&gt; RSS is not a protocol<p>I don&#x27;t agree with this, but I can see reasonable arguments on either side of the argument.<p>&gt; vendors are building completely open source tools [like] React &amp; Angular.js<p>It&#x27;s good that folks are open-sourcing their GUI toolkits. The problem <i>isn&#x27;t</i> the lack of open-source GUI toolkits. The problem is the lack of interoperability between various Bigcos&#x27; services due to the lack of open protocols. Sure, you can reverse engineer the protos, but protocol design and BigCo cantankerousness has come a <i>long</i> way since OSCAR.<p>&gt; Are you suggesting that HTTP is transport layer? Because it&#x27;s not<p>It <i>totally</i> is. It&#x27;s the Universal Firewall Bypass transport layer. (There are ways to categorize sections of the networking stack that <i>aren&#x27;t</i> the OSI seven-layer model. :) )