Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Development
    • Networking
    • Servers

    Open Web Foundation to Keep Data ‘Open’

    By
    Darryl K. Taft
    -
    July 25, 2008
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      PORTLAND, Ore. — A coalition of individuals and corporate backers are creating the Open Web Foundation, an attempt to create a home for community-driven specifications following the open-source model similar to the Apache Software Foundation.

      The group was announced July 24 here at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention.

      Geir Magnusson, an ASF director, who was among the group that helped set the organization in motion, said the Open Web Foundation will be a success if it can take the concept of the Apache Software Foundation’s incubator and help to enable open-source communities to deal with legal issues and intellectual property concerns.

      “However, we don’t want it to be another standards body,” Magnusson said.

      At OSCON, David Recordon, an engineer at Six Apart, announced the formation of the Open Web Foundation, identifying it as “a non-profit where communities can come and work together.”

      According to the Open Web Foundation Web site:

      ““The foundation is trying to break the trend of creating separate foundations for each specification, coming out of the realization that we could come together and generalize our efforts. The details regarding membership, governance, sponsorship and intellectual property rights will be posted for public review and feedback in the following weeks.”“

      Recordon said the group doesn’t “want to create another organization; we’re trying to take the spirit of open source, of going and pulling together an ecosystem of the things that have come before us.”

      He said the group would focus on four things: incubation, licensing, copyright and community.

      In a blog post about the Open Web Foundation entitled “The Open Web Foundation: Apache for the other stuff,” Dion Almaer, co-founder of Ajaxian.com and an engineer at Google, said:

      ““Apache is great for code, but it doesn’t deal with the other stuff, which is fine. That isn’t its mandate. Apache does things very well, though, especially when it comes to governance and the incubator process. What if we had a foundation that had some of the same values around people participating (so anyone can, versus companies) and a varied community (not just a few blokes from the same company)? This is why I am hopeful for the Open Web Foundation. It is a new place to look at if you come up with something helpful for the Open Web, a place that may match your values.”“

      Recordon said the “conversation is shifting from just open source to data” and with many environments moving into the cloud, data becomes even more important. “The open Web needs data…and open data needs open standards,” he said.

      Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media, which runs OSCON, said his concern is about data and how control over data can be its own form of lock-in and control.

      Meanwhile, also in a blog post, Chris Saad, co-director of the DataPortability project, said:

      “It seems like the foundation is well placed to provide a much-needed level of oversight and legal protection for fledgling open standards. These standards will ultimately contribute to the -data portability’ vision of an inter-operable, standards-based Web of data. In our investigations of the various standards, this has been a key concern for us and we feel encouraged people are stepping up to remove this potential roadblock. There is enormous value in getting more people involved in working towards a vision we all share, and for that reason I am genuinely excited by this development.”

      Although the Open Web Foundation is made up of individuals, it has corporate sponsorship from companies such as the BBC, Facebook, Google, MySpace, O’Reilly Media, Plaxo, Six Apart, Sourceforge, Vidoop and Yahoo.

      Danese Cooper, senior director of open-source strategies at Intel and a founding member of the Open Web Forum, said one of her roles was to call on large companies to inform them about the effort.

      “The big companies freaked out,” Cooper said. “They didn’t want to see it just happen – they wanted to think about it awhile – but you have to just act.”

      Avatar
      Darryl K. Taft
      Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×