Software giant Adobe is among those shaking heads at Oracle and its strategy, or at least lack of tact, with the open source software, including its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, killing off OpenSolaris and Java lawsuit against Google over Android.

It wasn’t that long ago that Adobe was thought of similar to how it’s portraying Oracle: as an opponent of open source. I would agree that Oracle is putting itself in the position of a top open source enemy (an unenviable title for which Apple, Microsoft and others, even Adobe, have found themselves, as well). By launching the Java suit and ending support for OpenSolaris without any counterbalance of message to illustrate that it is indeed not attacking open source software in general and actually has a good appreciation of its development and market power and benefits of participation, Oracle has put itself in an adversarial position. Sure organizations such as Adobe and Microsoft, formerly viewed as foes of open source, stand to benefit from having somebody else be the bad guy, but it is interesting to look at these cases and how the villains are typically tasked with improving their image.

By looking at Adobe and its open source story, we get a better sense of Oracle’s and others’ opportunities to change these perceptions and successfully earn goodwill among open source software communities. There have been times when Adobe was on the top open source enemy list, and it continues to be questioned and accused of ‘co-opting’ the open source brand.

However, as covered in our recent Spotlight report on Adobe (for subscribers or trialists), the company has come to realize the significance of open source and the utility of leveraging it to build and grow its own software, communities and ecosystems (something Adobe is pretty good at). One good example is its recent acquisition of WCM vendor Day Software.

We understand that while it was certainly among other factors, including paid subscription revenue from Day’s non-open source software, the open source and community involvement and activity by Day, also covered in a 451 Group report, helped to drive the deal. In particular, Day’s work with the Apache Software Foundation and what one Adobe official called ‘the technical brand recognition’ that came with Day’s work on open standards and open source software, such as the OSGi Java framework, Apache Felix (an open source implementation of the OSGi framework) and Apache Sling (an open source web framework for Java). It will be interesting to see what happens now, but indications are these Apache projects may serve as the basis for expanded open source efforts under Adobe. We highly doubt that they will be turned into a licensing vehicle for Adobe, serve as the basis of legal action or get killed off, which is what we are seeing from Oracle with its open source assets, illustrating the idea that Oracle does not fully understand or appreciate open source software.

Adobe, Microsoft and many others we’ve covered and talked to are frequently in the position of moving, transitioning and changing from open source enemy or foe into open source participant and supporter. There is no question these vendors are making these moves for their own benefit and future more than their interest in benefiting or contributing to communities and others. However, Adobe and Microsoft have learned they must contribute to communities and others beyond their own brand and interests for open source to work. Their efforts in open source software also show that it is difficult and often thankless work, takes resources and remains precarious indefinitely, when even when you contribute and participate, there are still some folks calling you the bad guy.