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Post "Good Google," Who Will Defend the Open Web?
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?"
Because I would have thought a dude with the title "Chief Internet Evangelist" would have something to say about this.
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.
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 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...
Unlike porn, which yada yada rimshot hey-ooh!
my vote goes to microsoft to champion an Open Web. Past history has shown that they are staunch defenders of the principles which guide the Open Web initiative, and I would always trust them, when the time comes, to make a solid business decision which is in the best interests of an Open Web.
hahahahahahahahaa omgwtfbbq roflamo hahahaahahaha.....
What about 4chan?
Microsoft is the only company that cares or will defend the rights of the end user to ensure all software is secure, free, Open and meets all standards which the end user should be able to use, understand or knows of.
Microsoft has proven over the past 35+ years how much they do their best to meet the needs, requirements of all end users.
They are also very trust worthy and honest when it comes to doing what is right for the end user. For example, look at how IBM attempted to rip off end users with OS/2. Microsoft saw this for what it was, and worked on their own version called 'NT', which meet and surpassed OS/2 in every way.
Another example is Netscape and IE. Microsoft saw Netscape ripping off end users by selling something which could be giving away for free. Microsoft produced IE which was free, met all standards, and allowed end users to have secure, free and open access to the Internet. Without IE, the Internet would be locked down and owned by Netscape.
Microsoft even fought Sun/Oracle on the Java front. Granted they lost, because they did not provide enough finical incentives to the US legal system, however they still stood up to Sun/Oracle to keep the Internet free from Java, which as we all know is a security risk and should never be used in DVD Players, Blu-Ray Players, nor even for server side Chat Room Programs.
Now Microsoft is taken on Apple and Google with their Windows RT and Windows 8. Will hope they win as they feel the sales of Windows RT and 8 tables and phones surpasses the sale of iOS and Android combined.
When Windows 8 was being developed, Microsoft wanted to reduce the source code size and the final binary size of Windows 8 to improve the performance for the end user. They removed the start button, which has increased the performance of Windows 8 and all other Microsoft products running on top of Windows 8.
Microsoft only cares about the end user, and will do whatever it takes to own to standards to keep the end user free and open.
As Mr. Gates said in an interview a few weeks ago, if we give Mr. Obama enough power to do what is right for the people of the US and the rest of the world, we will be free, and safe.
So lets all give Microsoft and Mr. Obama all the power they need to do what is right for everyone.
Some candidates mentioned include Yahoo, IBM, Red Hat, Mozilla, Microsoft and The Wikimedia Foundation, among others
It was clearly over four minutes before you posted. Pretty much everyone here would scoff at MS.
What's left is pointless discussions of opinion about "Oh, I think THIS large multinational corporation which is utterly devoid of any conscience, as they all are, is lately acting better than this OTHER one, so we should root for them instead."
We may as well skip right to godwining. (Insert the name of the company you think is evil) is basically (insert inappropriate historical bad guy here).
I'm don't exactly disagree, Google is a corporation, and corporations will defend and support structures and principles like the Open Web as long as they percieve strategic benefit and fianacial gain, so clearly other organisations need to defend these structures and principles. But other for-profit companies like Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft? Seriously? Companies will defend and protect their interests only, our interests are users can only align with theirs, not be permenantly linked.
In fact, I still believe that Google 'gets' the web in ways that other companies, like some of those that are listed as alternatives, don't. This doesn't mean that they are 'good' but that they at least have a decent long-term interest in seeing some of the principles crucial to us as users be upheld. I've gone in deeper in this in an article on 'Our uneasy relationship with Google' (resolutely ad-free and non-commercial, please don't kill this comment as spam).
But long-term and from an ideological viewpoint, the only organisations that you should have faith in for the big issues that will affect us and shape the future of the web, it'd have to an entity with no financial stake and no legal obligation to shareholders. There is simply no way around the fact that any corporation will retain and protect principles only as long it percieves them to be benefical to itself as a business.
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.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
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.
Those who say Wikimedia is powerless, I completely disagree. They're a non-profit concerned with sharing the largest quantity of the most accurate knowledge with the most people. They control several of the most popular websites on earth with few commercial interests and have representatives in MANY languages.
Their largest subset (or was it them too? wp and wm?) also showed their willingness to shutdown completely for a day to demonstrate principles. Google would have taken quite a hit monetarily if they completely shut down (they just posted links and warnings).