Yoohoo

Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Mon, 13 Jul 1998 19:09:33 -0400 (EDT)


Terence Sin writes:
> Check this out:
>
> http://www.newhoo.com/
>
> This is an "open-source" Yahoo. Everyone can sign up for a category and
> become a contributing editor. I can see the turf-war coming over
> overlapping categories. I did a few simple searches and already saw
> several overlapping areas filed under different categories.

Careful. This project lacks the critical defining characteristic of
open-source projects: the source code for the software which they use
to manage the links is not publicly available on any terms. (The FAQ
says that they're considering licensing it, but only on commercial
terms). So, it's hard to see this as an "open-source" project per se,
even though they are clearly trying to duplicate (and profit from!)
the "community spirit" which many of those projects seem to exemplify.

Unfortunately, the people who run newhoo started off by claiming that
they somehow were an open-source project even without open source
code, simply *because* they were trying to develop a similar sort of
community synergy. They got pilloried for this on Slashdot, and had
to change their name (originally "GnuHoo") to quiet the mob.

rst