Adobe learns lessons of open-source Flex

Adobe Systems is learning the challenges and complexities of taking its software open source.

Just a year and a half after Adobe released its Flex Software Development Kit (SDK) under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) to encourage developer buy in, it's the company - not the community - that continues to shoulder the burden of building and fixing Flex.

The majority of Flex committers are Adobe employees with most contributions from outsiders tackling bugs rather than going into new feature ideas.

Adobe, meanwhile, is treading a fine line between tipping off competitors to its Flex plans through the open-source work while coaxing the community to buy into the Flex roadmap.

When it announced it was open sourcing Flex in April 2007, Adobe called the move a way of collaborating with the developer community to "further fuel its momentum and innovation." Flex is one of many Adobe's code to go open-source, following - among others - Tamarin and BlazeDS. The main prize, Flash Player, remains closed.

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