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Adobe Flex Goes Open Source

blogs.zdnet.com — Big news from Adobe. This will make Flex the de-facto standard for Rich Internet Applications.

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matzeller 1 year 169 days ago, made popular 1 year 169 days ago

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drzeus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25Official press release: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200704/042607Flex.html

FAQ and stuff on Adobe Labs: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex:Open_Source
- boxc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Reading those links and the emphasis on cross platform client and dev support makes this open source announcement interesting response to MS's Silverlight. Flex is interesting and needs some momentum (which this will help) + AS3 is great.. I think the competition between the two (MS+Adobe) will be great.
- macewan, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Interesting thought - this is only released as a result of an action by Microsoft. Why wasn't this announced sooner? Hats off to them though.
- lava, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I'm a bit confused. One has been able to use the SDK for free via adobe labs. Open sourcing, in terms of paying for development, doesn't change anything. What about deployment? It's the one thing that stopped my company from using it... we didn't want to pay for a server license.
- kmedlin, on 10/12/2007, -22/+15Flex is too little too late.
  
  There are already great frameworks out there.
  
  Ruby on Rails has WAY more momentum and picks up more converts every day. Look at Steve Case's Revolution Health as an example or Amazon's S3 which are both enterprise Ruby on Rails implementations.
  
  For the folks who integrate desktop and web clients .NET technologies really are stealing the show. Whereas Java was once king all the IT placement firms that come in to sell their people are all saying they cannot get enough .NET folks right now.
  
  I'd love to see another player in the market though. More competition cannot hurt quite honestly. It just makes it so that companies have to standardize and stick to their guns with a clear focus on what they want long term. The few Flex apps I've seen seem pretty neat, but they seem a lot like flash...toys rather than substantive applications.
  
  A great case in point was the heralding a few years ago for Time Warner Cable's Road Runner homepage portal which was 100% flash based. It got a lot of attention, some awards, and generally was great. I don't know anyone now who is willing to wait for that page to load for features that are available from the various AJAX libraries.
  
  I almost wonder if this is the first nail in the coffin for Flash as an application development platform to be quite honest. I think Flash will remain viable for advertising, for "games", small interactives for online learning and training, etc. I just don't see Flash every fulfilling the promise that it once held particularly in light of this new surge of support and promotion for Flex from Adobe.
- lilzaphod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@lava
  
  Flex got rid of the server based need in Flex 2. The data services portion is server based, but is not required for standard SOA style apps using webservices, etc.
- TimDigg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Take THAT Silverlight...
  
  then again...did they just play into Microsoft's game....
- wattz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14@kmedlin
  First off, Amazon's Webservices do not use Ruby On Rails, they are java based webservices. They offer libraries for languages like Rails to use their service though.
  
  Second off, Flex going the route of Javascript makes it really hard to compare it, as a client side technology, with frameworks that are server based.
  
  but meh..... thats my $.02 :-)
- andyd273, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So, lets say that I want to create something for Apollo so that I can create a desktop app that interacts with the web, and that means that I need to learn Flex to write it... But what do I need to write and compile the Flex? Flex builder costs $$$, and I don't really want to pay for it if it wont do what I want. So are there any apps/learnings out there that will let me write stuff for Flex/Apollo so that I can learn the language and what it can do? Then when I get it figured out I can try to get my boss to pay for the better tools. Proof of concept and all that.
  I guess I want something thats as easy to write as PHP, and with the same database access functionality
- jsebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@andyd273
  If you're dedicated to learning flex, you can learn it from the documentation accompanying the flex sdk (which you can go download right now). They do a pretty good job of explaining the basics. I picked it up this way. I create flex apps in a plain text editor and compile them using the flex sdk. Not a penny changed hands.
- UberNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@kmedlin
  
  You're remarks are based on some poor assumptions. First, Flex was meant to replace Flash as an application development platform. Historically, Flash was developed for graphics and movies. Its developer tool is based on a "movie" paradigm that makes application development difficult. Along with the powerful features of ActionScript and cross-platform, cross-browser compatibility, many people began using Flash for application development. Macromedia (later Adobe) decided to build Flex to fill this role.
  
  In regards to RoR, its scaffolding ability allows complex RIAs to be built quickly and from the ground up. But if you already have some enterprise architecture in place, interface development isn't any easier with Ruby than most Ajax tools like GWT. There's not even a WYSIWYG designer tool.
  
