unfinished work

I am a huge fan of the shift to server side applications development. Applications hosted on the server side can co-mingle data in ways that provide value for all of the participants in a network - think page rank.  But as soon as I have settled comfortably into my server side prejudice, I stumble across something that messes up my tidy world. This time it was Xobni, the Outlook plugin that indexes the Outlook file on your desktop and provides surprisingly useful utilities based on those analytics.

You could do the same thing for Gmail but you would need an API from Google to get at the data set. Maybe they will provide it maybe they won’t. But possession is nine tenths of the law. With outlook the data is on your desktop.

So after several years of watching all of the innovative stuff coming from the server side,  here is an example of where innovation is happening on the desktop. 

In an open network like the internet many things get turned on their head. Yesterday an entrepreneur pointer out to me that in a world where information does not move easily you want to keep your cards close to your vest, but in a world where memes spread quickly you want to share your ideas aggressively because then you will be seen as the originator of the meme. Credit in a world of commoditized information goes to the creator.

 I suppose I should say that the entrepreneur was Scott Karp. I am not sure he originated the meme but he was the carrier in my case 

Let’s start with a definition. A service is open when anyone can take anything (code, data, etc) from that service and do anything they want with it, without permission from anyone.

You might argue that is an extreme definition. I’d agree. But, anything less that that is not open. It is in some way managed by someone. Even open source software would not meet this definition. Most licenses prohibit folks from taking code and then incorporating that code into proprietary products without contributing their modifications back to the original open source code base. This constraint, this limitation on the openness of an open source system is considered a fair trade. It was consciously designed to perpetuate the collective value of the open source code base. 

I can not think of a single open web service. Even services famous for their openness, or thier APIs like Craigslist, Facebook, del.icious, or Google have restrictions on what you can do with their data.

The question is what is the intention behind those restrictions and what is the effect.

Some service providers try to lock in their users by making it difficult for an individual end user to port their investment in one service to another. This is going to end. In networks where the users contribute a substantial amount of the content/value /energy, this adversarial relationship is unsustainable.

The more interesting problem is service providers who place restrictions on their APIs to prevent a newcomer from sucking out their entire data set and replicating their network effect. Seems reasonable but if the restrictions are to tight, they will lose the benefit of others who add value to thier users experience by innovating at the edge - think twittervision or the googlemaps/craigslist mashup. The winners here will be the service providers that strike the right balance between innovation and anarchy. Without any restrictions on the use of code and data, the integrity of the community is at risk - with too many, innovation will grind to a halt (yes I realize there is an embedded assumption here that decentralized innovation trumps centralized innovation - I am convinced it does).

The answer is that if the architecture is designed to further the interests of the community, it will thrive, if it is designed to further the interests of the community sponsor it will not.

So lets get over the idea that the goal is an open architecture. It is not. I live in Manhattan. It is a managed “architecture”. The stoplights on the street corners constrain our freedom, but we accept them because they make it possible for all of us to move around the city. Language is another model. We live in a society where I am relatively free to say what I want, but I have less freedom to change the meaning of the words I use.

So let’s stop debating whether a service is open or not and lets focus on the defining that perfect balance of freedom and structure that will result in vibrant thriving innovative communities. 

is the net changing people or are people changing the net