OpenWebDesign goes ugly
In the last two days, strange things have happened on OpenWebDesign.org. I have not followed the discussions at all, but lots of designers have contacted me and informed me about some things that noone could possibly expect. OWD was the #1 free template site, and the reason for that was that was handled very well by the previous owner and the members. Because of this many designers and members were worried when the news got out that the site has been sold to a new owner - suddenly making it a commercial website.
Yesterday I learned that the new owner had not wasted any time on getting his money back. Suddenly, the templates had been altered and sponsored links had been inserted into the site footers! I honestly don't mind that, but this was done without any form of discussion first and no official notice has been sent out to the designers. This means that template users are contacting me, asking if they can remove these sponsored links in my templates - and at first I didn't understand what they were talking about.
A few things are very clear now. One is that the designers don't like this. The fact that the inserted links breaks the validation of the templates and that the official OWD forum was taken offline (officially for upgrades) when discussions about this started, makes it clear that commercial interest is valued higher than the designers opinion to the new owner. Unless the new owner realizes his mistake, removes the links, apologizes and starts listening to the people who has created the site content and who form the communith that has made OWD so good, the designers will leave OWD rather soon and team up on some other free template site instead. I hope that it doesn't go that far, but right now it looks really ugly.
I'll give this a few days, and if the situations hasn't sorted out itself I will leave OWD behind and put my energy on the other sites where my templates can be downloaded. OWD stands for only 7% of all the template downloads I keep track of, so it won't make any major difference. Most people download the templates from OSWD.org and from my own site anyway. But I would miss the community, so if the designers decide to launch a new template site I will be happy to join the project.
For now, I have removed the links to OWD on my own templates page, to make sure that people get valid templates. If this situation has not improved tomorrow, I will update all templates into new versions and remove all links to OWD inside the templates as well. I will be happy to add the links back if the situation would improve later on…
Comments
Comment from Ethan Neuenswander
Time: November 28, 2006, 1:02 am
I feel I will do the same; removing the links from my site and my templates.
Comment from hcgtv
Time: November 28, 2006, 1:05 am
That just goes to show you what kind of person MonkeyMan is, I never liked his attitude on the forum, so I stopped going to the site.
I won't miss it when it's gone.
Comment from Ainslie
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:10 am
Sad really!
Looks like it might just be the open source and not those released under CC.
Still doesn't seem right though :-(
Comment from LobsterMan
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:26 am
Hopefully there's going to be an alternative site up and running within a week.
Comment from G. Wolfgang
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:34 am
I just submitted design updates for all my templates at Open Webdesign. The updates contain a protest, with my message and a link to my homepage. You can see at my homepage what each design update looks like. Maybe something you can do for your designs as well. If Sean Rox will process this update, remains to be seen. But at least he will forward it to the owners for a signal to them, where this is leading.
Here you can view my protest demo: http://www.1-2-3-4.info/webtemplates/owd_protest/
Comment from G. Wolfgang
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:45 am
Don't know if my previous comment got through. Anyway, I just submitted a design update to all my designs at OWD, containing a protest note. Even if it does not get through, it definitely sends a signal to the owners of OWD.
You can see an example of what the updates look like here:
http://www.1-2-3-4.info/webtemplates/owd_protest/
Comment from Tom
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:58 am
I was trying to start up an alternative site but no one was interested :(
Comment from Tom
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:58 am
I was trying to start up an alternative site but no one was interested.
Comment from seanrox
Time: November 28, 2006, 3:05 am
Just to make it clear, I have nothing to do with the new changes around OWD… I only approve design submissions and as most will testify to, I've been doing a stellar job.
It will be interesting to see what happens next but for now, until further notice I'll continue to approve designs.
I did get word from Shay the other day that he will cover the prize money for the contest since MonkeyMan has seem to fallen off the planet.
Comment from Brent
Time: November 28, 2006, 3:44 am
Truly a sad day for owd. There are so many members there with a passion for the site/community that I'm sure that a replacement would be doable within a short period of time.
