As we mentioned earlier in the chapter, there are many buzz words in circulation today, whose meaning is unclear at best. Depending on who is telling you about the future of the human race, the specific definition of the term Open Web may vary.

Most commonly, the term Open Web refers not to a collection of technologies, but rather to a philosophy, if you will. The word open is meant in the sense that the Web is not closed up to a select few, or restricted by someone, or to a certain purpose. The World Wide Web is designed to be a place where all are welcome to come, create, innovate, consume, and enjoy. There is no centralized governing body over the Web. In reality, everybody owns the Web, especially in the sense that without the millions of individual servers and files, the Web would not be what it is.

You may be asking yourself what this all has to do with HTML or HTML5, or what is it in for you. Simply put, everything. Really. The reason the Open Web is such an exciting thing (and such a success so far) is because for the most part, everybody is on equal ground there. While there are dozens of different server-side languages and technologies, the part of the application that users interact with is written in three basic technologies, namely HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The reason that now is such an exciting time to be a part of the Open Web, and the reason that you should consider yourself lucky to be able to be a part of it, is that these technologies are ripening and getting more mature.

HTML5 is built for the Open Web. It has enough power to leverage the distributed paradigm of the Web, and allows you, whether you're an independent developer or a member of a very large corporation with hundreds of other programmers, to create a desktop-like experience right on a browser, instantly reaching hundreds of millions of people world wide, all the time.