Open Directory Project Adopts Debian Social Contract

An anonymous reader says "The Open Directory Project is owned by AOL/Netscape and the status of the copyright and amount of corporate interest has always been a question. In light of a coming copyright revision, the staff was urged to give something back to assure that the volunteers contributing to the directory would not be taken advantage of, as they were with CDDB/Gracenote. The Debian social contract was brought up and was met with surprising support from Netscape. Here is the ODP's social contract. It's seen as a great triumph for the volunteer community that has worked so hard on the largest human edited directory on the web." I was always skeptical of dmoz, but I'm pleased to see this step taken. Now if only Gracenote would be good enough to do the same. Oh wait, that would imply that they had souls.

Comments

Show me a license that doesn't say that

[Cardinal]

Virtually every license I've ever read has stated "Subject to change without notice".

This is nothing new, and certainly nothing noteworthy.

Re:Show me a license that doesn't say that

[kilgore_47]

Virtually every license I've ever read has stated "Subject to change without notice".
This is nothing new, and certainly nothing noteworthy.

I fully agree. However, my opinion is subject to change without notice.

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Re:Please...

[Chris Johnson]

Oh, come on, that was _funny_. Whatever you do, don't ever go read Penny Arcade. You'd have a coronary :)

Re:Nice to see. But please give credit where it's

[Bruce Perens]

Yup. I blew it. I just looked for the credit at the end where everyone else puts it. Oops.

Dmoz was never in doubt. CDDB always was.

[hatless]

This is nice, but Dmoz seemed pretty safe under its longstanding copyright and license terms. Even if Netscape/AOL wanted to change the terms of whatever sits at "dmoz.org" on Netscape-owned servers, the content up to that point would remain fully, irrevocably open AFAIK, free to fork. This move may make things easier for the community of editors to retain control wiith minimal disruption when AOL/Time Warner decides it no longer wants to fund the project at some point in the future.

CDDB was always free of charge, but never offered under any sort of community copyright. It was always clearly, unambiguously under threat of becoming a pay-for-play closed database.

I hope you don't think your book and record reviews on Amazon belong to you. Don't be surprised if a tome similar to the All Music Guides suddenly materializes, made up of the best customer reviews from Amazon. And they won't owe you a penny.

What happens if they break it?

[st. augustine]

It sounds very nice, and I'm sure their intentions are good, but it doesn't look like it's contractually binding on AOL Time Warner in any way. What happens when they have a change of management and the new management decides -- pardon the expression -- all your DMOZ are belong to us?

Re:What happens if they break it?

[jordandeamattson]

You take them to court.

This document is a contract. It might not look like a contract, but it is an agreement entered into by two parties with an exchange of favors.

Until they change it, it is binding on them and you - if you agree to it. If they change it, the current version governs any content submitted up to the change.

If they break it, then you take them to court. You get an order compelling them to honor the agreement. Since they didn't outline a limitation of damages, you could also seek damages from them.

I have worked in a lot of big companies. I am surprised that something this straight-forward, clean, and "right", was able to make it out into the world.

Re:DMOZ? Who the hell care?

[DeathBunny]

Have you tried DMOZ? Google uses it for the Google Web Directory.

If you try it, I think you'll find it's pretty damn good.

GPL does. BSD, zlib, and X don't.

[yerricde]

Virtually every license I've ever read has stated "Subject to change without notice".

Including the GNU General Public License, but not including the BSD license, the X license, or the zlib license.

What bothers me most about the Open Directory license is that the requirement to keep checking back home makes the license to use a specific version of the data non-perpetual and makes the license not a free documentation license.

And no tracking either

[DrXym]

I switched to DMoz now that every directory entry in Yahoo! is goes through a CGI redirect script. Who knows what they're doing with the data they gather? If you have a My Yahoo! account you should be extremely concerned that they could associate every place you visit with your Yahoo! ID.

Oh PLEASE!

[fleener]

I find the idea of having lots of decentralized editors, each responsible for one small area, very appealing. The opportunity for distortion or bias is confined to each editor's individual subject.

Web Marketing 101:

1. Start a web site to sell widgets
2. Make yourself editor of "Widgets" category on Dmoz
3. Give your site preferential treatment in Dmoz rankings

Who is watching the gatekeepers?

Pleasantly surprised

[Alien54]

I find this a profoundly rational and moral action on the part of Netscape.

