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From: Alex Harui <aharui@adobe.com>
To: "flex-dev@incubator.apache.org" <flex-dev@incubator.apache.org>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:38:40 -0700
Subject: Re: Cross-compiling Flex to HTML5/Javascript (Was : Update on
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Thread-Topic: Cross-compiling Flex to HTML5/Javascript (Was : Update on
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On 8/29/12 8:13 AM, "Carlos Rovira" <carlos.rovira@codeoscopic.com> wrote:

> 2012/8/29 Alex Harui <aharui@adobe.com>:
>>> One thing I never understood was Adobe not helping to open source
>>> Flash Player
>> My understanding is that one major factor is that key aspects of the pla=
yer
>> depend on 3rd party works.
>=20
> We should learn of what others did in the past and those kind of
> problems can be overcome, if there's real interest, excluding 3rd
> party libs and investing in open source replacements.
IIUC, the argument is that the investment in creating an equivalent library
to achieve equal quality for some of these key features is unlikely to
happen in an open source project.  There may be copyright and patent
infringement issues to deal with as well in trying to reach parity.  If you
can't achieve parity, is it worth doing?
>=20
>=20
>>> or transforming it to help to be the industry standard.
>> IMO, an initial step in that was the Open Screen Project.
>=20
> But the history has teach us that Adobe only makes *real* open source
> when they does not want a piece of software (our case with Apache).
> When Flex was a first class product for the company it was open
> sourced in some *strange* way that was not sucessful at all
It isn't that Adobe doesn't want Flex, it is that Adobe could not create th=
e
kind of business around it that makes sense to Adobe.  Remember, Adobe coul=
d
have killed it off entirely.  The fact we are here is because the Apache
development model was worth trying.  I'm here to prove that to be true.
>=20

>> In some ways, that's what keeps us employed :-)
>>=20
>=20
> Yes, but in the other part, for us (people making final products and
> selling those products and not the technology behind it) is a problem
> to invest in a technology that can become obsolete in the way things
> are turning...
>=20
I'm pretty sure Flash will be around on the desktops and traditional laptop=
s
of people who will pay you money for apps for quite some time.  Adobe is
committed to support for at least 5 years.

But there is no doubt that the mobile space is less clear.  I don't know
what to do there other than try to build a better mouse trap.  If some
development model like some future version of Apache Flex can become a
popular paradigm for mobile apps you never know what can happen.

IMO, a lot of it depends on finding out what the key decision makers care
about.  The target of the year keeps changing from speed of development to
expressivity to multi-platform management.  I'm too far on the inside to ge=
t
good data so I rely on you folks to keep me informed.

I'm certain that we should explore a way to allow someone to use MXML-like
markup and an OO language to create apps to target apps on multiple devices=
.
Remember that we could simply become a front-end to PhoneGap/Cordova on the
way to getting native apps on devices.  But we need to convert some amount
of AS to JS and FalconJS is probably a good start for that.

--=20
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui