( I'm speaking to Apache Flex in general - excluding Adobe or its employees )
At this point in time, Apache Flex has a direct dependency on playerglobal.swc as well as other bits and bobs... all of which provide interoperability ( which was promised ) with Flash Player. Any kind of 'Iron Fist' or cease and desist would be difficult to dismiss as not being discriminative, anti-competitive, and a direct attempt to undermine our efforts ( just sayin' ). 'How' this detail was missed is inconsequential... and we are all gainfully engaged in trying to find a solution - which is good... but it might be better ( I might be going out on a limb here ) if we place the burden on Adobe. * We require a reasonable degree of freedom to explore ( without the fear of Adobe Legal ) interoperability with the Flash ecosystem * We require documentation of any attachment points that may raise concerns of patent infringement * We require substitutions ( stubs ) of primary dependencies or well-documented alternative(s) that are Apache compatible In other words... we should raise the red flag, deliver our best laundry list, and let them get to work on a solution. As a disclaimer... I want to offer the fact that there are great minds here - without a doubt! My concern ( aka tirade ) is that we can easily get side-tracked on items that we are not well equipped to handle... or perhaps _shouldn't_ be handling. Again, speaking to Apache Flex in general and not Adobe employees. On Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Left Right wrote: > > > > I'll ask legal about this, but it might fall under the reverse engineering > > restriction. > > > > > > But there's published documentation with precise description of what the > API do - why copying that would be a reverse engineering? It's like if I > wanted to write a driver for NVidia adapter - there's no way I would avoid > copying all the same API they have in the hardware, and, eventually it > would have all the same interface as the NVidia proprietary drivers. That's > not stealing from NVidia (in the case outlined above), it's just creating > an alternative, which cannot vary from the original because of what it does. > > Best. > > Oleg
