"Silverlight's launch helped boost the popularity of Flash. ... iPhone helped to radically increase the number of phones with Flash support," he wrote.

Some of those commenting on Dowdell's post took a similar position and praised Flash over HTML 5.

But others called Dowdell's advocacy of Flash "FUD," "a slap in the face," and an example of Adobe's "open standards animosity."

The issue could also be characterized as the open source community's Adobe animosity.

That's not an easy thing to measure. Though Adobe reported a 41% decline in profit earlier in the week because of weak demand for its software, the company's buoyant stock price suggests that investors view lower profits as a function of the recession rather than growing disillusion with the company's technology.

Yet if all is well with Flash and the future is bright, why does Adobe seem to be on the defensive?

If Google Search Insights can be said to offer insight -- and it's debatable that search-term volume represents a reliable yardstick for measuring community attitudes -- then Adobe should be worried. Searches containing the terms "Adobe hate" are on the rise. Not as much as "Google hate," but more than "Microsoft hate," which appears to be waning.

A variant of that approach suggests Adobe is relatively beloved, at least compared with its peers. The phrase "I hate Adobe" returns 4,410 hits in Google. Compare that to 20,100 for "I hate Google," 38,100 for "I hate Microsoft," and 65,000 for "I hate Apple."

Yet, a more direct measure of love -- searches for "I love Adobe" -- returns a modest 12,900 hits. "I love Google," meanwhile, generates 312,000 hits.

Maybe Adobe had better continue wooing.

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