Expand open source reach

I read an interesting article today by GF Colony: "My view: The Google Future". I personally doubt that X-internet is the way of the future. I believe, instead, in AJAX. Indeed, AJAX proves that it is possible to have web applications acting as equals of programs installed on a desktop (even partly installed, as is the case with X-internet apps) -- I would even say better than desktop applications.

I would also like to mention what I think was a mistake in the article: "So it's pretty simple: Programs can do things; Web pages are static documents". Web pages can be full applications, not just static document.

With Open Source Fusion, SQLFusion has built an AJAX substitute for web development applications that exist today. It is fully server based, running in any browser (written in PHP) and it is faster and more full-featured than the desktop applications it competes with. I have seen several other companies -- and open source projects -- developing impressive web-based applications, and I believe that that is much more "the upcoming trend" than X-internet is. If you look at WebERP, Dotproject, SugarCRM, Vtiger, wikis, etc. You don't need a program installed on your desktop, cell phone, PDA, etc. in order to take advantage of them.

It is true, however, that it will take some time to see a lot of mature web applications such as SugarCRM, but I can easily imagine that their adoption will outpace X-internet type of applications (note that SugarCRM has cumulated hundreds of thousands of downloads in just a few months).

And as a conclusion, perhaps the best would be this. Which application is most used today: Google maps (fully web-based) or Google Earth (X-internet). If there was a poll, I'm pretty certain we would see that the portion of people using Google maps is far larger.