Somebody call the fire brigade, ’cause there’s a fire running wild. It’s too late to tell who started it, but whether it was Apple or Adobe doesn’t matter anymore. It’s on.

The latest brawl between the two giants started at the end of January, when Steve Jobs presented his latest Godsend, the iPad. During the presentation, when browsing the New York Times site, it was visible that iPad was not supporting Flash technology. This was strike one in this round. Jobs wanted the world to see that he couldn’t care less about flash compatibility.

A few days after that, Wired reported that Jobs called Adobe “lazy”, accused them of buginess and stated that the future lies in HTML5. Adobe were quick to react on their blog, refuting Jobs’ rant, claiming Apple were “uncooperative” and reassuring that Flash is power.

This cat fight, while currently focusing on the iPad, is actually much older. This post here gives an interesting overview of the bloody history between the two companies. It is also much broader and presents some serious questions that need to be dealt with, for instance:

Over-dependency on one type of software – Flash is not only a technology to make prettier websites. Flash is extremely vital for many online functions. Are we to dependent on Adobe and it’s technology?

Influence of popular products in the development of programming – Is it healthy that a powerful company like Apple can determine the fate of programming languages?

HTML VS. Flash – The never ending dispute. Which one is best and why can’t they both just get along?

These questions are, of course, very relevant for web designers. Flash is currently proving to be a dominant force in web design, breaking all limits of visual creativity and allowing more and more people to experiment with building websites easily. At the end, the answers might come from the web design community, if it decides to fight for the right to Flash.