Adobe Top Ten in Open Source

According to CNET News.com (link), Adobe is ranked in the top ten for open source.

Excerpt:

Adobe Systems was one. It's long been a powerful proprietary-software company, but its acquisition of Macromedia led to a new sharing ethos. Shortly after a major donation of script-execution code to the Mozilla Foundation last year, Adobe announced in April the open-source release of its Flex tool for Flash programming.


As an Adobe employee, I cannot overstate the importance for Adobe of being open. As our Linux strategy has been greatly improved in 2007, we have also become aware that the next generation of the Internet (what some are calling Web 2.0) will be largely built on open technologies. I mentioned this in a recent German interview with Die Welt.

This group of technologies, to me, is comprised of the following:

1. Open Source - software you compile and can modify to do what you want. Bugs fixed when you want them and nightly builds.

2. Open Standards - software and protocol specifications designed to integrate systems and enable interoperability. Such standards must not only be not controlled by a single vendor in the end, but also be part of a free and democratic process, have multiple implementations to verify the standard, and be pervasive.

3. Open APIs - sharing the functionality. The basis of the new web is SOA, an approach to architecture to match needs and capabilities amongst disparate domains of ownership.

4. Open roadmaps and bug databases - to help us help ourselves.

I am proud to work for a company that recognizes the importance of these aspects and listens to its developers and users.

Happy new year!