Adobe Founders Respond to Apple’s Jobs

[Xithras]

Adobe Systems Inc. criticized Apple Inc. in newspaper advertisements and on its website, saying the exclusion of its video software from the computer maker’s iPad and iPhone stifles competition.

Adobe is advertising its public missive in 24 newspapers and websites, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, in response to criticisms of Adobe’s software by Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs. The Adobe letter, signed by founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, says that Apple’s actions could “undermine” the future of the Internet.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-13/adobe-founders-respond-to-apple-s-jobs-in-ads-letter-update5-.html

The letter itself can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/choice/openmarkets.html

A few quotes

"The genius of the Internet is its almost infinite openness to innovation. New hardware. New software. New applications. New ideas. They all get their chance."
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"If the web fragments into closed systems, if companies put content and applications behind walls, some indeed may thrive — but their success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the Internet a revolutionary force.

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web."
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"We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company."


It will be interesting to see how, or if, Jobs responds. Apple has been coming under growing fire lately, and have watched as their "underdog" image is slowly being replaced with a trepidation that they are rapidly heading down a proprietary and monopolistic path with their technology developments, and the recent public war of words with Adobe isn't helping. If Jobs is smart, he'll just let it go. Something tells me he won't....

[onehandle]

1. They have full page ads: Adobe (hearts) Apple. Nope, it's Adobe NEEDS Apple.

HTML 5 > Flash.

HTML 5 is open and owned by nobody.

Flash is a closed, ancient technology.

I instructed my last group of creatives to stop using it last year.

Give it up, Adobe.

[WeDidIt]

5. Fuck 'em both

Fuck Adobe and Fuck Apple.

And Fuck Microsoft while we're at it.

Not a one of them adheres to standards. They ALWAYS extend to exterminate competition and openness.

[MUAD_DIB]

6. What creative biz are you in?

We've never made flash sites. Accessibility has always been the issue.

[onehandle]

7. There were a few pointless Flash widgets on our legacy consumer website.

When my team began a total redesign, I said no Flash whatsoever.

The former CEO (who was tossed out the year before) thought Flash was 'sexy' and 'futuristic.'

He and his 'hip' Flash animations were antiques and as Creative Director, I was glad to see him go.

[madokie]

8. What is an alternative for adobe flash in Ubuntu?

What someone down thread said, fuck 'm all three

[kenny blankenship]

10. h.264 is the video codec standard for HTML5 & to call that "open" is to rape the language

and charge it a fee for your valuable raping services on top of it.

Microsoft has 75 seventy-five patents bound up in h.264. Apple has one too. AT&T has patents embedded in h.264, as does Dolby, Toshiba, Sony, and Thomson (french corporation that owns RCA) In all, 26 companies are patent holders under the h.264 "open standard".

And they all want to get paid.

Oh don't worry about paying all these guys and the MPEG- licensing authority until 2015 at least. If you're making commercial content with h.264 codec using hardware or sofware you won't have to pay them directly --promise! After 2015, well, they're being coy and not saying what will happen after 2015. But you can bet there'll be a lot of zeroes at the end of it. (What happened to your cable internet bill, after the teaser rate period expired?) For the present though it's bad enough: if you want to build a piece of software like a web browser, let's call it "Firefox" for no particular reason, and you want to ship a component that allows the browser to view this supposedly "open" video content that will be everywhere thanks to herdlike web developers, you have to pay the MPEG-LA five million dollars tribute a year. Which, if you're the Mozilla foundation, who are the developers of Firefox, you don't have to give.

So basically, the OS - web browser monopoly enjoyed by a certain convicted monopolist has now been hedged against its only competition by the reckless adoption of an so-called "open" standard.

What we have here is an abuse of language, (and maybe patent law) with the free and open internet taking it in the shorts. What these corporate players want and are working towards is not "openness" and "standards nobody owns" but control - airtight control from content creation toolchain to the enduser platform. And so far as the Adobe vs. MSApple-Soft controversy goes, that's just one set of corporate propaganda trying to out lie another. MSApple-soft took a page from Orwell and called their strategy an "open standard" since Adobe's product was defined by singular ownership. With either camp, the internet is under threat of proprietary control, arguably even worse with the MSApple-Soft consortium since they don't just play in the content creation niche, but dominate the enduser platform.


"Jobs says it's Open!"

[BlueIdaho]

2. Yeah...

If there's one thing Adobe really loves and cherishes it openness and freedom...

Right.

[depakid]

4. Yep- pox on both their houses.

[William Z. Foster]

3. talk about the pot calling the kettle black

Adobe is complaining?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. This is an example why I never buy Apple products

I don't love Flash, Adobe, or M$. However I reject that a company should be able to control what I put on the hardware I pay for. Apple has wanted to control apps on the Mac, but never could quite pull that off. M$ Office was what prevent that.

As a developer, I have looked at Iphone/Ipad developer agreement. You want to talk about a one sided contract.