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Perens Launches 'OpenSourceParking'
miller60 writes "Open source evangelist Bruce Perens has launched OpenSourceParking, a service designed to boost domain parking on open source software. The project is a response to a large gain by Microsoft in the April Netcraft survey, with Windows' share jumping 5 percent as domain registrar Go Daddy moved 4.5 million parked domains from Linux to Windows Server 2003. To regain that share, Perens is calling on open source users to park undeveloped domains at OpenSourceParking, with the advertising revenue being used to fund political advocacy efforts on behalf of open source software. Parking-for-profit has grown into a significant business in recent years. Despite ambivalence over the value of these sites, Perens appears to believe it merits a focused effort for the open source community."
Seriously - is this worth Bruce wasting his time on?
We all know that all the vast majority of high performing websites run Apache on a free unix-like O/S.
Who cares if Microsoft can claim an extra 5%? Do such stats ever influence companies choosing a platform?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
a service designed to boost domain parking on open source software.
Er... and how is this a good thing? Parked domain are an atrocity, something that should be eradicated off the face of the public namespace; the only legitimate use is an "under construction" marker before a real service gets put onto that name.
Somehow, I wouldn't want to push the stats of people who pee on the street the most. The "market presence" isn't always good.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I'm wondering how this will affect public opinion of open source projects. Personally, if I wanted a domain and found someone had already parked it using an open source service, I'd be less than pleased with open source in general (assuming I wasn't already rather familiar with open source).
Of course, I might have got the wrong end of the stick here, but that's how I understand it at present.
Perens has been somewhat active in the past couple of weeks? Has he changed the street corner he gets his fix from? Seriously, Perens is banded around as being this "Open Source Evangelist" - excuse me while I puke in a bucket. Perens only pops on the scene when there is another fanciful idea to line his pockets with cash.
Hey, how about another campaign to try to get spammers to use more open source software? Just because their business is of NEGATIVE VALUE as it POLLUTES THE NETWORK doesn't mean it shouldn't be endorsed by the free software community.
Every time Microsoft gains ground, they drive that point home with advertising campaigns and news releases. This adds to consumer confidence for their products. If IIS is serving on more than 50% of all websites, there must be something to it. Or so the logic goes.
So the thing to ask yourself is, do you want Microsoft to get those wins? Do you really think anyone besides you is looking at the realities of webserving? Or is your manager going to buy into the press release hype and make IT decisions for you to implement?
It is absolutely necessary and useful to block Microsoft wins in this area if you value your freedom to choose Apache. If you're posting here on Slashdot, you're most likely not the guy who is signing the paychecks in your company, and since you're not that guy, you're beholden to his decisions. Better to cut MS off at the pass than to face them down once they've got their foot in the door.
The real problem with this plan (idealogical arguments aside) is that the vast majority of those who will bother to switch will naturally be the open source advocates. These are the ones who are most likely to be running an open-source web server on an open-source OS anyway, so the stats will hardly be shifted at all.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
their attitude is quite the oppopsite
http://www.google.com/domainpark/
Mebbe they aren't 'perfect' after all.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Seriously - is this worth Bruce wasting his time on?
What else is he going to do? He took too long with UserLinux and Ubuntu ate his lunch. At this point the only thing he has is time . . .
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
Symptoms are information. Why did "Go Daddy" change from Linux to Windows Server? Can something be done about it? Those are IMHO the questions.
If the Netcraft survey is clouded by artificial parking, then the survey loses utility (assuming it has any in the first place, as the domain parking numbers make seeing usage statistics difficult). You can correct with Photoshop your bank account receipt, and that won't make you any richer.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
I first thought: You have a large field, paved with asphalt. There are cans of paint all around. You park your car, and paint the lines around it.
Do such stats ever influence companies choosing a platform?
Such stats are the reason Windows is in the place it is today.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Who cares if Microsoft can claim an extra 5%? Do such stats ever influence companies choosing a platform?
PHBs run companies. So, the answer is yes.
Software Wars
Netcraft's job is to be the foremost provider of information about what's running the Internet. Anyone who takes the time to actually read what the numbers say will realize that what Netcraft paints as a huge shift is actually a fairly insignificant change. How many servers does it actually take to run all those parked domain names with almost the exact same content? If you look at the data provided on the same page about active sites, you'll see that Apache only dropped 2.32%, while Microsoft gained only 0.92%. Frontloading articles with dubious data while hiding the relevant numbers deep in their charts is extremely misleading and only serves to tarnish Netcraft's reputation. Netcraft's own report states that registrars have a disproportionate influence in market share numbers measured in this way, so what exactly is the value of the data other than to mislead?
