Seems WordPress is reliving some of what it was like to be Six Apart around May of last year. Funny since many of its community where the chief antagonists then. Quite frankly I think they are getting off easy considering their offense is far more unethical and dishonorable then anything Six Apart ever did.
Andy Baio reports:
Wordpress is a very popular open-source blogging software package, with a great official website maintained by Matt Mullenweg, its founding developer. I discovered last week that since early February, he's been quietly hosting at least
120,000168,000 articles on their website. These articles are designed specifically to game the Google Adwords program, written by a third-party about high-cost advertising keywords like asbestos, mesothelioma, insurance, debt consolidation, diabetes, and mortgages.
Essentially, as I read the explanations to these actions in the ensuing comments, WordPress is hard up for cash to fund the project and was quietly taking money from a company trying to Internet trash into cash. Baio caught their hands in the cookie jar.
Many are calling it spam and others a scam. I'll just say its quite shady and a damn shame that this will mar the reputation of a project. Developers deserve to eat, but there are many many more ethical and honorable means.
I find it highly ironic that it was some of the WordPress community's most prominent and active members that were so blatantly opportunistic and criticized SixApart for trying to charge for their work (which is far more ethical and straight-forward then what happened in the WordPress camp) in the name of open source and freedom.
Not that Six Apart's execution was perfect. It had a lot to be desired and I said plenty on that. I'm not saying open source is bad and commercial software rules either. What I am saying is that I think there needs to be more consideration, understanding and balance to the economics of software development and how a highly successful project may not become victims of its own success.
I find it rather odd that the court of public opinion (and we know how large and vocal that court is in the blogosphere) has been seemingly less concerned about this infraction. What is the community saying? That open source by any means supersedes ethics and class?
Matt Mullenweg is unluckily (or is that luckily?) on holiday in Italy. However Jonas Luster, the first employee of the Wordpress Foundation, posted a response to the news and particularly notes Jason Kottke chiming in on the post. This quote was quite a kicker:
WordPress development is expensive. Start with a server and hosting, add Ping-O-Matic’s needs (PoM is the default for most WordPress and Drupal installs, today, and a large number of MovableType blogs) go on to figure that some of the developers have dedicated a seizable amount of their time to this effort, and you see where money might be needed.
It might not occur to Kottke, but maybe Matt felt that without some financial assistance, WordPress could not be sustained as a free project (in every meaning of the word), and realized that donations won’t cut it.
There is some news! Does this mean Six Apart is not the second coming of Microsoft after all? That they kind of knew what they were doing and were only being realistic?
Live by the sword. Die by the sword. I can only think that Matt can only have a new found appreciation for what Six Apart was trying to do in May 2004.
<p>Seems WordPress is reliving some of what it was like to be Six Apart around May of last year. Funny since many of its community where the chief antagonists then. Quite frankly I think they are getting off easy considering their offense is far more unethical and dishonorable then anything Six Apart ever did.</p>
<p>Andy Baio <a href="http://www.waxy.org/archive/2005/03/30/wordpres.shtml">reports</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wordpress is a very popular open-source blogging software package, with a great official website maintained by Matt Mullenweg, its founding developer. I discovered last week that since early February, he's been quietly hosting at least <del>120,000</del> 168,000 articles on their website. These articles are designed specifically to game the Google Adwords program, written by a third-party about high-cost advertising keywords like asbestos, mesothelioma, insurance, debt consolidation, diabetes, and mortgages.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Essentially, as I read the explanations to these actions in the ensuing comments, WordPress is hard up for cash to fund the project and was quietly taking money from a company trying to Internet trash into cash. Baio caught their hands in the cookie jar. </p>
<p>Many are calling it spam and others a scam. I'll just say its quite shady and a damn shame that this will mar the reputation of a project. <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4870">Developers deserve to eat</a>, but there are many many more ethical and honorable means.</p>
<p>I find it highly ironic that it was some of <a href="http://blog.carthik.net/vault/2004/05/14/movabletype-to-wordpress/">the WordPress community's most prominent and active members</a> that were so blatantly opportunistic and criticized SixApart for trying to charge for their work (which is far more ethical and straight-forward then what happened in the WordPress camp) in the name of open source and freedom.</p>
<p>Not that Six Apart's execution was perfect. It had a lot to be desired and I said plenty on that. I'm not saying open source is bad and commercial software rules either. What I am saying is that I think there needs to be more consideration, understanding and balance to the economics of software development and how a highly successful project may not become victims of its own success.</p>
<p>I find it rather odd that the court of public opinion (and we know how large and vocal that court is in the blogosphere) has been seemingly less concerned about this infraction. What is the community saying? That open source by any means supersedes ethics and class? </p>
<p>Matt Mullenweg is unluckily (or is that luckily?) on holiday in Italy. However Jonas Luster, the first employee of the Wordpress Foundation, posted a <a href="http://www.jluster.org/2005/03/spam-matt-wordpressorg-and-i-am-exhausted-bad-mix">response</a> to the news and particularly notes <a href="http://www.kottke.org/remainder/05/03/8002.html">Jason Kottke chiming in</a> on the post. This quote was quite a kicker:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>WordPress development is expensive. Start with a server and hosting, add Ping-O-Matic’s needs (PoM is the default for most WordPress and Drupal installs, today, and a large number of MovableType blogs) go on to figure that some of the developers have dedicated a seizable amount of their time to this effort, and you see where money might be needed.</p>
<p>It might not occur to Kottke, but maybe Matt felt that without some financial assistance, WordPress could not be sustained as a free project (in every meaning of the word), and realized that donations won’t cut it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is some news! Does this mean Six Apart is <em><strong>not</strong></em> the second coming of Microsoft after all? That they kind of knew what they were doing and were only being realistic? </p>
<p>Live by the sword. Die by the sword. I can only think that Matt can only have a new found appreciation for what Six Apart was trying to do in May 2004.</p>