Perhaps the saddest part of oswd and owd is that the passion shown always seemed to come from the members rather than the owners. A jointly owned project would perhaps overcome this.
Comment from Andreas
Time: November 28, 2006, 3:47 am
Noone would blame you, Seanrox. The fact that the contest prize money were not really secured through the Dreamtemplate sponsor deal like we were told during the contest discussions, shows that this story has been going down for quite some time.
I won't discuss it any further, but I'm giving Shay a chance to do the right thing here. If he is smart and knows his way around business, this problem will be fixed within a day or two and everyone gets happy.
Comment from Joey
Time: November 28, 2006, 4:45 am
Not a smart decision by the owner, to come in and think he can change the whole site and still reap the benefits. Open Source material has proliferated due to internet influence, but it's also seeped over to the commercial world and it's individuals like this, who ignore the major paradigm shift taking place with open sources who cut their noses off to spite their face.
I don't believe it will change, I think it will continue, and the site will inevitably slide downhill. it's sad, but it's the nature opf the beast and it's the same reason major corporations are dropping like flies and merging like whorish Russians to marry desparate Americans. Companies alienate their core principals and think people are too stupid too notice. Its insulting.
Comment from Ajay D'Souza
Time: November 28, 2006, 5:00 am
But, are they allowed to add affiliate links to "your theme" ???
Stop using them completely. Once designers start boycotting such "commercial" opensource services, only then will the owners come on track.
Comment from James
Time: November 28, 2006, 5:50 am
Personally, I'm not surprised, but I'm very disappointed. It's becoming increasingly hard to find a good site to submit my designs to, other than my own site, where the designs are not modified with some BS link that breaks validation.
I see nothing wrong with getting an honest ROI, but modifying someone else's design to do so seems unethical to me. I mean, come on! If you cannot get enough ROI through contextual ads and sponsored links then you need to go into a different business. Either that, or you need to stop being so greedy.
Looks like I'll be pulling my link to OWD off my site. It's a shame. There was so much potential there.
Comment from Karen
Time: November 28, 2006, 7:41 am
I'm so glad this is now public on your site, Andreas. I felt is was incredibly disrespectful to all the designers to insert those links without our consent.
I for one would have gladly inserted some sponsorship links on my templates if I had been asked. The way it was done was sneaky and just plain wrong.
Comment from seanrox
Time: November 28, 2006, 10:28 am
Here's me playing devils advocate… you know how there was the huge discussion if the designers link could be removed and it was decided that once a design was put up and out in the open, it was open source and it was not a requirement to have a link back to the designer… and no way to enforce it, so wouldn't it work the other way?
I mean Shay put links in the templates for advertising purposes… so what I'm wondering is, where in any license does it say he can't do that or anyone else for that matter once they download a designers template?
Not that I approve of what happened, as we all know, I have no control over that but… MonkeyMan was running the site… no one was donating anything to the site upkeep… hosting, bandwidth, etc… he covered it all… or had small Google adsense to help a little… even me as an admin was donating my time to approve designs… others use to donate time as admins too… but for the past 6 months straight I've been the only one doing design approvals…
I don't like how MonkeyMan sold the site the way he did but looking at it from the new owners view, he needs to get something for his investment in the site… however I think he should have mentioned what he was going to do with the ad links… so yeah, I don't agree how it was handled but I do see why Shay would want to get some ROI (return on investment)…
The designers get recognition for their design work, they get people knowing about the designs they create and some of that turns into paying work…
Comment from Andreas
Time: November 28, 2006, 10:49 am
seanrox: I don't mind sponsored links. When OWD was sold, it was obviously turning into a commercial website since the new owner would of course want to win his money back. There is nothing wrong with that. A lot of people have put ads in open source templates before, and there is nothing wrong with that.
But adding these links without mentioning it to the designers, on the one website that everyone thought was "safe" from abuse of the designers work, is not ok. It is incredibly disrespectful and even stupid. Scaring off a large number of designers by abusing the content they have contributed with, is just silly. There are many ways to earn money from a website, and this is without any doubt not one of the better ways.
