[autonomo.us] open web v. standardized web [was Re: Web app stores]

[Luis Villa]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:10 PM, Christopher Allan Webber
<address@hidden> wrote:
>>> PS: Also, this is being done under the banner of "open web", which
>>> seems misleading considering the "open web gaming" stuff:
>>>
>>> https://mozillalabs.com/gaming
>>>
>>> ...had a competition in which iirc the majority of winning finalists
>>> were proprietary games.  Yes yes, "open" has long had problems as a
>>> term, but maybe the term "standardized web" is less misleading.
>>>
>>> (This isn't to hate on Mozilla, which I think is massively an ally of
>>> ours generally.)
>>
>> I wasn't involved in the Game On project, myself. But, I do know
>> everyone involved, and I can say there were no nefarious motives at
>> work. I'm not sure what the whole story was, but I think it was
>> intended as an honestly open effort.
>
> I don't think there was anything nefarious either.  I think I'm just
> personally disappointed in the term "open web" where I think
> "standardized web" is a more useful term.  This is more me being grumpy
> about terminology here than anything else.

I see your point, but I think on balance "open" is still a better
description than "standardized." Standards can easily be developed
behind closed doors and come with IP encumbrances that make it
difficult to build open clients. The web is standardized, sure, which
allows proprietary services and implementations, but the standard is
developed in a reasonably public manner with pretty good IP
guarantees, anyone can implement it, and in fact the majority of web
users use it through open source rendering engines.

It's not GPL-forcing-you-to-open-your-code-to-play-in-the-sandbox
open, but even RMS hasn't argued for that at the platform level in
many years, at least until the hypothetical day when the underlying
platform is so successful that you actually have the leverage to make
that work.

I'd add that Mozilla uses open web very specifically as a rhetorical
tool to help keep the *platform* open; if Mozilla were to concede that
it is merely a "standardized" web that would be a signficant
rhetorical step towards other "standards" like Flash, H264, etc.

Luis