How 'Open' is OpenSocial?

Google surprised us by offering developers a platform for development of widgets and gadgets which can be used on multiple plaftorms such as Myspace, Ning, LinkedIn, etc etc. In fact we should be able to use them almost anywhere except for Facebook.

That is a welcome move, no doubt about it and because it will use a very user friendly way to add them to your profile anywhere (just push the button) in will enable users the same way as Facebook does in it's single, closed environment.

But after having done some tests on Ning with the first OpenSocial widgets, I must warn you as well:
1) They don't work properly (yet), and they are a bugger to remove from your Ning profile
2) They are not very 'Open'. You cannot 'see' or change the code of the widget. That also means that you cannot copy and paste it to the place you want, e.g. your blog or your own website..

That will also mean that you can also only use it in a mobile environment that will allow the widgets...The Google Android / phone environment.

The Open Networkers are very willing to help a decentralized strategy that will enable and help anyone, but we are not helping any party in their monopoly-strategy and it seems that it is just that what Google has in mind..

So beware..we'll just keep our html and Java based widgets which work properly and can be published anywhere freely.