An Open Web App Store could eliminate interoperability problems

Mozilla supports bringing the open web to the world of apps. Can this work?

An Open Web App Store could revolutionize the booming app business, or it could be a crushing failure - due to no fault of its own.

A post this week on the Mozilla blog details what the foundation proposes as the core principles of an app store for the open web. What struck me first as both the coolest thing and the biggest hurdle was this: that apps would work no matter the browser or mobile device.

First, the core principles:

An Open Web App Store should:

• exclusively host web applications based upon HTML5, CSS, Javascript and other widely-implemented open standards in modern web browsers — to avoid interoperability, portability and lock-in issues
• ensure that discovery, distribution and fulfillment works across all modern browsers, wherever they run (including on mobile devices)
• set forth editorial, security and quality review guidelines and processes that are transparent and provide for a level playing field
• respect individual privacy by not profiling and tracking individual user behavior beyond what’s strictly necessary for distribution and fulfillment
• be open and accessible to all app producers and app consumers

What end-users wouldn't want to be able to go to one spot for all their web and mobile apps, and browser add-ons?

But that's where the problem lies. It always seems that, no matter what developers do, they have to adjust and bend to the platform in order to make it work properly.

Now, it seems the primary focus of an Open Web App Store would be web apps, and that would be slightly different than the issue of mobile apps. It's not addressing the issue of developing an app for the iPhone vs for Android.

Moziilla does say that operability would take into consideration the various mobile platforms - and that would discount the use of Flash, for example. Sure, open source/open web advocates would be unlikely to design using Flash anyway, given it's a proprietary technology.

It's time, however, to bring the interoperability problems between browsers to a screeching halt. Just a few years ago, Internet Explorer was overwhemingly the browser of choice (not that most users had made a conscious choice to use it). Apple's Safari never made much of a dent, but Firefox slowly made inroads and accounts for about a third of all browsers used now in the U.S. Opera and others took other little nibbles out of IE's dominance, then Google's open-source Chrome browser delivered another blow to IE.

Now a good chunk of browsers used in the United States are open source and the (very) proprietary IE no longer has a stranglehold on the market. In fact, it So developers don't need to feel they should develop sites or apps with Explorer in mind. Still, the percentage of people using Explorer is too large to ignore, so it can't be discounted entirely.

And globally, IE has dropped to nearly 50 percent of the market, while Firefox has captured more than 30 percent.

Creating standards across all platforms and browsers would enable developers to concentrate on making the best app, rather than making sure everything renders properly in ever iteration. Users would benefit by not running into interoperability problems - even if they were using Safari or Opera, which are all but discounted in the process because they have such a small piece of the browser pie.

So, how do you see an Open Web App Store working (or not)? Is there any way these principles could be brought to the mobile market with proprietary players such as Apple and RIM?

• General discussions
• Google
• Microsoft
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• browsers
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• FireFox
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• Internet Explorer
• interoperability
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