In the fight for an open Web, there are many challenges. One of the big challenges that is not often heard involves licensing technologies. As Open Web Advocate Chris Messina explains, to allow websites to communicate with one another in the same language and in a consistent way, open Web developers need to be able to access other people’s patents without getting sued.

Messina works with the Open Web Foundation, which is in support of this idea. The challenge is getting both large and small companies on board with this concept. He goes on to say that it takes a lot of work in order to produce something that will eventually be free for everyone.

In regards to the status of the open Web platform, Messina says that we are in the very early stages. As people publish and syndicate more content, more applications will be built, but the need to “mitigate the noise” will increase even more. In addition, information overload will result with this influx of more content. However, Messina believes that the solution for information overload is more data, in terms of metadata to help computers and machines understand it.

Another element that is often heard in regards to open Web efforts is activity streams. This term is being heard more and more around the Web, especially as the social Web continues to grow. According to Messina, these streams and feeds have been around since 1999, but have really exploded with the rise of social media.

Interestingly enough, the formats that drive these Web applications have not really changed since 1999.  Messina says the concept of activity streams is about taking the existing feed infrastructure and using it to power the social Web.

In the end, the bad news about open Web efforts is that there is still a long way to go. On the flip side, the good news is that there is a lot of work being done in the right direction.