The Inevitable Rise of Open Standards in Technology

My fascination with technology started back in university, during the early 2000s, when I stumbled upon Linux and the open-source world. It wasn’t just the software that drew me in; it was more the mindset. The openness, the collaboration, and the freedom to learn and build together really got me hooked. I’ve always been curious about how things work and enjoy figuring things out, but what motivates me most is being part of something that continues to grow through shared ideas and teamwork.

As I started a family, that same passion for openness shaped how I viewed technology at home. I often wondered: how could I keep my kids away from proprietary ecosystems, especially those that lock users into a single platform like Microsoft Office? During a time when Microsoft Office mostly relied on proprietary file formats, I often found myself using paid compatibility tools just to make such things work in Linux. The first computers my children ever used at home ran various flavours of Linux, as I wanted them to experience the same sense of exploration, creativity, and openness that had inspired me years earlier. My real concern, however, was what would happen once they stepped into the structured, standardized world of school systems; would that spirit of openness survive?

When my kids started school, I was pleasantly surprised to see them using Chromebooks and Google’s Classroom, lightweight, browser-based, and accessible from anywhere. It felt like the philosophy of open standards had quietly taken root in mainstream education. Documents, spreadsheets, and slides were no longer trapped in file formats or bound to a specific operating system. Everything was in the cloud, shareable, and device-agnostic.

As the school ownership changed hands, so did its IT strategy and soon students were issued MacBook Airs, and the ecosystem shifted from Google to Microsoft 365. My initial reaction was disappointment. It felt like a step back toward proprietary dominance. Yet, something interesting happened: my kids didn’t care. They kept working the same way they always had on their Chromebooks, i.e., through the browser. They instinctively always opened Microsoft Word online instead of the desktop version. They collaborated through shared links, not attachments. The device changed, but their habits didn’t.

One day, as my daughter was working on the online version of Microsoft Word on her MacBook Air, I asked her, “Why don’t you use the actual application?” She looked at me, a little puzzled, and said, “Baba, you mean the ‘app’ version?” When I nodded, she smiled and said, “That’s so cumbersome, you have to remember to save it, and sharing files is a hassle.” For her, the idea of manually saving documents or emailing attachments already felt outdated, a relic of a time before seamless, connected workspaces.

A few days later, her MacBook Air (M1) unexpectedly failed. Apple informed us that the motherboard was damaged and the repair cost was almost the same as buying a new laptop. My immediate concern, naturally, was her data. Coming from an era where the hard drive was sacred, I assumed I could simply remove the SSD and recover the files. To my surprise, I learned that the M-series Macs have soldered SSDs, making traditional data retrieval nearly impossible. I anxiously told my daughter she might lose all her data. She paused for a moment and then calmly replied, “Baba, I don’t have any data on it. Everything is on the cloud.” That was when it struck me, my children are truly cloud-native.

In that moment, I realized something profound: the platform no longer mattered.

The world I once hoped for, one where open standards win, was already here, just in a different form. Even as proprietary software persists, the way we interact with technology has fundamentally changed. Everything is increasingly cloud-based, API-driven, and interoperable. The browser has become the new operating system, and openness has quietly become the default.

This evolution is not about Linux defeating Windows or Google conquering Microsoft. It’s about how technology inevitably moves toward openness, because openness scales. It encourages innovation, breaks silos, and empowers users to choose what works best for them.

What began as my personal journey with Linux has come full circle in my children’s digital education. The spirit of openness I once tried to protect is now embedded in the very fabric of the tools they use, even those that come from the most closed vendors.

In the end, technology evolves not toward ownership, but toward freedom. Does anyone care to reimburse the money I paid for the useless 512GB internal drive in the dead MacBook Air?