Dare Obasanjo's post about the issue of Open Data (or Open Data
Access), indicates that the "Open Data" issue is
gradually beginning to resonate across a broader audience.
From my perspective on things I prefer to align my articulation
of the changes that are occurring across our industry (courtesy of
the Internet Inflection) to the MVC
pattern.
Re. the Web Versions (or Dimensions of Interaction):
Web 1.0 - (V)iewer (Interactive Web
experienced via Browser)
Web 2.0 - (C)ontroller Web (via Web
Services API)
Web 3.0 - (M)odel (via the RDF Data
Model as the basis for an Open and Standards based Concrete
Conceptual Data Model)
The same applies to evolution of Openness:
Early work by Sun and other early
UNIX Vendors - (V)iewer (Interaction with the same OS across
different hardware platforms)
Open Source Movement - (C)ontroller
(Open Access to Application Source Code )
Open Data - (M)odel (*where we are
now* Freeing the Date from the Applications and Services while
moving the application development focus to a Concrete Conceptual
Data Model focus. The Data Web is a classic example.)
In the (C)ontroller realm where the focal point is Application
Logic, data access issues aren't obvious (*I recall my battles with
Richard Stallman re. the appropriate Open Source License variant
for iODBC during the embryonic years of database and data
access technology on Linux*). Data is an enigma in this realm,
unfortunately. This implies that "Data Lock-in" occurs
deliberately, but in most cases, inadvertently when we make
Application Logic the focal point of everything. Another example is
Web 2.0 in which the norm (unfortunately) is to suck in your data,
and then refuse to give you complete ownership over how it is used
(including the fact that you may want to share it elsewhere).
Open Data is a
really big deal which is why the
SWEO supported
Linking Open Data Project is a very big deal. The good news is
that this movement is gathering moment at an exponential rate
:-)