Marc's Voice

Open meets closed proprietary thinking in the valley of capitalism

Its so easy to be open nowadays that closed proprietary approaches are being hailed as open strategies and picked up by large masses of people thinking that they’re part of the (so-called) Open Web.

This inherent conflict between ‘zero sum game’ scenarios (as Chris Messina refers to it) and open standards efforts (which benefit us all) will be an underlying theme for the next few years until we see the behemoths support our standards and we see these ‘lock-in’ strategies fall by the wayside.

Right now - the VCs are funding any sort of “killer app” feature which calls itself open, rides on our coattails and can evolve itself into some sort of ‘innovative‘ lock-in scenario. The fact that users cannot move their data out or that these systems ONLY connect to other systems on THEIR terms - seems to be escaping most of the early adopters who are flocking to sign up.

Yes - the innovative killer app feature is coolio, but when I see single source solutions, lack of dataportability or interoperability and all sorts of claims of innovation and openness - then the bells start ringing and I start demanding multiple vendor adoption or else.

This pattern is being duplicated over and over again - with each new ‘cutting edge, breakthrough solution’.  Yah sure - they have plenty of VC money and sure - they’re giving away the service for free - for now - but that’s just their VC money talking. Unless these products and services allow their users to move their content, profile data and social graph - somewhere else - they’re ultimately closed.

The end-game for these so-called open services is to either sell off their company and technology or somehow monetize their killer app innovative feature by leveraging the installed base and going for a ‘freemium’ pricing model.

But (thank GOD) we have plenty of examples of the RIGHT approach to developing open standards which forgo this path to liquidity approach (again driven by VC investments) and which build open standards which benefit us all and help to move our world forward.

I posted something yesterday called “Taking advantage of open for proprietary purposes” and Chris Messina left a comment which backs me up on this:

I’m with you on this.

But the nature of our work, as hard as it is to sustain without those who benefit giving back, is to do a lot of the interop and commoditization work of the Open Web to keep the web moving forward.

Many of us want this kind of work and want the results of our work to resonate widely, and benefit many.

Indeed, much of the way we work flies in the face of the winner-take-all, zero-sum model. It’s not like we’re necessarily socialists (I wish more people actually knew what the term meant, rather than simply having an allergic reaction to it), but that our work benefits over a longer time horizon than most VCs or companies can or do operate is our wont.

Ah yes - the S word. In this election year we’re seeing the manipulation of terms and concepts wrapped around patriotism and sustaining an unjust war.  But I won’t go into “I’d rather be Socialist and right, than a war mongering imperialist” rant.

What I will point to is the wisdom of Chris’ words.  The long term benefits of OpenID, RSS, Atom, oAuth, microformats and the other standards that are being developed far out reach any profits generated for the  VCs coffers.  We’ve recently seen where the greed of capitalism, the public markets, banks and insurance companies takes them - so I wouldn’t count on any capitalists worrying about anything beyond the end of their greedy (now broke) noses.

What standards developers like Chris (and Tantek Celik and Joseph Smarr and Eran Hammer-Lahav and Kevin Marks and Dave Winer and a whole host of others) do is take the posture that helping out the masses and doing the right thing - is more important than profit and short term gain.  Its kind of like a modern day monk or crusader POV.

I myself also find that taking this posture is really the only way to go, even if it means hurting the ultimate payoff and possibilities of profit for my company.  Why is it so hard for VCs (and their funded companies) to realize that life is (in fact) NOT about making money?

Chris continues….

Personally, this is the only kind of work I really know how to do. I can only solve problems when thinking about them systematically. People and companies will invariably benefit from this work in the short term, and it’s unfortunate that we don’t have a better sustainability model for work like this. I guess this is why the Medicis were so wise in their patronage of the Arts; I think we need the same kind of patronage model for supporting and ensuring the health and well-being of the Open Web so that all can continue to benefit from and compete on it.

Me too.  This is the only way I know how to work. So a big thanks goes out to Scott Kveton and Vidoop for sponsoring Chris and the DiSO team and to the Harvard Berkman Institute for sponsoring Doc Searls and the  VRM project.

There are plenty of examples of great work going on - so it’s not like we don’t have opportunities to “do the right thing“.  ideally allot of the good will and cash that has flowed into Obama’s campaign and which helped fund Dean and MoveOn.org could also go into supporting DiSO, VRM, OpenID, oAuth, etc. - as we move forward.

That’s why I’m on a rampage to out these so-called open platforms and why I’m demanding that they contribute SOMETHING back to the community!  Its not like their VCs don’t have the cash!  They should consider these outlays and open standards efforts as part of their ‘marketing budgets’.

After helping to create one of the greatest lock-in proprietary formats of all time, I consider it my DUTY to help rectify this earlier transgression.  Back in the 80’s we had no idea that these sort of lock-in scenarios would transpire.  So imagine my surprise and dismay at what my former company has done.  If there ever was an argument why you should NEVER take VC investment - it’s Macromedia.

At MacroMind we were focused on battling the lock-in of Microsoft and Apple.  And here we are 20 years later still battling lock-in.  Only this time it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, pretending to be open, pretending to be on our side.

But Twitter is as much of a lock-in strategy as anything Microsoft has even propounded.

And (surprise, surprise) Microsoft is starting to bring open to the masses, moving open down the marketing pyramid to billions of users who will benefit from connecting to feeds of content and people, profile accounts and participating in a unified ‘open mesh’ world.

Google and Yahoo are also opening up - mainly because we’re demanding it - and it’s the right thing to do - and it provides their users with the kind of compelling experience which will define our future.

So I’d like to know what Twitter, Bug Labs, Twine, Glue, FriendFeed, Gnip and OpenX are gonna do to participate in this open world?  And I’d like to know what they’re giving back to the community - cause I sure as hell haven’t seen any evidence - yet?

Evan at Identi.ca has helped to start the ‘open microblogging’ initiative.

Now THAT’s what I’m talking about!  Right on to Evan!

And to MySpace and Facebook which exemplify closed meshes and who also dabble in being “open” I say “Keep going, don’t stop, cause there’s no such thing as being half pregnant.  You’re either open or you’re not.”

Right on to the folks who are truly open and who ARE contributing back!

- SixApart

- Plaxo

- Vidoop

- Identi.ca

- Sxip

- Jan Rain

- VRM project

- Drupal community

- Technorati

- Automattic

- and all those behemoths who are doing the right thing - finally!