I'd like to direct you at the Flex SDK, which is FOSS:
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK

As far as Flex goes, The most complicated UI element that you don't have source for is the Sprite element, which is analogous to a Canvas in HTML/JS...

Now, linux on Flash has been buggy, it's true... but it has been improving over the years, at least it isn't getting worse.

(on re-read, it appears that you were talking about 'security controls', which I'm not sure I understand... what security controls do browsers provide, that Flash doesn't benefit from (and constrained by)? In fact, Flash had additional XSD protection LONG before HTML/JS ever did.. though crossdomain.xml is horrible, it's at least possible to setup in 15 mins, unlike HTML/JS Same-Origin crap.)

Have you looked into the differences in the event dispatching models between IE and Firefox? How about the different ways to deal with URLS, or the different reactions to mixed SSL content across browsers.

You've obviously not developed a cross-browser application in HTML/Javascript... it requires the use of libraries to abstract away all of these differences, such as YUI, jQuery, prototype, dojo, or closure (plus MANY more). This creates multiple subsets of developers and methodology in the HTML/JS community, making it time-consuming to acclimate new developers as they join new teams. This makes it difficult to recruit developers in a scalable manner, unlike most other development platforms (including, but not limited to, Flash).

Don't get me wrong, I like HTML/JS, but it is significantly easier to develop *large* applications in Flash/Actionscript than HTML/JS. Smaller apps, single-page-scripts are better in HTML/JS, but unless you're using a sledgehammer like Google Closure or GWT, large Web App Development is still confined to Flash/AS.

As a developer who uses a proxy to debug Flash/Flex applications all day, every day, I can assure you that Flash 10.x does, in fact, support using the browser's proxy settings.

If not, this tool wouldn't work:
http://www.charlesproxy.com/

I'm assuming that there is something subtle about your proxy use that is causing the issue... because if millions of people weren't able to play farmville or watch youtube in their corporate cubicle, Google and Zynga and Facebook and nearly everyone else would be crying foul.

Amazon also offers the lowest processing %.

While I agree that Freemium isn't new, I don't think that it meets your definition for 'crippleware'. For instance, Dropbox, Pandora and Rhapsody both offer free services that are enough for a majority of users. Dropbox has a 5-9% rate (depending on who is giving the numbers) of paying customers... the rest are using the free product. The free product isn't crippled, or have 'anti-features'... The only thing you pay for is additional space. Rhapsody offers free stations, and a limited ability to listen to specific songs. Pandora gives free stations, and a limited ability to skip over songs you don't like. Hell, even Redhat offers it's OS as 'Freemium'... you get 'premier support' if you pay for it ;-)

Demo != freemium
Shareware != freemium

Economics evolves as well, trying to keep up with technology. Things change, regardless of how much grumpy old men complain about it.

To be technically correct, they haven't 'closed' the honeycomb source, they just haven't opened it yet.

Overreact much? What 'competitor's product' are you talking about? No app is specified in the question.

The OP didn't say he couldn't figure it out, or even that it was hard. Just that apps haven't standardized. The only reason Android doesn't get called out is that A) so few people have Xooms, and B) Android apps don't rely on gestures, as they have hardware buttons for 'standard' things like back, menu and search.

The OP isn't asking for anything absurd, and it sounds like Apple has it covered, even if the devs don't all follow it. I'm positive that most Android devs won't look to Apple's docs to determine what gestures do what, so it'd be nice to have some sort of UX-specialized site that attempts to standardize it.

You also can't control how much JS is run on the page, or Quicktime, or Canvas.... so you have Zero control over how much CPU anything in your browser will use.

Personally, I think that Thinkpads are the ultimate dev machines because they give you easy access to all major browsers on all major platforms (that is > 5% market share for our target demographic, which excludes any specific mac/browser combination), has awesome editors, great support for all 'alternative' technologies except for git.

But I also agree that this is a troll flamebait that demonstrates just how little thought can go into an article that appears on /. Just because I have a preference for one platform doesn't mean that other platforms are 'unsuitable'. I know a few developers who love their Macs and wouldn't change... most of those are converts from design/marketing, but that doesn't make them any less a developer, and their preferences any less valid.

It does have a monopoly on software that is 'allowed' to transfer music files onto the iPod.

Others have tried to write software that communicates with the iPod, however Apple quickly changes their schemes and then threatens legal action for reverse engineering.

Having a monopoly on software that you wrote for your hardware is, again, NOT ILLEGAL. However, abusing this status IS ILLEGAL.

Not about DRM, about directly transferring music to the iPod, rather than having to go through iTunes.

Nice try, though! (not that I disagree with Real + Broken DRM)

How many commercial applications can copy songs to an iPod?

-none-

Because Apple prevents competition with legal threats. They can't block Linux/Open Source, but they do prevent commercial competition, which is what is illegal. This suit is about the iTunes application, not the music store.

OK, because everyone seems to forget this, every time the 'monopoly' work is brought up.

It is not illegal to have a monopoly. It is illegal to abuse a monopoly.

They are not being sued because everyone uses them, they're being sued because they used their monopoly status to limit competition.

You've always been able to export flash to svg, png, even movies... Problem is that no browsers support the actual SVG spec.

It can't be type-safe, and it can't support real classes. You can't have two javascript 'classes' named the same thing without a collision. You can't have private variables, you can't have getter/setter functions.

ECMA chose to abandon ECMA4 because the majority of javascript developers were too... remedial... to understand such advanced concepts as 'classes'. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of VERY talented developers doing amazing things in Javascript, but their life would be made much easier if they had moved to ECMA4.