Web site : Open Source Food - is it really?

Open Source Food web site has been around since 2008, the title graphic of this article is from a blog notification about the site.

Open Source Food's self description is:  "Amazing recipes.  Delicious Food. Beautiful Photography. Created and rated by you and fellow food-lovers from all over the world. Open Source Food is your gastronomic hub where every visit will bring inspiration and a rumbling belly..."

It hosts a large number of recipes which appear fantastic (I've yet to try any) that are submitted under Open Source / Creative Commons licenses.

For this article we will take a closer look at the site.

I guess this is a bit more of an op-ed, than a review.  This is an old concern and argument from the beginning of the FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) era.  While many, myself included, believe it is OK to use Open Source as a commercial vehicle, the company and associated web sites should very clearly state their intentions.  In other words, companies that utilize a concept that is intended to be completely transparent, should itself be transparent.

So on to the web site.  First, I want to be very clear and indicate that any recipe on the Open Source Food site that states it is Creative Commons licensed is actually so, while the author or owner of the recipe deems it to be, if they themselves are legally entitled to license it as such.  The language is fairly specific, but as the copyright holder of creative content, you do have the right to change the license of content, although you may not have the right to revoke prior issued licenses, nor affect the license of any legitimate derivatives.

Sorry for getting all technical about this, but this is one of those sites that one might use the phrase, "Not everything might be as it seems, here."

It is very interesting to note that there are a lot of recipes with professional quality pictures of the items.  A large portion of the recipes listed on the home page appear to be from "pro account" members of the site.  As exemplified in the Siumai chicken dumplings recipe, which is labelled as being released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.  The recipe looks really good and it probably tastes great, although a person in their home may not have their results turn out quite like the picture.

So this is the gist of it, on quick investigation.

As noted at the beginning of this article, the web site has been around since at least 2008.  Unfortunately, the owner of the web site likely changed sometime in 2010.  Perhaps it was sold to an interested, commercial party.

In the information on the "About" page, it lists companies called Daymix and Ovast.  Of Ovast, the company no longer exists.  The web site itself is asserted "Open Source Food © 2012, Concourse Media. Content Available Under Creative Commons License Where Indicated."  Basically, all that a reader of the web site can determine by that statement is, the content that is creative commons could have been used within a commercial web site.

Further in the "Terms of Use" page is where things get even more interesting.  Without going into too much detail, any content you submit cannot be under a non-commercial license, as they may use your content for commercial purposes, while it exists on their site.  To be clear, they state non-exclusive license claim.  They do state that upon the removal of content, the granted license is revoked, and they assert the ownership of the content to the user.

I'm being quite harsh perhaps, but a web site that specifically states and suggests it has an Open Source intention and statement of claim should be transparent about some very certain things.  If one were to look at the Sourceforge.net terms of use, they use language that very specifically spells out the separation of sourceforge.net and it's owners and affiliates from the user / content submitter / maintainer, as well as ensuring the submitter is able to make claim that the content they submit is owned by them and is licensed appropriately.  Companies like Sourceforge.net also protect their users and user information, rather than using their users and content for commercial purposes. It's a clear boundary of ethics, really.

Basically, this unfortunately looks like a site that may have been created under very good, Open Source intentions, but perhaps the original site creator was given an offer they couldn't refuse, by a commercial entity.  And now, it appears that it is probably a site that is more dedicated to promoting a recipe app and getting people to register in order to get email addresses and other demographic information, as it is with most social media sites.

That's too bad, really.  "Back in the day", when life on the internet seemed much less hectic, many discussions occurred that spelled out some very clear ethics and most good social sites had their own, user ownership and governance protocols, while protecting the privacy and user information as much as possible.

We would really have to say, beware of registering at this site.  As noted in their terms, your ownership is asserted, but you don't appear to have much control of your content while it is posted there.  Further as noted, the creative commons recipes might have been sourced elsewhere, and may not be from the submitting user.

Actually, a recipe for Green Tea Ice cream which claims "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License", by a non-pro member, is actually taken from another web site called Notecook.com, which does not state Creative Commons license.  It is unclear whether that submitter is actually the owner.  Perhaps so.  But it is so unclear as raise eyebrows.  Trust is a huge measure of a site like this.  And there doesn't appear to be any copyright resolution measures in place, in the event that a recipe is believed to be in violation of copyright or its license.

It looks like the web site has some great recipes, but I'd question if they were Open Source.  Be wary about registering at the site and I'd recommend not sharing recipes directly from that web site, except by way of link reference.