yes and no. Javascript in the browser sort-of reminds me of a microkernel. Competing methods and implementations is a good thing. Having things that we think are fundamental be replacable gives us some freedom. Native implementations, from a performance perspective ... yes. Declaring "this is the reference for pattern X", not a big fan of that idea.
As somebody who would be classed as a "wantrepreneur", I really hate the term and its negative slant. For a community of people who celebrate the pathological need to "do it for yourself" we tend to look down on people who are learning how it is done. All the books in the world don't give you the character to succeed and the process of self-discovery and learning about yourself is hard. IMVHO, classification of our disorder on a scale of current success isn't productive. It seems to me to be a byproduct of the culture pushed by commentators who are making a living off being critical in the startup world rather than a term coming from those giving it a go.
Crypto is complicated and very hard to do well. Hell, any complex software is hard to do well. There will always, always be bugs. While I am pissed off with so much moaning, and do agree they should be better funded, I think it is more the case of sensationalist blogging taking control of the narrative. Rather than "Booo OpenSSL" we should focus on recovering and raising awareness of the projects we all rely on every day.
Fastmail. Just switched from gmail to them, could not be happier so far. Free trial period too. They are Australian, with some servers in the US and elsewhere. You might be hard pressed to find jurisdictions that don't cooperate with the US without heading to the .ru side of things.
I agree with you, I made the switch myself. My point is that rather than enhancing the Android core, many of these closed APIs seem locked down soley to give Google more data, ie when that key API has the potential to be a data broker.
Might be a bit like Google Play where it becomes a super-package on any Android OS, integrating apps with the API and while giving the apps functionality also feeds Google with data.
Problem is ... I suspect that the Wearables SDK will be another case of Google launching proprietary libraries on Android. I have no problem with proprietary, but a lot of people think that because it's Android, it is open. It isn't. Core Android gets slimmer, Google's tie-in to your business gets fatter (unless you re-write their APIs). As an example, developers followed the location APIs in to the Play SDK ... switching from an open, core API to the Play API without fuss. It's creep if you ask me.
Here's a TL;DR I prepared ;)
Open models for value creation work. Look at open source projects, Wikipedia, Kickstarter projects and many others. Lean Startups and Customer Development approaches are pretty open too and we are increasingly seeing open data and open, transparent support ... but how far can we go? Can we open up everything in a startup from idea generation to planning, discussions, financial and testing data? What would an "open source" business look like?