OStatic

From the recent spate of open source project acquisitions by large software vendors to the increasingly popular model of offering paid β€œenterprise” versions of open source software, we’ve all noticed the changes in the open source community. Some consider these trends part of the maturing of the open source software market, while others view these trends as potentially dangerous to fundamental open source concepts. Things may have just gotten worse.

Adobe’s recent announcement of its AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) platform for Linux is an attempt to get open source developers and users to buy into Adobe’s proprietary application delivery platform. AIR is designed to allow web developers to deliver β€œdesktop” style applications to users, developed using Adobe’s RIA (Rich Internet Application) tools such as Flash and Flex.

Air’s main competition in the Windows world is Microsoft’s .NET platform and Silverlight. Unlike Novell’s Mono project which is a Linux based open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET framework, Adobe’s AIR platform is fully closed with no source code available. The Mono project has been criticized for enticing potential open source developers to adopt Microsoft technologies, and some have called Mono a danger to GNU/Linux because of this. Regardless of the patent troubles that may theoretically encumber Mono-based projects, the wide scale adoption of Adobe AIR as a desktop application distribution platform poses even greater dangers.

Adobe and Microsoft have been engaging in RIA development warfare in the Windows world for the last year or two as both try to use their technologies to deliver desktop style applications via Internet based technologies. This is very reminiscent of the early browser wars between Netscape and Microsoft, as each company tries to get its technology stack adopted as the β€œde facto” RIA delivery platform. Unfortunately, the open source community is sorely underrepresented in this battle even as the front lines move through Linux territory.

The real danger here may come from the inherent laziness of developers. Adobe’s Flash and Flex as well as Microsoft’s .NET and Silverlight products are rich development tools that already have a substantial market share. As developers look for fast and easy ways to build RIA applications and deliver them to cross-platform desktops, platforms such as AIR and the whole Adobe development stack become increasingly attractive, despite their proprietary nature.

Do you think there are any open source RIA platforms that can compete with AIR or .NET?

• linux
• mono
• .net
• Adobe
• AIR
• OSS
• RIA
• Flex
• Flash