Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg has spoken out against a number of open source projects for profiteering from their code.
The two examples Mullenweg cites are the open source forum platform Vanilla, which recently started including links in their code as a means to cover server and administration costs, and Pligg, which is currently on the market.
The post from Mullenweg follows an earlier crackdown in July against the inclusion of sponsored themes (themes that included paid text links) from the WordPress directories.
Given this crackdown on making revenue from an open source platform, the question then becomes: where is the line. How grey is your valley?
It’s important when considering the question to look at the different ways owners of open source platforms such as WordPress make money. Mullenweg was a co-founder of the Wordpress open source platform community. Today, as well as maintaining a chief role with the WordPress open source community, Mullenweg is the founder, and according to their website “Chief BBQ Taste Tester” of Automattic. Automattic’s business model relies on two key products: Wordpress.com and Akismet.
Wordpress.com relies entirely on the code base of the WordPress open source community. It is free to use for most, but they charge the top tier of users. On the whole it’s probably not a highly profitable business, yet none the less there is revenue. Without the Wordpress code there is nothing.
Akismet is a service that relies on the failure of the WordPress code to be able to natively deal with comment spam. The service is free for personal use and a paid service for everyone else. As the co-founder and essentially the head of the WordPress open source movement, Mullenweg leads the initiatives by WordPress to combat comment spam. On the other hand as the head of Automattic he runs a company that profits from those very failings. The question then becomes: can one profit from the failings of an open source product whilst still leading that very code’s development?
I’m not suggesting that anything Mullenweg does is wrong; indeed for someone still very young he deserves much admiration for all he has achieved. Revenue from open source is much broader than the occasional sponsored link, something that Mullenweg continues to rally against. It was not that long ago that Mullenweg was sprung for including in excess of 150,000 spam pages on Wordpress.org; it was an honest mistake but as they say, people who live in glass houses…
The question really is whether there is an acceptable line for advertising and conflicts of interest. Everyone is entitled to receive compensation for effort, including Mullenweg. I just remain unconvinced that those offering the odd paid link on a WordPress template is any different or worse than Mullenweg, who not only stuffs links to his own blog in every standard install of WordPress, but also runs a company that benefits from open source software, and at that the continued failures of that software to code serious issues.
Disclosure: Text Link Ads is a sponsor of this site. I also maintain a Text Link Ads account. Although the TLA crew may appreciate this post, I wasn’t asked to write it.
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Capitalism is good. Open Source is good. The more profit potential available to people, in general, the higher the quantity and quality of the products.
What irks me is when companies CLAIM to be open source (profiting from the buzz word), but have restrictive licensing (we show you the source, but you can’t do anything with it. Or worse, if you do something creative with it, you have to take off our logo, and then we’ll bad mouth you anyway).
*Ahem* Sugar….
The main difference between what Matt does to profit from Opensource, and what others do is:
b) It adds a service, a value added service.
a) Non intrusive.
We love you Matt!
Your post should include your obvious personal issues and conflicts with matt as well duncan.
Matt’s point is a good one, and attacking him as an individual (for the “link stuffing”) does nothing to further this discussion.
Which is a shame, because until that point the post was a good one. Somehow it went from “how should open source projects make money” to “how can matt ask if open source projects should make money”.
And all because of your personal bias.
1. I never criticized Pligg for selling their site, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
2. I did criticize Vanilla for selling links to spam sites promoting casinos, home loans, and mortgages embedded in every download of the software. If you posted those links in a comment Akismet would block them as spam. Just because you can make money from something doesn’t mean you should. It pains me to see other developers make mistakes similar to the one I did even years later. I took the links down within a day of the article you linked as soon as I was able to get online.
3. WordPress.com was designed to mirror WordPress’ code as closely as possible even though it would have been easier to branch. We did this so the time and money we invest in that platform directly benefit WordPress.org, and vice versa, aligning the economic and social incentives. We’re not legally required to give back code under the GPL, but I think we’d be dumb not to give as much as possible. WordPress development has sped up since Automattic was founded and numerous other companies have adopted WordPress as their platform (including Techcrunch) and many more contribute back like we do.
