I believe in open source. But, there have been too many events around open source in past couple of years that it is hard to believe that open source is not another commercialized entity. Companies posing themselves and based on open source technology in turn aren’t really open source in their products and offerings, and this brings an interesting and questionable point at times ‘what’s cooking behind those open source company doors?’. How many companies can we list that work towards the actual cause and benefit of open source, and also serve the underlying principals and foundation of open source? Most companies today are focused on how to make money off of the open source buzz, get funded and attract venture capitalists.
Another top of the line attractor of funds and capital these days is Web 2.0. Do we really understand Web 2.0? Why 2.0 and why not 1.5 or 2.5 or 3.0 or any arbitrary number for that matter. A term coined for the heck of it or did it have any meaning far and beyond the marketing and publicity of it? Is it making life easier for the users? What I have seen so far from Web 2.0 is – site slowness, complex page designs, heavy scripting and not really paying attention towards usability standards – so how the heck it makes things better over the standard pages or pre-Web 2.0 era?
To me both open source and Web 2.0 and overrated and overused terms today. It is time to move on, get something more useful. Something that makes the lives of the software development world easier, less stressful, more manageable, more focused, less expensive and user centric, and supports open technology standards (if they ever evolve completely).
Though, I named this blog “Open Source World” very aptly, but I think it’s going to stay this way, because open source though overused and overrated will eventually live out itself – and then I’ll think of some new name. BTW, I’m back with blogging.
