Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek) [LWN.net]

eWeek reports on Adobe's plans to release Adobe Integrated Runtime for Linux. "Adobe Systems hopes to make nice with the open-source community and soon deliver a Linux version of its newly released Adobe Integrated Runtime. Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe, said the company is working on a Linux version of AIR, a run-time that lets developers use proven Web technologies to build RIAs (rich Internet applications) that deploy to the desktop and run across operating systems."

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Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 0:18 UTC (Fri) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link] (9 responses)

I don't get it.. What's so cool about this compared to webkit or embedded gecko?

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 1:55 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

With a name like this it will stay vapourware for ever.

;)

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 4:51 UTC (Fri) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link] (2 responses)

Well it actually uses Webkit, Sqlite etc.

If I understand it correctly, the point is that you can package html and swf's, with some
added functionality that their online counterparts don't have (like local file access etc),
and deploy it as a "desktop" application.  Mozilla Prism tries to do something similar.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Mar 10, 2008 14:14 UTC (Mon) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] (1 responses)

(like local file access etc)

Does this mean file writes?

So I'm supposed to let some proprietary software write to my disk?

I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong, please) that, with Javascript disabled, the only writing to be done is with cookies (completely controllable) and file downloads (which cannot execute unless I permit them to).

Thus, with Free Software, the only one with write access to my disk is me. And I want to keep it that way.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Mar 13, 2008 14:58 UTC (Thu) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link]

Well, then don't use applications built on the AIR runtime. This isn't about some website
writing to your disk. This is about an app running on a runtime writing to disk - same as if
you install a piece of proprietary software on Linux. A bit like Azureus (open source) on the
java (proprietary) runtime.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 7:41 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (guest, #43281) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, this is a completely different product than webkit and gecko.

Flash is a framework for writing animations, with very convenient syntax, that runs inside all
web browsers on lots of platforms. Due to its popularity it has a lot of developers. Flex is a
GUI toolkit that runs on top of Flash (it's incidentally open source - but the Flash player
isn't), and lets those developers write more traditional GUI-using apps that can then be
deployed to 99% of desktop computers in the world, simply because 99% of desktops run web
browsers with Flash inside.

AIR goes a step further and lets you run a Flash/Flex application _outside_ of a web browser.
Such applications are written in Flash/Flex, which is familiar to lots of developers, but can
look much more like a traditional desktop app. I believe it also has some local file writing
capabilities which Flash doesn't.

The advantages of AIR are that there are many developers familiar with Flash/Flex, and that
apps written in it can be run almost everywhere. Also due to the web-based nature of Flash,
integration with the web is fairly easy (you can use e.g. HTML GET/POST). Disadvantages, IMO
at least, are that while AIR has some FOSS components (Webkit, Flex, Sqlite), it isn't FOSS,
and consequently unsurprisingly the Linux version will be coming out much later than the
Windows and OS X versions. Another disadvantage is that AIR is far less 'complete' when
compared to Java and Python, which are also cross-platform, and have a multitude of standard
libraries and add-ons.

If AIR doesn't look completely native on all platforms, then I really don't see what it has
over, say, Python + GTK.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 12:23 UTC (Fri) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]

> Flash is a framework ... that runs ... on lots of platforms.

Well, not on my platform, which happens to be a free software one.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 12:56 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

> Well, this is a completely different product than webkit and gecko.


With Gecko rendering engine you have things like XUL.. It's used for making applications that
use Gecko, but run on your desktop like native applications. Things like Thunderbird or Komodo
IDE.

Now most of the time you install and run them like regular applications, but XUL also allows
you to run applications off of networks also. They can be ran from within the browser or run
in their own seperate windows. This way it's possible to deploy web-based applications that
are desktop-friendly without the traditional limitations assocated with apps made from
combinations of html, server side scripting, and javascript.

Of course I haven't seen a example of anybody actually doing that yet aside from very small
stuff.. but it's possible.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 13:00 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (guest, #43281) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, when XULRunner is complete this will be an interesting platform for hybrid web/desktop
apps. Songbird and Miro two example apps using that framework.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 21:22 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Well XULRunner isn't strictly nessicary, I don't think. XUL is included with Firefox since
it's based on it. I think you can Firefox as the basis for running your own application, but I
am not sure since I have never realy done any XUL development or looked too closely at it.

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/The_Joy_of_XUL
http://www.xulplanet.com/tutorials/whyxul.html

Personally I'd rather have people building rich client applications over the internet based on
XUL rather then AIR, but that's just me. XUL is open source, and is trying to create a open
standard.

Another competiting technology would be Microsoft's XAML based on WPF and is used in their
Silverlight thingie.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 2:37 UTC (Fri) by wblew (subscriber, #39088) [Link] (1 responses)

A perhaps futile, attempt to compete with the GPL'd Java platform?

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 20:38 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]

No, because this is totally different.  This is a way for all of those millions of Web
developers to start making desktop apps using all of the knowledge they have no, without
needing to learn a new framework or GUI toolkit or anything like.

People take their existing Flash, HTML, CSS, JavaScript/ActionScript, and XML knowledge and
can start making desktop apps.

We're seeing the same thing happen in the reverse direction, too.  Qt is moving to embed a
WebKit derived engine in the core toolkit, and GTK+ might pick up good WebKit integration soon
too.  Windows already has IE engine integration.  The result is that traditional desktop apps
can start making use of existing developer knowledge to start making prettier and more
flexible GUIs than what traditional GUI toolkits offer.