Is BSD really dying?
Convince Netcraft that parked domains are irrelevant and have them identify the bulk of the parked domains and remove them from the statistics.
So where's the "OpenSourceParking Girl"?
Funny you took the effort to fake Perens.
http://slashdot.org/~Bruce+Perens
http://slashdot.org/~Bruce+Perrens+*
I think it's pretty clear that this is perhaps the dumbest idea that has ever been put forward by anyone, ever. I would be a little ashamed to have mentioned it as an idea to some reporter, a little bit more ashamed to have actually coded something to do it, and finally I wouldn't ever even consider wasting thousands of people's time by putting it up as a news story.
.com TLD. Duh.
First of all, if Apache is at the top of the Netcraft survey *because* of domain parking, why would any "open source advocate" draw attention to this fact by staging some sort of war to see who can get the most unused domains to show a useless page with AdSense links on it? The massive disaster that is ICANN's UDRP requiring everyone to have some horrible "under construction" web site is not a reason to choose a web server; and the people who would choose a web server by raw numbers are probably too dumb to do even that much research.
Second of all, why would anyone attempt to remedy the problem by asking open source users who are almost certainly already using Apache if they have a domain in the first place to park their unused domains at an Apache parking service? What? Furthermore, it's not like real people are parking huge numbers of empty domains, it's resellers who are looking to auction off single dictionary words in the
I own around 70 domains , many of which are parked through Sedo because many of the domains are for sale . Frankly speaking , parking is one of the most idiotic and pointless services on the internet . ,I dont see a reason for OS devs to take any pride in providing the platform for Domain Parking .
In an ideal world , a person that parks a domain name without stating explicitly why it isn't used but parked(like me) , should get a refund and the domain should be taken away , just in case someone actually wants to use it . This is my honest opinion . I get barely 3$ a month from accidental traffic and clicks and once in a while a domain gets sold to a person , for no less than x500 the price I paid .
The only upside of a parked domain is that it gives even more (usually cheaper) advertising space for merchants , and since parked domain traffic usually comes from people that just type a meaningful domain name ( Old Sites for instance )into their Address bar, these are usually very targeted visitors .
But still
My Starcraft 2 Blog
Actually he is the real Perens - The original account (spelt correctly) was a troll/fud account - Bruce himself has said so.
-JH
These are fucking parked domains, as far as anyone is concerned, they can be hosted on MacOS9.
My new blog
Yeah well, then why the same exact sig that fake account has been using for long?
I've read his posts in the past and they're plausible. Linky to that supposed denounce from Perens himself would be appreciated.
If it's so important to fight Microsoft's publicity machine, why not simply discredit it? Sure, it's hard to get through to some people, and some will never get the message. If you just try to mislead them further, though, you're not getting through to them at all, and those people will just go scurrying back to Microsoft again after its next media release.
A good way to start would be to compile some real information that's backed up by verifiable and reputable citations, clearly and concisely demonstrating that Microsoft's claimed advantage is due to a small number of large companies that use IIS to host vast numbers of identical, useless parked websites that contain no information. After this, it might be useful to compile and present additional information that shows the real distribution between Apache, IIS, and whatever else, based on a clearly stated and reasonable definition of what makes a useful production website. ... and if you happen to go this far, make it look more reputable than Microsoft's arguably baseless claims.
Throw it together on a straightforward, direct-to-the-point website that gives Microsoft credit where it's due, but explains clearly where and why credit isn't due. Provide the information so that people can easily be referred to it, and it'd be much more helpful than trying to beat Microsoft at it's own spin and misleading of the consumer.
If there's a weakness in Microsoft's marketing techniques, it's not that someone else can out-market them by providing even more fluff. The biggest weakness is that Microsoft's claims often don't really have any substance. If it's important to you to stop Microsoft from misleading consumers, you should really start by pointing out to them that they're being misled.
I have a lot of respect for what Bruce Perens has done in the past and the stances that he's taken on issues, but I don't really understand this one at all.
