Open Source and Free Development Tools for Flash

Contra Jim Whimpey’s aforelinked refutation of Adobe’s “Choice” campaign, it is not the case that developers can only create Flash software using Adobe’s Flash Professional IDE. This page lists the free and open source ones. There also exist non-free third-party developer tools for Flash.

I still say Whimpey’s conclusion stands — it’s not the tools that make Flash a closed platform, it’s that the runtime, Flash Player, is completely controlled and defined by Adobe. Adobe’s argument is that Flash is an open part of the web but that there just happens to exist only one implementation, their own closed-source Flash Player.

★ Friday, 14 May 2010