Openomy began as a side project by me, Ian Sefferman, during the summer of '05. The purpose of Openomy is to take advantage of new technologies and to try new things.
Online file storage sites became a hit for a little while and then quickly disappeared. However, none of them really provided any value to the user. Once your file was uploaded, there was little you could do with it besides the standard downloading. With new movements and technology available, however, an online "file system" of sorts has a lot of potential. This is what Openomy evolved into.
Openomy has open APIs that anyone can use to write applications which store/retrieve/use a user's files. This means you could, for example, write and use a script to mount your Openomy files onto your Linux (or other OS) machine. To learn more about the APIs, visit the API Documentation site.
Another movement which Openomy takes advantage of is tagging. Instead of using folders to describe where files belong, Openomy uses tags. This allows you, the user, to hold one file in many locations. For example, the picture of your children on vacation shouldn't be constrained to just the "Mexico" folder or the "kids" folder. Rather, it should be allowed to be labeled as both.
Lastly, pronunciation and etymology. Openomy is pronounced open-ooh-me. The name is derived from the fact that the core of Openomy is, well, open. Anyone can develop tools to use Openomy in new and creative ways. The ending is a merge of the suffix -nomy, meaning system of rules, laws, or knowledge about a particular field. One of the goals of Openomy is to be the most knowledgable about opening a system up for public use.