Openness (in tech, not theology)

Lately there's been a war of words. Well, more like a war over the definition of one word: open.
Part technical, part ideological, supporters of Open technologies go back to Unix/Linux, where people rebelled against the slow machinations of Microsoft and hoped to pool the talents of nerds across the globe to write software that benefited everyone rather than a single corporate interest.

The current etymological battle is between Apple & Adobe. Apple is famous for being the more closed, experience-controlling company in the industry (which also results in the easy, seamless experiences that attract so many customers). Adobe is known for selling bloated, expensive software to developers, and the slow, resource-hogging Flash plugin that we associate with laptop fans going to full blast and annoying pop-up advertisements. Adobe is acting like Apple has shunned it by not allowing Flash on the iPhone or iPad, however there is still not even a solid beta of flash for ANY phone, even Google's Nexus One. Apple also recently banned Flash & other 3rd party tools from the AppStore. Knowing that this is one of their last great cash cows, Adobe has responded that Apple has closed off an "open" technology and limited developer choice. Jim Whimpey responds here.

Clearly I am on the same side. For all the whining that goes on about Apple controlling the iPhone, the killer app has always been Safari. Apple doesn't act as toll-keeper for the internet. If you're ideologically aligned towards Open software, 1) don't hitch your wagon to Adobe, which doesn't support linux and wants to be the middleman getting rich off of the internet, & 2) you should make your work free as a web app rather than insisting on opening up the AppStore. The heavy hand of Apple has made the AppStore so simple that 80 year olds are excited about trying new software. What it does not need is buggy, me-too apps crowding the store.

Apple makes software and hardware, a unique place in this industry. They've bet their company on highly controlling the hardware and what has access to it, and tried to help make the web as open and interoperable as possible. With Webkit and the many other technologies that Apple gives away, I'd say do more work for free than Adobe does as an entire company. The battle of who's more open is irrelevant when Apple never claims to be open, but when Adobe is on the offensive, the proof should be in the open source pudding.

Update: John Gruber has weighed in on this same topic today, with far more insight & technical know-how than I can offer. Perhaps it is best summed up by his tweet, "If you buy Adobe's argument is that Flash is open because they've published a file format spec, then Microsoft Office is open too, right?" Also, Adobe has responded to Microsoft and Apple's claims that Flash Player is buggy and insecure by saying that is "old news." They don't mention that it contains the second-most attacked vulnerability on the web.