  Flex, especially with the help of LCDS, will plug into most architectures really well. It's intuitive and quick, has some great tools, and a strong platform to build on. It fulfills a lot of needs that other tools don't touch. It's not a direct competitor with Flash, RoR, or Silverlight.
- UberNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@andyd273
  
  Use the trial software for a month. If you install the Apollo plugin later, it'll extend the initial trial period. Once you get a feel for the language, you can keep using the Eclipse IDE without Apollo/Flex. With some research, you can also set up Eclipse to build using their free mxmlc compiler tools.
- jsebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0RoR may be nice, I have no experience with it. I do have a lot of experience with flash, and some experience with flex, and it does things no other client-side technology offers. From the perspective of graphics and sound management, flash is pretty much the only choice if you're doing anything but the most basic of applications. For example, adobe are going to be releasing a web-based photoshop in a few months, and most likely it will be built in flex (see http://www.fauxto.com/ for an example of what's possible with flash/flex). Also, I've never, ever, been able to build GUI's with just a text editor as quickly as I have with the flex SDK. It is dead easy, and very powerful (with advanced support for styling, extending components, translation, fluid layouts, ...). I can't imagine how RoR would be easier for that.
- GoatBn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3dugg for open source
- C00001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Flex is not necessarily meant to replace RoR, etc. It actually plays well with Ruby, PHP, ASP, etc, for server-side scripting, and also with JavaScript on the client side. They've even released a "Flex-AJAX Bridge", that makes pretty much everything available to you in ActionScript also available to JavaScript (without using the ExternalInterface class).
  
  http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_Framework:FABridge
- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@UberNick
  "There's not even a WYSIWYG designer tool."
  
  There is for GWT, flash demos: http://www.instantiations.com/gwtdesigner/demos.html
  
  I am going to have to give flex a try now that it is open source. In many ways GWT is limited in that it works on the existing HTML+javascript platform to 'hack' together a rich UI. Flex has a great platform to work with - flash. In that way I see flex being more lightweight and extensible. Even with relying on google's GWT team to figure out browser differences, JS wasn't designed for rich applications, so rich JS + Ajax gui apps never quite hit the mark. Flex, based on flash, looks perfect. And it works with linux, microsoft's XAML does not. That is important since many sites gets 3-5% of users with linux, on par with mac.
  
  Looking at this demo confirms my suspicions - GWT and other ajax apps could never approach this:
  
  http://examples.adobe.com/flex2/consulting/styleexplorer/Flex2StyleExplorer.html
  
  Look like I will start using this! Very cool.
- UberNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@geronimo
  Good point with GWT Designer. Unfortunately, it's almost unusable in a real development environment. It has some promise, but as of this year, it's immature, buggy, and unstable. I tried using it for a prototype and found myself working more in notepad.
  
  Along with what you mentioned, the GWT component set is very limited. I tried recreating a relatively simple component that come prebuilt with Flex. With GWT, I had to use a huge custom-built library that was based on Yahoo's UI Toolkit (ironic, no?). It wasn't CSS capable and didn't render the same way on other browsers. Definitely not an option for RIA's with real complexity. That said, it shows some promise if Google opens it up to allow for compilation of the full Java library. It would also take off if the open source community embraced it, but unfortunately I don't see that happening.
tamrix, on 10/12/2007, -7/+61so simply by making something open source it becomes to de facto standard..

-_-'
- scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12I didn't appreciate the opinion/prediction in the description either.
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18It probably will today yes. Most modern endeavours will look at open standards and open source as education levels on the subject increase. MS isn't involved so aren't going to attack this outright so yeah it will probably become standard.
  
  It's worth remembering with the tubes that most developers want everyone to be able to access their content.
- KrocCamen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Look at this way - wider platform support (and as wide as you're willing to contribute the code for) = a better de facto standard than Microsoft could ever come up with. Adobe have done this to nip Siverlight in the bud. The web2.0 startups will leap on Flex as the hip OSS technology to use (like Ruby et al), leaving Silverlight to 100%-Microsoft shops and know-nothing college students.
- dkuntze, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Hmmm... does that mean that OpenLaszlo is unseated as "the standard", since it was already open source? I think not. OpenLaszlo adds functionality that Adobe is releasing undler the MPL either... data components, etc...
- Bamborzled, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3"MS isn't involved "
  
  Actually, they are. As the above poster said, Microsoft has announced Silverlight at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight .
  It had been known as "WPF/E" for about five months, and pretty much offers the same things as Flex.
Diggtatorship, on 10/12/2007, -9/+64Yawn... Wake me up when they open-source Flash.
- coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14I could probably see that happening if Adobe Flash becomes too threatened by MS Silverlight. As MS becomes more competitive against Adobe's products, Adobe will likely try to strike at MS's solar plex, which is currently Open Source. Interesting times....
- pintong, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Hope you enjoy your nap.
- rharris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What they should do is open source the Flash Player and release the FLA and SWF file formats (I think SWF already is to an extent). That way anyone who takes the time to understand how a SWF file would be rendered can write an FOSS application to build SWF files and read the original FLA files.
  