And since Apache has around 70% market-share, I guess it's safe to say that Windows/IIS is doomed?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
And the new GNU/Roadrage operating system, and – wait, never mind...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
I would like to congratulate godaddy.com on their fantastic new parked domain name "turbocow.com".
In order to test the trustworthyness of a potential new web host for my site I put that domain name in my shopping cart then cancelled the order. The next day I went back and the domain name was parked.
So, congratulation to godaddy on their fantastic new parked domain name and the loss of a potential customer.
Haha, fun link, but I wouldn't recommend anyone who doesn't know what he's doing to click on it. :)
And since Apache has around 70% market-share, I guess it's safe to say that Windows/IIS is doomed?
Numbers can mean what you want them to mean. The point is that IIS came from 0% to 25% in 5 years, and is still growing. Some will find this slow, others fast. The point is that MS is 'en route' to dominate (or at least be a major player) yet another CS-related market. Time only will tell if they'll be able to sustain this growth.
Hardly doomed.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I don't think so. You'd think that those obnoxious evangelists would be a bit more mature and all, but quite honestly I'd have to say this strikes me as among the stupidest things I've ever seen. I mean, come on – the entire site itself is basically saying "we aren't doing anything useful, but if we're lucky it will change a few statistics and maybe even magically convince people open source is better". I could have sworn these guys were responsible adults, but I guess not...
Not to personally attack anyone or anything, but I just don't like those open-source and free software evangelists. It's one thing to tell people about an alternative system such as Linux – I'm a distro maintainer myself, I do it all the time – but it's another thing to waste your entire life waging some pointless holy war or something. I think this really is the reason no one's really paid attention – they think everyone's some self-appointed holier-than-thou evangelist.
But getting back to the point – if you really want to show that Linux is better, how about setting up a real Web site, and not just some parking service? What about showing people just how easy it is to switch over? Please, if you want to show off Linux, set up a real Web site, not just some parking thing that no one looks at anyway!
By the way, this may just be my personal opinion, but I'd have to say that OpenSourceParking.com has to be one of the ugliest sites I've ever seen – if I were choosing open-source software based exclusively on domain parking site appearance, I'd avoid it at all costs. I've seen better MySpace's!
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
This is horribly counterproductive for the open-source movement. Consider how this campaign will appear to the media. All that is certain is that stats for Apache hosting will be artificially high because of this campaign. And moreover, the article presents no hard evidence that MS is carrying out any manipulation themselves.
is available again...
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't this a dumb thing to do? "Oh noes! Windows got 5% more market share in the 'not actually hosting a website' demographic!"
I can't help but wonder if, by choosing battles like this one, the OSS community as a whole is doomed to fail against microsoft; an enemy who often establishes victory first, then fights the appropriate battles.
It's been a long time.
"The point is that IIS came from 0% to 25% in 5 years, and is still growing."
Uh, apart from this blib in the radar, IIS has been pretty stable at around 20% since october 2003 (and before that date, IIS's share was DROPPING). And if you look at stats at Netcraft, you will see that IIS made an entry to the list back in 1996. So it's 10 years, not 5. In about 18 months, IIS rose to about 20% and now, over EIGHT years later, it's STILL at that 20%!
Oh, be still my beating heart!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
For some reason I'm reminded by this piece of dialogue from Office Space:
Tom Smykowski: It's a "Jump to Conclusions mat". You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.
Michael Bolton: That's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life, Tom.
Samir: Yes, this is horrible, this idea.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
So the thing to ask yourself is, do you want Microsoft to get those wins?
Actually, I couldn't care less. If a bunch of idiots want to use Microsoft products because they have a higher share of the parked domain market, it doesn't bother me.
It is absolutely necessary and useful to block Microsoft wins in this area if you value your freedom to choose Apache.
The government isn't going to outlaw Apache just because of Netcraft. They haven't even taken away my "freedom to choose FreeBSD", and we all know what Netcraft shows about them.
There is a bigger issue here... Netcraft should not be counting parked domains at all. It should be counting sites that actually have valid content. The big registrars parking services are well known and easily identifyable. You don't need to weed out 100% of parked domains, just the majority. When netcraft counts parked domains, the results lose meaning.
It's like a pollster calling phone numbers sequentially, and claiming that all unanswered calls indicate that the person has "no opinion" on the subject.
