I have long believe that "data is the Intel Inside" of Web 2.0 applications, the source of competitive advantage and lock in. As a consequence, I also believe that it won't be long before "open data" becomes as hot-button an issue as open source software has been.

Hot Seat: Chad Dickerson, Yahoo!.
Recently, Zoomr, a competitor to Flickr (now owned by Yahoo!) wanted to use Flickr's own web services API to help users to move their photos from Flickr to Zoomr. Flickr's been a pioneer in open web services, but they drew the line there. Was this the first shot in the "open data" wars?