Polluting the Information Stream

A big problem with open-source software: programmers gotta eat.

Suw Charman reports:

The Wordpress linkfarm furore - symptomatic of a wider problem: Corante > Strange Attractor > : There's been a lot of discussion about the way that Matt Mullenweg has been trading Wordpress.org's Google PageRank for cash, hosting unrelated articles on his server in order that they rank more highly in Google.... [I]t was probably a mistake for Matt to enter into an agreement with a company in which he assists them in gaming Google for money.... We can moralise about whether Matt should or shouldn't have taken money for helping a company game Google, and we can say 'Oh, he should have asked for donations - I would have given him money', but at the end of the day, that doesn't address the root cause of the problem....

There is something very, very wrong with:

1. Declaring that you are an "open source" project giving to the community.
2. Making money by crapping in Google's information stream by including high-value ad-words like "mesothelioma" (a very nasty asbestos-caused cancer) in your web page, thus polluting the information flow, and so degrading the quality of the services that can be offered.

Comments

[jerry]

It really had nothing to do with his project being open-source. Lots of closed content or closed source projects crap spyware and pop-up ads. All of this is seemingly contrary to the site's long term interests. But has a lot to do with short term money.

And it has been argued by others that apart from spammers, much of google's info-stream has been polluted by bloggers in general.

[perianwyr]

In fact, one of the reasons I generally consider an open source tool over a closed source one for a given task, all else being equal, is that the closed source program usually has something funny going on (spyware, adware, etc.) whereas the worst I usually have to fear from the open source program is that it will be abandoned (not a great fear if you have a coder on staff.)

[decon]

Grifters wear suits, frocks, uniforms, etc... to win confidence. So it's really no surprise to see someone using the cover of open source for the same purposes. And just because there is no out of pocket cash outlay doesn't mean it's free -- whether open or closed source.

[s9]

I see your problem, Brad.

You bought all the bullshit about open source programming having something to do with altruism. It was always bullshit, and it was never propagated by anyone serious about open source programming as a model for software development projects.

(I say this as someone who is an open source programmer, and who has no altruistic motive whatsoever for releasing my code under a BSD license.)

That said, polluting the Google data center is just plain evil. Doing it with open source code is a trivial ancillary detail.

[Auros]

Isn't part of the problem simply that Google has been too successful for its own good?

Make something valuable, and you can expect that people will try to get some of it for themselves. If you come up with a difficult test for acquiring it, they'll try to find ways to buy their way around the test.

[Matt]

I tried my best to clear up misunderstandings about the event here[1] and here[2]. I'm not sure why Open Source and what happened on a website keeps getting mixed up.

[1] http://photomatt.net/2005/04/01/a-response/
[2] http://photomatt.net/2005/04/04/a-summary/