But my domain hoster charges me to change the NS records... of course this may lead to the development of something different altogether.. an opensource and free domain registrar. My current registrar allows me to change everything but the NS records (A,AAA,CNAME,MX) myself at no charge (except the few bucks anually) but of course this service could be provided by a community supported organization, goodness gracious that would put a dent in the usage statistics, Mr Perens! It might stop some of the more irritating aspects of domain parking and that would in itself be a great boon for the internet as a whole. It could work..
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
Which 5 years is this? IIS has been out over 10 years. It was a player in the server market almost immediately upon release as Netscape's product was expensive and IIS had all sorts of custom windows based features (as well as ease of administration).
If you develop this filter that can separate real web sites from 'parked' sites (AKA link farms), please give it to Google. I'm tired of my top 10 search results being peppered with link farms.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
You're...you're kidding, right? That wouldn't even crack the top 100 of dumbest reasons to choose a platform. That would come just behind "What color is the server rack?".
"Seriously - is this worth Bruce wasting his time on?"
Since when does the open source community, or its leaders, worry about what's actually worth wasting time on? This sort of nonsense shows what a joke most of the open source community has become -- its leaders are more concerned with persuing vendettas against Windows adoption than actually making open source software better and more approachable to end users.
I guess this calls for affirmative action so we can have true equality between platforms!
How about actually making some good OpenSource product before trying to compete with Windows? Most of us can deal with shotty performance, homepaging bugzilla, and recompiling software, that's why we're geeks. To the other half.. they'd rather pay someone to do it for them. If they spent more time making product, less time trying to worry about what M$ is doing, then they'd probably have a leg to stand on.. As of now, it's just a good old-fashioned pissing match.
The companies trying to sell windows market the fact that it's used on so many domains, when in reality, most of the domains have nothing on them. It's just another statistic that Microsoft uses to convince people to stick with their OS or to convert from linux.
As I've posted before on Slashdot (I'd link if I was a paying subscriber), I've been unhappy that GoDaddy put ads up on my parked domain since I moved one to them in October. Register.com never did that in the 7 years I parked the domain with them. (I know, I'm paying much less with GoDaddy, yes. But it's still my domain as long as I'm paying for it.)
I just moved it to OpenSourceParking.com. It's basically a "free" way for me to help counter the anti-open-source lobby.*
* Free in that I don't have the desire, time, or traffic to really earn money myself from my parked domain, but every little bit can help OSP.com.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
"""l
We all know that all the vast majority of high performing websites run Apache on a free unix-like O/S.
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/performance.htm
"""
Just out of idle curiosity I looked at the uptimes of the #1 linux site on that list, and the #1 windows one.
Guess which was longer...
In fact, guess which had a reboot only 2 days ago...
Yes, yes, fish/barrel/shotgun.
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
I have a couple of domains that I registered through GoDaddy that are not currently in use. They defaulted to using GoDaddy's parking scheme but with this announcement I now have a Linux based place to point them to.
Quite right; statistics that give squatters' bulk-registered domains equal weight to domains that actually originate and serve content are next to meaningless.
The more urgent challenges, IMO, are (a) near term, putting downward pressure on the site rank of parked domains, and (b) longer-term, relegating these blights on cyberspace to the virtual equivalent of public housing.
I'd bet the former is easily acheivable within a matter of weeks, if a few folks with access to the required mindshare would generate / offer / host / promote some form of a parked domain blacklist* that could be integrated into the DNS clients of users who so desire. A Mozilla extension (okay, IE too) to auto-submit these domains to Google's "Remove this result -> remove all pages from domainparkingsites.com" interface whenever they appear in a users search results would sit nicely on top of that too.
The latter is a tougher nut to crack; as infuriating as cybersquatters are, I still fear any expansion of regulatory power on the 'net more than I'd value a remedy for any current annoyance. Just my $.02.
*Ironic as this is in context, MS's URL Tracer - http://research.microsoft.com/URLTracer/ - is the only real offering I've seen yet in this space. Any suggestions for others?
Pi Ran Out
We know that.
Unfortunately, it is still the case that most people in the world do not think like us, do not follow the same news sources as us, and don't have your heartfelt belief in Apache's superiority.
