Based on the comments from Sean Michael Kerner on internetnews , the Verizon CEo doesn't understand the impact of open source, or even can successfully parse the question.

What's even more interesting is this report from Cnet, "Verizon switches programmers to Linux" So in spite of saving millions in 2002, the CEO doesn't recognize open source.

Or this one from linux-watch, in which Linux is chosen as the Verizon mobile platform.

My CEO can tell you what open source is. I suspect yours does too.

Anyway, I'm more than willing to serve a couple of years to help the good folks at Verizon understand the impact open source can and does have on their business every day.  And I'll even throw in some free consultations to the board.

I'm not a lawyer, though I get to spend a lot of time around them in relation to standards and open source work. So here goes.

First, the specification is a document. It describes the SWF file format. It's like a book (albeit a short one). You, the reader don't need a license to read a book.

Open nearly any book and you'll see a copyright notice basically saying you can't copy the book. Same thing here

In fact, let's think of this as a cookbook. There are some pretty interesting recipes (SWF, FLV/F4V, AMF) that are there. You can certainly bake a SWF "cake" based on the recipe, and you don't need our permission to do so. You might have to buy some exotic ingredients that the recipe calls for to get it exactly like the lovely illustrative pictures, but you don't expect the cookbook to contain all your ingredients. And while some places provide ingredients for free (such as Tamarin or Flex SDK), not all ingredients are equally free (just as codecs aren't free even to us).

You buy your ingredients (or grow them, if you wish), you use the SWF recipe to bake it, and  voila, a SWF-powered application.

Now, as with nearly every product, specification, etc around, there's other interesting text.  Trademarks, references to other links, no offer of warranty on the contents. Again, absolutely normal. If you build it, you can't call it by our trademark names. If you use  someone else's materials, we aren't responsible for the contents.  (Here, think of using a oven to bake that cake.  We aren't responsible for bad eggs someone else sells you, nor if you mislabeled salt as sugar). And it's absolutely standard for no warranty to be extended.  Your "cake" is completely under your control, and we aren't responsible for how it turns out.

SO, no copyright traps. Feel free to write your own software that implements the specification. Since the specification does not include source code, you can't infringe our source code.

So, we'll look into ways to clarify the issues, but bottom line is that the specification is open and ready for you to cook up a storm.

(actually, there are a lot of our projects out there on the newly launched Adobe Open Source site.)

In short, open source is important to Adobe.

 A year ago (a bit more), when I joined Adobe for open source, I was personally frustrated in trying to find all the places we have open source activities. And yes, it's not perfect yet.  But one of O'Reilly's thoughts on development patterns in open source is the perpetual beta. Consider our open source work a perpetual beta; it's change, evolve, grow.

There was some interesting blogs on how little, how slow.

Well, let's look at it this way. A research paper pointed out the change in communication models over the years, from phone calls, to emails, to IM and Tweets. The interesting things was in the age dynamic. Kids tend to favor the 140 character message, adults favor the phone call.

Well, many of you probably are in the mix of email, IM, tweet, etc, You've learned the power of new behavior. Companies also need to learn new behavior.And we're trying to move a company by the easy way, explanation, rather than the hard way, explosion.

Anyway, I'm sitting here at the Adobe Engage event, and we demonstrated the AIR alpha on Linux (Ubuntu), with the same app directly across from Mac.  Small steps, but the fact that they are occurring are important.

So it's a journey. Please join in with us. We're recreating the experience and making it possible to show Adobe the interest and power of the open source world. But that depends on you as much as it does us.

And it even got noticed. Be it Shankland on CNET, appearances on "The Open Season" , or just a chance to delve back into the roots with Adobe Edge, it's been a pretty active year. And now, one more step.

Adobe is launching it own portal into Open at Adobe. Yeah, it's low key, but then, it's about source of it all, not just glitz and glamor.  It's where to find all sorts of stuff that's going on in Adobe, source, news.  It's a place to talk to us. It's a place to tell us what you're working on.

