Adobe is an unusual large company, in that it has successfully managed the transition between closed and open before. Starting with the fonts for postscript printers, just a few years after Adobe was founded. Flash itself was also (somewhat) opened a few years back, to successfully fend off open source alternatives - though I don't recall if it was still owned by Macromedia at that time. They've also known when they could successfully stay closed despite vigorous open competition, as in Photoshop vs. Gimp.

So Adobe probably understands the issues of open/closed better than anyone, and has an organizational structure that has proven able to adapt to it.

[ Though it's worth noting that MS made an incredible sacrifice to ship windows for netbooks at a massive discount, to fend off linux. Although I use a linux netbook myself, I have to admire their foresight and fortitude. Another company is Intel. Although I don't have a specific story for them, Andy Grove wrote a book Only the Paranoid Survive, and also has a blurb on the cover of The Innovator's Dilemma ("lucid, analytical - and scary" he says) - they know the danger, and have lasted a long long time, as the driver (and proposer) of Moore's Law. ]

That may be true, but we can hold ourselves as a community to a higher level of clarity and correctness.