Comments on: Back to first principles; Why do you think the Open Web matters?

By: ThomasHansen

ThomasHansen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:48:14 +0000

@eyelidlessness
I think we just need to conclude that we insanely disagree on every single aspect we’ve debated in this thread…
I don’t have any dreams about that I will be able to convince you about my perspective either so I think we’ll leave the debate about whether or not Ultra Free markets are good or bad, but I would like to comment on one thing which is that a lot of developers in very high positions argue that Open Web is communism since it is so focused on Open Standards instead of doing the “pragmatic way” which is to use their ActiveX2.0 technology of course. So I am a bit surprised that you’ve never heard that link before in fact.
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PS!
I knew the image was a joke, but so was many other things in history which was being taken seriously…

By: eyelidlessness

eyelidlessness — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:25:52 +0000

“many people already associate Open Web with communist ideas and think we’re all communists”
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Seriously? I’ve never, once, encountered that opinion being seriously discussed until now.
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“And showing such an image for a blog about the Open Web does not help us to make those people understand that Open Web is not communism…”
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You do know that image is a joke right?
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“BTW, traditional extreme Free Market liberalists [Chicago School types with Milton Friedman as its most known advocate] pretty much agree on that there should be no subsidisings, no trade barriers, no unions or minimum wage and so on. NOTHING to help neither the worker or the employee to keep neither market share nor profit.”
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I hope it’s obvious how this is problematic. An unfettered market is almost certain to be dominated by the most powerful business interests. Sure, Microsoft is benefited by the “mixed” economy, but it would benefit just as much if not more from a complete lack of restraint.
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“And Open Web is like that”
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I still have no idea what “open web” means but if it means that, count me out. As far as my work on the web is concerned, I have seen the most benefits from cooperative competition; that is, from a spirit of competitiveness that, while obviously driven by profit, is not ruthless or pure—that fosters collaboration between all of the parties involved. If anything, the model you’re describing is more or less an exaggerated version of the Browser Wars (Netscape vs IE) which saw endless expansion of incompatibility and caused massive fragmentation of the web.
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More than that—like an absolute lack of trade barriers, unions, worker protection, and that kind of capitalist wet dream stuff—it makes my life harder. I have to work countless hours accommodating the fragmentation created by unfettered competition. While the IE team gets to focus only on IE, I have to focus on making IE do what other browsers do. Sure, the situation is better today, but mostly thanks to the Mozilla foundation’s free, open-source work, pulling largely from unpaid workers who were more interested in improving the web than in turning a profit. That’s not communism, but it’s certainly not free-market absolutism either.
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“And regardless of what definition you have of free markets the Open Web will probably be at the top of it anyway.”
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Again, I don’t know what “open web” even means. But if free markets is it, please count me out.

By: ThomasHansen

ThomasHansen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:37:12 +0000

@eyelidlessness
Wow :)
That was really interesting, this is obviously a theme you know a lot about. And my handling of the terms obviously was way to shallow and should have left room for difference between communism[USSR] and socialism[Marxism] probably to a much higher extent. Though I do not know as much as you about the subject I too know that there’s a huge difference between communism and Marxism. Though the most important thing in my comment which I also have written about here; http://ra-ajax.org/the-open-web-and-its-lack-of-link-to-communism-and-socialism.blog
is the fact that many people already associate Open Web with communist ideas and think we’re all communists. And showing such an image for a blog about the Open Web does not help us to make those people understand that Open Web is not communism…
BTW, traditional extreme Free Market liberalists [Chicago School types with Milton Friedman as its most known advocate] pretty much agree on that there should be no subsidisings, no trade barriers, no unions or minimum wage and so on. NOTHING to help neither the worker or the employee to keep neither market share nor profit. And Open Web is like that ;)
Open Web is chemically cleansed for any types of lock-in mechanisms that makes one player get advantages on behalf of another. And regardless of what definition you have of free markets the Open Web will probably be at the top of it anyway.

