> Dnia 2008-05-15, czw o godzinie 10:21 +0200, Sylvain Hellegouarch pisze: >> That's what I'm afraid of as well. Probably that they will also create >> their own extensions like Google does. That's always a risk with >> companies >> that claim using open standards... well to a certain extent. > > And this is a problem because ...? >
It is a problem when you claim that you embrace an open movement only to narrow its openness by using extensions of your own. Don't get me wrong, it's not against the rules or anything. That's fair game but it doesn't mean it feels good. Open-source software and movements attract people that, to various degree, believe this openness may be for the greater good. It may be for selfish reasons too but quite likely people participate because they like the fact that ideas can be debated and implemented without having to sign a NDA. But beyond the philosophical aspect, and beyond the fact one would have to be very naive to think it doesn't happen, those practices can be frustrating and slow down the way competition works. For instance we could wonder why Google didn't use XEP-0013 for offline chat recording rather than coming up with their own extension. I'm sure there are many good technical reasons for it but that doesn't change the fact that if you want to integrate well with their service you have to implement that extension. Who wins there? I don't want people to think I'm bashing Google [1] or Facebook, I'm not naive, it's corporate world. Decisions have to be made and people have to live with them. Still one may hope Facebook won't go and create its own offline chat recording extension either... - Sylvain [1] Google has done a lot for OSS that it'd be very wrong of me to bash them. It doesn't mean they don't make decisions I don't like ;) -- Sylvain Hellegouarch http://www.defuze.org
