GrokSurf's San Diego

Over the years, Tim O’Reilly’s publishing house has served as a definitive source for computing information. He’s commonly cited as a top leader in the Web 2.0 movement. So when O’Reilly recently warned that big corporations are jeopardizing the internet as an interactive and collaborative medium, we should take note.

O’Reilly’s comments appeared in this report from Information Week.

The report states that the web is in danger of “segmenting into a federation of closed camps led by a handful of increasingly powerful vendors” and that O’Reilly believes vendors should focus more on benefits for the user instead of enhancing their competitive position.

We can certainly hope that vendors will become enlightened enough to realize it’s not in their long-term best interest to create walled gardens out of their products and services. I’m thinking of ISPs and companies like Apple and Google. But the other side of that coin is the possibility that people will go on accepting products that restrict their freedom as if that’s the way it must be. Will we allow ourselves to be herded into pens, or will we support those vendors who promote an open system?