4. I wrote numerous anti-spam plugins before Akismet, including a peer-to-peer decentralized approach, they just did not remain effective over time the way Akismet has. Akismet now has plugins for or is built directly into more than 25 other platforms besides WordPress, so obviously there has been a market demand and appreciation for the product. I think it’s rather rude to suggest I’d deliberately cripple WordPress to profiteer from spam.
5. I have no idea what you mean by “your valley,” or why it would be grey or not.
The problem is intrinsic to the GPL, OSS was never intended to be a free labor mechanism for startups. But it’s abused on both sides of this coin. For example I recall Limewire was-> was sorta -> now fully OSS (Open Source Software). Basically it was copied by unscrupulous adware affiliates, add a new logo atop the app then slammed with adware and Trojans (”Bundles”) .
Limewire employed most of the programmers who worked on the project, but not all and they made money by “bundling” as well. So they paid for development, servers and maintenance while many others reaped by outbidding them on download.com , overture etc. They obviously didn’t have offices and teams of developers in Manhattan to maintain
so its not all flowers and kittens.
– Richard Corsale
anonymouse (3)
my only issue with Matt is that he continues to criticize others without dealing with his own conflicts. If you look at my history I’ve been amongst the biggest backers of WP out there from the time of the MT3.0 issue, so it’s not as though I’ve got a history of being anti-WP or what not, indeed I built an entire VC funded blog network on the platform.
I still believe that one shouldn’t criticize others for making a quid when you are yourself. Money is money, no matter how you make it. Let he who is pure criticize others
To me, as an observer (not even a Wordpress user) it just seems like Automattic are doing what they can to block any other attempts by anybody to make money from a product or service built on Wordpress. Automattic totally control the Wordpress development process, and have built a non-open source platform (wordpress.com) on top of the effort of others. I dont think that is what open source is supposed to be about.
For some reason putting a link in a theme you wrote yourself is bad, but having links back to Matt’s blog in the default blogroll (which built his pagerank and gave him the #1 ‘matt’ result which he constantly brags about), as well as many links back to Wordpress.org (and in-turn Wordpress.com), and bundling a semi-commercial plugin (Akismet) into an open source project is completely fine..
Great of you to bring this up. You will be beaten up by the fanboys but those of us who know what open source is really supposed to be about completely agree
“I took the links down within a day of the article you linked as soon as I was able to get online.”
How quickly would you have taken it down if it wasn’t discovered? You mean to say you had a sudden moral awakening
For the record I support all of the freedoms afforded by the GPL.
Dozens of old and new media companies run their blogs on WordPress: Techcrunch, GigaOM, Venturebeat, b5media, All Things D, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNET, Reuters, Le Monde.
Hundreds of design firms and consultants use WP as the basis for the sites they sell. Some even search and replace our name and logo with their own. One of the largest hosting firms in the world did that. That’s fine!
Even the people who sell sponsored links in their theme, or redistribute WordPress as a spam package, or do other things I may personally abhor with or consider unethical are perfectly welcome to use the software, that’s the freedom the GPL provides to them.
However on our non-commercial WordPress.org sites run for the good of the community we choose not to promote the themes, plugins, or packages with include or encourage what I consider (and Google, and much of the web) consider to be spam. I don’t see that as trying to control all the money made with WordPress, it’s just trying to do the right thing in the spaces we control. This was not a unilateral decision, it was voted on by hundreds of people and discussed for months.
Whether open source or not somewhere down the line you are going to have to connect with some money. I don’t think many landlords or web hosts take PHP code in lieu of rent.
Selling links in a free template doesn’t seem bad so long as there is disclosure to any potential user of the template. Nobody is forcing anybody to use them.
Matt
1: context. I’d find it hard to believe you slipped it in that post as a positive.
