created the Mozilla Foundation and provided $2 million of initial financing. MF hit a jackpot with search bar royalties and while it's open source, virtually all development is from paid Mozilla employees.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
-Open Source Community Donates Flex SDK to Goodwill
-Goodwill Donates Flex SDK to Salvation Army
-Salvation Army Donates Flex SDK to Jerry's Kids
-Jerry's Kids Donates Flex SDK to Haiti
-Haiti Donates Flex SDK to Somalia
-Somalian Pirates Use Flex SDK to Attack Passing Ships
I8-D
Block Javascript
And turn every click into a page load. Good luck trying to use an online drawing program where each click on the image means a full reload of the image and of the page it's on.
or install an ad-blocker
If you install an extension specifically to block web sites' revenue source, watch web sites depending on advertisements block you. Web sites have tolerated Flashblock for two reasons: it's "content neutral", not caring whether each SWF object is the requested information or an advertisement on the side, and web sites already have to fall back to JPEG ads for devices not supporting SWF.
So if a user purposely blocks ads, there's nothing that can be done.
The server can notice that an advertisement was not downloaded and forbid the user from downloading any further pages.