The web application in permanent beta is the latest fashion in today’s Internet world. Some folks believe that after several years of testing, that web applications ought to shed the beta tag and call themselves stable.

I disagree.

Open source desktop software is significantly more flexible than a closed source web application in terms of giving what users want. Desktop applications have extensibility through plugins, extensions, themes, and so forth. Web applications currently have only a weak extensibility through Greasemonkey.

Facebook Apps are closer to true extensibility, but Facebook remains in control over Facebook Apps, which results in rumors that Facebook is going to close down third party apps. Developers creating extensions of desktop applications usually do not have to worry about their extensions being wiped off the face of the Earth.

Also regarding Facebook, some users are not happy with Facebook’s transition to a new user interface. There is even a petition for the old user interface to return. I suggest you compare Facebook to Wordpress. Nobody is going to force a blogger to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress, but there is little one can do if Facebook decides to switch to a different (and worse, in the mind of the user) UI.

Does my blog post ring a bell? Oh yeah, this blog post sounds roughly similar to Richard Stallman’s opinions on cloud computing. Stallman is dead right. One should only truly trust open source software on hardware within the ownership of the user.

So where does the whole “keep Web 2.0 apps in permanent beta” idea come into play? My point is that Web 2.0 apps ought to keep themselves in permanent beta as a reminder to users that no Web 2.0 app outside of the user’s control is as safe as an application within the user’s control.

Use Web 2.0 apps responsibly™.