2: You still make money: Wordpress.com and Akismet profits from the very same code. How it pains you is bizarre.
3: Wow, that’s great: but you’re still profiting from the Wordpress code. You can justify it all you want, but as the title of the post suggests, how grey is your valley/ justification. Again: simple fact, you profit in the same way link sellers do. Who is to say that link sellers aren’t amongst the folk contributing to the Wordpress code.
4: I didn’t say you cripple Wordpress code, but it’s certainly not in your interest to develop the Wordpress code to prevent comment spam, is it? Conflict of interest.
5: How Green is your Valley is a Hollywood classic. Sorry, I forgot your age
Matt Mullenweg (and his entire team!) is doing a tremendous & fantastic job every day with Wordpress and Akismet. He delivered a great reliable code and a “publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability”. Indeed, Mr. Riley. He has all the rights to protect the cleanness of his code. To keep it clean from advertising and shady people who are just surfing on the WP wave…
Btw, you say “for someone still very young he deserves much admiration for all he has achieved”. You know, there is an old saying in Turkish, which says “Wisdom is not the age, but in the head of somebody”.
Cem
Sure, he has the rights to keep his code clean, but he doesn’t have the moral right to say others cant profit from open source code when he does. If it’s to be kept “clean” it should be from his own corporation as well. That after all, would only be fair, as I’m sure you would agree.
Wow
” Money is money, no matter how you make it.”
Ok you really believe that?
Anyway TechCrunch in general, not just this post , seems to me recently has been to be used to air personal items. Just my opinion.
BK
“Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg has spoken out against a number of open source projects for profiteering from their code.”
the first sentence is where i stopped reading the article further more. There are many ways to profit from your own open source code, embedding paid links to home mortgage sites which has nothing whatsoever at all to do with that open source project is not one of them. That’s what Matt pointed out in his blog.
It’s so you to generalize and choose such a sensationalist title. ^_^
1. I think it’s too bad that the Pligg developers didn’t want to continue the project, but there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing. I think it’s better than embedding spam in it.
2. We make money, but at the benefit of our users, not at their expense. I think selling spam links to put on their sites would be at their expense. Having better, faster, more featureful software for free benefits them.
3. Nothing pains me about WordPress.com making money. But I am happy that our development and investment there directly helps the broader community. WordPress has grown immeasurably because of the great people who are able to work on it full-time, just like it grew a lot when CNET gave me the job that pulled by out of college and away from Houston to get paid to work on WordPress.
We do not “profit in the same way link sellers do” in any way, shape, or form.
4. If someone submitted a patch that stopped all spam on all WordPress blogs I would accept it in an instant. Akismet would be fine, it has a lot of usage (and most of its paying customers) come from things other than blogs. It’s entirely in my interest because it would be the right thing to do.
lisa chen
you missed the whole point: it’s all shades of grey. Making money from selling links or selling spam solutions is still making money. The question is who gave Matt or you for that matter the right to call wrong or right? The objective is the same, the only difference (the grey) is the method. By all means if you are all without sin (sorry money) cast the first stone…
erm let me think about this one………
Wordpress is open source and i s used by X amount of blogs. Many are problogs like i dunno the Blog Hearald, Techcrunch, Giga Om, and many many many more who have profited from GPL open Source project called Wordpress.
Hosting companies have used Wordpress MU for their own blog sites, no one is forced to use Askismat or any wordpress plugin and all links are easily deleted in the sidebar. and you can easily remove the wordpress.org link in the footer. It aint hard if you can edit source code or understand html.
LoL Wordpress is free and always will be (hopefully). it be cool that now wordpress is so big that it didnt have the defualt links in the sidebar (i remember 1.2 and now i feel old when it was a lot smaller) but its upto the user to delete them or keep them or the community to speak up about the links in the sidebar which maybe they will or wont. Perhaps you should ask in the forums for a consensous opinion.