  Adobe gets to keep their lead in having the premiere Flash authoring tool, but they would soon have competition from an up and coming open source tool to make sure they kept innovating to keep their lead. Consumers could then choose to go with the non-free "professional" tool from Adobe or with the free open source tool based on budget and which fit their needs better.
- micklerlop, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3can't wait to have to download 10 different versions of Flash players for IE and Firefox ... *sigh*
- Aninhumer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1While I wish it would happen, why would Adobe want to create a competitor?
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"What they should do is open source the Flash Player and release the FLA and SWF file formats (I think SWF already is to an extent). That way anyone who takes the time to understand how a SWF file would be rendered can write an FOSS application to build SWF files and read the original FLA files."
  
  They already did that. Anyone can go to adobe's website and see the swf spec after they sign a EULA agreeing not to create a swf player. Once you sign the eula the swf specifications will (almost imidiately) be emailed to you. Once you have the spec you're free to create an FOSS swf authoring tool (ie. Open Laszlo).
wbrendel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11@tamrix: Making it open source will go a long way towards making it the standard. From the conversations I've had on- and off-line with other people, the fear of getting locked into a proprietary technology was a huge concern for developers. With this announcement, I think a lot of that fear will go away, paving the way for more developers to embrace Flex.
Uruviel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Under Mozilla Public Licence, interesting choice ...
- KrocCamen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18It's compatible with GPL/LGPL, but also allows them to restrict commercial use. A /very/ good choice of licence IMO.
robsta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Last time I checked all the Source Code to the Flex components were floating around in the freely downloadable SDK. Did they just change the licensing and get everyone excited? Adobe should open-source or make Flex Builder free as well.
- drzeus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This will include the Java-based ActionScript compilers too. That's the most exciting part. Additionally, the component source code falls under a much more open license than it was before.
- pauleric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Not only Flex Builder, they should open-source photoshop and CS3. But first they need to get those dancing girls to serve me beer on my private island. That should be a software company's first priority.
auxide, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2too bad it sucks
Alisic, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4I'd rather see Appollo become open source.
Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4I hope they haven't patented any algorithms that stop the code being put into some Linux distros as defaults
jferrari, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5What no mention of Photoshop costing $1000's yet.. where have all the Adobe haters gone?
- rip747, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7DIGG attitude: If it isn't PHP or Ubuntu, it's evil.
- jon3k, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3PHP? That's so last year. it's all about Ruby these days.
azazel00, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3This is a cool move, even though I really dislike Flex. I'm looking forward to Apollo though.
- Bamborzled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Isn't Apollo just a combination of Flash, Flex, HTML and JavaScript that allows them to run on the desktop?
- azazel00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It is indeed.
  
  But like you said, it will take it to a new level (the desktop). I've been looking into XAML (btw, MS Blend sucks), XUL (not appropriate in my case because my source is exposed) and Apollo ( which seems like a neat alternative, so far).
  
  My main problem with Flex was the lack of resources, and that I didn't like the interfaces. After seeing the examples that bcswartz mentioned, I may be willing to give it another shot.
Nachoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7So functionality is no longer enough to lock people into your proprietary technologies, Adobe?
diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -8/+54"What no mention of Photoshop costing $1000's yet.. where have all the Adobe haters gone?"

"Yawn... Wake me up when they open-source Flash."

"too bad it sucks"

"I'd rather see Appollo become open source."

You ungrateful bastards! This is ***** amazing when a company like Adobe sees the light and open-sources a huge technology like this. I get really sick of you glass-half-empty fools.
- Alisic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Just because something is open source, doesn't mean it's automagically one billion times better. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong proponent of the whole open source idea (and 50% of my worktime is spent on Adobe apps, love some of them), but there's a lot more to this than just Flex being open source. Like a previous poster said, there's still no guarantee about it being free of patents. At Flex's core is Flash technology, which is as closed source as you can get. So it's best to take these kinds of statements with a pinch of salt.
- cyberjessy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Interesting scenario: Everyone gets excited, jumps into RIA with Flex (which is in some ways compelling, compared to AJAX) and Flex becomes the de-facto standard for RIA. 2 years later, Flash formats are still proprietary. And no one else can create a Flash player. You got a massive monopoly.
  