I have supported OWD from the start, because of all the great people who use it and because the site itself has cared for the designers and members rights and wishes. I'd hate to see that get lost.
Comment from seanrox
Time: November 28, 2006, 10:55 am
Andreas, as I mentioned in my comment "I don't agree how it was handled" and I think people running off and not trying to communicate the concerns to Shay is a little messed up.
The forum going down for maintenance has been in the works for a while… people wanted more features, admins like myself and probably you too wanted better admin features to control and moderate the forums… all those things are coming…
I'm just upset that so many think I had control over all of this, including the links being added… you and I both know that isn't true, I have only been approving design submissions, I had no power to edit anyone's designs on the site.
MonkeyMan sent us both messages he had sold the site before it went public… you and I both expressed concerns about it… it happened even before he told us, so I am also mad about that too… why even ask us about it…
Anyway, I don't think OWD is dead at this point but I do think Shay needs to address the community at some point… and maybe he will once the new forum is up… in the mean time… I think this new site idea should be put on a small hold to see what happens… what are your thoughts?
Comment from Barracuda62
Time: November 28, 2006, 12:39 pm
@ Andreas: thanks for ringing the alarm bell. Isn't it great to see your site becoming an alternative discussion forum when things go wrong? I remember when OSWD went suddenly out of the air that everybody in the community fell back on your site for updates; you even started to collect other templates to make the available again.
@ Seanrox: we hear you loud and clear and are well aware - except for those of us who have been living under a stone during the last few months - that you have done everything in your power to update OWD as much as you could and to accomodate all the questions we had. You at least kept us updated, even with your hands tied! You certainly rock!!!
I agree with Seanrox that we should currently hold the idea of starting a new site till the dust settles and we hopefully get a clear and convincing statement about OWD's future directly from the owner(s).
But in the meantime would it not be a good idea for all of us to start thinking about a possible plan B? To find ways to make sure a new site will not have the same problems? Like setting up a correct structure, or combined ownership so that we can avoid these things in the future. Maybe an idea for a new thread?
I certainly hope that the issues at OWD are solved ASAP, before we would have to look for alternative solutions.
Comment from G. Wolfgang
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:10 pm
There is a big difference between a user downloading an open source template and modifying it for his needs on the one hand, and for a template provider to modify the original template on the other hand.
1) In the first case, the user is free to do what he wants, for private or commercial purposes, and his resulting template is no longer considered an original, but a modified template under his own name.
2) In the second case, OWD is the provider of the original source code and the template is offered under the exclusive name of the author. Thus every modification is a change of original code, which is not the same as the modified code by user. The provider must deliver that which the designer delivers, unless agreed upon explicitly. If not, it is abuse and manipulation of the original code. What this means, is that OWD is spreading advertisements under the cover of template authors and in their names. This is the classic definition of spam. Spreading advertisements illicitly!! That is the most unprofessional way of all to advertise. Looks cheap and unserious. Who wants to deal with a website doing things in their name, without the person knowing it.
Shay, you were way too easy-handed on what it means to be an Open Source PROVIDER (not the same as user). It means author respect, reponsibility and original code guarantee. You maybe thought it is only about privileges and revenue of investment. OWD stands and falls with its authors. Treat the authors professionally without abusing their names, and your ROI will certainly come in due time.
My template Multiflex-2.1, for example, contained a link to Dubai Apartments, a real estate firm on the Arabian Peninsula and oil rich country Dubai. Shay, what does my template under MY NAME have to do with real estators in far-away foreign country in a totally unrelated field of business, and you did not even tell me about it? I have now removed the ad and sent it in as an update to OWD.
Comment from LobsterMan
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:27 pm
Barracuda62: They're actually discussions, it's not a plan b anymore, it's gonna happen. I don't know if i should be posting the link here, ask around owd members or contact me for the link.
Comment from Andreas
Time: November 28, 2006, 2:55 pm
I have already made clear that I will stay out of the discussions for a while, atleast until Shay has got a chance to set things straight again. I could write a whole lot about both OWD, policies, sponsored links and ads, the spirit of open source, the new template site and what I hope designers will do in the future. But adding fire to the conflict will not make the situation better, so I will wait until I know more.
