As the feedback to the Linux question grows, it highlights for me a glaring flaw in the Apache Flex project; and this is the inherent conflict of interest between the stated aims of the open-source community and the for-profit model espoused by proprietary technology. While there is nothing inherently wrong with either model, I think that when it comes to open-source technology, it should be an all-or nothing proposition.
Adobe has effectively given the open source community the keys to the car but kept control of the engine to itself (i.e. the AIR runtime and the Flash Player). This means that at Adobe's whim, as the political winds have already shown it capable of, it can invalidate all the efforts of the open source community in favor of some alternate avenue were the potential returns worth the expense of inciting the community's ire. Where profit is concerned, never think that the unthinkable won't be done - we have lately seen many such poignant pyrotechnic displays of large companies "nuking" each other for dominance over the mobile space... (insert name of large publicly traded company here). As developers, sure we're concerned about earning our paychecks, but if profit were our only motive we'd all be investment bankers - no, we want to build new tools to make people wonder and delight, to eliminate the drudgery of the old way of doing things, to innovate and dream up new ways of overcoming hurdles that have no business in the virtual world... To this end, I hate obstacles, and I see Adobe's control over the lynch-pin of this particular project as a particularly troubling one. I would propose that Actionscript and, consequently, Flex, target the JVM (or any other comparable open source engine capable of providing the 2D and 3D graphics context and web services) and therefore completely sever it's ties to proprietary technology. So long as the Apache Flex project is a satellite to proprietary technology I can't place much stock in its long term success and I have reservations about getting completely behind it. If you feel otherwise, I would love to hear your reasoning as to why you feel its proprietary ties are not really an obstacle to its success. This is truly not an attempt to flame, I've been a Flash/Actionscript user since Flash 2 having made a huge investment in Flash technology and I truly hope for its continued success as a free, independent venture. My aim is to engender a high-level dialogue to ensure that Apache Flex is truly charting the best possible course. Best, Michael Montoya Lead Front End Developer Stockpile.com On Jan 27, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Brad Neufeld <neufel...@yahoo.com> wrote: > When I have completed my current project, I would be happy to test a linux > distribution as well. It is my preferred environment and I had to setup a > virtual machine just to run XP and Flex. It would be great to get rid of > that extra step. > > I was never clear what the specific technical hurdles were that Adobe was > unable to overcome in order to port to Linux, and I hope we do not find out > that the problem is much more intractable than one might think. > > Cheers, > Brad
