Adobe to release developer tools to open source

Computerworld - Adobe Systems Inc. announced on Thursday plans to release to open source selected technologies in its LiveCycle Data Services suite of development tools. The technologies are used by developers to boost the data transfer capabilities and performance of rich Internet applications (RIA).

A beta version of the source code of the technologies was to be released on the Adobe Labs Web site today. The technologies are combined in an open-source tool set called BlazeDS, which can also build messaging and remoting capabilities into RIAs.

"The rich Internet application is about improving the user experience, making the user experience more intuitive and avoiding page refreshes," said Christophe Coenraets, Adobe product evangelist. "But data transfer often becomes a bottleneck in these applications. You work to make that experience really rich, but at the end of the day, you will end up waiting for your data."

The messaging technology is aimed at building data push applications like those that push streaming data about financial market conditions from server to client applications, Coenraets said. The remoting tool provides developers with a mechanism to boost the performance of RIAs without having to transform the data to XML, which can create bottlenecks with large data sets, he added.

Adobe, which in April announced plans to release its Adobe Flex developer tool kit under an open-source model, plans to provide BlazeDS under the Lesser General Public License.

Adobe also plans to offer support for open-source technologies in a bundle called the LiveCycle Data Services Community Edition, which will include certified builds of BlazeDS, enterprise and developer support and indemnity. Like Adobe Flex, BlazeDS source code, builds and licensing will be hosted by Adobe. However, the company will publish the technology's specifications for review and comment by the developer community, Adobe said.

Adobe will encourage the developer community to contribute code through a public bug database that will include feature requests and a community voting system. In the future, Adobe plans to promote external contributors to "committer" status, allowing them to contribute code, the company said.