| Web Founder Asking For Open Standards/Neutrality: Long Live the Web |
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By Salar Golestanian @ Sunday, December 12, 2010 :: 10:15 PM :: 563 Views :: 0 Comments ::  |
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A few months ago Wired magazine started the conversation with the question "Is the Web Dead? This was the article that created a stair. At the time, I wanted to blog about the subject, but I did not have a blog site. Now I do. So I thought its better late than never. And here is a little bit about the controversy it caused.
In the Wired Article, the authors thought that that the Web is losing supremacy, and stated that our online world will be cordoned off into closed worlds via Apps (for example) over the Internet. In other words, traditional, pre-Internet business models will reign supreme again.
Here is what they say:-
"Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures."
Last month’s Tim Berners-Lee also urged for Web users to protect the Internet from becoming a fragmented territory. He was mainly citing threats from all the big players in the telecom space like social networking sites and the search engine operators. There is also a great Scientific American article for Internet users to realize their control over the medium and protect it from commercial interests that could undermine its freedom.
Berners-Lee has a great perspective on this subject he said: -
"People seem to think the Web is some sort of piece of nature, and if it starts to wither, well, that's just one of those unfortunate things we can't help," Berners-Lee wrote. "Not so." The computer engineer posited that, by virtue of designing computer protocols and software, the process is completely under the control of the user. "We choose what properties we want it to have and not have," he added. "It is by no means finished (and it's certainly not dead.)"
"Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web," he wrote. "Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals."
Search engines as well as the browser Engines are becoming too powerful and proprietary and are likely to limit innovation and privacy. Berners-Lee also argued that net neutrality principles should apply to mobile platforms powered by wireless Internet, "Exempting wireless from net neutrality would leave these [mobile] users open to discrimination of service."
This is the article in Scientific American is a must read and here are some extracts:-
"The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending.
The principle of universality allows the Web to work no matter what hardware, software, network connection or language you use and to handle information of all types and qualities. This principle guides Web technology design.
Technical standards that are open and royalty-free allow people to create applications without anyone’s permission or having to pay. Patents, and Web services that do not use the common URIs for addresses, limit innovation.
Threats to the Internet, such as companies or governments that interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic, compromise basic human network rights.
Web applications, linked data and other future Web technologies will flourish only if we protect the medium’s basic principles."
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