Maybe the question should be, should blogs make money with wordpress like hundreds or thousands and not give anything back to community who have created, modified and maintain it, and continues to do so who without whcih if it wasnt for them, it wouldnt be there in the first place.
It’s all about scarcity:
http://journal.dedasys.com/art.....o-scarcity
There is no way around it. To make money, you have to have a scarce good, whether it’s a product you sell, or your time because you are head and shoulders above the competition in terms of providing consulting for something.
It appears Duncan has an axe to grind. I do NOT believe in ‘ everything’ free’ without a cost of some kind. This is why most of Web 2.0 sites will perish.I am sure Duncan doesn’t work for Arrington without remuneration.
Dominic
You missed the point: I’m not arguing that everything should be free, I’m simply saying that you cant have it both ways: saying that some shouldn’t profit whilst you do. You are either for making money or against it. If you are against it you should simply practice what you preach.
I think this is 2 seperate issues.
1. making money from open source
2. method of making that money
There is nothing wrong with making money from open source if its legite.
Making money by adding spammy links to the source is wrong and devalues the product.
Now there needs a happy meduim between the 2. You create a great piece of software and release it to the wild, it becomes a success and leaves you with a bandwidth bill. To Matt how do you pay for this without funding?
Maybe there could be a way that people can turn on adverts that rotate ads for the open source project as well as their own.
LOL this is gonna turn into one hell of a a long comment flame post, especially when people wake up to it their RSS readers and probably techmeme.
Okay i find it ironic that Duncan is critiszisng Matt when, Duncan used to write and own the Blog Herald which was a wordpress powered site. He made money from the site from advertisng and then selling it. Which there is nothing wrong with but he too has made money from ‘GPL Community Built FREE@ wordpress software, just like matt has and many many many many many many many many many many more people have and is still earning money too from writing on Wordpress Powered Blog.
So is this the pot calling the kettle black?
My apolgies if i got mixed up Duncan and you wern’t the one who owned the Blog Herald which was apart of the b5 Media network and this wasnt meant to flame but this is just too ironic a post.
Has Duncan pulled a Dvorak here (posted something controversial just to get comments)?
Wordpress just like any other project has evolved, changed, grown, matured and in the process the people at the core of it experimented with various ways to support their passion. Is TechCrunch as an entity any different? Evolution is generally a messy process and as someone both inside it as a user of wordpress and outside as an observer of wordpress’s evolution I’ve tried to allow for the inevitable messiness.
Maybe the mistake is holding Matt and wordpress to a particular standard based solely on the label “open source.” I may be ignorant but I’ve never heard of a single definition that applies to all projects that are run in an open source kind of way.
Jay
as I noted in the comment thread, some (including you) seem to be missing my point: I’m not saying that folks shouldn’t make money from open source (if I am, point out where, I cant find it), nor am I saying Matt shouldn’t either: The whole grey thing in the title is the give away.
I’m simply saying that it’s rich for Mullenweg to criticize and ban others for making money when he is doing so himself, and worse still is that there is an obvious conflict of interest as well. Good for the goose and all that.
I never said “some shouldn’t profit,” I simply criticized a particular user-hostile way of making money. I don’t think anyone every asked for someone else to sell a casino link on their site and keep all the money, but there are plenty of models to provide value in ways people want. Techcrunch writes every day about companies that make money and delight their users at the same time. Spam or “sponsored” links are just the adware of Web 2.0. Despite some folks making a lot of money from it, users are going to revolt just like they did with adware and malware.
Richard (comment 24)
I’m simply holding Mullenweg to the same standard he applies to others. I’m not trying to be controversial here, it’s Mullenweg on the purge, not me. All I’m saying is lets apply an equal playing field. People can make money from open source or they cant. Matt isn’t the judge, jury and executioner as long as he’s profiting as well.
Cool ty for clarifying duncan.
