Chris Saad, co-founder of the Data Portability movement - probably well known for having the least imaginative graphic designers . Has started up another venture, it seems mainly to capture a the current vernacular of the day - "data portability" is passe, viva le "open web."
The reasons for muddying already murky waters are ostensibly to broaden the mandate. Data portability is about the concept of openness and evangelism but the open web is about implementation issues. This is, at best, a pedantic separation of concerns that bears little fruit for benefitting anybody, but hey a launch gets more press coverage than a rebrand or a mandate change.
Further, the names seem to be misapplied - Data portability connotes FAR more technical concerns than "open web," which is supposedly a highly inclusive term - so crappy title for a useless institution.
Nomenclature aside, creating an organization to handle implementation concerns divorced from a normative architecture is profoundly unwise - a lesson taught to us by the history of international and trans-governmental organizations. The presumption of a harmonized normative ideal is naive at best, pathetically short-sighted at worst.
The web ALREADY has a standards organization . And, compared to many other industries, a very consumer focused one. Data Portability was and is a promising institution for consumer advocacy - to act as a mouthpiece for the disparate cloud of users crying out for a decentralized identity and escape from walled gardens like Facebook. The Open Web is so patently and obviously a cash-in on a buzzword it’s hard not to raise one’s hackles.
It’s also obvious that to get the support of companies like Facebook and Plaxo (read: Comcast) major surgery had to be applied to the mandate of Data Portability’s mandate - so much so, that in order to avoid alienating DP.org’s supporters Saad instead started a new thing - in effect abandoning Data Portability.
I’m disheartened by the consumption of a perfectly good domain name for something so useless or just as likely, damaging. This is a corporate consortium that can now express its will obfuscated in code and technical specifications rather than policies and protocols - we already have the IEEE, ISO and yes, even the W3C for that. They’ve taken ownership of the term and as a result fundamentally altered its meaning. From now on one will have to clarify "open web.org or open web?"
Also, what about the Apple Store? The iPhone is a impenetrable device unless you build for it - Jobs has spouted various specious technical justifications for what is a business decision of forcing developers to the phone over and above other platforms.
I think you have miss understood part of the situation Jeremy.
I didn’t start this new thing. I am still involved with the DataPortability project. I am not involved with the Open Web Foundation.
The foundation, however, is useful for providing legal frameworks for standards. As you point out, the DataPortability project is focused on evangelism only.
Also the group was not started to capitalize on the buzz around data portability. The project itself popularized the term.
Also all the major vendors have been supporting DataPortability project since very early - no change to mandate required.
Left by Chris Saad on July 25th, 2008