Jimmy Wales Looking To Establish Open Source Search Engine

We all love the concept of open source. It excites us. Despite the fact that the vast majority of computer users rely on creations born of a proprietary nature for most, or even all of their daily tasks, a big soft spot for Tux & Friends still exists. In an ideal world, everything would be “open”. I’m sure you’d agree.

There’ve been some great successes in the OS world. Linux, for one. It’s not the most popular platform out there today by any means, but the fact that a great deal of attention and support is still given to the kernel championed for years by Linus Torvalds and others is a very good thing. And it seems only to be gaining more traction as time presses on. We’re already (or should we say finally?) seeing PC manufacturers begin to offer desktops and laptops with Linux variations, most notably Ubuntu at the moment due to popular demand. That’s no doubt a fantastic development, as well. All around good news on that front.

On the Web, there’s an even more successful creation built upon an open source motto. It’s called Wikipedia. I’m sure you’re familiar with the name. The brainchild of Jimmy Wales, a somewhat soft-spoken yet very ambitious OS nut, Wikipedia is currently enjoying its place as one of or even perhaps the most popular website on the planet. Everyone uses it. Even its most fervent critics are more likely than not to use or have used it as a reference at one point or another.

Wales hasn’t stopped there, either. He’s built Wikia, a for-profit venture that’s supposedly growing at a very impressive rate. And just recently we learned that he and his co-conspirators want to enter the world of search.

Wikia announced just last Friday that they had acquired LookSmart, a site specializing in search. What Wales and gang intend to do with their purchase is to place Grub, a technology built into LookSmart, under an open source license and have it as a basis on which to build a “community-developed search site.”

So…open source search, huh?

If we’re talking about ideal outcomes, sure, “Open Search”, or whatever the product might eventually be named, can indeed become another Wikipedia of sorts. It could be popular as heck, and have the critical mass to keep everything in check. It could evolve to one big golden nugget, giving industry veterans reason to quiver, even shed some tears. (Wales of course wants to go all the way, eventually contesting with Google for top slot in the search industry.)

That’s not at all a likely scenario, though. Sure, it’s possible. Anything’s possible. Yet for all the benefits of open source search, I don’t see the concept-turned-reality becoming much more than something of a second-tier novelty, even with a big name like Jimmy Wales with his honorable Web-based heritage to back it up.

I agree wholeheartedly with Wales' assertion that “search is part of the fundamental structure of the Internet and should be transparent and open.” Only, I would find it much more in the interest of the searching public if a regulatory body (or several) or simply a critical mass of users were to force existing stalwarts – Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, etc. – to “open up” themselves. To establish yet another engine to promote search “the way it was meant to be” isn’t likely to achieve what Wales wishes it to.

There’s no doubt that the market in the long run will be better off with a stern push toward a complete, across-the-board source-opening transition. If Wales chooses to make that happen with the introduction of his own community-created-and-managed search engine, so be it. We should not, however, expect a runoff result (a la Wikipedia).

But, if we do see a major shake up in the search industry with Wales’ creation coming out on top, I’ll gladly eat my words.