![Linux Linux](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/linux_64.png)
![Software Software](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/software_64.png)
Adobe Joins Linux Foundation, Develops AIR For Linux 171
2muchcoffeeman writes "Adobe announced Monday that it is joining the Linux Foundation and alpha-released a Linux version of its new Adobe Internet Runtime environment, which allows Internet-enabled applications to run on Windows and Mac OS desktops, for Linux. According to Adobe, the alpha version lacks some key features that will be available in the final product and only runs with Sun Java, not GNU Java. Adobe also released an alpha of Flex Builder for Linux Monday."
Adobe quoted as saying... (Score:4, Funny)
How is AIR different from, say java? (Score:3, Insightful)
also (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, well, it isn't compatible with GNU Java, but it runs on Linux *duh*
Shouldn't it be default that something written in Java runs on ALL platforms which got a JRE?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:also (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How is AIR different from, say java? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on what you're looking for - for some applications, native widgets would be an advantage; for others, consistency between platforms would be an advantage.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Only Java is required and it's completely platform independent, no separate installers for different operating systems as you claimed. Check out the demo: http://dist.trolltech.com/developer/download/webstart/index.html [trolltech.com].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
AIR is RAD for very easily making PoS interfaces? Or am I reading that wrong?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How is AIR different from, say java? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
No it doesn't.
It makes it easier for web developers to create apps for AIR. If users don't have AIR installed on their desktops, it doesn't do a damn thing for web developers. Same with Flash and other non-standard (ie, proprietary) technologies.
If web developers want to create apps that run on my desktop, they'd better not be expecting third-party proprietary crap there to host it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As for what uses it may have. Well, one we're considering is moving the offline version of our product to AIR, which would enable us to track certain content usage and report back to the publisher when reconnected with the internet.
A lot of the talk of use is in disconnected internet applications. (ie: Downloading a data set, working with it offline and than merging when internet access becomes available again).
Further
Re: (Score:2)
Be able to sync your data to the web. Buzzword AIR & web. Work locally, access from anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Flash! Ajax! Buzzword Central! (Score:5, Funny)
It was a terrible thing to watch. The emotional stress that the mother elephant went through was so tangible and human-like that I was really moved.
Kinda like I am with Adobe fans.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've met some fans of some Adobe products (Photoshop mostly), but none of them struck me as being fans of Adobe itself...
It's possible I hang out with the wrong crowds though.
Re:Flash! Ajax! Buzzword Central! (Score:4, Funny)
GNU Java? (Score:2)
That's the one! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sun/GCJ (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How big is this? (Score:2)
So ... any known application that uses this?
I had to look it up on google to fid out what exactly adobe AIR is. How big is this?
Re: (Score:2)
First things first... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Adobe seems to want Flash (and now AIR) to be the new way to develop web apps -- it almost looks like they want it to replace HTML/JavaScript. I have many problems with this, but the biggest one is that Flash is proprietary, and I don't want to go back to a proprietary Internet. I thought we got rid of that when IE stopped being the defacto standard...
Re:First things first... (Score:4, Insightful)
Flash for PPC? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That's silly; what makes you think Adobe supports Linux? (I mean, because all of their tech marketers and tech evangelists saying that they do.) As far as Adobe cares, the Linux kernel only runs on 32-bit x86 CPUs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
<removeBitterTongueFromCheek>
I support Gnash, but it's nowhere near ready for use. It really isn't.
What is AIR (Score:5, Informative)
AIR is a desktop runtime environment. You can run either Html/Javascript or Flash based applications inside it. AIR provides a few interesting features beyond HTML/Flash including:
1) File I/O
2) SQLLite Support
3) An integrated web browser (based on WebKit) that you can use inside applications.
4) A fairly good distribution mechanism
5) Desktop integration (OSX Dock icons, Win32 systray support, etc.)
It's a great technology if you're using Adobe products to make web applications and you want to branch into making desktop apps.
