New Foundation Wants to Bridge the Gaps Between Open Web Tools
Speaking at the OSCON Open Source Convention, Six Apart’s David Recordon recently announced the Open Web Foundation, a meta-standards organization dedicated to smoothing the way for large businesses to embrace open web standards like OAuth, OpenID and more.
While there is already the Data Portability Workgroup, which acts as an open standards evangelist, the new Open Web Foundation aims to do the behind-the-scenes dirty work. The goal is to ensure that the various standards, like OAuth and OpenID have consistency, a legal framework and communication between them.
One of the big problems that open web advocates face when trying to convince the likes of Google or Facebook to use open technologies is that large companies need to know the legal standing of the code base in question. Companies need to know that implementing OpenID won’t open them up to lawsuits because some aspect of code isn’t properly licensed.
That’s one of the things the new foundation will handle. It also wants to provide a place for various groups to meet and exchange ideas — to form for instance a bridge between the OpenID and OAuth groups.
Of course there is the danger that the Open Web Foundation will be yet another layer of bureaucracy. And there’s also the recently announced Autonomo.us group, which seems to have similar aims. Open Web Foundation member Chris Messina responded to questions about Autonomo.us saying, “I think that we’re complementary… Just like the EFF (autonomo.us) and Creative Commons… both have similar leanings, but different approaches and mandates.”
Hopefully the Open Web Foundation can help do some of the real work needed to bring together all the various elements of the social web and end up with a better, smoother experience.
For a bit of background and some more details, check out Recordon’s OSCON slideshow presentation:
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