On April 14+15 the Open Web Vancouver 2008 conference will showcase open web technologies, communities and culture, and evangelize the Open Web to developers, designers, organizers and the community at large.
What’s the Open Web? We have invited Vancouverite Bruce Byfield – a writer for Linux.com and other publications – for some insight.
The Open Web is a vision of the Web’s future that supports open, cross-platform standards and free and open source software, and opposes vendor lock-in and proprietary standards and software.
Bruce Byfield: Technically, it’s a term used mainly by Mozilla to indicate a vision of the web based on the Mozilla Manifesto. Sometimes, Mozilla uses the term to indicate specific technologies that it would like to advance.
However, in the broadest sense, the Open Web is a vision of the Web’s future that supports open, cross-platform standards and free and open source software, and opposes vendor lock-in and proprietary standards and software. In this sense, the Open Web is an idea that anyone interested in free software can support.
You could say that the Open Web is a better articulated, more mature version of the vision that early Web pioneers had.
Q: Why does the Open Web (and Open Source) matter?
Bruce Byfield: Conscious support for the Open Web and for free software can rally support against efforts to control the web, either through proprietary software imposing a de facto standard (as Internet Explorer did before the rise of Mozilla), or through legislation, such as the efforts to end net neutrality. Both these threats could end the internet as we know it, and would tend to keep control of the greatest medium for personal communication ever invented in the hands of rich individuals and the most developed nations.
On a personal level, the matter is partly a matter of ensuring consumer choice. However, the real issue is one of personal freedom. The Open Web and free software are necessities if the basic right of freedom of expression is to continue to be meaningful in an increasingly computer-dominated society. Without them, the poor everywhere — but especially in developing nations — will be even more disenfranchised in the future than they are now.
And in a computerized society, such issues is not just a philosophical concern or a matter of personal dignity, although both are important. Rather, they can also have direct consequences in terms of people’s control of their lives and even their job prospects.
By supporting the Open Web and free software, you can help to close the gap between rich and poor and between industrialized and developing nations. In addition, by removing the profit motive, you can also help the struggle to preserve minority languages and increase computer access for people with disabilities.
Moreover, because you can do these things on older hardware with free software, support for these issues is also an environmentally-friendly choice.
These concerns need to be as well-known as recycling in the average person’s mind. Since they are obviously not, the promotion of the Open Web and free software should be a priority for concerned people everywhere.
Q: Tell us more about the Open Web and your ‘Working w/ the Free Software Media’ talk at Open Web Vancouver 2008.
Bruce Byfield: The Open Web and free software shouldn’t be advocated to most people in technical terms, or by discussing specific standards or pieces of code. Geeks, of course, are interested in such things, but most people aren’t.
Instead, you should talk to the average person about the ethical implications of these issues. Just as with recycling or environmentalism, people can understand the ethical importance of the issues when they don’t understand the technical ones.
Thanks Bruce Byfield for your time. Join us for Vancouver’s 1st Open Web Conference at Canada Place or/and tell us “What’s the Open Web and Why It Matters” and win a free two-day Open Web Vancouver 2008 conference pass.
About Bruce Byfield:
Bruce Byfield is a contributing editor for the SourceForge sites Linux.com and the IT Manager’s Journal. Among other topics, he reports on the Debian Project, the Free Software Foundation, licensing issues, and office applications. He also writes a monthly blog for the Linux Journal website, which tends to center on varying aspects of OpenOffice.org, the free software office suite. In addition to his online publications, he has published in such magazines as Linux Journal, Maximum Linux, and The New Internationalist.
Before becoming a journalist, Byfield was marketing and communications director at Progeny Linux Systems, and product manager at Stormix Technologies. His book Witches of the Mind is considered the definitive work on the American fantasist Fritz Leiber. He also designs elearning courses and is a marketing and communications consultant.
Byfield lives in Burnaby, Canada. In addition to free and open source software, his interests include parrots, running, science fiction, and listening to punk-folk music.
Questions? Comments? Send them along to the Vancouver Ajax & Web 2.0 (3.0) Developer Forum/Mailing List. Thanks!
