Termination of financial support starling and feathers

[денисг22484613]

Guys, apparently the AIR is no longer an Adobe priority. Tell the developers when you are planning to end AIR support ?

[therobby3]

I would like to hear some official word on this as well.  Things are really not looking good, and it'd be nice to at least officially hear it.

[Colin Holgate]

Have you read something about that? For what it's worth, some of what Starling was good for is built into Adobe Animate now, though mainly for the benefit of HTML5 users. Also, not getting money from Adobe doesn't mean that Starling won't continue to work.

[денисг22484613]

This means that we have lost the support of the main libraries of air. If adob decided not to spend money on it, how much will the air live? Millions of hours are invested in technology and it really works well.

[therobby3]

Starling will continue to work I'm sure, but it's mainly the overall message that this sends.  Most of the writing on the wall seems to point to AIR not having the brightest future, and this definitely drives that message home.  I've been hanging on for a while now, and have trying to not be the doom and gloom guy, but this seems pretty bad.  Heck, the Starling forum is one of the last, and possibly the most active AS3 forum to still exist.

[mrfrasier]

Yes, starling will work fine. The concern is AIR won't be updated to meet the changing demands of Apple and Google's app stores. In that scenario, I'd at least hope Adobe would open source it so we can continue to support it.

[ZachBJ]

The correct information : Adobe has stopping financial support for Feathers-UI framework's maintainer NOT Adobe AIR
link: https://forum.starling-framework.org/topic/the-future-of-feathers-ui

so please READ carefully before posting HOAX like that!

[mrfrasier]

I see no hoax. The title of the thread specifically says they stopped supporting starling and feathers. As others have noted, Adobe's actions speak louder than their words and stopping support for frameworks keeping their technology alive, combined with slower releases and zero push on AIR has developers worried.

If the writing on the wall is accurate, OP is asking Adobe to clarify plans on AIR so people are informed.

[ZachBJ]

Josh Tynjala is maintainer of Feathers NOT Starling
I don't see words from Daniel Sperl - maintainer of Starling.

"AIR is no longer an Adobe priority" --this is hoax
Regular AIR updates clarify this

[therobby3]

Daniel has also commented in the topic saying that Starling support has ended as well.

[Leo Kanel]

ZachBJ​

The post from Daniel is clear:
[Side note:]

Before someone asks: at the time of this writing, there's no more financial support from Adobe for Starling, either.

[mrfrasier]

Guess someone else needs to READ

Also, updates != priority. Where are the blogs? Advertising?

[ZachBJ]

yes, but keep maintaining Starling

[mrfrasier]

You're moving the goalpost. No one said Starling would die. You're the one making claims and having them disproved.

Re-read the concerns here and try again man.

[ZachBJ]

Updates and improvements are priority. Period.

You pay NOTHING for AIR, it is free.

If you think AIR is not worth it, please stop using AIR , stop blaming Adobe, and MOVE to other new-shiny-cool-tech out there.

[денисг22484613]

I am sure that many are ready to start paying if Starling and Feathers remain without support. This base must not stand still.

I agree with what I wrote on emotions. But everyone understands that because of the cessation of funding of the main developers, for the first time since 2012, other minds will be gone.

[mrfrasier]

You're a moron. Everyone here is here because they love AIR and DON'T want to move on to the next faddy thing which will likely lose luster over time. No one is BLAMING adobe. We're asking for some assurance that they are behind AIR so that we can keep developing with it.

If us asking for that is problematic to you, simply unsubscribe to the thread and move on vs bringing pointless negativity.

PS, no AIR is not a paid product (which is by Adobe's choice), but Animate is, which is what we use to develop our AIR apps. If Adobe turned around and said "we're going to charge a yearly license for AIR and increase support/dev on it" I'd be one of the first to sign up.

[ASWC]

Same topic, same insults, same whining ... Some people just don't want to see the signs of Adobe slowly but surely pulling the plug on AIR and finally on the entire Flash technology. I've only been saying that for the past gazillion years ...

Every single time Adobe takes a step in that direction (the end) this conversation happens:

- it doesn't mean anything, Adobe is still super committed

- Face it, it's going toward the end

- You are a m*****

Every single time .....

On the other hand every time Adobe adds a new feature to AIR .... oh wait I forgot that never actually happened ever.

The exact same conversations/reactions took place about Flash, same insults, same delusions and at the end among many others I was simply right just like I will be right about AIR. It's only a matter of time, stop dreaming and start preparing for the future. You think the author of Starling and Feathers are not already working with another technology? Of course they are and have been for years already and once AIR dies they'll only have to take care of one framework, the one with the technology that isn't dead. Get over it already and prepare yourself.