I have still expressed my opinion about this by posting the story here and by removing the links to OWD from my template page. Once I know more about the future of OWD, I will write more about this topic. But the discussion will of course be open here anyway.
LobsterMan: Please wait with posting the link until the site is online and it is possible to download templates from it. Those who are interested in the site project will find it anyway through the forum link in the entry.
Comment from albert
Time: November 28, 2006, 7:57 pm
Hi All
it seems that it has started all over again!!! 1st was when the main site went down and there was no templates to download. Which lead to the site OWD.
When that was happening I started putting togther oswt.co.uk, it seems now may be the time to do what I started out to do in the 1st place.
Over the next few days we will have Open Source Web Templates OSWT up and ready for template designers to show of thier Great free GPL template designs to the world.
regards
Albert :)
Comment from JeremyD
Time: November 28, 2006, 11:16 pm
Like most of us that have commented so far, I really don't mind advertisement links put into our designs. But I'm really pissed off that we weren't told. Sure its perfectly legal to do it without our consent, but its just wrong. You'd think the owner of such an amazing website would have the decency to at least tell the people that have helped make OWD what it is today about turning our designs into billboards.
Comment from G. Wolfgang
Time: November 29, 2006, 2:45 am
@JeremyD — I go a bit further than you, and claim that it actually is type of "illegal" to modify a template on the PROVIDER side (on the USER side it looks differently, they can do whatever they wish and publish it under their own names). On the provider side a template is a representation of the original reference code of its author. Such a code can only be modified explicitly by that author. That is the difference between provider side and user side modifications. And even if I should be informed about ads being put on my template, I still DO NOT WANT THEM, I am not interested in having ads to Dubai Apartments on the Arabian Peninsula (as was the case for one of my templates). There must be other ways to finance the costs of OWD.
By the way, using templates as billboards can have one very negative effect, and that is that the other links in the template may get discredited due to the presence of spam links. This may jeopardize the homepage links for the template author to being put int the category "spam" for the search engines. Then those sites will loose tremendeously in the search ranking. So it is quite a serious issue.
Comment from webmasterneo
Time: November 29, 2006, 9:26 am
So that's the reason for taking down the forum. Up until I read the exchanges here, I wasn't aware of the ad links put into the design. (I've been less active lately, both on the forum and in submitting templates.) Good thing I put my own downloads page for the templates I submitted to OWD.
But this whole development is so sad and disappointing. I was so happy to have found OWD and the community is great. I pray for a resolution to this soon.
Comment from Dean
Time: November 29, 2006, 5:08 pm
@webmasterneo - I'm the same… I didn't even know till I read here!
Comment from DENiAL
Time: November 30, 2006, 3:19 am
Same here, I had no idea. Does anyone know of a way for me to delete my templates from owd? I can't seem to find that link anywhere.
Comment from DENiAL
Time: November 30, 2006, 3:23 am
BTW: I can't seem to find any advertising in any of my templates. I'm seriously confused now.
Comment from G. Wolfgang
Time: November 30, 2006, 7:50 am
@ DENiAL — They put in advertisements in selected, but not all templates. Mostly the ones having high download numbers, since they are of interest for the ads. In my case, they put an ad in a template with 8.000+ downloads, but not in the other ones with around 4.000 downloads.
I resubmitted my original versions (ad-free) to Sean, and he quickly put them online. That is also a way to go that works fine!
