Available today on the Open at Adobe website is the freshly launched Adobe Flex 3 SDK. While the news that the Flex 3 SDK would be open source is long past its prime. The actual details of its availability have only just come to light.

When you prepare to grab the Flex 3 SDK its important to consider your options. While all of the source for the Flex 3 tools have been open sourced, including the Flex Framework and compilers, the toolset available at no cost to developers extends beyond just Flex. As such some of these tools can not be open sourced at this time. What does this mean to you as a developer? Adobe has released two Flex 3 SDK packages for download.

If your project requires that you use only truely open source tools then the Open Source Flex SDK is for you. This download and the code contained are licensed under the MPL.

However this download will not include Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR and some of the font tools that are also available at no cost to developers. If you are interested in recieving these tools also you have 2 choices. First option is to download the Free Adobe Flex SDK which includes the Open Source Flex SDK and in addition to that all the non-open source tools listed above. If you already have the Open Source Flex SDK then your second option is to download the Adobe Add-ons for Open Source Flex SDK The open source code distributed in these packages is still under MPL and is explicitly labeled. The additional code bits are licensed under the Adobe Flex SDK License.

So choose wisely, then go forth and build exciting new technologies with the tools available from Open at Adobe.