Adobe: 'Open' But Not Always Open Source

Adobe has established itself as one of the leading forces in shaping Internet content, applications and development with technologies like Flash and PDF. While Adobe  is not a full-fledged open source company today, the company argues that it is making "open" efforts for its Web technology -- and it sees active participation in the broader open source ecosystem a key way to spread its offerings.

For instance, while neither Flash nor PDF are entirely open source, Adobe said it's making what it described as "open" efforts in support of those technologies, aimed at furthering adoption and development.

Changing that has become especially important for Adobe, as it tries win over the heart and minds of developers as it continues to scale up its Flash-based AIR effort in competition with Microsoft's Silverlight media framework.

One key component of Adobe's efforts centers on working to release its core technology as open source.

Flex is the framework on top of which Rich Internet Application (RIAs) can be built. In terms of promoting Flex, the move seems to be paying off. McAllister noted that since Flex became open source, the number of downloads doubled each year, and added that its currently seeing 15,000 downloads a month.

One of the big questions, though, is when will Adobe open source its Flash Player. While several of its underlying technologies have been released as open source, the completed product, which plays Flash content, hasn't. And it may not be going fully open source anytime soon.

Adobe also said it's keen to participate in industry standard efforts to keep the Web an open place. One such standard is HTML 5, which is currently under development. McAllister sees HTML 5 as being important as it will help to get rid of some browser incompatibilities while introducing new standard features.

For Adobe, McAllister said that there real value in being open. He noted that Adobe is able to get technologies into the marketplace faster -- and that feedback is faster too.

"We are not an altruistic company we are interested in making money, but we do it by providing support for these technologies," he said.

He also said that developers are taking Adobe's products and technologies in direction that Adobe itself wasn't necessarily going.