9 ms·

Adobe Donates Flex to Apache

131 points by instakill 15y ago

suprgeek 15y ago
Many enterprise projects have invested big time in Flex. Now Adobe has basically said "We are pulling out most of our full time resources and hoping that the ASF picks up the slack. HTML5 is the new hotness so move to it" This basically sucks for a lot of enterprises because like it or not : 1) HTML 5 is still evolving and maturing 2) Flex capabilities today are where HTML 5 will be in 1-2 years. It feels like adobe could have managed this situation a lot better. Slowed down Flex dev a little and accelerate HTML5 a lot. Provide kick-ass tools for converting between the two (ala Google Swiffy but something that works much better). Publish detailed guides on how to migrate - what works and what doesn't with the migration, etc. Basically make the people who adopted your tech feel that they are NOT being left high and dry.
- melling 15y ago
  Sorry, stupidity has a price. People yelled "iceberg" and explained the issues with Flash a couple of years ago. Now you've hit the iceberg. Read and try to digest: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ Yes, a very un-HN answer but I still see people stuck in IE6 because I couldn't convince corporate lemmings that web software needed to run in browsers other than IE6. The web needs to run everywhere! It's not owned by one company.
  - tomlin 15y ago
    I don't give a crap if Flash dies, but why lie? Seriously. Just say, Flash is a piece of shit and we don't want it. At least, you could structure an argument around that. Thoughts on Flash does hit a few worthy points, but many of them are flawed. Others have outlined them in previous mentions of this post, but I'll summarize a few of them again: - They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome - left out a few other relevant browsers here. - For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers” ... why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript - pretty sure many JS menus rely on rollover states. There are other examples beyond menus, of course. - New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices - except where you don't allow developers to select/take photos or files from the user's device (most useful apps have this functionality), giving the developer no choice but to develop a native app. I think a full implementation of HTML5 would include <input type="file">, call me crazy. - By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system. - except when you can develop your own IDE, compile and package Flash code without any intervention from Adobe. The anti-Flash mob like to bring YouTube into the conversation, as if YouTube is also anti-Flash. Make no mistake, without Flash, YouTube would not exist. Remember that YouTube was founded on the principal that one could record from webcam (not available on any browser currently) and upload it for others to view. How is this being done on a mobile device natively within the browser? Down vote = willfully blind.
  - beej71 15y ago
    Last I checked, the warnings about Flex were few and far between, and Flash is still very much alive and well. This is not the iceberg you are looking for.
    - acdha 15y ago
      I've seen plenty of people point to the single-source vendor as a major concern. Given Adobe's failure to competitively maintain any platform they've acquired most people I know were careful not to put too much trust in something which could be discontinued at any point.
- jsight 15y ago
  Then build the few things that still need Flex in Flex/Flash, and build the rest in HTML/JS. This is likely how most Flex apps should have been written to begin with.
swombat 15y ago
If they'd done this 3 years ago and focused on building kick-ass Flex development environments/authoring tools/etc, Flex would actually have been worth donating at that point. Right now, this feels more like "Here's this cat, I've had it for 10 years and I think it's dying (probably because it was just run over). Take good care of it, thanks."
- wladimir 15y ago
  Yes -- apache mainly has projects centered around Java and C/C++. Flex seems like a re-do of Java (from the VM to the API). Sure, they won't reject a given horse (or cat), but I don't see that much reason for them to actively maintain this.
- vineet 15y ago
  Yeah, I feel like someone needs to write a guide to corporations 'successfully open sourcing a project'. Together with some of Oracle's decisions we have recently had a number of bad examples.
  - viraptor 15y ago
    On one hand side - yes, the "open sourcing" of some projects was done in a really silly way. On the other - I'm glad they at least do this when abandoning the project. How many times do we hear "if they discontinue this, they might at least open the source so we can continue porting"? As long as we agree it's pretty much EOLing rather than open-sourcing, we can be glad that we don't get left with binary blobs noone can reuse in any way.
    - vineet 15y ago
      I personally do not believe in Open Sourcing as EOLing is going to help anyone. The donating codebase is often a large piece of code where the original developers have been pulled onto something else and therefore the documentation is too limited for generally anyone else to even compile. And the development community just ends up with one more project that PHBs can point to as 'why open source does not work'.
melling 15y ago
This does guarantee that the tools will live on. Adobe has already moved many resources to their Html5 tools. They are taking a lot of heat now but they are focusing on a much larger market and it will look like a great move in 3 years.
shabda 15y ago
Someone at twitter .. Dumping projects to the Apache F. is the new convenient way to abandon projects while saying "look, it's a good thing!"
- nolok 15y ago
  Yes, once they decided to refocus on html 5 it would have been a whole lot better for them to just dump flex and leave all its users without any support whatsoever, especially since the apache fundation is forced to accept to take charge of such projects even if they don't want to. Mocking is easy, given the alternatives this is a quite a decent outcome.
  - davidw 15y ago
    > especially since the apache fundation is forced to accept to take charge of such projects even if they don't want to. No, it isn't. Nothing says they (we) have to accept anything.
    - schraeds 15y ago
      The sarcasm obviously alluded you.
      - rkudeshi 15y ago
        eluded
    - pquerna 15y ago
      We have a difficult time saying NO. Right now, Adobe has not even submitted a proposal to the incubator -- just blog posts about how they intend to submit it. I eagerly await their submission of a Flex proposal. Part of the proposal, and critical for Flex, is proving this isn't just a code dump. If it is a code dump, I will vote -1, and I hope everyone else does too.
      - bstrand 15y ago
vineet 15y ago
Adobe should have done this before the negative news (them announcing that flash on mobile is not going to be supported).
- dreur 15y ago
