Open Source Blogging

I will have to admit that those bloggers among us that go for the open blogging approach may have bigger balls than I do. Some days I’m a huge cheerleader of the movement and then others I’m a bit more reserved, and here is why.

When I publish a full RSS feed on my sites, I actually want people to copy and place the content on their site, including links and a linkback as the original source. I have no problem with that at all. Spread my words, share my points of view, use the content in that fashion. That approach helps me and helps you at the same time. It brings you content and it helps to spread my assistance through thoughts and words.

It’s that next step that leaves me teetering. That blanket authority to say to people take my content and link back if you want. You see it’s the “if you want” part that gets me. Like I said, I’m all for take the content, but attribution and linkback, please.

I feel like that approach still makes me an open source blogger. Certainly it makes me more open than the majority of bloggers out there.

Some people are just absolute idiots about this approach and send nastygrams when you excerpt a few sentences and link to them. Dude and dudette, WTF! Why would you not want others to excerpt part of your public words and link back to you? That is just plain crazy. Do you want to write so nobody finds your work.

Think about it like this, they make a movie and won’t put out a trailer because it has a few scenes from the movie in it.

I honestly don’t think that you have to give up all your rights to call yourself an open source blogger, but at least you should be willing to let others lift your entire post, links and linkback and use it on their blog.

That’s what I’m thinking.

Steve