Too bad other companies can't do the same thing.

not going to say much else, because I'm all ranted out for today

;-)

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Nice to see. But please give credit where it's due

[Bruce Perens]

This is really nice to see, and an excellent decision. It's made my whole day. I just have one little nit I'd like to see them fix.

They are obviously concerned that people not use their data without proper attribution.
But they are using the social contract without proper attribution :-) . I guess they didn't read this text at the end of the social contract:

Other organizations may derive from and build on this document. Please give credit to the Debian project if you do.

So, DMOZ, please add attribution to Debian to the document. I wouldn't mind a credit for creating the original social contract, which I get in a note at the end of the Debian version, but I'll settle for Debian getting credit.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:DMOZ? Who the hell care?

[DrXym]

Who says they don't do either?

DMoz is used here as well as here. If you don't believe they're taken from DMoz, try searching for for "Slashdot" or browsing through the categories a bit.

As for Mozilla/Gecko, haven't you heard of the Komodo project? No doubt it will debut in an embedded form in AOL 7.0 and not to mention Netscape 6.5 and that AOL/Gateway device it's already running in.

I wish I was Bruce Perens

[HongPong]

Bruce Perens messes up, apologizes, more upvotes for the mistake and the correction! As he noted once before, typical slashdot mods...

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Re:Not a license, a "promise"

[jordandeamattson]

Actually, this is a contract. Any content submitted prior to a change is bound by the license put in place. Of course, if you want to protect yourself, you should capture the existing contract and any revisions. This will allow you to hold them to a particular version of the contract.

Let's be honest, except for some classes of marriage, no one gives contract's "forever".

Re:Skeptical about DMOZ?

[PD]

Or, you can just go to the google site. Their directory is based on DMOZ. Get the best of both worlds without having to go there.

Skeptical about DMOZ?

[zpengo]

Many people took an early interest in DMOZ, but when seeing how underdeveloped it was, they gave up and went back to Yahoo with the notion that "DMOZ is a nice idea, but it doesn't have enough content."

That was several years ago, though. I recently checked back to see how the project was going, and it's *huge*. DMOZ is robust enough to compete with Yahoo, but without the bells, whistles, banners, portal features, and other crap that make Yahoo so bloated.

So check out DMOZ. You might, like me, make it your usual search directory.

Re:Come on Taco

[GodHead]

Oh wait, that would imply that they had souls.

Oh, fuckin' grow up, Taco

You got modded down for failure to use the proper form...

"Come on (Jamie/Taco/Cowboy), a comment like that will not impress upon (MSFT/RIAA/government/anyone) the (seriousness/commitment/31337 skillz/good looks) of the (Linux/Free software/open source/GNU/troll) community. We need (leaders/journalists/dorks) such as yourself to set an example in this matter by doing (the right thing/drugs).

Yours,
(Linus/RMS/Bruce Perens/Trollaxor)

Upcoming forms include :
What-happened-to-the-quality-of-slashdot?
Goat se.cx
This-company-rocks/sucks
God-I-hate-this-n ew-law/patent/boy-band
Impassioned-call-to-arms
and the Witty-yet-totally-off-topic

G.H.

What if we DIDN'T have a beowulf cluster of these...

Oops - Open Mouth, insert foot

[Bruce Perens]

Oops, I just found the Debian credit. Open Mouth, Insert Foot. These things happen once in a while. I'll go back to what I was doing now. Sorry.

Bruce

Not a license, a "promise"

[GodHead]

That's real nice till you look one link deeper and see...

<I>By using the Open Directory Project (ODP) in any way you are agreeing to comply with these terms, which we may update without notice and encourage you to check back here at any time</i>

So what they are saying is - "We'll play nice until we decide we don't want to anymore."

Distributed bias

[gentlewizard]

I find the idea of having lots of decentralized editors, each responsible for one small area, very appealing. The opportunity for distortion or bias is confined to each editor's individual subject.

It reminds me of Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion World Map, which divides the earth into lots of triangles, then localizes map distortion into each triangle. The net result is that overall, the map is very accurate. In contrast, the Mercator Projection localizes all its error at the edge, so Greenland looks larger than North America.

In the same way, having lots of subject editors instead of one company doing the editing should in theory localize the bias to individual subjects. Chances are better that the Open Directory as a whole will be less biased.