Matt
you keep calling text links out at the lowest common denominator to further your argument. As a long term TLA user I’ve never once had a casino, porn or otherwise link. As I’ve said to you previously before: calling all people who use text links spammers is like calling all black people criminals on the basis that some of them are. There are many, many good folks who make an honest living from text links, many of them who don’t face the same conflicts you do. They are as MUCH entitled to make a crust as you are. WTF did someone do to you BTW? Where did this hatred come from?
I’m going to use open source blog software.
Wow, more comments being deleted at techcrunch. The hypocrisy of that is pretty steep.
People that don’t agree being banned next?
I think what Duncan is saying is that WHO CARES?? If Vanilla wants to make money on their open source software so be it. There’s no irony if Duncan made money with a blog. He’s saying it’s OK!!!
He’s also saying that who the f&^$% is PhotoMatt to tell others that they can’t make money when he does as well.
Where is the irony in that?
The irony fo duncan supposely only calling matt out because he’s deleting themes - while at the same time deleting comments is pretty funny.
Besides, matt? Hatred? That’s funny.
Duncan I never criticized or mentioned the fact that you have paid links promoting concert tickets, the “best web hosting,” epson printers, and a bunch of broken proxy links, and I also never mentioned TLA. (Though maybe you should disclose that above.)
I specifically criticized and linked to Vanilla, which is embedding paid links promoting a casino, home loan, and mortgage site.
Whoo, now up to 4 dissenting comments deleted! Yay for open conversations…
“indeed for someone still very young he deserves much admiration for all he has achieved. ”
Wow, just .. wow. What a pompous thing to say from a site that just empties press releases into blog posts.
Hold fast, Duncan. You have written your first good post.
Matt,
I happen to run a casino site, a home loan site, and mortgage site. Do you think I should be ashamed for making money off of those enterprises? Do tell.
Funniest definition I ever heard for Akismet! That was a snort. However, I think it makes sense to have it as a plugin so that it can be used for more than just WordPress. Also, I find it to be less and less effective at blocking spam the longer it goes without an upgrade. I recently felt it necessary to employ the Bad Behavior plugin as well as Akismet.
I love WordPress dearly, but you can smell the hypocrisy all the way here in Vermont. I don’t know whose definition of a “dashboard” includes an ugodly amount of screen real estate devoted to unwanted default feeds from all the WordPress developers and associates, but mine doesn’t. And then you say sponsored links in WordPress themes are bad? ORLY?
Breaking news!
Blogger is down.
All I can say is that Duncan just crossed all limits and got too personal here.
The same way you don’t like people leaving dozens of links in the comments they give on this blog which are irrelevant to the content, the same way those links in Vanilla make so sense.
It has just turned into an ego issue for you Duncan and you’re just trying to madly defend yourself and as a result you’re coming out as a fool.
Matt is not a judge.. that’s his blog and he has the right to comment and criticize what he wants to. Just the way you’re criticizing him. I’ll say this to you - “Practice what you preach”
I am a big fan of Wordpress and see nothing wrong with Matt is doing!
I create a blog post about this at http://www.opendomain.org/2007.....pensource/ , but it appears the pingback did not take. Here is a copy:
There seems to be an argument between Duncan Riley of TechCrunch and Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress on whether it is moral to make a profit from Open Source.
There is no doubt that Matt has worked hard and created fantastic software that millions of people use for FREE. I admit I was a little surprised he took some venture capital ( http://photomatt.net/2006/04/12/a-little-funding/ ) - but only because I was wondering what the other people that contributed to WordPress would get. (How can I invest?)
As a Microsoft developer, I have struggled to learn what “open” really mean for years. My first attempt was a failure, and caused a serious problem between Matt and myself. All I can say is that we worked everything out (and I am sorry Matt!)
I tried to learn from my mistakes and donated the domain Drupal.com (http://drupal.org/node/86768 ), and made a friend with Dries Buytaert. He did originally agree to link to OpenDomain, but the Drupal community was upset so I gave it no strings attached.