The common fear is that Web developers don't know how to make good usable UI and that making
Web-like desktop apps easy will result in tons of really shitty and hard-to-use and
inconsistent apps.  I think that kind of fear is non-sense since we _already_ have that
problem.  Just because people use the GTK+ toolkit doesn't mean they layout buttons, dialogs,
or other widgets in any kind of consistent or sensible fashion.

AIR will stay proprietary, it seems

Posted Feb 29, 2008 8:01 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (3 responses)

He really dances around the issue, but he seems to say that their AIR for GNU/Linux will be
proprietary software.  He mentions "free", but there's no indication he uses the word to talk
about giving rights to the users.

Rather than a contribution, this would be a temptation for GNU/Linux users to accept non-free
software.

AIR will stay proprietary, it seems

Posted Feb 29, 2008 15:24 UTC (Fri) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link]

Indeed.

If they really wanted to "make nice with the open source community" they'd release the source
to AIR and it would get ported to the Linux platform in short order.  Instead they're
developing a (presumably, x86-only) Linux (what, no BSD?) version in-house.

Personally I prefer free air ;-)

AIR will stay proprietary, it seems

Posted Mar 1, 2008 14:46 UTC (Sat) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link]

Vendor lock-in, is what all Adobe moves are done for.
Until Flash specifications are opened, it is not worth wasting our attention to it.

AIR will stay proprietary, it seems

Posted Mar 5, 2008 0:56 UTC (Wed) by sandmann (subscriber, #473) [Link]

Yes, there is an urgent need for a credible, free competitor to AIR. AIR has the potential to
become one of the standard ways applications are delivered, and we should try hard to prevent
that from happening.

The competitor could be a compatible replacement or a completely new system, but a completely
new system would be preferable because it wouldn't allow Adobe to control an important
standard.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 17:46 UTC (Fri) by zooko (guest, #2589) [Link] (6 responses)

A lot of the comments here seem to be unaware of the Rich Internet Application (RIA) story.
The idea is to make apps which are as easy to use as web pages, while being as powerful as
traditional local apps.

It's likely to be a very important class of apps in the future (notice that a  lot of people
do more and more of their work on web pages instead of local apps).  Adobe AIR is one of a
handful of contestants for the infrastructure for RIAs.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 21:44 UTC (Fri) by felixrabe (guest, #50514) [Link] (5 responses)

> The idea is to make apps which are as easy to use as web pages

In terms of ease-of-use, there are web pages that are as badly designed as bad apps.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Feb 29, 2008 21:45 UTC (Fri) by felixrabe (guest, #50514) [Link] (4 responses)

... which means: I don't necessarily see the advantage for the user here; it's only one for
the developer.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Mar 1, 2008 1:40 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (3 responses)

I think making easy to use 'rich web pages' is exceptionally hard. Very few people even get
close to getting it right. It's trying to get the WWW to be something it never was suppose to
be. Www is designed to use 'REST' and it's a very very good design. But it's not intended to
do what people are trying to do with it.

If it was not for the fact that the majority of people are stuck with Microsoft Windows then
we would be able to do some very cool stuff with network-based applications. The reason people
are trying to take WWW in directions it never was suppose to go is because http is the only
protocol that can penetrate Microsoft's desktop in any appreciable way.

I mean, seriously.. A easy example for remote running applications we already have a terrific
protocol: X11.

It's totally networked based and it works very well. With compositing and vector
based-displays it is even very close to possible to have X work with good speed over the
internet. I know I've used X over the internet and it works passably well. Better performance
then any Javascript abortion that will take a 4ghz machine to it's knees. With NX compression
you get even better.

With some fundamental improvements to security X can be a workable solution to deploying
remote applications widespread over a network. You get very rich set of tools and thousands
and thousands of very high quality applications already support it.

I know there are lots of problems with that approach. But it's just a simple example. There
are other things like Croquet that are very cool.

But it does not matter because Microsoft will never allow that to penetrate it's hegemony. So
people are trying to reproduce everything we essentialy already have with _browser_plugins_.
Because IE is allowed to support that. It's just that bad.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Mar 1, 2008 2:07 UTC (Sat) by zooko (guest, #2589) [Link] (2 responses)

Look at it this way: have you noticed that a whole lot of people don't use mail user agent
applications anymore?  They use web mail.  Which means: they use a web app.  Same with on-line
banking.  Same with calendaring.  When will it end?  Google is currently deploying
spreadsheets, word processors, collaboration apps, etc. as web apps.

Why do you suppose people tend to flock to web apps instead of local apps?  I'm not sure,
myself, but I think comparing the technical advantages of X or Gtk to HTTP or JavaScript is
probably not getting anywhere close to the answer.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Mar 1, 2008 8:27 UTC (Sat) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] (1 responses)

Well they're not 'flocking' to them for the spiffy interface. 

The appeal is that these services are on the internet and accessible from anywhere. I agree
with the OP, the advantage is networked smart server/dumb client architecture, AJAX is just a
really piss-poor implementation of that on the Web, because that's the only way to do it with
windows.

Taking web interfaces and chaining them to the desktop is combining the disadvantages of both
systems, as far as the user is concerned.

At best this is a way for web monkeys to write desktop applications without having to learn
GTK. That's the beginning and the end of the usefulness of this.

Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Posted Mar 1, 2008 16:57 UTC (Sat) by felixrabe (guest, #50514) [Link]

Funny that you mention GTK, because I did almost mention (Py)GTK too, but then decided to
reduce my post to the absolutely necessary minimum :)