Dancing Around Openness

The concept of "openness" has featured fairly heavily in these posts - not surprisingly, given the title of this blog. But this conveniently skates over the fact that there is no accepted definition of what "open" really means in the context of technology. This has fairly serious implications, not least because it means certain companies can try to muddy the waters.

Against this background I was delighted to come across this essay by David A. Wheeler on the very subject, entitled "Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes!" As his home page makes clear, David is well-placed to discuss this at the deepest level; indeed, he is the author of perhaps the best and most thorough analysis of why people should consider using open source software.

So if you ever wonder what I'm wittering on about, try reading David's essay on openness to find out what I really meant.