There has been a good deal of tumult over a recent TechCrunch post that Mullenweg characterizes as a “hatchet job”. There are some crazy folks trolling the comments over there, and although there are many points there I find on either side of the validity line both in the comments and the post itself, I do have my own perspective.
Changing Way brings up an interesting point about anyone being able to improve WordPress’ spam prevention. After all, WordPress is GPL-licensed, and so anyone can take the source and improve it and re-release it. Skippy has offered a good argument for why a fork of WordPress would have difficulty materializing. But people seem convinced that anyone can submit code changes to the core software to have them included. While this may be generally possible, I think it’s more difficult for the common person than you would imagine, and I think it is an unrealistic belief for this specific feature.
Consider that Automattic runs Akismet, a hosted spam prevention service. Packaged with WordPress is a plugin that uses Akismet, which also requires a WordPress.com API key. If you are a pro blogger (which is one reason why most people don’t lend some credence to this) then the service that prevents spam is a commercial service, from which Automattic profits. You can also choose not to use the plugin if you aren’t worried about spam or have chosen some other route or protection. Where’s the bad here?
Well, what do you think the likelihood is that Automattic - who controls what code is added to WordPress - would bundle any other service’s anti-spam plugin with WordPress? Although it’s not released yet, I wonder about the likelihood of having another commercial spam prevention plugin included with WordPress.
Wait. Weren’t any of these 71 others good enough to include? No, the only one good enough is the one that Automattic wrote and is (depending on your comment volume) making money from.
I hesitate to bring up comparisons of how this sounds suspiciously like when Microsoft bundled their browser for free with their operating system and put Netscape out of the browser sales business, because there are just enough differences to draw attention away from the argument I’ve made above. But doesn’t this smack of something that you’d otherwise see an enormous Slashdot thread about? If WordPress wasn’t the darling of the blog world, but perhaps an evil corporate machine?
I wrote that last line somewhat off the cuff, but this perception is interesting to me. The more intriguing evil characters in literature don’t always think that they are doing wrong. They often believe that they are acting in everyone’s best interests. I get that impression a lot from what comes down from Automattic. They’ll bundle their commercial product with this open source software because people really want it. But they don’t seem to see the danger on that path. Advocates of open source who have obvious success from packaging access to their closed-source service for free with the product of many others’ work. It’s like those annoying little icons that off-the-shelf PCs have for AOL and MSN and 50 other paid services on their desktops. I digress…
Mark goes into great depth about the wonders of Akismet and comparisons between it and other solutions. I agree on many points, specifically about how there would need to be many solutions to the spam problem if there was no centralized solution. I don’t think anyone has said that Akismet works poorly or that it’s not needed. Nonetheless, that there’s something off about having a commercial product tied to a supposedly community-driven project. I think Mark’s comments on having an alternative “blog-level” solution hint that he might agree. But his success at committing such a solution itself (however improbable it is to materialize) holds little hope if history is to be believed.
I’ve said in other places that I only really see one solution that would satisfy me, and it’s certainly not palatable to Automattic. That would be if Automattic released the keys to the open source project to the community and let them decide what’s best. If the community decided that Akismet was kosher, so be it. At least then you’d know that the decision wasn’t a commercial one inflicted (whether with good intent) on unsuspecting open source.
Now I’ve filled a good sized post only scratching the surface of the issues arising from the TechCrunch article. Oddly enough, this is something I didn’t even really want to talk about. Seriously, don’t we all have better things to do? Still, it has been interesting to see the whole thing play out, and I wonder what other repercussions there might be besides the change to the default blogroll, especially as people become more aware of these cracks in WordPress’ otherwise apparently flawless porcelain façade.
