As for the requirement for the license to enable automation it does seem logical to make it a property of Professional edition only. Something has to be exclusive if you have editions after all!

Yes and no. I would say “it depends”. It depends upon the model they (Adobe) want to apply, to make money while still being open source.

One would be to sell “specially tested” versions (eg. for FDS) or specially licensed versions for license indemnification.

Another would be to sell addon services, like consulting.

I don’t think any of these apply for what Adobe is doing, but please correct me if I am wrong. What it does look like, is Adobe trying to make money from the IDE, FlexBuilder. In addition to this, they have some extra components (Data Visualization), that they think are special enough to not be open-source and to be payware.

Now, why on earth they have chosen to bundle it all together with the IDE, so I have to buy a license for all of it, to get at some of it, I don’t know.

Another thing is: Why is the main API for doing automated testing not part of the platform? Development on earth have come to a common understanding, that automated testing is a good thing. Hence, it needs to be part of any development platform with respect for itself. When automated testing isn’t part of flex, they should not tell us, that one can chose the free SDK and develop flex for free.

That is my opinion!

As for the requirement for the license to enable automation it does seem logical to make it a property of Professional edition only. Something has to be exclusive if you have editions after all!