Adobe have just released a load more source code as open source. A little while ago they gave the source code of their ActionScript engine to Mozilla, which will dramatically improve the performance of JavaScript in Firefox, making XUL an even more interesting platform to develop in. Now they've released the source code for the Flex compilers and debuggers.

This is certainly in response to Microsofts Silverlight. These technologies have an awful lot in common.

It's about time there was an alternative to Adobe/Macromedia in that space (I'm ignoring Java) and the competition should be healthy. But which one will prevail? Will there even be a winner? I suspect not, the whole point is that the embedded players are small, lightweight and portable, so pretty soon everyone will have both. Flex will most likely become the choice of the open source fans using LAMP/RoR backends, and Silverlight will be for the MS developers integrating with .NET. The users won't even see the difference.

I've not invested a whole lot of time in Flex, it looks very impressive and powerful though. I'm probably going to just keep an eye on Silverlight and move into using that for the shallow learning curve. Sorry flash fans!

Labels: adobe, flex, microsoft, silverlight