[bslatkin]

Here's my take on why open standards matter (from March '12):

http://www.onebigfluke.com/2012/03/diversity-powers-growth-w...

- Open standards are important because they promote competition and diversity.

- The opportunities of today exist because someone in the past thought about the long term.

- Open standards are an investment in our collective future.

[regis]

I totally agree, this isn't necessarily about the projects listed in the article. It is more of a reaction against the over abundance of announcements like "it's like X but open!" without really providing any significant openness over google drive or whatever it's attempting to replace.

After checking out the projects mentioned in the article I would definitely say that they don't fall into this category.