The Official Flex Team Blog

Recently, folks have been having trouble downloading Flex SDKs. We apologize for any inconvenience. Unfortunately, an interesting set of circumstances have arisen that we are scrambling to work around. If you want to know more, read on, but if you just need to grab an SDK, please try the SWF in the following link.

Download a Flex SDK

Here are the details:
1) Flex had a site on opensource.adobe.com. That site was using a version of wiki software that was prone to attack.
2) Adobe plans to host all of its open source projects at Open@Adobe
3) Flex SDKs aren’t completely “open”. They have Adobe licensed files in the downloads.

We had some contractors migrate the opensource.adobe.com site to Open@Adobe so we could shut down opensource.adobe.com. I tested out the download links but didn’t notice they still used a page on opensource.adobe.com. Then, a few weeks ago, we shutdown opensource.adobe.com and suddenly, you couldn’t download a Flex SDK.

When we went to migrate that page to Open@Adobe we found that the page was “interactive”. It had a checkbox that you had to click on in order to enable the download button. It turns out that the wiki on Open@Adobe does not allow that kind of interactivity for security reasons. We explored various ways of trying to replicate that click-thru license on Open@Adobe but were unsuccessful, and our legal advisors required us to keep that click-thru interface to make sure you understand the rules around what you are downloading.

It also turned out that trying to host the click-thru page on some other Adobe server was fraught with process and other difficulties. There would have to be security audits, chains of approvals, etc, and meanwhile folks would still not be able to download SDKs. So, I’ve hacked together this SWF for you to use for now.

So that’s why we are where we are. The Flex pages at Open@Adobe will point to this same SWF. Some folks have posted direct links to the Adobe downloads server as a workaround, but that bypasses the licensing requirement. It is best if you can use the SWF.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience. It is an interesting intersection of security and open-ness. This blog and opensource.adobe.com are hosted by Adobe which strictly limits who can create interactive content. Open@Adobe is hosted at SourceForge which is a lot less restrictive and who can create content so they have tighter rules on what that content can do.

Following quickly on the heels of the Flex White Paper, you can now find on the ADC the Adobe Roadmap for the Flash Runtimes.  The Flash white paper provides an overview of the Flash runtimes and a roadmap for their development.  This will give you some insight into our current thinking and plans around Flash functionality in the Flash Player and AIR over the next one to two years.

Between these two white papers you should have a much clearer understanding of our current plans and intentions for Flex and Flash.

Be sure to come to a meeting of our Flex User Group Tour 2012 when it comes to a city near you.  You can check some of the earlier posts outlining the European and North American tour dates.

Alan Greenblatt
Senior Technical Evangelist, Adobe

As promised, a white paper has been published on the ADC detailing Adobe’s view of Flex and its commitments to Flex in the future.  Hopefully this should answer most if not all of your questions.

You can find the Flex whitepaper here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/whitepapers/roadmap.html

Note that we will also be updating previous posts to point to the Flex white paper.

We hope to see you all on the Flex User Group 2012 Tour, coming soon to a city near you!

Alan Greenblatt
Senior Technical Evangelist, Adobe

We’re also planning to visit some European Flex User Groups. We hope that you’ll be able to join one of these meetings. We’ll be in Europe for two weeks only but we believe that this tour will be an unique opportunity to discuss the future of Flex, the role of Apache, the Flash roadmap and answer your questions.

Europe

• 2/20/2012 – London - http://www.meetup.com/flexlondon/
• 2/21/2012 – Paris - http://flexupdateinparis.eventbrite.com/
• 2/23/2012 – Bordeaux - http://adobebordeaux.eventbrite.com/
• 2/27 – 2/28/2012 – Amsterdam (we’ll be attending the FITC conference, feel free to contact us)
• 2/29/2012 – Hamburg - https://www.xing.com/events/future-flex-flash-856836
• 3/2/2012 – Lisbon - http://augportugal.eventbrite.com/

As we promised at the end of last year, we are kicking off an international Flex User Group Tour to discuss recent announcements regarding Flex and the Flash Platform. These meetings will clarify any changes to Flex and Flash including updates on the runtimes and tooling. Additionally, the sessions will educate folks about the Apache process and what it takes for Flex SDK, as a project within the Apache Software Foundation, to continue to thrive. These meetings will be the best place to get accurate and up-to-date information about anything related to Flex.

Below are the cities and dates for our first wave of visits in North America. Europe and Asia dates will be posted shortly. Please refer to individual user group sites for detailed descriptions about the Flex sessions and speakers, including information on how to register to attend. Note: This information will be posted in the coming weeks and we will update this blog post with more detailed information as it becomes available.

We hope to meet and talk with as many developers as possible – so mark the dates and we’ll see you there!

