Web 2.0 Summit: Open Source software borrows back from the open API Web

Web services, software-as-a-service, and per-node, per-hour rent-a-grid computing are meeting in the middle. Web sites, companies with server software roots, and open source developers are converging on new ideas for business IT that blur the lines between APIs, services and software products.

By Evan Prodromou, LinuxWorld.com, 11/13/06

As the Web 2.0 Summit (Nov. 7-9 in San Francisco's aptly-named Palace Hotel) drifted into its second half, the panels ended and all eyes were focused on the main stage in the Grand Ballroom. But the seats themselves weren't full, thanks to the Google Overflow Lounge, which looked like a funky nightclub with big comfy white couches surrounding large plasma TVs. The self-service mini-café – replete with energy drinks and health food snacks – didn't hurt the lounge's popularity, either.

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Day Two's speakers were a mixed bag. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talked about his company's foray into Web services and rent-by-the-hour hardware provisioning. Internet founding father Vint Cerf and Cisco's Robert Pepper argued about net neutrality at the bits-and-bytes level. Robert B. Carter of FedEx discussed the virtualization of distribution, and Bob Parsons of domain registrar GoDaddy.com showed racy commercials and talked about pulling GoDaddy's IPO when financiers insisted he cut his customer service staff (920 of 1340 employees) to reduce costs.

Ning, the new social network platform started by Netscape co-founder and perpetual entrepreneur Marc Andreesen, provided the conference's hottest technology demo. Ning has collected some of the key features of Web 2.0 social network sites – video and photo sharing – and exposed them as a framework for Internet users. It takes a few seconds, and no coding, to create a new social network site -- your own clone of HotOrNot or Flickr -- and you can extend the Ning platform with their PHP plugin API or AJAX-ready REST API.

The LAMP Stack goes 2.0

The technology focus picked up on Day Three, when Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB, gave the opening talk. He proposed a universal database, a grand experiment in exposing relational databases over the Web, both publicly and in private relationships. With proper APIs and protocols, he said, data mining across organizational boundaries can happen and new mashups of structured data could be built.

I talked to Marten after his speech about MySQL AB's plans to build the underlying infrastructure to make this database possible. He said, “We're still in the idea stage. Part of being close to the open source community is that we can stimulate development of work in this area.” Projects on the company's new MySQLForge site include RSS and XML interfaces for MySQL databases, and he thinks further developments are coming.