OpenLaszlo 4.2 is the recommended platform for all application development in the SWF8, SWF9, and DHTML runtimes. The major new feature in OpenLaszlo 4.2 is the introduction of the SWF9 runtime, which can offer significant performance gains. Unlike previous versions of the Flash player, SWF9 has much stronger typing requirements and you must modify your code to take advantage of the performance gains it offers. To assist you in upgrading your applications to OpenLaszlo 4.2, we have provided various conversion scripts depending on your application goals.

To migrate your 4.0.X or 4.1.1 applications, we strongly suggest that you refer to this wiki page: Runtime_Differences. This page discusses the changes required by SWF9 and also provides a methodology for upgrading your application. It is very important that you run the automated conversion scripts in the recommended order

Late notice, since the call for papers is closing soon, but I just noticed this; CommunityOne is, among other things, looking for papers on RIAs -- so if you're doing something interesting with OpenLaszlo and want to talk about it, here's an opportunity.

CommunityOne is not as well known as its older brother, JavaOne. 2008 was the first year that I got to go. The event is going to be a bit bigger in 2009 — in fact, the event will be held both on the west coast and on the east coast. The conference is focused on “open source innovation and implementation”, and this year the conference planners are looking for talks on “cloud computing and virtualization, dynamic languages and scripting (PHP, Ajax, Python, Ruby, JavaScript), databases (MySQL, postgreSQL), web and application servers (GlassFish, Apache), operating systems (OpenSolaris, Linux), mobile development (Java ME, Android, Symbian), and tools (NetBeans, Eclipse, Sun Studio)”.

Here are the details:

CommunityOne East - March 18-19, 2009 - New York City
CommunityOne West - June 1-2, 2009 - San Francisco
Deadline to submit speaking abstracts: Dec. 11, 2008

(via Ted Leung; thanks, Ted!)