14 DAY TRIAL // The mobile Flash Player plugin is not the only casualty of Adobe's new found love for HTML5. Another one seems to be Adobe Flex, the SDK designed to enabled developers to create cross-platform internet applications using Flash technology.
While Adobe didn't say much in the initial announcement concerning mobile Flash, it has now confirmed that it's donating the entire Flex project to an open source outfit which will carry on development moving forward.
Adobe still plans to be involved with the Flex project, but it will shift most resources, i.e. developers, from it to HTML5 projects.
There are no plans to abandon the project or current customers, but the medium and long term future is grim.
Unsurprisingly, developers and companies relying on Flex are not happy and they're especially not happy about the way Adobe handled the 'announcement,' or lack thereof.
"We are planning to contribute the Flex SDK to an open source foundation in the same way we contributed PhoneGap to the Apache Foundation when we acquired Nitobi," Adobe wrote in a FAQ after the initial announcement and the immediate negative response from developers.
"This project will be jointly led by some developers from the Flex SDK engineering team along with key developers from the Flex community, including members of the Spoon Project and contributors from enterprise companies currently using Flex," it said.
Developers who have invested time and money into Flex are not happy. Adobe is trying to pacify them by saying that Flex is not dead and that it will continue to be supported, but then it suggests that they start learning HTML5 and JavaScript in any case.
"In the long-term, we believe HTML5 will be the best technology for enterprise application development. We also know that, currently, Flex has clear benefits for large-scale client projects typically associated with desktop application profiles," Adobe wrote, not the most encouraging words for developers.