It's a great technology if you want to make a desktop app that may later become a web app and you want to share most of the code.
It's a horrible technology if you're a desktop developer who's looking for a different technology.
It's way more write-once run-anywhere than Java ever was.
It does not pick up the system's native UI widgets.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Internet Access + Local File I/O = inevitable 0 day exploit / virus / malware.
We've seen it in Flash, we've seen it in PDF
(And before the Java fanboyz start kicking
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you follow the chain of trust of the certs back to somebody you know (and everyone in that chain is really trustworthy).
It wouldn't surprise me at all to see signed malware out there, people tend to click through warnings as though they weren't there, especially so if they've been conditioned to by an OS that pops them up at the slightest provocation. ("Mouse movement detected, Accept or Deny?")
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What is AIR (Score:4, Insightful)
The notion of trust is nothing new. The basic question comes down to this, do you trust the code (or coders for the code that) you are about to run or not? If you don't, then don't run the code. If you do, then go ahead and run the code.
That question may be easy to ask but not so easy to answer. Maybe you trust the organization but there could be inadvertent security vulnerabilities in the code. Or maybe you don't know much about the organization who authored or published the application. How do you decide whether or not to trust the application?
In theory, open source mitigates this trust issue because you can study the code yourself. In practice, it's not so easy. First of all, access to the source code is immaterial to people who are not coders themselves. Second, it would take a lot of time and mind to study the code for a large project. Sure, any competent programmer could study and verify for his or herself that my open source project [sourceforge.net] can be trusted because it really isn't all that big. How can you be sure that Firefox [mozilla.com] doesn't have any malicious code in it?
One approach to this problem is to run programs in what is called a sandbox [wikipedia.org]. What that means is that the program isn't written in what is called the native "machine" code. Rather, it is written in a code for a virtual machine [wikipedia.org]. Every time that code makes an API call, the virtual machine checks to see if it is permitted from a security perspective. Applications that run in a sandbox don't get a lot of permissions. It is OK to run an application that you don't completely trust within the sandbox because the virtual machine is going to deny any requests that could compromise or take advantage of your system anyway.
That is why the complaint about ActiveX. Both ActiveX controls and Java applets run in a web browser. The Java applet has to run in the sandbox (unless it is signed but it is beyond the scope of this post to introduce PKI and X.509 certificates) but the ActiveX control never runs in a sandbox.
Later iterations of this sandbox concept allow the user more control over what the program can and cannot do. In .NET, this is called Code Access Security and in J2SE, this is called Java Security Policy. Before running an application, the user can specify what API calls that the application can and cannot call. The problem here is that this specification is not easy to tweak for mere mortals. When you just double click the application icon, you are running the application with whatever policy that the publishing company specified. So, you are back to trusting that company since there is nothing that keeps them from specifying a policy that is wide open.
I have no experience in AIR so I could not tell you whether or not that virtual machine implements any kind of policy control. Perhaps someone that is knowledgeable about AIR would care to clarify here?
Re: (Score:2)
Trusting companies is for fools, you can always create your own virtual machine with xen, see exactly which files which program modifies, if it's behaves badly only when given internet etc, and you might even be able to roll-back changes if you shut down the Virtual machine, just by copying files in a host environment... sure its a lot of work, but less than constantly rebooting between a windows and a Linux install
Re: (Score:2)
Just like C/C++ is't possible to exploit an AIR app that someone else has written.
Just like C/C++ apps you have to download and install an AIR app.
Unlike a C/C++ app, the app must be signed, and you're warned on the installation dialog that the app can access your files.
What type of review would make you happy?
Re: (Score:2)
And it does pick up the system's native UI widgets, I think -- at least it does for its embedded WebKit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
SDK, and runtime distribution both are free.
Some (not all) parts of the SDK are also Free as in Open Source.
