It looks like Adobe is opening up the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) and the Text Layout Framework (TLF), both using the Mozilla Public License (MPL), and a nice simple patent statement:

By releasing OSMF under MPL 1.1, Adobe is granting certain patent rights to this code. Adobe may seek patents for innovations in OSMF to defend its technologies against patent assertions.

Note that this is a positive statement, that is Abode is explictly granting rights. Contrast this with the various Promises offered by Microsoft where the promise is negative: “we will not sue”. That is one of the issues that the FSF also has a problem with, as mentioned in the recent release on C#:

The Community Promise does not give you any rights to exercise the patented claims. It only says that Microsoft will not sue you over claims in patents that it owns or controls. If Microsoft sells one of those patents, there’s nothing stopping the buyer from suing everyone who uses the software.

Food for thought there, especially considering the proxy battles Microsoft has waged against Linux in the past; $86M to SCO, for one example.

Maybe it’s worth explictly telling those people that say things like: “Microsoft would be suicidal to sue” that that is simply not true. Microsoft could easily sell off one patent to any patent troll company to attack Linux with – then what? It’s not like Microsoft doesn’t spawn patent troll companies.

Industry Media Reaction

The most interesting analysis I’ve seen so far is from InfoWorld, who place this move in the context of both Silverlight and Mircrosoft’s recent virtualization code contribution.

Anything released by Adobe to open up Flash is great, and Adobe seems to be recognized the value in capturing Open Source developers.

Additional Thoughts

I think it’s clear that Adobe and Microsoft are the two main competitors in the so-called Rich Internet Application (RIA) arena; we don’t have a real Free option here.

Given those two choices, it’s clear that to the extent that FLOSS development needs to be done in that space, I feel it should be focused on Adobe’s offerings, but they don’t seem to have a whole lot of resources put on the Open Source side of things just yet.

Check the Adobe Open Source site to see what Adobe is doing there – it’s not very slick, not very community oriented. Microsoft is doing everything they can to emulate and fake “community” because they rightfully saw community as one of the great strengths of Open Source. I don’t think Adobe fully sees that yet.