  I do not agree. I believe they did the right thing, now Apache has everything they need to take their decision. That Flex will be less and less supported by Adobe in the years/months to come so they'll probably need to put more resources on the project. Doing it before would have been wrong and not well received by anyone.
  - vineet 15y ago
    My point was that I believe that Flex would have built a larger community of supporters had they open sourced it first.
jbverschoor 15y ago
Read: Adobe abandons flex
- mchaize 15y ago
  Hi, I work for Adobe as a Flex expert, and here's my point of view. Well, actually I think that first Adobe needed to start with a "product" strategy. Flex was the first RIA technology, and it's still the leading RIA technology of the market. Adobe had to innovate, experimenting new features every year and getting the community excited. That's what generates adoption. Now that the Flex SDK is very mature, it can answer almost all Enterprise needs. It's time to let the community and the customers drive the decisions with Adobe about the future of Flex. Flex masters want to actively contribute to the framework for years. Now there is an opportunity to install Flex as a standard Enteprise RIA stack. Adobe is not only proposing Flex to Apache, Adobe is also proposing BlazeDS, Falcon, FalconJS, and will share all the work already done on Flex 5 components. Details are here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex-announcements.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex-announcements...
  - ale55andro 15y ago
    Regardless, the general impression is that adobe is abandoning flex. If adobe themselves are re-investing their efforts in html5, why should anybody knowingly want to adopt flex? I'm sure there will always be a reason to use flex in the future but such reports don't do flex any good in the long run, even if the idea is to allow the community to drive it. Edit: Simply bad timing on adobes part.
  - robmcm 15y ago
    More of a worry is the fact Flex is dependent on the Flash player which as of yet has not been opensourced. A headless player is holding back CI in a big way. I also can't see FalconJS delivering a full flex stack without help from the browsers. A lot could be rendered in a canvas, but then you get into situations where you need stage text etc... I just wish Adobe had a simular JS environment to announce at the same time, or slightly before. At least then there would be a migration path. Currently Flex devs are trying to find a simular enterprise RIA platform, and none of them are owned by Adobe.
taylorbuley 15y ago
Do software companies get tax writeoffs for donating software projects in which they've incurred significant development expenses?
- mqqq 15y ago
  I imagine they would if the project itself is still worth something and they are donating to a non-profit.
  - lotu 15y ago
    A more interesting question would be how do you evaluate how much you get to write off you taxes? Adobe is donating presumably because they believe the current value of it is low, but just as easily they could argue that as a mature platform it is worth hundreds of millions.
simonsquiff 15y ago
The real challenge is with enterprise applications that need a rich UI - this is where Flex was a good solution. Saying "just use HTML5" is fine when you serve the consumer space; it's not if you serve enterprises. HTML5 is just not a go-er for enterprise products that need a rich UI. Even if it could do everything Flex can (and it can't, yet), you need a modern browser. Many enterprises still use IE6. I'd say 60% of our customers are on IE6; and the remaining 40% use IE7. Demanding IE9 would make an enterprise product dead in the water. Flex fitted here. You have enterprises who say "no more client server, everything should be web" but then don't give you the web platform to be able to deliver the required user experience (i.e. you must use IE6/7). Flex let you deliver on the web, with a rich UI, on legacy browsers. So you had a choice: - Stay on client/server (lots of enterprises won't consider you) - Develop for HTML5 (not quite prime time, no-one can buy your product as won't work on their browsers) - Dumb down the UI and deliver in IE6 (workable for some projects, but not for many - some products really do need a rich UI. Especially not doable when porting existing rich client/server app to being webbased - clients don't like backwards steps on the UI) - Develop in Flex So it's all well and good saying people yelled 'iceberg' but really you're between a rock and a hard place, and even with this news I'm sure most Flex enterprise developers would make the same decision again - because there really weren't many alternatives.
- seqastian 15y ago
  60%? http://www.ie6countdown.com/ http://www.ie6countdown.com/ doing most of your business in china? by asking them to upgrade you are doing them a favor
  - simonsquiff 15y ago
    Government unfortunately - they are still very slow moving. And those that have moved have just moved to IE7..which doesn't help that much.
    - megamark16 15y ago
      And banks. I work with several banks and they are all on IE7. IE9 should be rolling out in another couple of years, maybe.
EdwardQ 15y ago
But is there enough incentive to make Apache, jump on it ?
johnx123-up 15y ago
I'm now worried about the future of Apache... Will all abandoned projects go there?
- bad_user 15y ago
  I don't get this complaint. That's part of the awesomeness that comes with open-source. Dying projects can be brought to life if you find a usage for them. For example, Blender (http://www.blender.org http://www.blender.org) was dumped by a dying company and brought to life again by enthusiasts. Why? Because they could. Projects, even when abandoned, are still valuable. Now, the real problem with Flex and the reason why Flex will probably die is not abandonment. Flex may die because it sits on top of a proprietary plugin. That's the real jewel that should be open-sourced before it is too late. And yet another reason why people may not be interested in an open-sourced Flex ... Flex has competition that can compile to Flash AND Javascript: http://openlaszlo.org/ http://openlaszlo.org/
  - Sandman 15y ago
    You do realize that Flex already is open source?[1] About OpenLaszlo... I thought that it could become important one day; however, this never happened. I haven't looked into OL for quite some time now, but what can it offer that you can't get with HTML 5 nowadays? [1] http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Legal+Stuff http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Legal+Stuff
johnyzee 15y ago
There is a lot of talk about the consequences for Flash of these recent announcements, but little attention is given to what this will mean for HTML5 adoption. I, for one, am very excited. If Adobe can do for HTML5 half of what they have done with the Flash toolchain then we are going to see a powerful platform indeed, and sooner than anyone would have dared hope until recently. A Flash-like animation environment and a Flex UI toolkit, all outputting to canvas? Sign me the hell up right now.

