Built In The Open

20 years ago, only 0.4% of the global population was online. Today, that number has increased by a factor of a hundred to 40% of the world’s population, with more than a trillion unique web addresses to keep people surfing.

Such a trajectory begs the question : what has fuelled and enabled this phenomenal growth? The answer lies in the technological structure underlying the web, a foundation enabling people to share information with one another. This foundation is the “open model”, and the web’s success – both past and future – is dependent upon retaining this openness.

What exactly is an “open model”? Speaking abstractly, openness is a philosophy towards technology and innovation. In this model, technologies and systems are fully interoperable, and people can share information, integrate, and innovate unfettered. An open platform lowers the barrier to entry for users and developers alike.

Technically speaking, openness has two flavours: open standards and open source code. Open standards are agreed-upon rules for the creation of technologies. Using open standards, developers and companies collaborate seamlessly to enable greater distribution, interactivity, and creativity.

The web itself is built on open standards (such as HTML and TCP/IP), allowing for people to add and browse content freely. The internet is so inherently open that it’s hard to envision a closed web at all, one in which an internet “owner” determines who can join and surf the network. Today’s internet never could have come from a closed system.

The second flavour of openness is Open Source code. Whereas proprietary software code is kept behind a company’s closed doors, Open Source code is released for free in order to tap into the wisdom of the greater developer community. These developers in turn build on the code and make it better.

Think you’re far removed from Open Source code? Think again: you probably use it every day. Many popular and powerful technologies are based on Open Source code — for example, Mozilla’s Firefox browser, and the Linux operating system (which runs Google search, among many other services).

Open Source is also a great enabler of user choice, which directly benefits everyone – including you. By kick-starting the development process, open standards and open code reduce development inefficiency and promote the creation of more options for users. And when people have more options to pick from, competition between developers increases, and the web itself improves.

17 years ago, two students at Stanford University also kick-started their own development through open services. These two students, Sergey and Larry, “bootstrapped” a search engine using Linux and other initiatives from right within their dorm rooms. This led to the creation of Google.

Thus, openness is at Google’s core and it contributes to the open source community in a number of ways, from releasing over 14 million lines of code as open source, to hosting over 240,000 projects on Google Code.

Why is this important? First of all, it helps to drive the web forward, because more people online translates directly into more people using online products and growing the online economy.

From informing Google technology, to supporting the underlying foundation of the internet, openness is key to innovative technological advances. Openness drives innovation, and innovation drives consumer choice. Keeping the internet open will bolster its own success, and the success of developers, consumers, businesses and corporations alike.