I love manifestos
Everyone has a manifesto these days. Gamers, futurists and cultural theorists (or whatever they call themselves) all have them, and you can too, if you have a modicum of passion about something. And I love ‘em. There’s something about the format and the language that says “what we’re trying to do is important than the details”. It’s like walking up a mountain and planting a flag at the top — you’ve effectively (and literally) claimed the higher ground, not because it’s yours, but because you put a flag in it. It’s not open for discussion. There’s no debate. No council or requests for comment. The fact that there’s a flag there at all is the important thing, and if you do try to speak against it, all you end up doing is diverting attention toward the flag.
And so it is with IBM et al’s Open Cloud Manifesto. Check out this little six-point plan, which, like all good manifestos, contains healthy amounts of the words ‘must’, ‘should’, and ‘need’.
- Cloud providers must work together to ensure that the challenges to cloud adoption (security, integration, portability, interoperability, governance/management, metering/monitoring) are addressed through open collaboration and the appropriate use of standards.
- Cloud providers must not use their market position to lock customers into their particular platforms and limiting their choice of providers.
- Cloud providers must use and adopt existing standards wherever appropriate. The IT industry has invested heavily in existing standards and standards organizations; there is no need to duplicate or reinvent them.
- When new standards (or adjustments to existing standards) are needed, we must be judicious and pragmatic to avoid creating too many standards. We must ensure that standards promote innovation and do not inhibit it.
- Any community effort around the open cloud should be driven by customer needs, not merely the technical needs of cloud providers, and should be tested or verified against real customer requirements.
- Cloud-computing standards organizations, advocacy groups, and communities should work together and stay coordinated, making sure that efforts do not conflict or overlap.
Microsoft and Amazon have problems with it (though what they are, I can only guess). But guys, you can whine all you want about the details and it won’t matter because it’s a manifesto. It’s more important than the details! It’s a call to action, not a bloody white paper. If you want to fight it, go forth and create a Closed Cloud Manifesto! (Everything about this post tongue-in-cheek except for that last sentence. I’d really love to read such a manifesto.)
