Hi Jeff,
You make it sound as if they are doing this pro-bono, in their spare time. Fortunately that's not the case, they get paid by Adobe, because it helps the company's bottom line ... (they would not likely get paid to waste company resources). And since Adobe is not in this game for charity, they must believe it will benefit their investors to do the effort.
In point of fact, both Camera Raw and DNG started as unpaid sandbox projects that Thomas wanted to do. Back when Thomas started what Camera Raw would end up becoming, Thomas started working on decoding Canon raw files working by himself while on vacation. He did this because he was exasperated by how poor Canon's software was at the time–pre DPP).
At the time Thomas was an independent contractor with Adobe, not an actual employee. So, he created Camera Raw on his own before Adobe assigned it to him. It turns out that when Thomas returned from vacation, the big hot button for Photoshop was how to deal with raw digital captures and get them open in Photoshop. It turns out that the timing of Thomas' project fit in perfectly. When Adobe asked Thomas about decoding and processing raw captures, Thomas basically said "don't worry, I got that :~)" (seriously, Thomas developing ACR was a fluke (lucky for us).
In terms of DNG, Thomas was getting pretty pissed off having to decode each and every camera's raw files. In developing Camera Raw, he came up with a process of reading the camera metadata and converting the metadata in order to apply normalized default settings. It was the process of taking the raw image data and metadata and normalizing the adjustments that led to developing DNG. Thomas reasoned that the basic raw image data and the image metadata should not be hidden from easy access.
DNG was another personal project Thomas did for himself prior to pitching it to Adobe to release as a free SDK. In point of fact, any raw file is now automatically converted to DNG on the fly so that Camera Raw and Lightroom are getting normalized raw data when opened. So, DNG was a natural offshoot and Thomas convinced Adobe to release DNG as a free SDK and offer it to the industry. And believe me when I tell you that DNG has been VERY informative to both Nikon and Canon (I know this from personal experience while sitting in meetings).
Also note that it was Thomas that talked Adobe into doing the free DNG Converter. Thomas thought it would be a useful tool to allow older applications the ability to read new camera files. I happen to know that Adobe was, uh, a bit reluctant to release a free application that would make new raw files work in old versions of Camera Raw. If you think about it, why would Adobe want to provide a free tool for backwards compatibility to new cameras. Adobe could have simply said no to Thomas and require new cameras to have the user update to the most recent version of Photoshop.
So, yes, ACR and DNG came from Thomas working in his free time. Yes, Adobe did listen to Thomas (Adobe wisely listens really carefully to Thomas).
Recently Thomas was added as an Adobe employee (after all these years being a contractor). And yes, Eric is an employee (thanks goodness–which we could clone him a dozen times).
Look, I was around in the very early days and helped Thomas work with raw files. I rode my motorcycle over to Ann Arbor so he could shoot test files from my Canon D30 to decode. Myself and a few others worked as alpha testers for Camera Raw well before the release of ACR 1 in Feb 2003. I also had multiple meetings with Canon during that time–I was a
Canon Explorer of Light back then and met both Canon USA and Canon Japan executives and engineers. During a trip to Japan for Canon, I met the then lead engineer of Digital Photo Pro and got permission to demo Camera Raw to him.
I've been to several conferences where representatives from Adobe, Apple, MSFT, Kodak, Leaf, Nikon and Canon met and talked about digital photography–some of those meetings were, uh, pretty nasty...Nikon has traditionally (back then) been very, very anti-Adobe. Canon a bit less so.
There are some interesting stories I could tell you about but I can't do so in public...once story was a major magazine was just about ready to ink a deal to become the exclusive raw processing application and would require all their photographers to shoot a singe camera brand. The photographers that didn't shoot with that brand (as you might expect) was terrified at the prospect of being forced to change cameras systems. But, in comes Adobe with a camera agnostic raw processing engine (Camera Raw) that made the magazine re-evaltuate this exclusive deal. As you might expect, that camera company was really pissed off that Adobe came up with a camera agnostic method of raw processing–but the photographers were really, really happy that they could keep shooting with their chosen cameras and not be forced to change.
I also know that another camera makers was just about convinced to offer DNG as an additional option (they were convinced it could be done with a firmware update) but something happened (and I personally have no idea what occurred) and all of a sudden, that DNG option was taken off the table.
I do know that Hasselblad DID ad DNG to their digital cameras as an option–I introduced Thomas to Christian Poulson from Hasselblad and got them talking...however, Christian decided he wanted to lock the Hasselblad system, killed DNG in a firmware update and went on to sue Phase One and basically attempt to vender lock users into an all Hasselblad solution. How did that work for Hasselblad–and yes, if you sense a certain anti-Hasselblad bent from me, that's why–I was a Hasselblad shooter way before I was a Phase One shooter.
When you look at DNG, it would be wrong to presume it is some attempt by Adobe to leverage their position in the industry. In point of fact, it's really a situation where Adobe said "yes" to Thomas Knoll (yet again). And Bart, if you don't believe that, you don't know Thomas and Adobe–I do...what I'm telling you is the truth.
Give Adobe shit for all the mistakes they have made, but don't give them shit for the things they have done on our behalf.