131 points by instakill 15y ago

Many enterprise projects have invested big time in Flex. Now Adobe has basically said "We are pulling out most of our full time resources and hoping that the ASF picks up the slack. HTML5 is the new hotness so move to it" This basically sucks for a lot of enterprises because like it or not : 1) HTML 5 is still evolving and maturing 2) Flex capabilities today are where HTML 5 will be in 1-2 years. It feels like adobe could have managed this situation a lot better. Slowed down Flex dev a little and accelerate HTML5 a lot. Provide kick-ass tools for converting between the two (ala Google Swiffy but something that works much better). Publish detailed guides on how to migrate - what works and what doesn't with the migration, etc. Basically make the people who adopted your tech feel that they are NOT being left high and dry.

melling 15y ago
Sorry, stupidity has a price. People yelled "iceberg" and explained the issues with Flash a couple of years ago. Now you've hit the iceberg. Read and try to digest: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ Yes, a very un-HN answer but I still see people stuck in IE6 because I couldn't convince corporate lemmings that web software needed to run in browsers other than IE6. The web needs to run everywhere! It's not owned by one company.
- tomlin 15y ago
  I don't give a crap if Flash dies, but why lie? Seriously. Just say, Flash is a piece of shit and we don't want it. At least, you could structure an argument around that. Thoughts on Flash does hit a few worthy points, but many of them are flawed. Others have outlined them in previous mentions of this post, but I'll summarize a few of them again: - They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome - left out a few other relevant browsers here. - For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers” ... why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript - pretty sure many JS menus rely on rollover states. There are other examples beyond menus, of course. - New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices - except where you don't allow developers to select/take photos or files from the user's device (most useful apps have this functionality), giving the developer no choice but to develop a native app. I think a full implementation of HTML5 would include <input type="file">, call me crazy. - By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system. - except when you can develop your own IDE, compile and package Flash code without any intervention from Adobe. The anti-Flash mob like to bring YouTube into the conversation, as if YouTube is also anti-Flash. Make no mistake, without Flash, YouTube would not exist. Remember that YouTube was founded on the principal that one could record from webcam (not available on any browser currently) and upload it for others to view. How is this being done on a mobile device natively within the browser? Down vote = willfully blind.
- beej71 15y ago
  Last I checked, the warnings about Flex were few and far between, and Flash is still very much alive and well. This is not the iceberg you are looking for.
  - acdha 15y ago
    I've seen plenty of people point to the single-source vendor as a major concern. Given Adobe's failure to competitively maintain any platform they've acquired most people I know were careful not to put too much trust in something which could be discontinued at any point.
jsight 15y ago
Then build the few things that still need Flex in Flex/Flash, and build the rest in HTML/JS. This is likely how most Flex apps should have been written to begin with.

