Open Source is Not an Easy Solution, as Adobe Discovers

Adobe weighs the costs and benefits of open sourcinf Flash...

"Adobe is under mounting community pressure to open source Flash, but as The Register reports, it's easier to talk about open source than to actually deliver it. I'm guessing that the fact that Microsoft's Silverlight has yet to make any serious inroads against Flash as the biggest reason for Adobe's alleged lack of appetite for open sourcing Flash.

"However, that's just one aspect. There's also the fact that open source is easier as a soundbite than it is as a business strategy. In the case of the Flash player, specifically, 65 percent of the code is not owned by Adobe, making open sourcing it a long and laborious project, just as it was with Sun's Java technology..."