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Who Owns Dmoz?

Posted by Cliff on from the stuff-to-think-about dept.

C. Adam Kuether asks: "I like the concept of the open directory project and am considering joining the effort and contributing my bit to organizing the Web. I am concerned about the ownership rights to this compilation. The useage agreements seem reasonable enough now, but what assurance is there that this work will not become just another asset of the Time/Warner/AOL (read Netscape) media empire? Could this project convert to a legally enforceable open and free use license? Are the existing open content licenses practical? "

11 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Why all the paranoia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3
    I want to say up-front that I have worked for AOL for several years. I too was very wary when the merger was announced. Who wants to work for Ted Turner? But it looks much less scary from the inside. Many of the complaints aired here are unfounded. We will not become the sole source of news. TW/AOL will not own AP, for instance. And, unlike Slashdot and V.A. Linux, we (at AOL) will criticize CNN and other TW organizations without waiting for an outcry from our customers.

    -Jason, posting AC because of my job.

  2. Re:who says it will be bought out by Turner by The+Man · · Score: 3

    YES! This is in the License FAQ. Please read it. If the original poster had, this discussion would not even be taking place.

  3. Re:does it matter? by WNight · · Score: 3

    I think people should care. You never know if someone will turn out to be different than you expected, but you can certainly avoid the people who've already proven to be sleaze.

    And it matters if a big company gets control of a project because corporate goals are almost always different than the goals of the community.

    And what's wrong with not wanting to donate your time to help a megacorp? I'd be relucatant to help MS for free because they can pay for what they need, but there are many free projects that count of volunteers. If MS was to buy the project from a nominal owner, regardless of the people who put time and effort in, they'd have a right to feel cheated.

    If I help an open source/open content project, everyone benefits, the longhaired geeks and the corporations. I see this as being a good goal. If I helped a corporate project, only the corporation would benefit. Now if I don't get paid either way, which is a better use of time?

    If you design a project to be corporate from the beginning, and don't solicit help appearing to be a free project, then do whatever you want. I'm willing to invest some time helping /. because even as a corporation, they return to the community. But if they'd said they'd always be free, run by volunteers, and then after I (theoretically) donated a few hundred hours of time, sold the company, I'd want my piece of the pie.

    And the volunteer laws, that AOL ran afoul of, seem to support that. (If you do volunteer work that they pay people for, or later pay people for, you're eligible for compensation, in some cases.)

    And then there's the dark side. What if the information is taken and not just closed, but used to help their other projects? Imagine if you could only access the IMDB using IE, or only access CDDB records with WinAmp, because MS or AOL bought the database? That's be getting pretty sleezy. Especially since both project were volunteer based and counted on unpaid user submissions in the early days.

  4. hmm.. by Zurk · · Score: 3

    this appears to be a simple derivative of the NPL. since the netscape public license is classified as an open source license, i'd say that this project is open source too. http://dmoz.org/license.html

  5. Re:does it matter? by ddstreet · · Score: 3

    What does it matter if dmoz gets sold off to AOL/TimeWarner?

    Umm...AOL owns Netscape. So, since Netscape owns dmoz, AOL/Time Warner has owned dmoz from the beginning. I think you're missing the point here; it's not an issue of selling this to 'the highest bidder' but an issue of someone donating their own time, for free, to a project, and then Aol/Time Warner trying to sell the donated information. That is an issue worth considering. I certainly wouldn't do it.

  6. Re:Google already uses it by yerricde · · Score: 3

    Actually, Google does have ads but says no to 468x60 pixel animated GIF advertising; instead, Google inserts clean-looking text ads; the simple "surf with w3m or lynx and don't get ads" trick no longer works because Google is designed to look as good in character-cell browsers as in graphical browsers.

    And no, I don't work for Google :-)

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  7. Re:does it matter? by The+Man · · Score: 4
    The meat of the question: How much would Microsoft have to pay for your web site?

    Enough to buy and shut down Microsoft. :) So about a trillion...a mean, 800 billion, no whoops, 600 billion dollars.

  8. Umm... by luge · · Score: 4

    Is this really the right place to be asking this? Maybe you could just read the license instead. It's not like it isn't exactly two clicks away from the dmoz frontpage.
    ~luge(I know it's a slow news day, but c'mon guys...)

    --

    IAAL,BIANLY

  9. Wrong answer.... by Carnage4Life · · Score: 4

    From the Ask Slashdot:
    I am concerned about the ownership rights to this compilation. The useage agreements seem reasonable enough now, but what assurance is there that this work will not become just another asset of the Time/Warner/AOL (read Netscape) media empire?

    Your post:
    Is this really the right place to be asking this? Maybe you could just read the license instead.

    Okay, I don't want to sound like an asshole but "What does your post have to do with the question?". The original poster is worried about how possible it would be for AOL, which has a liberal open content license with respect to dmoz currently, to decide to start exerting ownership rights and using proprietary practices with the dmoz project?

    This is a very valid question and here's my answer. It is very possible for AOL to change the licensing agreements and become a ball buster with the dmoz project. Look no further than CDDB which changed it's license after being bought out by corporate interests and becoming a big enough entity. Of course, the solution to this is for there to be several such open services so that even if 1 of them becomes corrupted by greed the others will flourish and take it's place (like CD Index or FreeCDDB are replacements for CDDB).

    The original poster also asks about Open Content Licenses and since I just read 30 posts and none of them mentioned this I'll also try to answer this question.

    As to whether Open Content Licenses are practical, I say Yes, after all the dmoz project's license has proved this.

  10. Wait a minute... by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5
    I don't know AOL's management except by reputation. But I know the Mozilla folks pretty well, and they are not about to stand for their company running rough-shod over other people's rights. AOL would have to both dismiss all of those folks and continue the project. Not likely.

    Also, given the directory license, you could (and in fact someone should) archive the project as insurance - if the terms change, you can continue the project under the old terms.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  11. Openness at DMoz by Chalst · · Score: 5
    All of the output from DMoz is available in regularly updated RDF logs.

    If AOL were to start to misuse DMoz, then it would be possible (not
    easy, the code for the ODP is closed source) to start a new volunteer
    project based on these logs.

    It may worth signing up just to be privvy to the arguments going on in
    the editors fora around the whole openness/AOL controversy... Take
    care on your application, though: about 90% of applications are
    rejected.

    Charles (http://achilles.bu.edu/cas)