An open letter from Steve Jobs recently ruffled quite a few feathers. While we’re all tinkering with our new iPads and waiting patiently for the release of iPhone OS 4, let’s take a moment to ruminate on what the Grand Poobah of Apple has to say about Flash. What does it mean? And while this is an open letter, just how open is his mind?

The gist of what Jobs says is that Flash is a relic. It drains the battery of mobile devices. It’s not good for multi-touch operation. Its performance, reliability, and security are not-to-be-trusted. It’s a proprietary system. It’s an unnecessary third party layer of software that comes between the platform and the developer.

You can read the full letter, start to finish, here.

Obviously, Jobs has his motives. He scolds Adobe for their “closed system” from his glass house. He’s even garnered a surprising ally in Microsoft’s Dean Hachamovitch. He’d like us all to believe that HTML5 will prevail in the end. He’s been accused by Adobe’s CEO of attempting to create a “smokescreen” and accusations that are “patently false.”

Next up? Looks like an antitrust investigation is inevitable.

The war wages on…