Open Source and Standards
Another issue surrounding Flash is that it is controlled by one organization, Adobe. Flash is not considered “open-source,” which means that Adobe does not allow outside developers or corporations to modify the product, unlike other platforms and languages such as WordPress, OpenGL, and to a degree HTML (which is controlled through an independent committee called the W3C or World Wide Web Consortium).
What makes open source so nice to developers and users is that anyone can collaborate on the language and add new functionality at will. However, this is also one of the negatives of Open Source. Just because you can contribute, doesn’t mean that you should – and there are many “Open Source” tools out there that don’t work, or worse – can cause harm a program our your computer. However – there are typically far more features that do work properly, and can greatly expand the original functionality of a language or product immensely. WordPress is an example of that – there are tend of thousands of plug-ins available that can easily improve the functionality of a blog within seconds – no long hours of development time!
It is somewhat difficult (but not impossible) to make money off an open-source language or product and let’s face it, Adobe want’s to make money off of Flash. So why would they take a closed tool and open it up for anyone to use or develop for? One possibility is that they begin to lose business to a competing product and they simply have no other choice.
Adobe has some time to weigh that decision, as HTML5 is still not a serious competitor to Flash yet, but if they wait to long to tackle the issue they might find themselves in quite a predicament in the next couple of years.
So what do you think? Should FLASH go open-source? Will that save Flash? Or is it already too late?
josephbm91 on 