By: ThomasHansen

ThomasHansen — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:48:49 +0000

Hi Dion, I really liked this blog and obviously the Open Web is a really important thing. Though I must admit I dislike the fact that you’re using the subtle image of communists for it. Fact is that communism and socialism doesn’t want free competition but rather state controlled monopolies. While the free market liberalists are extremely open to competition and free markets like for instance Milton Friedman which is an “extreme free market liberalist” which even means that there shouldn’t exist any toll borders what so ever to protect the local markets.
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So if anything the communist link would in fact be more appropriate for the “non-Open Web guys” since they don’t really want free competition but rather relies on monopolies to lock-in their customers and users while the Open Web evangelists are sworn adopters of the equal competition in a free market thoughts.
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Open web fosters extreme competition at equal terms for all which means that it cannot possibly be reconsilable with any forms of communism or extreme-socialism or any state controlled (or other controlled institution) monopoly at all…
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That the Open Web is about “socialism and communism” is unfortunately a mis-perception intentionally currently being spread by the very guys that have the most to win in having either their current or their upcoming “non-Open-Web-Platforms” being made the de-facto standard and thereby gaining for all practical reasons a monopoly on RIA…
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If anything the “other guys” (non-open-web guys) are the ones at least if you look at their means the ones closest to Karl Marx and Stalin and NOT the Open Web guys…
The above image does NOT help our cause…!
:(

By: petermin

petermin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:39:46 +0000

If you’re interested in Open Web, check out the “Lifestreaming: The Real Time Web” event on Sep 16th. FriendFeed and Seesmic are going to be there on the panel. http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=221

By: Dion Almaer

Dion Almaer — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:11:31 +0000

@eyelidlessness some good political points!

@beemr The key issue there was that it doesn’t HAVE to come from a big company, not that big companies can’t come up with great technology. I totally agree with you.

@nonken End users are king. Great points.

@OpenAjax This isn’t about one group, it is about the “Open Web” itself, and the Open Ajax Alliance is part of that world, which consists of many :)

By: OpenAjax

OpenAjax — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:48:14 +0000

I am ALL for Open
My question: why did they have to create a new organization?
OpenAjax has existed for years and they could have just supported the current work – I know the ‘Open Web’ supports more than ‘Ajax’ the same way I understand ‘AJAX’ is not ‘Ajax’.
I am a little paranoid and have to wonder about true objectives. I want to see their constitution where ANYONE can apply and gain votes that EVERYONE works towards. I want them to commit to working with OpenAjax.

By: nonken

nonken — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:21:02 +0000

Great article Dion!

A very important group of people we should not forget is are the end users. Of course we could go the path and decide as a cooperation/business/developer what is best for them.
Imagining this scenario – isn’t that what was going on for a big part for the last couple of years – would make me not wanting to continue to work in this area.

The Open Web should also be something which is trying to give the best available user experience/technology to everyone, not out of a primary commercial or monopolistic position, but out of a evolutionary necessity.

By: beemr

beemr — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:19:26 +0000

“It doesn’t have to come FROM the huge companies first though. Think about how rare that is.”

History disagrees. Here’s a couple: XHR came from MS around 1999/2000. SWFs are now a search initiative for Yahoo/Goog as well as a feature of many OS and commercial frameworks.

Rather, a better approach would be to try to think this through from the opposite end. Why haven’t SVG’s or CANVAS benefited the larger community? Where are their search initiatives? Is OAuth really a foundational improvement? How’s OpenAjax going? Not even gonna mention ECMAScript 4.

Big or small, all companies solve for their needs first. In the early years, they were too short-sighted to see that developers needs should also be their needs. Hopefully, companies will now continue to innovate while including the developer as a target audience. A mutually beneficial relationship: the company for its execution and the developer community for sustenance.

Conversely, neither big nor small committees have needs for which a solution must be invented. So committee-led initiatives languish without the propulsion of real need. They perform better as retrospective organizers rather than pioneers. Gatherers not hunters.

Just think: If MS didn’t decide to use its website as the means to update Windows, we wouldn’t have this nice blog to read.

By: eyelidlessness

eyelidlessness — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:49:22 +0000

‘The party of Honest Abe kicked into gear with the “core values” revolving around abolishing slavery, rather than all of the conservative values that the party espouses today.’
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That’s not really accurate. Quoth Lincoln: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” His interest was in protecting the power of the United States government and its control of a huge swath of a continent. Ending (or more correctly, restricting) slavery helped to achieve that end because the most powerful business interests found more benefit in a wage system than in chattel slavery.
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Moreover, not only was the party’s goal not to end slavery, they never capitulated to that goal. Quoth the Thirteenth Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Slavery is still legal in the US to this day. And while not all of the > 1% of the US population in prison is subject to “prison labor” (slavery; actually it’s somewhat more insidious than even that, as prison workers receive meager wages but much less than they are fined for “room and board”, essentially putting them into debt that they must repay after their sentences are served), all of them are legally vulnerable to it.