Coming soon: Laszlo (presentation server optional)

Coming soon: Laszlo (presentation server optional).
When we started developing Laszlo platform in 2001, we targeted the
Flash 5 player as our first client runtime environment. It was
ubiquitous and compatible, and it provided the raw materials for a real
application framework. That meant we needed a server to compensate for
missing or weak features in the client …

Were it not for (1) the deficiencies of the Flash 5 Player, and (2)
the low perceived value of compilers and runtime libraries, it would
have been possible to package most of Laszlo's functionality without
the need for a runtime server.

As for client deficiencies, Flash 6 addressed most of these
problems. Until recently it wasn't truly ubiquitous, but it is now
bundled with Windows (just now, as of Win XP SP 2) and its penetration
is comparable to Flash 5 when we started. …

With Laszlo's new business model built on top of an open-source
platform, we are now in a position to make the presentation server an
optional component of a Laszlo deployment. Sometime over the next few
months, we'll release a build that allows you to compile LZX files on a
developer's machine, and post the resulting SWF to a Web server. The
SWF in the browser will communicate with XML and media sources
directly, with no intervening presentation (proxy) server. For many
Laszlo applications, this will mean no need to install Java on the
server, no need to deal with new servlets or test presentation server
scalability. [davidtemkin.com]

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