It would be nice if the world would just leave us alone to code and run our own software. Unfortunately, they don't. We have to face software patenting, DMCA, TCPA, and whatever new law and technical hurdle they choose to make. To fight these things, we need to get our message to people in general and especially to legislators. Having users is key to this, because no legislator is going to care a bit about your hobby project. Unfortunately, lots of those people who don't think like us count mindshare when they make a technical choice, and the domain parking statistics are just one way that MS makes mindshare.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I think the point isn't just to combat Microsoft spreading in the domain arena - but also to raise funds to combat Microsoft spreading in the political arena.
You wish. Windows is in the place it is in today because it's superior to all alternatives. It runs on commodity hardware (MacOS does not), it does what most people want (Linux does not, and before you flame me: I use both regularly), Windows runs older software and it was first to market (on commodity hardware), with all positive effects that usually entails.
Netcraft should not be counting parked domains at all. It should be counting sites that actually have valid content.
...
They used to do this, making a distinction between "all domains" and "active domains". But their current Web server Survey doesn't seem to have the active-doomain data or graphs any more.
I wonder why they dropped them? I'd always thought that this was the interesting data, not the total that included inactive or parked sites.
Actually, the two data sets were usually not all that different. Usually apache had a larger and IIS had a smaller percent in the active-domains data than in the all-domains data, but the difference was only a few points. For OS data, this relationship was reversed for linux and MS. This primarily implies that large multi-site servers tend to run linux, but again the numbers weren't really all that different.
I wonder if we should be complaining to netcraft, and see if they put the active-site data back
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
They used to do this, making a distinction between "all domains" and "active domains". But their current Web server Survey doesn't seem to have the active-doomain data or graphs any more.
I wonder why they dropped them? I'd always thought that this was the interesting data, not the total that included inactive or parked sites.
As would anybody. As usual, when logic fails, follow the money.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
There's a theory going that parked domains are the best use for an IIS server.
If you want to serve actual content, it makes a lot more sense to pick a server that's simple to set up and run, and that isn't subject to all the malware that infects Microsoft products. But if your PHB insists on using IIS, there might be a few things that it's good for.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
As usual, when logic fails, follow the money.
So how does netcraft make money by omitting the active-sites data? Is Microsoft paying them to not publish this data?
That might make sense. How else could it be worthwhile to publish the wrong set of numbers?
Google actively works to defeat sites that try to game their rankings. I'd think that netcraft would want to do the same. After all, to them a "parked" domain is little other than an attempt to bias the site statistics. Those aren't actually sites at all; they are just fictional names that don't refer to anything.
Maybe we should be publicising the fact that netcraft's data includes fake sites that exist in part to bias netcraft's statistics.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I agree with the general gist of your post & realize the challenges that free/open software face.
But, do you really think this is a good way to tackle this particular problem? Someone else in this thread suggested lobbying search engines not to index parked pages - perhaps thats a better approach then joining in?
(disclaimer - I'm not sure how practical that is)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
...this:
o g?entry_id=1460947
GoDaddy Swipes A Domain Name
http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/monkeybites/index.bl
Though I'd be loathe to grant enough power to any regulatory body to fix the bigger issue -- parking is, sadly, lucrative -- domain registrars are intrinsically centralized. Some US states have laws that an establishment may be licensed for nude entertainment, or they may be licensed to sell liquor for on-premises consumption, but not both. Some sort of community-induced eradication of domain squatters would be sweet, but until that happens, I'll settle for the Powers-That-Be making a mutually exclusive thing out of registrars & parking-for-revenue providers.
Pi Ran Out
or the fatass beardo brigade will mod you down quicker than you can say "wtf"
Interesting thing is that the free domain registration at the live.com beta will drive this up even more!
We can do that too. And I mentioned in another posting that there should probably be a special HTTP status code for "parked domain". Something not currently used in the 2xx or 4xx codes. We'd have to write an RFC. That could be used to designate a site as parked to search engines, etc. And then we could persuade the search engines to add an additional penalty to parked sites that don't self-designate.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
There have been many accounts of whois searches being spied on by godaddy and many other registrars.If you do not purchase the domain immediately some company will register it and offer to sell it to you at 10 times the normal price.
Highly unethical but it is happening.A lot.
I guess the best bet is using services like dnsstuff.com or doing it yourself through the command line.
It's ironic that he's registered his domain with Wild West Domains, a Go Daddy reseller.