tr.im Takes a Community Approach
In a recent blog post tr.im announced that they are going open source. But not without some heartfelt harsh remarks about the offer from bit.ly to buy their domain name, source code, and all rights to the service for $10k.
“We would like to set the record straight. Last Monday, August 10, 2009, bit.ly offered $10,000 for the tr.im domain name and everything associated with it. They used this “offer” to inject themselves into the conversation, and generate attention for their shallow initiative to address link-rot. It was transparent, and so I rejected it.
That initiative, 301works.org, is little more than a bit.ly public relations stunt, which is why we have not joined it. It has little substance, claiming to address link-rot while it does nothing of the kind. If a URL shortener decides to close, only the donation of the domain name and the data can address the existing links. For any high-volume URL shortener, like tr.im, it is unlikely a commercial entity would do that given the offers we have seen come in this past week to immediately hijack all tr.im URLs.
I wish outfits such as TechCrunch, which wrote five (5) articles last week regarding the tr.im shutdown (more than anyone else), could have taken 5 minutes to call us rather than simply repeat vertbatim what bit.ly/twitter feeds them, which they seemed to do regarding this story. Their misinformation machine created a lot of misunderstanding among users and other stakeholders not immersed in the technology, impeding progress. Hopefully that can change going forward.”
I for one am glad to see another service moving in an open direction.
For the full post visit the original post here.
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