>thanks for the input, let me put it another way. Adobe can change the runtime >anytime they want. They have not made the runtime code accessible to the >Apache >Flex project. Its within the realm of possibility that they can change >something in the runtime that breaks for example current Flex >4.6 apps. Since you don't have the runtime code accessible how will you go >about fixing the issue.
So, yes, they could decide that when the runtime starts up that it will no longer run any code. That is their choice as they own the runtime. Doing so though is not in their or anyone else's best interest and doesn't make much sense. Doing so would not only break all Flex projects currently deployed in the world but also likely all content created in Flash or ActionScript projects. It is worth noting that Adobe said they would test future version of the Flash Player and AIR against Flex 4.6. That does give us a baseline I think the best predictor of future behavior is the past. Flash has always strived to be backward compatible with code written long ago. When major changes were made to the Flash runtime, they actually create a whole new virtual machine so that the original code would continue to work forever more. If I had to guess, that's what we will eventually see here. My 2 cents. Personally that isn't what keeps me up at night, it's a losing proposition for Adobe to make such a change. More scary is the prospect of Apple and Microsoft changing licensing to disallow things like AIR and Flash Player. This is not in any way likely. Apple tried it. It didn't go well, just saying this would be more of a fear than the other items. >And I have not played with Java for a while. I know there's an open JDK . >Isnt' the Java runtime open sourced as well ? The Java runtime is under an open source license, but it is controlled in a proprietary fashion... much the way Flex was previously. It is useful to know that the format for SWF is also available and open. Further, the core virtual machine for the Flash Player is available as part of the tamarin project under Mozilla, so, much like an open JDK, it is possible to write our own Flash Player.... please know this is not a suggestion. Mike