Like any good project, you could think of this site as perpetual beta. It's going to change, and hopefully, you'll be one of those folks helping it change. In fact, if you've got an open source project related to Adobe products, tell us about it.

So, please.  Hop over to http://opensource.adobe.com.  Say HI!, download some code, tell us what you think.

And feel free to come back.

Adobe has joined with Mozilla and Symbian to support the work of the SQLite Consortium to help ensure free, open access and development of SQLite.

The SQLite Consortium is a group of companies that use SQLite in their products and who have banded together to help insure that the SQLite Developers have funding to continue enhancing and improving SQLite and so insure that the SQLite Developers remain independent and free to act in the best interests of the community.

Adobe recognizes the importance of providing support for technology and tools that are open source because of its value to the entire developer community. By supporting the work of the SQLite consortium, Adobe is supporting the continued growth and improvements in SQLite.

SQLite is a different concept in SQL databases and is intended for non-traditional roles. SQLite is serverless - it writes directly to ordinary disk file, and SQLite is designed to require no maintenance or administration. And SQLite powers a heck of a lot of products, from Adobe and from others.

Adobe's support of the SQLite Consortium demonstrates Adobe's commitment to open source, and belief that technologies such as SQLite should remain independent and free in the best interests of the community.

And the Rich Internet Application space is ready for both. Adobe® AIR™ lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.

Over on one of my counterparts (James Ward) blogs, is an invitation to apply for an opportunity to test AIR on Linux.

You know, this isn't for the faint of heart.  It's in the wild and wooley world of lots of builds, lots of things that might not work.  But I can't think of any group that  could make it possible for AIR to make it onto Linux.

So, hop over to the home of Adobe's RIA Cowboy and give us a hand.

Privatization, or privateering. Are those chum filled waters attracking pirates? And it's not even "talk like a pirate day"

Read more about it on Groklaw.

I said it in 1998 and it's still true today. "Linux will only be important when nobody cares."

End users don't care about the operating system. Developers care. Information architects care. Administrators care. But the guy doing his job, be it reading email, talking on his phone, driving a taxi doesn't care... as long as it works. When it breaks, then these guys get upset. Why/where is Linux successful today? In places controlled by a "care' category. Where is it heading? In places where "breaking" means a big deal. What's been the hard part to crack? (In '99 I predicted a 5% desktop for Linux by 2006). Places where it OS is overwhelmed by the applications.

Fortunately, the applications are coming up to meet the "good enough" levels and the "doesn't break" requirements. And fortunately, people are beginning to care.

Linux is an (nearly) invisible enabling technology. So was Intel at one time. Intel successfully branded "Intel Inside". Unfortunately, it's not "Linux inside" to the end user, it's Red Hat, or Debian, or SuSE, or Ubuntu. It could be "Linux Inside", but based on a previous life with MIPS, the phrase really should be "Attitude Inside". (This was a short lived T-shirt run of MIPS before the Intel lawyers sharpened their pens.)

The open source world is full of attitude. It's full of ambition, talent, overarching goals and ego. It's creative, driven and a great place to work. But in infrastructure, it's invisible (except to specialized people who care) and should be. And in applications, it needs the attitude to drive and thrive.

We hype how well Apache does, and it's success being an open source success. Nonsense. Apache's success is  because of how well it works, what it does, and to be fair, it's underlying costs. Maybe driven by open source, but not because it is open source.  And honestly, of the billions of hits on Apache served pages, how many of those visitors ever go "Wow. Thank goodness this web site is running on open source Apache!".

Does the average advertising executive care if the image he picked was photoshopped or GIMPed? Really? The artist may care, the designer might care, the ad exec could care less.

One of my colleagues has a rule here that you may not just say "XML".  You have to state "XML for ". Try it.  XML alone describes nothing.  XML for ____ describes everything. Linux needs a similar rule.

Anyway, my apologies for the rant. Triggered by an exchange of emails on how we need to promote Linux... when honestly, it will win just as well without hype.

How the mighty have fallen.

It seems particularly telling when the SCO site is advertising the hot news for SCO Unix is the "Free Daylight Saving Time Patch".

Oh well...