Comment from Draicone
Time: December 1, 2006, 8:01 am
Well, it's sad to see this is happening. I've been using open source templates for nearly a year now, I've always kept the copyright in the footer, in fact I'm even using one of Andreas's templates for a php site framework of mine (bitmeta.org) - with the footer link back included, naturally. I was actually working on an open source template site script recently, and if the people from the old OWD want I'm happy to finish it, host it somewhere and hand it over to the old management (if money is an issue I'm happy to buy a domain and pay for hosting). In the meantime, I can check the legal right of the provider to modify the templates. In theory (not that we'd bother) we _could_ launch a class action, it would just be very time consuming and unproductive. The third option is that we buy back OWD :) (I have about USD$600 in PayPal if it helps)
Comment from joestill
Time: December 1, 2006, 1:19 pm
I've been asked recently to take part in beta-testing of http://www.layoutlibrary.com
It seems to exploit the similar idea as http://www.OSWD.org, but what I really like - they allow for big size templates - up to 5Mb
I don't really like their design, too many colors, if compared to that of OSWD which I adore, but well - the time will show what they are worth of.
Comment from Tjobbe (NOWdesign)
Time: December 2, 2006, 1:55 pm
This is indeed sad news, I was wondering what was happening with the contest when I logged on today and then I saw a link to your site from Solucija.
If I had the option, I would like to be able to remove my templates from OpenWebDesign.org until further notice, I've just been re-coding my templates to the latest standards and I even have a few more I wanted to submit!
I am not blaming MonkeyMan at all, hell, I'd probably do the same, take the money and run! Good on you MM, hope you are well.
But, the new owner - shame on you for sticking stuff on my templates which I made with the intention of helping others. I don't blame you for trying to make some money, but the way in which you've done it, just isn't fair!
I'm GUTTED this is happening, it was over a year ago we where in a similar desperate situation and now THIS happens!
I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops, as it's not going to be pretty.
Comment from Christina
Time: December 2, 2006, 11:49 pm
I noticed the links as well. I think it's bad form. I share my designs freely. If it weren't for the generous designers, sites like OpenWebDesign.org wouldn't have the traffic or community it does/did have now. Truly a shame.
If there is such an option to remove templates from OpenWebDesign.org, please point me to it. I'll just offer my templates from my personal site. Tjobbe, if it weren't for your blog post, I wouldn't have found Andreas' post.
Comment from keyrocks
Time: December 4, 2006, 6:39 pm
I have not posted any templates on OWD. I focus my work on cms engine development & functionality rather than template design (which I am not so good at). So I have downloaded several templates so I can port them to run with my cms projects. I agree that it is wrong to add commercial links into submitted templates without first consulting with the template authors. However, OWD's owner is free to do what he wishes with his content once it has been submitted.
I would remove my templates from OWD if I had any there. How? By creating an html template page that says "this template is no longer available at OWD. It is now available at (name of new location(s). For more information, please contact (e-mail address)." I would then forward this as an update for every template I have on OWD so that it replaces all my templates. Any author with templates on OWD does have the right to update his or her work, so I suggest you all make use of your right. If the original templates somehow re-appear again… then you do have a right to protest in a formal way since someone else would be replacing your update. Get my drift?
Comment from Ryan
Time: December 6, 2006, 7:13 pm
seems like spammy/hidden links are gone. downloaded around 30 templates couldn't find any.
Comment from Tjobbe (NOWdesign)
Time: December 8, 2006, 7:52 pm
They haven't gone, see the bottom right hand corner of this template: http://www.openwebdesign.org/viewdesign.phtml?id=1965&referer=%2Fuserinfo.phtml%3Fuser%3DNOWdesign
Comment from Christina
Time: December 9, 2006, 11:51 am
I believe anyone who uploaded their designs in the Public Domain do not have a say but those of us who released our designs with a Creative Commons license have a valid arguement and right to not have our templates altered/re-packaged in any way for download without the consent of the original author.
Comment from Tjobbe (NOWdesign)
Time: December 10, 2006, 2:29 am
At the moment I believe we can not delete our own templates, I Would very much like for this not to be the case any more!
I did not specify any license as this option was not available when I uploaded my designs, I would NEVER want anyone else to make money from the direct result of one of my templates. Call it greed, but I made, so therefore I should make money, if anyone! Not someone who is relying on the goodwill of others, sorry, but its not right.
Comment from Gnome
Time: November 28, 2006, 12:39 am
Good. I too hope that there doesn't have to be another site… just like last year. This time there will be no room for error though. The website will be owned by an organisation, not an individual, and controlled by a board.