An open letter to a ham

Dear Dan:
Notes inventor Ray Ozzie wrote a piece about Internet services that I thought was kind of interesting. Actually its an e-mail memo that leaked out, but it almost seems as if it was deliberately leaked, appearing in both the WSJ and NYT simultaneously.

Digression: I saw IBM's CTO [Danny SUppan?] about a year ago, and he really impressed me. And with some of the things that have happened at MS [especially missed ship dates for products] I was beginning to think that Gates, now the chief software architect, was losing his mojo, and was at a loss compared to IBM [with Eclipse, and Java, and knowing where to draw line between software interfaces]. My guess is that Ray Ozzie in the runup to MS buying Groove was saying as much as that - that MS lost his mojo - perhaps noting there were too many groups with their fingers in too many other groups' products. Not knowing where the right line was between OS and app. So funny that now he is Gates partner in chief technologizing! A Gates' memo was leaked today too.

Why bother you with such blather?

Well, when I look at Deli.cio.us, and look at the patterns of people's visits, including yours, a pattern emerges. Not that I can describe it very well. But it seems like people are mucking about and mashing free software together.

Here is Ozzie talk:
Many startups treat the ‘raw’ internet as their platform. At the grassroots level, such projects actively use standards such as vCards and iCal for sharing contacts and calendars. Most all use RSS in one way or another for data sharing. Remixing and mashing of multiple web applications using XML, REST and WS is common; interesting mash-ups range from combining maps with apartment listings, to others that place RSS feeds on top of systems and data not originally intended for remixing. Developers needing tools and libraries to do their work just search the internet, download, develop & integrate, deploy, refine. Speed, simplicity and loose coupling are paramount.

Does any of that resonate for you? I am pinging in the blogosphere, sausage maker! I abhor vaccuum. I am probably trying to write a piece on this, but its open mike night here, and I need some feedback.

Related
H Y P E R C A M P : Dave Winer published the memos discussed above.