You've heard the news (in case you didn't, it's all about Flex going Open Source). Very good move from Adobe, and not only for the community, but for Adobe itself.
The Flex SDK and compiler have already been freely distributable, so Adobe's money is coming out of Flex Builder and server products. On the other side, money is spent on creating those freely distributable products. So why not kill two flies with one stroke. By open sourcing the SDK and compiler, the community gets a better product (more frequent updates, better performance, more features), which increases interest in Flex and drives sales and resources can be pulled (well, at some point) from the SDK and compiler teams because the community is doing all the heavy lifting.
Now people of course start going "c'mon, the only thing you haven't open sources in the Flash Platform is the FlashPlayer (apart from the AS3 engine), how about opening it up?". Dare not wish things you really don't want to see, say I. It's ok to let everyone contribute to the Flex SDK, and have millions of builds flying in each direction, since in the end, a flaw build only crashes one single application. But imagine a community driven FlashPlayer out there. New releases and branches every week. Some group would add 3D Hardware acceleration immediately, others would work on MOD-player support, and both would be distributed and not compatible and we would loose the most important aspect of Flash - ubiquity.
Comments
Hey!
nice informative post! thanx a bunch!
Posted by: Flex Development | 20 Jul 2007 11:47:50
Thank you.
It is useful information for me.
Posted by: Flex developer | 27 Mar 2009 17:34:46
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