I'm so happy I can finally talk about this -- the latest exciting update in the world of open source Flash: Mike Chambers just announced the release of the Flash/JavaScript Integration Kit as open source.

According to the project site, The Flash/JavaScript Integration Kit "allows developers to get the best of the Flash and HTML worlds by enabling JavaScript to invoke ActionScript functions, and vice versa. All major data types can be passed between the two environments including: objects, arrays, strings, numbers, dates, booleans, nulls and undefined. The Flash JavaScript Integration Kit works across all major browsers and operating systems. It is released under an open license derived from the Apache 1.1 license."

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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will be making its first foray into open source Flash by announcing the release of an open source Flash component set this Thursday at the London Macromedia User Group. The BBC's previous (and ongoing) open source efforts include the Dirac video codec and Kamaelia network testing platform.

The component set is called SMX Components, and contains components developed and used last year in the BBC News 2004 US Election Map application and, more recently, this year on the 2005 UK Election Map application. The latter contains the most up-to-date public versions of the components currently. Both applications have received rave reviews, with the Inquirer going so far as to call Flash the only winner in the US election in an article that features the 2004 US Election Map application. The 2005 UK Election Map is currently a Flash Film Festival finalist at FlashForward 2005 New York in the Application Category.

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We are living in exciting times. Macromedia just released four very important pieces of news. What are these announcements, what do they mean to you, the Flash/Flex/RIA developer and what indicators do they give regarding the future of the Flash and RIA worlds? Let's explore each question in turn.

What was announced?

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I had a nice little surprise waiting for me when I got back from rollerblading -- I know it sounds cool but I just started and really suck at it -- tonight: An email from the kind folks on the FlashForward team telling me that I'm today's featured speaker.

All of the Flash Conferences I've attended and spoken at this year have been absolutely amazing and FlashForward promises to carry on the tradition. Looking at the line-up there are so many speakers whose sessions I absolutely do not want to miss.

Charles Krempeaux's question on the MTASC list on how to create and use dynamically linked libraries in Flash prompted me to create a utility class called DLLLoader (yes, that's three L's, so sue me!) that lets you easily work with ActionScript code libraries compiled as SWFs.

You can download the classes, a sample application and read more about it on the Using a SWF as a DLL page on OSFlash.