Intelligent Enterprise

Adobe Systems on Thursday said it plans to contribute to the open source community its technology for connecting rich Internet applications (RIAs) to backend data sources.

Under the plan, the source code for Adobe's messaging, data, and remote procedure call services would be packaged under a new open-source product called BlazeDS. The technology, along with Adobe's Action Message Format (AMF) protocol specification, would be available under the Lesser General Public License, or LGPL v3.

The technologies, which are available in public beta on Adobe's labs site, are part of Adobe's LiveCycle Data Services Enterprise Suite, which provides some backend connectivity for applications built in Adobe's Flex platform for developing and deploying RIAs. Flex software runs on Adobe's runtime environment called AIR.

In creating BlazeDS, Adobe apparently is looking to open source developers to help build better backend connectivity for RIAs. Data access technologies within LiveCycle Data Services today are particularly aimed at tying RIAs with the document and forms management of other products in the suite.

Going forward, BlazeDS developers can use the technology to add data access to RIAs for "real-time collaboration and data-push capabilities" found in guided self-service, live help, and other applications, Adobe said. In addition, the technology can be used to connect rich clients to existing server applications, such as those written in Java or with Adobe's ColdFusion development environment.

Adobe plans to release a community edition of LiveCycle Data Services that will incorporate the open source technology. The new tools would be sold under an annual subscription, which would include updates and patches, support and infringement indemnity. Pricing will be announced when BlazeDS is released under the LGPL v3, set for early next year.