Adobe's Open Standards Collateral Damage

It's now been more than a week since Microsoft announced that its licensing discussions with Adobe had fallen apart after four months of negotiations. We don't know a great deal more now that Adobe has released a statement, but what we do know is bad for open standards.

While others have a variety of concerns relating to this chain of events, mine is very limited:  standards are created, and rely, primarily on a system of trust.  If someone violates that trust, it shakes the entire infrastructure to its core.  Did that happen here?  Nobody knows, except Microsoft and Adobe, and so far neither of them is talking.  Until one of them does, the incident casts a serious pall over the viability of the standard setting system. 

Full Story