swombat 15y ago

If they'd done this 3 years ago and focused on building kick-ass Flex development environments/authoring tools/etc, Flex would actually have been worth donating at that point. Right now, this feels more like "Here's this cat, I've had it for 10 years and I think it's dying (probably because it was just run over). Take good care of it, thanks."

wladimir 15y ago
Yes -- apache mainly has projects centered around Java and C/C++. Flex seems like a re-do of Java (from the VM to the API). Sure, they won't reject a given horse (or cat), but I don't see that much reason for them to actively maintain this.
vineet 15y ago
Yeah, I feel like someone needs to write a guide to corporations 'successfully open sourcing a project'. Together with some of Oracle's decisions we have recently had a number of bad examples.
- viraptor 15y ago
  On one hand side - yes, the "open sourcing" of some projects was done in a really silly way. On the other - I'm glad they at least do this when abandoning the project. How many times do we hear "if they discontinue this, they might at least open the source so we can continue porting"? As long as we agree it's pretty much EOLing rather than open-sourcing, we can be glad that we don't get left with binary blobs noone can reuse in any way.
  - vineet 15y ago
    I personally do not believe in Open Sourcing as EOLing is going to help anyone. The donating codebase is often a large piece of code where the original developers have been pulled onto something else and therefore the documentation is too limited for generally anyone else to even compile. And the development community just ends up with one more project that PHBs can point to as 'why open source does not work'.

melling 15y ago

This does guarantee that the tools will live on. Adobe has already moved many resources to their Html5 tools. They are taking a lot of heat now but they are focusing on a much larger market and it will look like a great move in 3 years.

shabda 15y ago

Someone at twitter .. Dumping projects to the Apache F. is the new convenient way to abandon projects while saying "look, it's a good thing!"

nolok 15y ago
Yes, once they decided to refocus on html 5 it would have been a whole lot better for them to just dump flex and leave all its users without any support whatsoever, especially since the apache fundation is forced to accept to take charge of such projects even if they don't want to. Mocking is easy, given the alternatives this is a quite a decent outcome.
- davidw 15y ago
  > especially since the apache fundation is forced to accept to take charge of such projects even if they don't want to. No, it isn't. Nothing says they (we) have to accept anything.
  - schraeds 15y ago
    The sarcasm obviously alluded you.
    - rkudeshi 15y ago
      eluded
  - pquerna 15y ago
    We have a difficult time saying NO. Right now, Adobe has not even submitted a proposal to the incubator -- just blog posts about how they intend to submit it. I eagerly await their submission of a Flex proposal. Part of the proposal, and critical for Flex, is proving this isn't just a code dump. If it is a code dump, I will vote -1, and I hope everyone else does too.
    - bstrand 15y ago

vineet 15y ago

Adobe should have done this before the negative news (them announcing that flash on mobile is not going to be supported).

dreur 15y ago
I do not agree. I believe they did the right thing, now Apache has everything they need to take their decision. That Flex will be less and less supported by Adobe in the years/months to come so they'll probably need to put more resources on the project. Doing it before would have been wrong and not well received by anyone.
- vineet 15y ago
  My point was that I believe that Flex would have built a larger community of supporters had they open sourced it first.

jbverschoor 15y ago

Read: Adobe abandons flex

mchaize 15y ago
Hi, I work for Adobe as a Flex expert, and here's my point of view. Well, actually I think that first Adobe needed to start with a "product" strategy. Flex was the first RIA technology, and it's still the leading RIA technology of the market. Adobe had to innovate, experimenting new features every year and getting the community excited. That's what generates adoption. Now that the Flex SDK is very mature, it can answer almost all Enterprise needs. It's time to let the community and the customers drive the decisions with Adobe about the future of Flex. Flex masters want to actively contribute to the framework for years. Now there is an opportunity to install Flex as a standard Enteprise RIA stack. Adobe is not only proposing Flex to Apache, Adobe is also proposing BlazeDS, Falcon, FalconJS, and will share all the work already done on Flex 5 components. Details are here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex-announcements.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex-announcements...
- ale55andro 15y ago
  Regardless, the general impression is that adobe is abandoning flex. If adobe themselves are re-investing their efforts in html5, why should anybody knowingly want to adopt flex? I'm sure there will always be a reason to use flex in the future but such reports don't do flex any good in the long run, even if the idea is to allow the community to drive it. Edit: Simply bad timing on adobes part.
- robmcm 15y ago
  More of a worry is the fact Flex is dependent on the Flash player which as of yet has not been opensourced. A headless player is holding back CI in a big way. I also can't see FalconJS delivering a full flex stack without help from the browsers. A lot could be rendered in a canvas, but then you get into situations where you need stage text etc... I just wish Adobe had a simular JS environment to announce at the same time, or slightly before. At least then there would be a migration path. Currently Flex devs are trying to find a simular enterprise RIA platform, and none of them are owned by Adobe.