  As much as this is exciting news to me, Adobe's intentions look suspicious to me. SWF Spec License - http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/ - says "This license does not permit the usage of the specification to create software which supports SWF file playback." There are some OS flash player attempts, but they are not successful; they are using reverse engineering (and not the spec, due to the license); and legal status is not clear.
  
  Be careful, this might be deceptive.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1@Alisic
  "Just because something is open source, doesn't mean it's automagically one billion times better."
  
  I wouldn't say it was a BILLION times better, I'd say it was INFINITELY better.
- jon3k, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5"You ungrateful bastards! This is ***** amazing when a company like Adobe sees the light and open-sources a huge technology like this. I get really sick of you glass-half-empty fools."
  
  I'm tired of companies who ***** out a tiny pabulum of open source code and just assume all the F/OSS people in the world will lap it up like hungry puppies.
  
  OH THANK YOU ADOBE FOR THROWING US YOUR TABLE SCRAPS!
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"At Flex's core is Flash technology, which is as closed source as you can get."
  
  Flash isn't totally open, but it isn't as 'closed as you can get'. You can go to Adobe's website right now and after agreeing that you wont make a swf player have the entire swf spec emailed to you.
- diggumjonez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@jon3k
  "I'm tired of companies who ***** out a tiny pabulum of open source code and just assume all the F/OSS people in the world will lap it up like hungry puppies."
  
  I didn't read that in the press releases. Maybe I'm tired of knowlittle netfolk who make assumptions about others assumptions. Besides, hungry kittens are more likely to lap something up. Oh wait, God's killed all of your kittens, huh?
- dagooh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No, I see the glass half full, of poison.
macewan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/
- JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@macewan (#6357243)
  "By working on an open source implementation of ES4 with the community, Adobe and Mozilla hope to accelerate the adoption of a standard language for creating engaging Web applications."
  
  Adobe givin back, woot woot!
bcswartz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There's no pleasing some people. It seems every time a new Adobe announcement comes out, there's always a shrill band of detractors waiting to pounce on it, and "open source" is almost always their rallying cry.

To those folks: good luck on griping about this one. :)

I don't think they did it because of Silverlight: Silverlight's barely out the door, while Flex is already out there, powering some rather amazing sites like Picnik.com and Scrapblog. They did it because apparently that's what they've always wanted to do. And it makes perfect sense: they'll increase the developer and resource base for the technology, while still making money off the sale of tools like Flex Builder and the enterprise server technologies like Flex Data Services for doing advanced Flex development.
ciphergoth, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Not really open source - the key component, Flash, is still proprietary. So you can't deliver a Flex application based entirely on open source technology.
- sinatosk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3well it does says Adobe Flex is open source... not Adobe Flash
  
  Adobe Flex is a framework amongst other utilities like debugger etc etc and at the end... you compile it into Flash format
- drzeus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Regardless of the openness of the whole Flash runtime, it's still another great step for Adobe. First, the ActionScript virtual machine (part of Flash Player), now the Flex SDK.
polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3ok, can someone clear something up?

The newer Actionscript 3.0 is used in Flash and Flex. I have seen the new format for AS and it looks as if you can code out just about everything you can do with Flash. Would this, in a sense, being open sourcing flash, also? or am I way off the mark here. I am a lowly 3d modeler, so take it easy on me.
- hartist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Flash is the player, when most people are talking about Flash in this thread they are referring to the player. The Flash application is used for illustration and animation. Flex is used primarily for programming and application development. When the Flash application started veering towards rich Internet apps, they decided to branch it into Flex rather than try to make the Flash application do everything. Both use the flash player as the output format. So you can use Flex to produce Flash movies, among other Flex specific stuff.
  
  What's cool about this is that they are releasing the compiler for Flex which means programmers can now build a better compiler if they want, or improve on the current one. The compiler produces the flash movies.
- polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sweet, that makes sense. What would you do to improve the player? or Would it be mostly for tweaking in a Unix based system?
- raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's one, but I'm more or less thinking about Wikipedia being well and able to use embedded Flash videos without having to worry about restrictive software or playback licenses.
  
