Flex going Open Source
April 26th, 2007
Looks like Adobe are making Flex open source. This is a brave move by Adobe but has to be the right one. By open-sourcing the platform they are reducing the barriers to entry for anyone worried about propriety Adobe software and it will allow them to go toe-to-toe with an entity the size of Microsoft. This continues a recent batch of Adobe open-sourcing including the ActionScript Virtual Machine, ISO standardization of PDF, Spry and the Flex-Ajax bridge.
So what’s in and what’s out of the open-source license:| In | Out |
| The compilers and debugger | The IDE |
| The AS core components | Flex Data Services |
| The Apollo Flex components | Flex Charting |
More in the Adobe FAQ.
Of course the key element underpinning the Flex architecture, the Flash platform remains closed source which seems to break with the model of open-sourcing the deeper levels of your stack, while making money on your value adds. Never-the-less this is a huge leap in the right direction.