Open standards win

[In 1994, MSN had] identified O’Reilly as an interesting specialty publisher, just the kind of target that they hoped would embrace the Microsoft Network (or MSN, as it came to be called). The offer was simple: Pay Microsoft a $50,000 fee plus a share of any revenue, and in return it would provide this great platform for publishing, with proprietary publishing tools and file formats that would restrict our content to users of the Microsoft platform.> > > > > The only problem was we’d already embraced the alternative: We had downloaded free Web server software and published documents using an open standards format. That meant anyone could read them using a free browser.> > > > > While MSN had better tools and interfaces than the primitive World Wide Web, it was clear to us that the Web’s low barriers to entry would help it to evolve more quickly, would bring in more competition and innovation, and would eventually win the day.

via forbes.com

This article by Tim O’Reilly, a geek who’s been involved with the world wide web since very close to the beginning, shows the kind of long thinking that’s too-often absent in technology writing. He’s writing about Amazon’s Kindle platform here, but the same thing could be said for open standards in general. All things being equal, an open standard beats a closed one. One of the only reasons why some closed standards are winning, is because their tools are better.

This is a great opportunity to strike, too - the time has come for a shift in the tools we use to write content for the web. For example, a truly brilliant HTML5 editor can contribute to the death of Flash.

PS I *remember* GNN! It was really cool and useful. Pity AOL killed it.

PPS I said “open *standards*”, not “open *source*”. Big difference.