So, I tend hate comments on the web because people like to "win" and are often disrespectful of others and I wanted to reply to you because I think you added something valuable to the thread (and that we don't acknowledge that enough online).

Often there are more than one ways of looking at things (see the quote in my HN profile). Flash can totally be considered open and just no one has put the effort in like Adobe has to make a good player - and you're right that Apple could make a mostly complete Flash player if they were willing to put the effort in. But, from my perspective, it isn't as open as I'd like. Adobe/Macromedia did stymie alternative players for many years - even including clauses in their players EULA that you couldn't work on an alternative implementation. Those days are gone and Adobe publishes the Flash spec (which is an awesome step that we should acknowledge no matter where we stand on the Flash debate). However, there are always little things like RTMP which have edge cases that aren't as open. And my personal opinion is that open technologies don't come from one company or person and can be improved by everyone.

Even if a technology comes from one person or company, that can be the catalyst of a broader community that works on it. Take WebM. Google is the company behind VP8. However, as the WebM site says, "A key factor in the web’s success is that its core technologies such as HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP are open for anyone to implement and improve." That implies that Google is expecting others to contribute and for it to become like HTML or JavaScript or Canvas. That's exciting for me (compared to Flash where improvements just come down from on high). And, to be honest, if Adobe were totally committed to openness, they could try to get the WC3 involved in Flash. There are standards bodies that could take over Flash or they could start a project like WebM with Google, Mozilla, and others to openly implement Flash (with H.264 and other parts as compile-time options to be included). Yeah, it's easy for me to say that sitting here in the cheap seats, but Adobe could put in more of an effort. Even Microsoft has been helping the Moonlight folk to implement Silverlight.

Flash being as open as it is, is important and I know that I've written it off a little too much in the past. I don't want to take that away from you, Adobe, or anyone. However, WebM looks like it'll be more open - that I could contribute (if I had the knowledge and skill). But even not having the skill, I know that everyone from Google to Mozilla to Adobe itself can help make it awesome! The open nature of the web has just been awesome. It's really exciting to me in a way that Flash just isn't. Yes, often times there's bureaucracy and it's annoying to get new things adopted and coordinated - and maybe Flash offers a nice single-source that can push the boundaries of new technologies without worrying about multiple implementations.

There's no reason that HTML5 video and WebM mean that Flash has to die or that it has no place on the web. Maybe Flash can be thought of as a kind of proving ground for things that won't be implemented by multiple vendors until they've proven themselves - kinda like video (Adobe implements video, it catches on like wildfire, the W3C starts incorporating video into the HTML spec using a more community process). I don't want to sound like an Adobe-hating person who thinks they're just evil even if I prefer HTML5 over Flash. However, for the long term, I think that open, community involved technologies are better and the direction we should be going in rather than a single-sourced technology even if the spec is being published for it.