There is nothing wrong with making some money – in fact I find it difficult to understand how Open projects will succeed otherwise. I have tried to make OpenDomain a charitable organization – to give back to Open groups. However, I can not continue for long without help – I am NOT rich, and this project almost cost me my marriage. It has been very difficult road – but I am VERY PROUD of some of the domains out there that I have helped – including our recent one: http://www.EcmaScript.Org
When people use an OpenDomain, we do ask for a link - not an Advertisement. We serve no Ads on our site and are not for profit. I use the link only to spread the word about OpenDomain. TextLink ads may very well the the only way Open groups can keep alive.
Disclosure: I read subscribe to TechCrunch, and consider it an insider’s blog the newest technology.
Disclosure: I also use Wordpress to power my blog and Akismet has caught 10,232 spam for you since you first installed it. I LOVE it!
Michael
Duncan’s posts are getting more and more embarassing each day. Save yourself and TC’s reputation and take some action! Or else, you will be doing what he is doing on this post, defending yourself over and over again on a losing battle
Chris
Did everyone completely miss that Wordpress.com was stolen, anyway? It was an OpenDomain donation. Here’s an archived shot from August 28, 2005 of the site with the open domain link (required for all donations):
http://web.archive.org/web/200.....press.com/
Then here’s a shot from Sept. 24, 2005 where the link was removed, and left with the text instead saying “domain donated by Ric Johnson”. Currently, there is no link.
Here’s more to the story…
http://akbourne.com/2005/10/20.....domainorg/
I don’t think everything is squeky clean on Matt’s side of the table.
Matt, how are (removable) sponsored links in Vanilla different from the default blogroll in Wordpress? To my understanding, each is as irrelevant as the other: most forums have nothing to do with mortgages, and most blogs have nothing to do with your personal blog, either.
COME ON GUYS !
This is simple, if you don’t want someone making money from your open source project, then don’t open source it.
Quiz, which of these passes the litmus test ?
1 - hosting a wordpress blog with porn and affiliate links ?
2 - hosting a wordpress blog with porn and no affiliate links ?
3 - hosting a wordpress blog with matt’s email address below every pic ?
4 - running a wordpress blog with porn and affiliate links on linux using apache and mysql ?
I guess with # 4 just about the whole open source world would be pissed.
Grow up folks.
Most of the time founders can do what they want to with their own software. If Matt wants to remove the paid links in themes on his site, more power to him. He is preserving his vision for his software. If he wants to put links to his blog, his company, or his 2nd cousin’s blog, good for it. It is his software. But the beauty of open source is if you don’t like it, change it! WordPress has amazing ability to add functionality to all aspects of it. Don’t like the dashboard with incoming RSS WordPress themes? There’s dashboard plugins. Remove the links in the blogroll. Remove the powered by WordPress link in the footer. The point is, it provides everyone the flexibility to do what they want with WordPress. Matt has a vision for the software and it is pretty good. I love WordPress. But the same shoe doesn’t fit everyone and WordPress has the flexibility to change easily.
Extremely interesting discussion.
I think there is a major difference between making money from sponsored links [Vanilla] and making money from providing an additional service [Akismet].
I love Vanilla, but I did not know that it includes links within the code. That’s definitely a shady approach to making money.
Duncan’s focus was on the act of monetizing an open source product, rather than the approach of monetizing. I think he feels that any additional service should be included under the “open source” label instead of using this weakness as a source of revenue. It’s an interesting point and it sparked a much needed discussion.
I am happy that Matt spoke out.
Danae the links that Matt places in the blogroll are related to Wordpress… the people who contribute to the code and regularly keep their blogs updated on the latest and the most relevant information regarding the product. That ways newbies know the places to check out for more information regarding Wordpress. I know it helped me a lot.
You guys are just taking shots at Matt. Super lame of you.
I agree with B S meter. Duncan it seems doesn’t like people who don’t agree with him and he makes every effort to counter them with his nonsensical comments. Go on a holiday Duncan. Take some time off. You need it to re-ignite your writing skills.