[phillipkerman]

Without speaking for all the "whiners", I think you don't understand my concern.  If Adobe would make a commitment, they'd be beholden to their shareholders to stick to it.... so if they said, "it's over" I could then use that as justification for the investment my customers would need to do.  If they said "we're committed" (and I'm not talking about the last post they had 2 years ago) then similarly, that would justify my customers to invest in a little more AIR work.  As is, I'm expected to make predictions that have real dollar results to my customers.  As is, I can only guess and have a 50/50 chance of being wrong--which is not acceptable to them.

Another comment above says their company is okay with sitting around for 30 days for Adobe to update something.  The last time this bit my customer it almost meant the end of my relationship with them.  I am NOT okay with that.  I'm fine with Adobe stepping back, but all I want is for some clarity.  All these comments are from people who--with all due respect--have no clue what Adobe will do.

Adobe: just make an official statement and give us a break.  We all love(d) AIR and just need to make some business decisions.  Having said all this, at least one customer has made the prudent decision already.  I'll spare you what that was because I'm sure it'll trigger many to say I'm just whining or whatever.

[ASWC]

Our customers are driving our technology, if we were still sticking to Flash, I'll be out of a job and my company would be out of business, it's that's simple and it's reality. As far as AIR is concerned we are still using it but we already started to get complains. The recurring argument being using an Adobe tech that Adobe can't seem to officially praise and commit to seems reckless from a company like us and we should know better. The problem is, we have no comebacks to that argument because they are simply right. We cannot say "oh but Adobe praises it, Adobe is super committed" cos that's simply not the case. So yes we are moving away from AIR and by the end of this year we should be completely "AIR free". And despite the fact that it's wasn't really our decision we are pretty happy about it since now we are only using tech with pretty clear roadmaps and commitments.

[zwetan_uk]

phillipkerman  wrote

All these comments are from people who--with all due respect--have no clue what Adobe will do.

Sorry we do have a clue what Adobe will do because ... Flash.

When Adobe made the decision to stop supporting Flash they made an official statement on July 2017

and clearly announced when they will stop supporting Flash: "at the end of 2020".

Flash & The Future of Interactive Content | Adobe Blog

So the clue is simple really, if/when Adobe will make the decision to stop supporting AIR

they will officially announce it and they will do so a couple years before the actual end date.

Have you heard such official announcement? no.
That's it end of debate.

All the rest about "being smart", "moving to other tech", "prediction of doom", etc.

are just fluff, BS and FUD.

[phillipkerman]

Funny.  You don't work for Adobe right?

I have it from a recent Adobe employee that the product is already sun setted.  You can make uninformed statements like we'll have 2 years more of support after some announcement from Adobe, but I think that's what is BS.  

What's your explanation for the fact they said they'd have a road map 2 years ago and have been silent--even locking the thread? 

I've been through similar product ends, I'm pretty old really... I can see the writing on the wall.   What's your theory for why Adobe won't even make a statement here?  They're just too busy working on AIR right? 

I actually would prefer that I was wrong but until Adobe says otherwise mark my words.

[mrfrasier]

If you already have it on good authority, then you shouldn't need an official announcement?

"Adobe: just make an official statement and give us a break.  We all love(d) AIR and just need to make some business decisions. "

[phillipkerman]

I definitely need--for the bean counters at a particular company--something official. 

[PedroFernandezEteria]

phillipkerman, I repeat my words from my post:

"I dont think they are going to stop updating it right now. I do not believe it at all. I sincerely believe that they will finish all the points of the last planning (eg: Android 64bits). But I also think that when they finish that, they will be a few years only updating it to work to the latest versions of android, ios, windows, mac..."

"... but from there they will cut forever."

"This does not mean either that you should stop using Adobe AIR right now. We will continue using it for a series of projects, because it is the most agile development platform for them. And it will not stop working overnight..."

And ... In your specific case and that of others:

"...But it can mean that you have to start looking for other alternatives for the future."

"Sunsetted" can mean many things. From my point of view, it means that it is not a mainstream technology anymore. It is not a priority. It also means there is no "roadmap" because Adobe does not want to commit to continue adding new features to the technology. Only to update it to work properly on the various platforms for a few years.

It is true that they are not words from Adobe, but if you have experience at the time of "decadence" of other technologies you will also know that although the responsible company usually "abandons" a product little by little. ("it will not stop working overnight.")

For example the case of "Director". I worked with Director for many years, and at one time was "abandoned" by other "mainstream" products. There was no official news about Director, nor any type of official roadmap. But I kept working years and years because what I already had at that time was enough to develop projects. And also Macromedia / Adobe kept updating with small additions (the things that allowed at that time was more than enough, as with Flash / AIR today).

I tell you all this using logic and common sense.

I do not know your specific needs, but have you tried Haxe / OpenFL ?. Maybe it's the closest thing to the Flash ecosystem, al least for some types of projects.