Coding In Paradise

Do you toss the term Open Web around? Ever wonder what the heck it means? Me too.

I'm looking for a definition of the Open Web that:

• Isn't a laundry list of bullet points
• Is one or two sentences long
• Doesn't constrain the web from growing in the future (i.e. that it's expansive enough that it's not just defending the status quo but can adapt to new innovations)

I've got my own opinions on these but I'm interested in hearing what you think. Basically, what's the elevator pitch for the Open Web? Its easy to talk to the Converted (tm), but what about when talking to other folks that might not care as much yet?

You get bonus points if you can answer the following:

• If Adobe were to open source Flex/Flash, or Microsoft Silverlight, would that be the Open Web? If so, why? If not, why not?
• Why should developers care about the Open Web? How about users?
• How would you define the web itself, again in a way that doesn't constrain it from future growth and development (i.e. "It's a place to publish a bunch of documents" doesn't allow room for deploying applications, as we are seeing with Ajax today).

We toss around the term Open Web a bunch, but I've never seen it succinctly defined. What is it, and why do we support it? I believe its important and worth supporting but it's all a bit fuzzy right now.

Post your thoughts and answers to these questions on this blog post.

Labels: open web