Reminder: as usual, I'm not speaking on behalf of Mozilla here, just expressing my own views.
So it looks like Adobe will no longer be releasing (...) versions of Adobe AIR and the AIR SDK for desktop Linux..
A few questions and remarks come to my mind, which I'd like to share:
- Is this going to hurt Linux?
- Is this a good thing for Adobe?
- Is there a lesson here?
So Is this going to hurt Linux? Well, maybe, but not much. The application ecosystem on Linux is pretty strong, and as Adobe says, "since the release of AIR, we’ve seen only a 0.5% download share for desktop Linux", which tends to show that Linux users are not much interested in AIR at all.
Is this a good thing for Adobe? On one hand, it will enable them to invest more in the Android version of AIR, which is an important market, with enormous potential, Android being a platform that needs more love from Adobe if they want to be able to compete. But on the other hand, this is pretty bad for their cross-platform story. People who have chosen AIR because it enabled them to "write once run anywhere" - recycling the old Java promise - rightfully feel betrayed. AIR is a decent platform, but what made it stand out was the promise of running on all three desktop platforms. And this is now gone.
Is there a lesson here? I guess so. In short: never trust of a proprietary vendor when it comes to running cross-platform, especially when you have a truly open alternative. In this case, the Web. What makes the Web beautiful is the fact that no one owns it. You don't have to make a deal with the VP of Business Development of the Web in order to deploy a large application. You can pick a (modern) browser and switch away from it later on if the vendor you've chosen is taking a path that you don't like. Just make sure it's following Web standards and is Open Source and open to external contributions, so that you can offer patches if needed. Make sure it's extensible, so you can customize it for your needs. You'll see, the Open Web as a platform is making progress daily. It's amazing, really.
You'll have no fees to pay, no contracts to negotiate, just freedom to use and innovate. I know it's a little unsettling at first, but over time it's liberating. So liberating that - once accustomed to freedom - you won't want to go back.
9 réactions
1 De lipki - 15/06/2011, 20:11
Sont reloud quand même.
Déjà que faire du flash c'est pas là joie (mais faut bien manger), mais alors être obliger de démarrer Windows en plus c'est trop.
2 De Daniel Glazman - 15/06/2011, 20:19
Wait, wait, wait... Adobe AIR is not only about making apps based on Flash. It's also, and that's a large bit of Adobe's communication recently, about HTML5+JavaScript+CSS and there, Adobe abandoning AIR on Linux could have a lesson to give...
3 De Peter Shinners - 15/06/2011, 20:27
My problem with AIR on Linux was that it was only 32 bit. This required many shenanigans to get it working on Ubuntu 64 bit.
Fortunately there is now a native Pandora client, which was my only incentive to getting AIR working. Pithos is so nice! http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/
4 De Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl - 15/06/2011, 21:33
Oui, enfin… dans le cas du web, au lieu d'être à la merci d'Adobe, on est a celle de Microsoft et de Mozilla. Si Mozilla et Microsoft décident de ne pas supporter une technologie web, elle ne sera jamais adoptée.
5 De Antoine Turmel (GeekShadow) - 15/06/2011, 22:16
Je suis d'accord avec toi Tristan, surtout que le web évolue vite et permet aujourd'hui de faire des applications directement dans le navigateur, et puis il y a maintenant Chromeless feu Prism qui permet d'arriver à des applications aussi puissantes qu'avec AIR.
6 De Olivier B. - 16/06/2011, 00:53
A une époque j'ai voulu installer Adobe Air sur le poste de Mme, souhaitant jouer à Dofus : manque de bol, aucune version 64bits n'était disponible, il fallait donc installer la couche de compatibilité 32bits ainsi qu'une ribambelle de librairies 32bits fournies par Adobe... Je me suis refusé à lancer leur script en root, pas envie de compromettre le système pour ça.
De nos jours je pense qu'une grosse partie du parc Linux est en 64bits, et l'ignorer me semble un gros frein à l'adoption d'un soft. En tous cas AIR ne me manquera certainement pas.
7 De Simon - 16/06/2011, 02:13
Honestly, I don't even know what AIR is. I've heard it mentioned occasionally, but never encountered anything that required me to install it on either Windows or Linux machines. Given that, I can't say that this announcement is any great loss..
8 De John Drinkwater - 16/06/2011, 02:27
Adobe's move is ridiculous, because it labels their AIR ecosystem as a failure. I can only name one application I know for certain that uses it, BBC iPlayer.
The following is going to sound silly, so i'll disclaimer: I'm a web dev that tinkers in web application programming, and along with a few hundred others invited myself to be part of W3C html5 process. But read on.
Once Web browsers get granular grantable permissions to do things applications in AIR have been doing, maybe then the Web (HTML5 more than HTTP-fetched resources) will be a platform for more uses.
WebGL recently lost a feature because of fear of exploits with no current way to enable it in a cross-browser manner. You cant script canvas to prompt a save dialog for its contents. If you open a local HTML page in Firefox, it cannot open any files outside of that dir, localStorage and co fail…
Serious gaps like these need to be filled before one can seriously say, avoid Java, use the Web.
So please Mozilla, can we form a WHATWG2 to look at HTML6 with the consideration of making html a proper integrated platform - I'll put my name forward for it.
9 De Olivier FAURAX - 16/06/2011, 11:57
Si j'ai bien compris, maintenant que l'AIR a fait pschiiiit, on devrait se tourner vers le cloud ?