Post "Good Google," Who Will Defend the Open Web? 133
psykocrime writes "The crazy kids at Fogbeam Labs have started a discussion about Google and their relationship with the Open Web, and questioning who will step up to defend these principles, even as Google seem to be abdicating their position as such a champion. Some candidates mentioned include Yahoo, IBM, Red Hat, Mozilla, Microsoft and The Wikimedia Foundation, among others. The question is, what organization(s) have both the necessary clout and the required ethical principles, to truly champion the Open Web, in the face of commercial efforts which are clearly inimical to Open Source, Open Standards, Libre Culture and other elements of an Open Web?"
Does Vint Cerf still work at Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I would have thought a dude with the title "Chief Internet Evangelist" would have something to say about this.
Like Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if such a mythical company existed, you can't pick that one because ideas change; people change; companies change. For the same reason, you can't grant party X the power to do M, because party Y will use that power to do N. What may seem "good" now will never remain that way.
We will (Score:5, Insightful)
If the grassroots don't organize then all will be lost. There is too much money to be made closing it all up, overcommercializing it, and using it to extract maximum revenue from compliant consumers.
Unfortunately, I don't think we will. Too many people have been blinded by the merchants of "cool" to see the true cost in terms of freedom and privacy which come with drinking the Apple/Google kool-aid.
We have to stop doing business with those who close it up. That means a full boycott of DRM and paid content. That means eschewing privacy-stripping "app stores" on locked down platforms for sideloaded FOSS. That means running strict ad blockers to choke the funding stream and make being intrusive scumbags a bad business model.
The web is turning into a hybrid shopping mall/movie theater. Don't like it? Stop funding it. Stop being a source of revenue and eyeballs.
I'm sure many of those who read this post will complain about the direction of the web then head right back to the app store to buy something they don't need on a platform they don't control.
The "web" is no longer what is in a browser. It now extends to all Internet-connected services. Locked down paid apps on restricted, DRM-friendly platforms are going to replace open, standards-compliant pages, but only if we let them.
There's only one company on that list... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only one company on that list that seems qualified to me, and that would be Mozilla.
My reasoning (and this is based on my opinion, so mod how you will):
Mozilla has long championed open standards, and although they once toppled the "invincible" Microsoft, whether they still hold that kind of power remains to be seen...
The Web sucks, let it die (Score:1, Insightful)
Most of the interesting stuff I read on the Internet these days is on email lists, which are relatively hard to find and hence have a high signal to noise ratio from people who went out of their way to find them, while the web has mostly become a means of tracking people and pushing ads on them.
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Because this is a complete troll piece to begin with, and adding Microsoft to the list just makes it blatant. Nowhere is evidence given for Google "abdicating their position as such a champion," it's simply stated with the hope we accept it as a given. Then toss Microsoft into a list of "good guys".
Who owns Fogbeam Labs, anyway? They claim to be "Open Source 2.0" (what does that even mean?) and very new.
Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Extrapolation, much?
Evidence for abandonment of the "open web" - cancelling Reader and the CalDAV API. Evidence for support of the open web: Chrome, GWT, open sourced jscompiler, V8, tons of random libraries and developer tools, SPDY, extensions to SSL, HTML5 rich snippets in search, etc.
I will state right now that I'm a Google employee, so you may think that makes me biased, but employees are often the companies harshest critics (internally). Yet this is a ridiculous stretch. Yes, I love(d) Reader too. Cancelling a widely loved but ultimately niche tool for which there are many replacements is not "abandoning the open web", it's recognising that with a finite amount of resources not every product area can be tackled.
Re:Like Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps they lack the clout, but they certainly have remained pretty steadfast for a long time now.
That's because they lack clout. The old thing about the camel going trough the eye of a needle applies here too. Power does not come cleanly.
Re:We will (Score:4, Insightful)
If the grassroots don't organize then all will be lost.
This is basically the fundamental principle of politics, especially democracy. If you don't defend your interests, no one else will. Even if other people are well intentioned, they will only have an imperfect understanding of your interests.
If the people don't get involved in politics, then the corporations that do will have all the power.