Adobe Releases Flex Builder Linux Alpha

mikepotter writes "Adobe announced Flex Builder Linux Alpha at the Adobe MAX conference today. This is a native Linux port of the Flex Builder IDE (based on Eclipse) for building rich Internet applications. 'Flex Builder Linux is a plugin-only version of the Flex Builder that you can use to build Flex applications on Linux. We wanted to get an early release out with the base Flex Builder features so you could begin to provide us with your feedback and let us know your priorities for additional features.'"

I read "TFA" and I don't get it

[speaker of the truth]

I read what passes as an article here and it doesn't explain what Flex Builder is. And the summary didn't help with it trying to get as many flexes in as it possibly could. What is Flex Builder?

Re:Will Cost Big $$$ Likely

[Aladrin]

Flex may be, but the Flex builder is not. At least, version 2 wasn't.

http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/ [adobe.com]

So yeah, expect to pay for the IDE if you get the official one.

Re:I read "TFA" and I don't get it

[joshv]

I guess you don't understand the meaning of the word "major".

Re:Binary installer for eclipse!?

[wandazulu]

The reason is because Flex Builder is not free. You need to enter a serial # to use it after 30 days. The SDK *is* free, and you can do everything using just Vim and the Flex compiler, but as one who has done Flex development, that's like using ImageMagick at the command line instead of Gimp; sure you can do it, but it's not particularly easy.

Re:linux support

[Trelane]

IMHO, it's more that Microsoft has been shoving some rather pointy, sharp objects toward Adobe's infant children (shades of Netscape), and that Adobe doesn't like it much. Solution: help people leave Microsoft.

So Adobe now works with "standard" web?

[hacker]

So I can assume that this application generates 100% valid HTML and XHTML constructs, with their own proprietary Flash being an additional extension to that baseline, riiiiiight?

Flash is:

1. Nonstandard, proprietary
2. Not easily indexed by search engines
3. Does not work consistently in all browsers
4. Does not work in text-mode browsers
5. Does not work with text-to-speech browsers for the blind/disabled
6. Does not have cross-version compatibility with its own plugins
7. Buggy and inconsistent

And this message goes to all of those "web developers" who use Flash in their websites.. please use HTML to deliver the Flash, not the reverse.

open source, to a point

[EjectButton]

Lately Adobe has been labeling many of their products, especially frameworks related to web development as "open source" when in reality they open source a small part of it and leave the critical portions under an extremely restrictive proprietary license.

As I understand it they have claimed they will open source parts of the flex sdk, but the flex ide, and the flash runtime plugins will still remain under the same old proprietary license, this is not acceptable. It would be a step backwards if in a few years a significant portion of content on the internet was trapped in proprietary binaries that are difficult to index and likely impossible for many to use a few years down the road. Adobe releases some specs for flash but they are released under terms saying that if you read the specs you are forbidden from writing anything capable of working with flash files. This is almost worse than nothing because even if you create a flash plugin completely independently or with the use of clean room techniques Adobe has the option of claiming that you must have looked at their specs and take you to court in an attempt to kill your project. Also there are many restrictions on the use of the plugin itself, for example you can't use it in many commercial applications such as a flash driven kiosk without first paying Adobe again.

How many years did Linux languish with outdated and extremely buggy versions of the flash plugins? We may have a more or less up to date version of the plugin now but there is no guarantee it will stay that way, a great deal of internet content is trapped in a format that we can only view as long as Adobe feels like letting us, and the architecture support is still pathetic, how is it there is still no native x86-64 support? This should have been done two years ago, to make no mention of the lack of flash9 support on the smaller architectures such as powerpc which effectively locks ps3 users out of browsing most modern flash based websites.

Adobe seems like a big heavy software company that still operates primarily in a 1980's mentality, trying to make the transition to something more modern and web-centric , and they are trying to get some of the glow of open standards and open source to rub off on them, the problem is that they seem to be faking much of it. They talk about openness to get you interested, then you dig into it and find out that there are always critical components they are still keeping under lock and key. I am no fan of flash but it does have its uses, I keep hoping that pressure from Microsoft's silverlight will cause Adobe to really open up the flash spec and allow 3rd parties to create their own implementations of the flash ide and flash runtimes, as pressure from Microsoft's half-assed pdf alternative caused Adobe to release pdf as an iso standard. Though I see no sign of this happening as Adobe still seems to believe they can have their cake and eat it too.

Re:So Adobe now works with "standard" web?

[blurryrunner]

1. Nonstandard, proprietary

Available on 99% of machines, 93% on flash 9. (http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html). It's not a standard, but in all practicality is. Sure something open source and standards based would be preferred. However, I feel better about developing for flash than I do for ActiveX

2. Not easily indexed by search engines

True, but indexing may not be important to you, based on what kind of internet application you are developing.

3. Does not work consistently in all browsers

It's seems more consistent than HTML... and it's a vendor that is at least seeking consistency.

4. Does not work in text-mode browsers

Well, images don't work there either. And how many people use a text based browser.

5. Does not work with text-to-speech browsers for the blind/disabled

Things are getting better...

6. Does not have cross-version compatibility with its own plugins

So you are complaining that they are making features and that you can't use those features with older versions of the plug in?

7. Buggy and inconsistent

Granted.

While it's not perfect, Flash does provide a very viable, cost effective solution. While it's great to try to bolster philosophical values, we still have to make a living. I'll stick with the convenience that Flash provides me and my users, thanks.

br/