Being a responsible aggregate blogger

Sometimes things make my blood boil. Other times I just let it pass and move on. As I was trying to catch up on my feeds tonight (only 6182 to go for this month) I stumbled across this post by Andrew Stopford:

Commercial UI components in OSS

The use of commerical UI components in a OSS project is a topic of debate and contention. The standard winforms/webforms components are limited and using commerical UI components allows for a far greater degree of UI functionality and in an eighth of the time. It's such a mine field that certainly in the .NET space they are not used. You run the risk of a ever changing UI, a quote from this post on the use of commerical UI components in RSS Bandit.

I read the quote and it seemed to be very familiar. Wait a minute, it was mine from this post on being a responsible open source developer I wrote back in December.

The problem I have with the post that Andrew links to is it goes to some aggregate site (the World of ASP.NET) but if you visit the page from the link above, you have no idea who wrote it. In fact there's no link back to my original content.

My blog content is licensed under the Creative Commons license and you're free to use it, but there needs to be some professionalism about "borrowing" someone elses content. I mean, at least have a link, credit, or at least a mention of where it came from if it's not your own thoughts.

I've come across other sites where people just downright steal content and even claim it their own which is a whole 'nuther problem. Just as a friendly reminder for anyone who wants to link or quote my content (and you're quite welcome to) please direct people back to the source. It helps me understand if anyone is interested in my message and provides me with a conduit to the outside world in case I'm mistaken (hey, it can happen) or someone wants to leave me for dead in a dumpster.

Just be a little responsible when you blog, that's all I ask.

2 Comments

  • Bil, I totaly agree, and wanted to ask you a related question - do you think many bloggers have the means to actually *do* anything (apart from starting a flame war)? I mean, let's say someone claims he wrote something he copied off my blog, what can I do? It's not like I can sue...
    Not a problem for me yet, but I see the web2.0 may be at risk of this kind of issue

  • This is why I hate RSS. While, for some people it allows them to read what they want to in a single place without being bothered to actually visit a web site, it simply allows others to steal your content and not attribute it to you at all (or become an RSS aggregation site/google link builder/etc.)

    Whenever a client asks for RSS on their site, I always am sure to ask "why" and "what will you do if someone steals your content?"

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