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Embed_Media
  
  Instead of having to resort to using, well, ogg-playing Java applets.
  
  http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Video_Wikinews/2.0
  http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/jorbis/commonsJOrbisPlayer.php?path=WikiNewsVideo-DF1024.ogg (careful, it's an applet!)
  http://videowikinews.spaces.live.com/
  
  Opening Flash would be a highly useful solution for Wikipedia's free video archives, that's all I'm saying.
  
  PS: It would also be particularly useful for other wiki projects:
  
  http://en.wikiversity.org
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You could code just about everything even with AS2. If you visit any Flash forums you'll see competitions for code-only sites, galleries, etc. Basically, the entire project (presentation and logic) are all contained within the script so the only thing you need to reproduce them is a text editor and a swf compiler. Open source swf compilers have been available for some time.
- raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1BTW, can't Adobe just go to the ISO and make SWF (and other closed formats) an open standard like it did for PDF?
  
  That way, just like how both Mac OS X and Foxit Reader can read it without problems (unlike Acrobat Reader), Gnash and other players will be able to play the format, too.
  
  But of course, there's that EULA on Flash...
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@raynevandunem
  
  And the next step, after allowing open source players, would be IE7's bundled SWF player which for some odd reason seems to play Flash files at least twice as slow as it renders more complex Silverlight files. Then IE8 can expand on this by introducing new and improved rendering artifacts that don't show up in any other version of the Flash player.
  
  After seeing how much problems browsers have rendering the reletively simple visuals of HTML and CSS, I can imagine what would happen if you threw extremely complex vector shapes, gradients, and filters at them.
caper88, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I don't get it: If you want to get data to that cool app, you still need Flex Data Services, which is 20k per server. Also, they are not even opening the full Flex SDK; the Eclipse component is remaining closed and $. Not sure why this is such a big deal. Don't get me wrong, it's a feather in the cap for Open Source, but in the scheme of things, it doesn't seem to matter for the average company.
- azazel00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Not necessarily.
  I've been doing some reading in the past couple of hours. It appears you can integrate Flex with pretty much anything that will format your data into XML.
- gutfeeling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4no, you dont need FDS. You can easily consume data from a webservice. Theres a few examples on the Adobe site, including an integrating PHP and Flex2 tutorial.
- illegalcortex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@caper88
  
  In addition to what gutfeeling said, you also get one free FDS-enabled application per server. It's when you want to serve up more than one app that they charge you.
- locnguyen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Look into Granite Data Services as an alternative to Flex Data Services. It's open source.
- jebudas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@azazel00
  You're right, Flex + XML is mighty powerful! I'm not even sure why the FDS is necessary... anyone?
- ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"the Eclipse component is remaining closed and $. "
  
  That's just a development IDE... It's a tool, and tools are how Adobe has always made their money. The key is: you don't have to use Flex Builder to create Flex apps.
- gutfeeling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@jebudas try here, http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/dataservices/. One thing that looks pretty cool is data push, data changing on the server can be pushed to the client.
- jsebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1XML is just a data container, Flex Data Services does a lot more. It allows stuff like server-side events (for example, you can do live chart updating with server-side push), remote objects, smart paging in large server-side datasets, data synchronization between client and server, on-request compilation of application logic from actionscript source and mxml (gui description) files, and so on. It basically solves all the problems surrounding shuttling data from client to server for you. The nice thing is that this stuff integrates perfectly into flex, so where in other environments (I'm looking at you AJAX) you have to write a lot of glue logic for stuff like server-side event handling, in flex all that stuff just works.
- njs50, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2as far as I can see, the only reason you'd want to have flash data services is to be able to push data from the webserver to clients. for example to make a web based chat client that doesn't have to poll the server every second to see if it has new messages waiting...
  
  While flex requires flash player 9 to be installed, the install base is pretty big and i'm not aware of any other common browser component that allows you to maintain a connection between the server and browser.
  
  As for the flexbuilder IDE, saying that you need to have that is like saying you need dreamweaver to be able to write html... It's definitely a good place to start, but it is by no means required. the 30 day trial should be enough for you to get the feel of the language and after that you could start hacking away in notepad if you felt the need.
benlindelof, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Here's my 2 cents, coming from both angles of development:

.NET has more power for development on the server-side, where Flex has more power on the client side.