North America

• 2/13/12 – New York: New York Flex Meetup
• 2/15/12 – Boston: Boston Flex User Group
• 2/21/12 – Denver: Rocky Mountain Adobe Users Group
• 2/22/12 – Seattle: Seattle Flash User Group
• 2/29/12 – Chicago: Chicago Flex User Group
• 3/7/12 – Los Angeles: LA Flex & LA Flash User Group
• 3/8/12 – San Diego: San Diego Flash User Group
• 4/19/12 – Dallas: Dallas Flex User Group

I am pleased to announce that Flex as been accepted into the Apache Incubator. With weekends and holidays, I suspect that it will still be several days before we get up and running with mailing lists, bug base, source control, etc, so we continue to appreciate your patience. However, I’m really looking forward to 2012 and beyond, and I hope you are too.

-Alex

We received a whopping 65 requests to be on the initial committers list for the proposal to become a Podling in the Apache Incubator! It is great to see such enthusiasm from the community.

We are discussing with Apache experts as to how many folks we can put on the list. I think it will be at least 24. Initial committers also form the Podling’s Project Management Committee and can vote in other committers who establish a track record by submitting patches that get accepted. I am not looking forward to having to deny so many of these requests. Once we pick a number, I will send each of you an email of whether your request was accepted or denied.

If you requested to be a committer and are not chosen to be on the initial list, please continue to show your support by contributing patches via the JIRA bug base that will be set up. That way you can be promoted to committer as soon as possible.

Thank you to all who requested to be a committer. I look forward to working with you on Flex.

-Alex

One of the requirements for a proposal to incubate a new project in the Apache Software Foundation is to have an initial set of committers. A committer has to sign a license agreement with Apache in order to obtain write access to the source code repository. A committer’s responsibilities are listed at http://www.apache.org/dev/committers.html#committer-responsibilities.

As we announced at the Flex Community Summit earlier this week, we are looking to identify the initial committers for the Flex SDK incubation proposal. If you want to be on this list of initial committers, please email me at aharui@adobe.com by noon PST Friday, December 16, 2011. We may limit the initial set to around 12, but you can still become a committer after that by following the process outlined by Apache. And remember, if you don’t want to be a committer, you can still contribute in many ways.

We are excited to be engaging the community in the shaping of Flex, and look forward to your future contributions.

Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.

I wanted to share a brief update on where we are with our preparation of proposals for incubation of Flex SDK and BlazeDS to the Apache Software Foundation as well as our commitment to engaging with the Flex community further.

Regarding the incubation proposals, we have received all of the necessary Adobe legal clearance in order to contribute the full Flex SDK (including MXML compiler, automation libraries and data visualization components) to Apache. As such we have a draft incubation proposal for Flex SDK prepared and are aiming to post that to the Apache incubation mailing list within the next 1-2 weeks. Once the proposal has been posted, the normal process is that community members review the proposal for a period of time (normally 72 hours) after which the ASF votes. A positive vote means the project has been accepted as an incubation podling into Apache. Keep an eye out on this blog for regular status updates, including a link to the proposal once its been posted to the Apache incubation mailing list.

As for BlazeDS, at this time we are still working on legal clearance but aim to have that before the end of the year such that we can post the BlazeDS incubation proposal to the Apache mailing list at the start of the new year.

In order to better facilitate discussion with our broad developer community, next Monday (12/12/11) and Tuesday (12/13/11) Adobe is hosting a Flex Community Summit where we are inviting a number of Flex community leaders and enterprise developers to participate in a discussion on a variety of topics. We will be discussing the recent announcements regarding Flex and the Flash Platform as well as educating all attendees about the Apache process and what it takes for a project to thrive within Apache. Unfortunately, due to budget, we were unable to invite everyone we would have liked to the summit. Most of the summit sessions and ensuing discussions will be video-taped and posted publicly after the summit. Additionally, we are working on a Flex Whitepaper that we will publish on the Adobe Developer Center which will recap much of the content covered in the summit.

And lastly, in order to replicate the same discussions that will happen at the summit, we are organizing a multi-city international Flex User Group tour that we are looking to kick off in early 2012.

We’ll be sure to share regular updates on this blog as the Apache proposals progress, the Flex Community Summit content is posted and cities/dates are finalized for the 2012 Flex User Group tour.

Deepa Subramaniam
Group Product Manager, Adobe

A security patch for the Flex SDK is now available to address a vulnerability that will cause many Flex applications to be vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.  These applications must be patched in order to protect user data. Please review this bulletin to determine if your applications are at risk and to obtain instructions on how to patch your applications.

If you have any questions about the security bulletin, please email PSIRT@adobe.com