Adobe doesn't defend director's pro-open source comments

IS DITCHING OPEN SOURCE being considered at Adobe? The company has contacted The INQUIRER after we quoted one of its senior managers criticising Oracle for its anti-open sauce attitude.

In an email to The INQUIRER Adobe corporate communication's senior director Holly Campbell said, "Dave McAllister, Adobe's Director of Open Source and Standards, posted a comment to the Open@Adobe blog that was critical of Oracle and its approach to open standards.

"Dave's point of view is his alone and does not represent the opinion of Adobe. Oracle is a valued partner and this blog post does not reflect our position on Oracle's business strategy."

The email was triggered by The INQUIRER's Friction blog reporting the resignation of the Open Solaris board after Oracle decided to drop support for its open source version of Solaris that it inherited from Sun. That blog post included comments made by McAllister on his employer's Open@Adobe blog.

The interesting sentence that appealed to The INQUIRER's conspiratorial mind was "I do wonder who's next in the shift from open source commitment that Oracle seems to be leading". And so does The INQUIRER. In our Friction blog post we wrote, "Adobe maybe?".

The company, whose major software products are most definitely proprietary in nature, has so far only dipped its toes into the crystal clear waters of the open source ocean. While Adobe supports a number of open source projects that interact with its proprietary software products, none of its principal products are open source and none seem to be in the offing. This makes us wonder if and for how long the company will continue to support projects that aren't directly generating revenue.

And we'll watch McAllister's career with interest. µ