In .NET I have never linked a User Interface animation to a form control. If the form control is animated, it's because the OS has been set to 'Fade' or 'Slide'. I have done some great graphical readouts, but Flash seems more client-oriented.

For instance, a Kiosk at a mall might be developed with Adobe, but the server-side application that monitors all Kiosks at all malls might be a .NET solution.

It's fun for developers when they Open Source, because that means everyone can use it.
- senfo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@benlindelof
  
  When you say that Flex is better for the client side than .NET, are you talking about an ASP.NET web form or Silverlight?
  
  If you're talking about a rich internet application, I'd have to agree that Flex is better at designing a UI than ASP.NET. However, Flash still has some inherit design flaws. For example, it is difficult to build something to index a Flash-based website. Silverlight, on the other hand, Microsoft claims will be easier to index.
  
  I'm not going to pass judgment on Silverlight until I see the final product. I honestly believe it has potential. Flex also looks to be extremely powerful. I've seen some pretty amazing work done in some of their sample sites. I just wish it weren't so expensive to get their builder.
- jsebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@senfo
  
  You really don't need flex builder. MXML is extremely easy to code GUI's in. Besides, there are no visual editors for XUL either, and yet they build firefox in it.
eburnette, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is a great first step, but certain important pieces will be held back, including the Flash player and the Eclipse-based Adobe Flex Builder. Governance of the project will remain firmly in the company's hands. See "Adobe keeps Flash, Flex close to the vest" (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=296) for more analysis.
- gutfeeling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@eburnette good point, but eclipse is an open source plugin based ide. Im sure you will be able to get a free alternative flex plugin for eclipse in due course.
SystemLord, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1So what. I don't why all of these companies are working so hard on developing their own framework and spending millions of dollars re-inventing the wheel. This just looks like another framework that only works with Adobe and I for one don't spend thousands of dollars when there is plenty of tested and proven free tools.

To start:
http://mootools.net/
And sure we don't like Microsoft but ASP.NET 2.0 is free, IDE for ASP.NET is free and AJAX components for .NET integrate rather well. I've even developed with Mootools integration in there. And then there is PHP and vast resource pool to choose from in that area.

Bottom line: don't show me something new, show me something that plays nice with what I've already done.
- ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Mootools is still javascript and HTML though. Flash can do *way* more than you can ever do with javascript.
- KrocCamen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Yes, but if you're on a 64-bit linux system, Flash can do fk all whilst moo tools will still work. Flash isn't the be all and end all. The only real purpose I see it for are for online cartoons and very fast stuff that a bit of javascript can't handle.
- njs50, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0flash works fine on my 64 bit gentoo. just had to install some nsplugwrapper thing that lets you run 32 bit plugins.
  
  i've been playing with flex this last week, seems pretty nice so far. very easy to make nice looking stuff in it...
  
  i can certainly see the appeal in writing your gui code in mxml + actionscript where everything is designed for making nice easy to work with UI.
Yeago, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@ubernick on RoR

"There's not even a WYSIWYG designer tool."

bwahawhawhawhbwabwaj...where I come from that's not considered a drawback.
andywebb95, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is great news for us Flex developers!
It sounds like we may eventually have a better compiler, assuming people want to take the time to improve on what is there!
Hopefully this also means we may get a better IDE from the community.
Flex Developer works pretty well, but it can definitely be improved.
chaoskaizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0good news
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amdk6III, on 04/28/2008, -1/+0Adobe Flex is the most stupid program you can possibly find its pointless, and this news about it going opensource is ***** u still have to pay several hundered $ for the crappy ass program, So the better option for you as a programmer would be to march yourself over to the intel web page and buy the intel C++ or the intel Fortran Compiler they are AMAZING! Take this advice and don't buy into this lame ass ***** that Adobe is trying to rip you off with, b/c its ***** if u ask me Adobe FLEX sucks.
- transition, on 04/30/2008, -0/+1Yea you're right these guys at Adobe are a bunch of stupid-heads! We should all program our rich internet applications with C++! That will show them!!!!!!
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wtcny, on 06/23/2008, -0/+0From my point of view Adobe has all chances to compete on IT market. Flex has been becoming more popular in nowadays. Even at our office the head opened new department on Flex development.
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projectmobius, on 07/22/2008, -0/+0what the hell is spamming bots doing here?

anyway, yes its nice they went open source, loving it so far (check my website built using Flex if interested). I'm an advocate, i hope they beat JavaFX and Silverlight :)
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Adobe Flex Goes Open Source

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