December 03rd 2000 | John Dalziel

Web Activism - Part 1: Code Base

Christopher Robbins spoke about web activism at the recent New Media Underground Festival. Originally from the U.S. he lives and works in London.

I write this article with some trepidation. Not at fear of backlash from the corporations whose policies I am addressing, but at fear of being pigeon-holed by my own community as a web activist. I am not particularly politically minded. Heck, I'd rather get lost in a block of code or create some wild, shifting interface than worry about what Microsoft is doing.

My inspiration stems from my love of the web, my love of the work I do and the work I see around me. I want to do all I can to ensure that the forum for this work remains as open and uninhibited as possible. In the same way, your motivation need not come from some desire to save the world (though if it does, more power to you). All you need to participate in web activism is a love for the web.

The web is just a baby. In the past five years, it has grown from largely static image and text mark-up, to supporting object-oriented programming, streaming music videos and remote multi-user games and discussions.

When I look at the talented and passionate designers, developers and programmers in my peer group, along with the rapid development of wearable computers, broadband and wireless technologies, I am excited about the possibilities of a web 20
years in the future which may barely resemble the web of today.

At the same time, I am frightened.

Until recently, governments, unwilling to impede on the unprecedented economic growth this medium has brought, have largely kept their sticky fingers out of this wonderful honey pot. This will not continue for much longer.

This year brought with it several landmark cases restricting the rights of programmers. At the same time, corporations have run roughshod over the concerns of individual programmers, hobbling competition and free growth with the introduction of proprietary code and integrated components.
What is heartening in all of this is just how easy it is for us to make a difference. The same network that makes it easy for a corporation to saturate the market with its proprietary version of a free proxy or language also makes it easy for us to combat this hijacking. Actions as simple as carefully selecting which code we choose to support can make a huge difference in this battle for ownership of the web.

Jeffrey Zeldman, whose efforts have succeeded in maintaining open web standards on the web, wrote the following intro for my presentation at the NMUF in London late November.

Hi boys and girls. (WAVE HAND.)
I can't be with you because I'm in California. Not the famous part of California. The part where Internet connectivity means my girlfriend's brother's iMac and a 56K modem. I probably won't even log on. That's why I came here. To log off. Chris was kind enough to be my voice so I can be with you virtually for a moment. Chris wanted me to talk about activism and web standards. I'm sick of the subject. I've obsessed about it while my friends made art. I feel like a filmmaker who counts the sprocket holes on film stock while his friends make movies.

But.
The web has become a little better for people who build it and people who use it. Because some of us got together and said "Enough."
When we started The Web Standards Project in 1998, we didn't stand a chance. Some of the people we invited to help us told us we were wasting our time. That Microsoft and Netscape were way too powerful. That a handful of angry designers and developers couldn't possibly change these companies' products and philosophies. That we stood a better chance of becoming NBA All Stars.

No chance at all.
We tried it anyway.
It worked.

The web isn't perfect but IE and Navigator now support many of the same standards and methods. And they are under pressure to keep improving.
They did the work. But they did it because thousands of developers pressured them.
Thousands of developers pressured them because a handful of developers said, "Let's do this."

Activism works. And it certainly works on the web. If your idea is strong enough and needed enough, people will listen. Even very powerful people will listen.
Never doubt that what we do is important.
One designer can profoundly influence another. One designer can profoundly influence a thousand designers. One small group can change the industry.
The fact that you're all here is another proof of this.

Keep doing what you're doing.

---jeffrey
I see the internet as a vast public space, a park full of pedestrians, hot-dog stands and T-shirt vendors, with perhaps a swimming pool or boats for rent in the river, and of course the ranting lunatics on their soapboxes.

They all - the vendors, the pedestrians, the ranting lunatics - need fair access to this public space. If the park itself were owned by one company, then only those hot-dog vendors which the company supported could gain entry. If the company had its own hot-dog business, you can be sure they'd be the only ones selling hotdogs.

Additionally, only those lunatics ranting about something that company agreed with might find space for their soapboxes. Should the company decide to charge a fee to use their park, only a select class of pedestrians could use this once-public facility.

In the same way, if the code base is kept open, competition and innovation will be encouraged as companies push their own technologies into this space. Anyone with a minimum of technical expertise and funds can set up their own web-site to talk about whatever they wish.

With a company-controlled code base, the company's own technologies will have an unfair advantage over other vendors, and content on sites within their network may only feature company-approved content.

We have seen this very process unfold due to Microsoft's near-monopoly on operating systems. Leveraging this near-monopoly, Microsoft forced computer-makers to ship their computers with Microsoft's browser, and began to bundle so many "integrated components" into their browser that competing vendors were severely hobbled.

Currently, while the U.S. government holds its anti-trust decision against Microsoft in limbo, Microsoft has announced plans for the introduction of proprietary DHTML and "integrated components" such as video, email and anti-virus software into Explorer 6. This will serve a major blow to the likes of quicktime and realplayer, as well as email and anti-virus vendors, and could spell the beginning of more proprietary code-wars.

As web developers, we can help keep the code base public through the support of open web standards and open source software.

Web Standards are an agreed set of guidelines that allow developers to be confident that if they support this one open standard, their products will be accessible via this medium. XML and HTML are two examples of open web standards. In a situation where open web standards are truly implemented, the best product wins, and without onerous fees for the right to use a proprietary standard, the barriers of entry for individuals and small companies producing these technologies are low, which encourages growth and competition.
Open Source Software is a business model that keeps the development of an application open to the public, encouraging further development of this application throughout the entire web-connected world. An article in WIRED succinctly described the Open Source Business Model for Linux, one of the most popularly known products of Open Source:

The general public license, or GPL, allows users to sell, copy, and change copylefted programs - which can also be copyrighted - but you must pass along the same freedom to sell or copy your modifications and change them further. You must also make the source code of your modifications freely available.

Microsoft itself appreciates the power of Open Source Software (OSS):

The ability of the OSS process to collect and harness the collective IQ of thousands of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing.
(from "The Halloween Documents")

However, in the same breath, they seek to debilitate this process:

...to understand how to compete against OSS, we must target a process rather than a company.
(Ibid)
While Microsoft has acknowledged the authenticity of the Halloween Documents, they have stated that they were merely engineering studies, and should not be seen as official Microsoft policy. Nevertheless, the fact that they employ people to actively study how to destroy Open Source Software speaks volumes as to their goals and motivations.

Open-source and web-standards are about more than making life easier for developers. They keep the ownership of the web in the hands of the people, rather than at the mercy of a corporation.

By coding to open web standards and by supporting Open Source Software, we can do our part to ensure the web remains an open public space.

As Zeldman has said, the fight is a big one. But it is one that can be won, and every person's efforts towards that end help to ensure a better web.

If you are interested in learning more about these issues, spend some time at these sites:
http://www.webstandards.org
http://www.opensource.org
http://www.eff.org
http://www.webactivism.org