Excellent news. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Adobe Loses to SWF (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, the GNU implementation of SWF is GNASH [gnashdev.org], which just released a new version. GNASH is also not preinstalled, but it's in some ways superior to Adobe's Flash, while remaining compatible (with practically all features found in the wild, and adding the rest) - and free, including not adding DRM you don't want. And GNASH was announced to be part of the new KDE, so it will in fact be preinstalled on lots of Linux machines.
Re:Adobe Loses to SWF (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
application/x-shockwave-flash [filext.com]
application/x-shockwave-flash2-preview
application/futuresplash
image/vnd.rn-realflash
And doesn't offer alternatives like GNASH at that time. All media types are supposed to be that transparent, and install their handler plugin when data of that type is first downloaded. But if GNASH isn't offered, even though it's valid, that's not really "open": the preinstalled bundling of the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
In fact, the biggest difference that I've seen since then was the proliferation of punch-the-monkey-win-a-free-lappy ads
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the first beta release after four alphas, correct? How "beta" is it?
Re: (Score:2)
So this SW is "beta" the way it used to be before Netscape defined that down to "under constructio
Re: (Score:2)
And an Open "FLEX" Server (Score:3, Interesting)
But I haven't heard how good it is. Is it fully compatible with Adobe's Flash? Feature-competitive with FLEX? Have you heard anything?
Just don't plan on trying to hack AIR (Score:4, Interesting)
In other words, "We'll let you play in our sandbox, but don't try to figure out how we built our sandbox so you can build your own sandbox that looks just like our sandbox."
Re: (Score:2)
What I'm not clear on is "Who is this Linux Foundation?" Google seems to indicate that it's a recent creation of a bunch of companies, and that they claim that they're organized to promote FOSS, but I didn't follow things any further. I'm not at all certain that they should be trusted. I'm not sure they shouldn't be, but allowing Adobe to join seems to indicate that they probably shouldn't.
When I think of Adobe, I think of how they sic'ed th
dont get too excited.. (Score:4, Informative)
I am finding the Flex3 framework to be buggy as hell.
* I have been having constant crashes from Flex Builder (It is built on eclipse)
* The ui components are coded like dogshit. (i ended up coding custom elements in flash which are the tenth of the size, and work as intended)
* Some documented features dont work.
* I have spent alot of time figuring out work arounds/undocumented features.
sorry for the rant.. but the claim that it is easy to develop flex apps is bullshit.
I have been using flash since it was called FutureSplash, so after over 10 years of day in day out
developing and making bread with this tech, I think I can speak with some authority.
It seems to me that Adobe is glorifying their steps into open source.
I just have a funny feeling that it is not as good willed, as intended,
but just as a way to get their shit coded/fixed for free,then reimplemented
in their closed source upscale/addon technologies.
Which I might add, allows adobe to compete directly against the very developers
that buy into their software.
Re: (Score:2)
As for the ui components, I find them quite well done. I just wish they'd used the same set of UI components in Flash CS3 - the two different sets of UI components don't mesh well.
And yea, sometimes some documented features need workarounds, but on the whole I feel the quality is about the same as a lot of other runtimes/languages I've coded for. I
Re: (Score:2)
The flash format is a trap, careful (Score:5, Interesting)
-- This license does not permit the usage of the specification to create software which supports SWF file playback.
That's pathetic. Adobe is explicitly trying to control the _format_, while trying to convince (and confuse) people by releasing the runtime and SDK as open source. Which means they still retail all the control of closed-source software, without many people even being aware of it. Once (hopefully not) AIR or Flash becomes a widely accepted platform for applications, Adobe can easily ask people to pay up or do whatever.
These days, I get frustrated by the number of people who mention that Adobe is a major supported of open source, and get excited about it. Java may suck, but it sure is not a lock in.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not sure what to think... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Flash isn't OSS
- The Linux Flash binary-only plugin is still WAY behind the Windows version in quality and stability (remember how long we had to wait for Flash 9.x on Linux??)
- Shockwave Director isn't OSS (and isn't even ported to Linux in a binary-only format, despite the 29511 [petitiononline.com] signatures in the online petition that's been going on forever). Not a peep from Adobe on if this will ever even happen, even though revisions are still being made and it being widely used
- No intention of porting Flash to x86-64 platforms, on Linux -or- Windows (at least AFAIK)
- Just in my experience alone, COUNTLESS other buggy applications (like the other week, installing a version of Acrobat with a
I agree Adobe has a LOT of momentum behind them with the Internet community. With this, however, comes great responsibility. If they want to play in the OSS playground, I think they need to share all of their toys like the others do.
Re: (Score:2)
So, any better suggestions for developing small apps that can be web-delivered via an ubiquitous and easily installed plug-in or packaged as self-contained Windows or Mac binaries and uses vector-based graphics which will scale to fit the screen (very useful for, e.g. educational applets which may be used on interactive whiteboa
Re: (Score:2)
And considering Windows and Apple have working Shockwave players... who does that leave out?
so how bout those amd64 flash/java plugins? (Score:2)
"for Linux"? (Score:2)
Only supports Sun Java clarification (Score:2)
A Day Early (Score:2)
selling to us (Score:2)
Mistakes and security flaw (Score:2, Informative)
Hello there,
I've just posted a review and a comment at my site [efeitodoppler.org] (translation [google.com]) where I point that Adobe makes an amateur mistake, by installing all AIR files as the user who launched the installer, despite the fact that it asks for root access via gksu (a graphic sudo replacement). This makes the user owner of the files "AIR root", letting him able to compromise AIR Apps to all users of the system (either voluntarily or by a virus for example). This goes against all security policies I've ever seen. System
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that I tend to produce very good code...but it takes me a long time compared to many others. Possibly there's a tradeoff here.
The nice thing about FOSS projects is that it lets you get SOMETHING out there fast, and then if there's a need, it will be continually improved. I do believe that commercially spons
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm, fruition
Maybe people who can spell (or use a spellchecker? I don't think IE has one yet) have a different opinion.
Photoshop for Linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Where did you hear that statement???
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong battle dude.
Re: (Score:2)
I kinda wish adobe would make a decent pdf viewer for linux, or at least make the pdf format open
Umm, PDF is an open standard, one with many, many implementations. Adobe's reader is not terrible, but its default configuration is (many slow and bloated plugins). Alternately you can use Foxit on Windows, Preview on OS X, XPDF of KPDF on Linux. There are actually quite a few more readers if you want to try others. You can make PDFs using any application on OS X, using CUPs on Linux, MS Office, OpenOffice, Wordperfect, Docbook, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I just wish Adobe would do a decent job at supporting their core applications on linux, e.g. Acrobat and Photoshop, but maybe that's just me.
Here's a thought that I had regarding this. I remember there being speculation that Apple might buy Adobe and make all of the big Adobe products Mac-only (like what happened to Final Cut Pro once Apple took them over). If Adobe did publicize information regarding porting Photoshop to Linux, that could prompt Apple to make Adobe an offer that they couldn't refuse.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are lots of design, interaction, desktop integration, and appearance issues. And as Java shows, runtimes can get them very, very wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Or you can break away from that and have a very customized application window.
***
If you mean development UI. Well you can use a simple text editor to create your apps. Though I recommend Adobe's Flex Builder 3 (built on Eclipse). Nice tool...and only $250 for Flex Builder stand-a-lone or plug-in.
Re: (Score:2)
It will have a non-optional GEGL dependency (although from a user point of view the GEGL integration will not be very visible yet) and the first major UI change will take place (removing the menu from the toolbox and merge it with the image window menu, and keep a special variant of an image window up to hold this menu when there are no images opened). This work has already been done and you can try it out in SVN trun
Re: (Score:2)