AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) allows Internet-enabled applications to run on Windows and Mac OS X desktops. AIR applications use the same technologies as Web applications built to run inside a browser, including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and Flash, Adobe's own multimedia programming language. 

Now, Adobe Systems has joined the Linux Foundation to focus on Linux for Web 2.0 Applications. Adobe Systems released an early alpha version of its rich Internet application platform AIR for Linux.

Programmers can use Adobe's Flex software development tools to build applications for AIR. The company also released Adobe Flex Builder Linux alpha 3 on Monday, allowing developers to build Flex applications using Linux.