Where's it all going?

Something I've been thinking for a while (and I just finally mentioned in svg-developers) is how SVG ties in to the future of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). I don't remember where I picked up the term RIA, but I think it was someone using Flash or something else that couldn't technically be called AJAX. So what do I mean by RIA then?

Whether you like the Web 2.0 buzzwords and terminology or not, they're coming. The applications are coming. I know there are a lot of people who would like it if web pages stayed a little more passive, but there's too much venture capital behind Web 2.0. It can either be good or bad for users. It can either be open or closed. We can either pay for the tools that build applications control the spread of knowledge over the web or we can exposse the source and allow innovation to spread naturally.

Okay, I'm not a zealot but I do believe in competition and accessibility - in that people should be able to develop sotware without unnecessary restraints. An important part of that accessibilty comes from the interoperability that we get with open standards developed by the W3C, WhatWG and... well Dave Winer I guess.

Anyhow, what's the open standards way to build an application served over the web?

Personally I like Javascript, some kind of HTML, XForms, and some kind of SVG at the client end. On the server side, a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) backend is good. I don't like the idea of XSL in the client right now, partly because of the lack of support but more because of the complexity of XSL.

What do you think?