[LINK] Google Wave

[Roger Clarke]

At 13:32 +0000 29/5/09, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.
>5/28/2009, 09:15:00, http://googleblog.blogspot.com
><http://wave.google.com/>http://wave.google.com/

Okay, I've been asking for years for an update to the venerable email 
standards, with simple text plus *alternative* richer media, and 
chat/IM, and conferencing, all with an integrated database, archive 
and search.

And of course standards-based, so that multiple vendors can compete 
over the top of common protocols and infrastructure.

So I'm desperately disappointed that, after all this time, it's 
Google that's doing it, with no apparent IETF involvement.

Google already has massive archives of communications, not just of 
its users, but also of everyone its users correspond with.  We badly 
need ways to avoid all of that data being gifted into a corporate 
store, available for exploitation however Mountain View sees fit.

My first suspicion is that Wave will be designed to ensure that the 
maximum amount of traffic is captured into Google's archives.

My second *was* that the mechanism would be proprietary and closed.

On the other hand, this suggests proprietary and *open*:
http://www.waveprotocol.org/
http://www.waveprotocol.org/draft-protocol-spec

[Adobe is an example of a provider that once had a decent reputation 
for proprietary-but-open.  But they seem to have rather mucked up 
that reputation lately, with more tricks (or just bugs?) that get in 
the way of effective third-party implementations.  And even MS has 
yet to destroy RTF as a proprietary but *reasonably* open standard 
format.]

Has anyone reviewed the Wave Protocol yet, to evaluate:
-   the extent to which it's genuinely open versus pseudo-open?
-   the extent to which it generates momentum towards capture of
     all or most of our communications traffic into Google's store?


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW