Howard Reingold, noted futurist (and author of Smart Mobs) gave the keynote at this year's O'Reilly conference, arguing that the freedom to technological innovation by individuals is under attack.
Rheingold warned that attempts to stifle innovation would have dire consequences. He reminded the audience that Unix, the Internet and the Web were all open systems built collectively, by collaborating parties. If the government or big corporations had been charged with building the Web, they'd still be struggling with it in our grandchildren's lifetimes, he said.
Companies in general benefit greatly from individual innovations in technology, but often forget this fact and seek to squelch that innovation in order to protect intellectual property or market dominance. Like many folks my age, I learned to use computers by playing around with them for years, poking under the hood and listening to the ideas of other tinkerers. If the tech companies and media groups manage to "weld the hood shut" on computers and consumer electronics, it will be at tremendous cost to the intellectual energy devoted to moving technology forward, and innovating beyond immediate commercial needs.