taylorbuley 15y ago

Do software companies get tax writeoffs for donating software projects in which they've incurred significant development expenses?

mqqq 15y ago
I imagine they would if the project itself is still worth something and they are donating to a non-profit.
- lotu 15y ago
  A more interesting question would be how do you evaluate how much you get to write off you taxes? Adobe is donating presumably because they believe the current value of it is low, but just as easily they could argue that as a mature platform it is worth hundreds of millions.

simonsquiff 15y ago

The real challenge is with enterprise applications that need a rich UI - this is where Flex was a good solution. Saying "just use HTML5" is fine when you serve the consumer space; it's not if you serve enterprises. HTML5 is just not a go-er for enterprise products that need a rich UI. Even if it could do everything Flex can (and it can't, yet), you need a modern browser. Many enterprises still use IE6. I'd say 60% of our customers are on IE6; and the remaining 40% use IE7. Demanding IE9 would make an enterprise product dead in the water. Flex fitted here. You have enterprises who say "no more client server, everything should be web" but then don't give you the web platform to be able to deliver the required user experience (i.e. you must use IE6/7). Flex let you deliver on the web, with a rich UI, on legacy browsers. So you had a choice: - Stay on client/server (lots of enterprises won't consider you) - Develop for HTML5 (not quite prime time, no-one can buy your product as won't work on their browsers) - Dumb down the UI and deliver in IE6 (workable for some projects, but not for many - some products really do need a rich UI. Especially not doable when porting existing rich client/server app to being webbased - clients don't like backwards steps on the UI) - Develop in Flex So it's all well and good saying people yelled 'iceberg' but really you're between a rock and a hard place, and even with this news I'm sure most Flex enterprise developers would make the same decision again - because there really weren't many alternatives.

seqastian 15y ago
60%? http://www.ie6countdown.com/ http://www.ie6countdown.com/ doing most of your business in china? by asking them to upgrade you are doing them a favor
- simonsquiff 15y ago
  Government unfortunately - they are still very slow moving. And those that have moved have just moved to IE7..which doesn't help that much.
  - megamark16 15y ago
    And banks. I work with several banks and they are all on IE7. IE9 should be rolling out in another couple of years, maybe.

EdwardQ 15y ago

But is there enough incentive to make Apache, jump on it ?

johnx123-up 15y ago

I'm now worried about the future of Apache... Will all abandoned projects go there?

bad_user 15y ago
I don't get this complaint. That's part of the awesomeness that comes with open-source. Dying projects can be brought to life if you find a usage for them. For example, Blender (http://www.blender.org http://www.blender.org) was dumped by a dying company and brought to life again by enthusiasts. Why? Because they could. Projects, even when abandoned, are still valuable. Now, the real problem with Flex and the reason why Flex will probably die is not abandonment. Flex may die because it sits on top of a proprietary plugin. That's the real jewel that should be open-sourced before it is too late. And yet another reason why people may not be interested in an open-sourced Flex ... Flex has competition that can compile to Flash AND Javascript: http://openlaszlo.org/ http://openlaszlo.org/
- Sandman 15y ago
  You do realize that Flex already is open source?[1] About OpenLaszlo... I thought that it could become important one day; however, this never happened. I haven't looked into OL for quite some time now, but what can it offer that you can't get with HTML 5 nowadays? [1] http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Legal+Stuff http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Legal+Stuff

johnyzee 15y ago

There is a lot of talk about the consequences for Flash of these recent announcements, but little attention is given to what this will mean for HTML5 adoption. I, for one, am very excited. If Adobe can do for HTML5 half of what they have done with the Flash toolchain then we are going to see a powerful platform indeed, and sooner than anyone would have dared hope until recently. A Flash-like animation environment and a Flex UI toolkit, all outputting to canvas? Sign me the hell up right now.