Adobe Joins Linux Foundation, Offers AIR For Linux
Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, called Adobe's decision to join the foundation "a natural extension" of its commitment to open standards and open source. Zemlin said the decision demonstrates Adobe's leadership and foresight in the software industry.
"Adobe's membership will contribute to our goal of increasing even more application development on Linux with a specific emphasis on Web 2.0 applications," he said in a prepared statement.
"Adobe delivers key RIA technologies for Linux users, such as Adobe Flash Player and now Adobe AIR, to deploy RIAs in the browser and on the desktop," Adobe's director of standards and open source David McAllister said in a release. "The Linux Foundation is a valuable resource, providing a forum where we can work with the community to ensure Adobe RIA technologies are compatible across the Linux software platform."
A list of notes from Adobe release regarding AIR for Linux highlight the limitations of the alpha release, including application launch limitations and a list of "known issues" with windowing and networking.
"With the alpha release of Adobe AIR for Linux and the Adobe Flex Builder for Linux alpha update, we're delivering early releases of a first-class application runtime and RIA creation tool to the Linux community," said Adobe platform business unit general manager David Wadhwani. "This allows us to have an open conversation with users during our development process, which will give us very valuable developer insights."
Adobe says developers can use the AIR platform to help bridge the connection between the Web and the desktop by creating applications unbound by the restrictions of the Web. At the Linux Foundation conference in Austin, Texas next week, Adobe will debut the alpha version of the Flex Builder 3 development environment for Linux.