it’s not about the benjamins (yet)
One of my colleagues just pointed me to this blog post where Simeon Bateman calls Mozilla an ungrateful child.
I started to post a reply there but it got a bit longer than what I think fits in “comments” format so I’m posting it here instead (though, this is still more in the “reply” format than the “post” format.)
Simeon’s basic assertion is that Adobe is doing a lot to open up some parts of their next-generation platform and Mozilla is a crybaby for suggesting that Adobe might have less than pure motives.
A secondary point, if I’m reading him correctly, is that Adobe deserves to be making lots of money by extending it’s control of the Web and Mozilla shouldn’t be complaining about corporations undermining the free and open Web for profit because Mozilla gave up any say it had when it decided to operate as a public-benefit organization. Stupid Mozilla. You never should have put the interests of a free and open Internet ahead of the corporate bottom line.
So, here’s my reply:
For Microsoft and Adobe, it’s not about the money (yet.) It’s about owning the platform.
Right now, the Web platform doesn’t belong to any mega-corporation and the protocols and specifications that underlie the Web are developed in a cooperative process between many of the implementers.
The real issue here is the Web platform (HTML/CSS+JavaScript, plus lots of other cool bits,) that Adobe and Microsoft are challenging and determined to supplant and replace.
It’s not that difficult for honest observers to admit that the open Web platform is much harder to monetize over the long run than open Web replacements like Adobe’s flex+flash+actionscript or Microsoft’s xaml+wpf+.net. (and yes, don’t kid youself. Adobe and Microsoft are building replacements for the open Web with Air and Silverlight.)
Both Microsoft and Adobe want to own as much of the post-desktop platform as possible. Adobe has a big short term lead with the ubiquity of Flash, and Microsoft has the medium term advantage of a desktop monopoly with Windows (and whatever they want to label and distribute as a part of Windows.) The Air and Silverlight pushes coming from these companies are all about who will own the biggest piece of the next-generation Web platform pie.
And, don’t be fooled by the big giveaways from Adobe and Microsoft. If owning the eventual Web.next platform, or even a large chunk of it, means giving away a lot in the short term, they’re happy to give, give, give. It’s taken a decade and a half for the Web to advance to where it is today and Microsoft and Adobe aren’t focused on 2008 or even 2009. They’re looking out at the Web of 2010 and beyond and doing everything in their power to be in control of as much of that space as possible.
As for what they’re actually giving away, documenting the protocols and specifications and allowing others to re-implement them is interesting, but it’s not open. Open is developing the protocols and specifications in a co-operative and participatory environment and then competing on implementations. Neither Adobe nor Microsoft are being truly open on this front, because doing so would mean giving up their big shot at control of the next generation Web platform.
If I was in Adobe’s shoes, I’d give everything away, all of it. Hell, I’d pay people to develop on the Adobe platform and I’d encourage dozens of competing implementations of my platform across every type of device imaginable because, in the end, it’d be my platform and I’d decide how and when it evolved and to what ends.
And I’d do the same if I was Microsoft.
But, I’m neither. So, all I can do in this battle for the future of the Web is to advocate for advances in real open Web standards from groups like ECMA, W3C, and WHATWG. It may be a bit slower to market, (hopefully not too much slower,) via the collaborative and open road, but the end result is a powerful Web platform that isn’t, and cannot be, controlled by any one company.
And to those who think I’m some anti-capitalist, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people and companies making money. I don’t even care if they’re making ridiculous amounts of money. But the Web has always been about more than making ridiculous amounts of monkey. The Web has substantial non-commercial aspects including critical educational, social, and civic value that should not be owned or controlled for the purpose of driving corporate profits.
If we cede control of the Web platform to one or two large corporations, we will cede a big piece of what makes the Web so amazing and no short-term sparkle and flash are worth that concession.
Be careful. The first dose is always free.
Photo by Flickr user laughlin and used under a Creative Commons license.
