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Allegations that editors are removed for criticizing policies
David F. Prenatt, Jr. (former ODP editor netesq) and the former editor known by the alias The Cunctator claim to
have been removed for disagreeing with staff about changes to the policies, with special regard to the ODP's
copyright policies. According to their claims, staff used the excuse that their behaviour was uncivil to remove
bothersome editors.[47][52][53]Blacklisting allegations
Senior ODP editors have the ability to attach "warning" or "do not list" notes to individual domains but no editor has
the unilateral ability to block certain sites from being listed. Sites with these notes might still be listed and at times
notes are removed after some discussion.[54]Hierarchical structure
Recently criticism of ODP's hierarchical structure emerged. Many believe hierarchical directories are too
complicated. As the recent emergence of Web 2.0, folksonomies began to appear. These people thought
folksonomies, networks and directed graph are more "natural" and easier to manage than hierarchies.[55][56][57]Software
Search
The ODPSearch software is a derivative version of Isearch which is open source, licensed under the Mozilla Public
License.[58]Editor forums
The ODP Editor Forums were originally run on software that was based on the proprietary Ultimate Bulletin Board
system. In June 2003, they switched to the open source phpBB system. As of 2007, these forums are powered by a
modified version of phpBB.Bug tracking
The bug tracking software used by the ODP is Bugzilla and the web server Apache. Squid web proxy server was also
used but it was removed in August 2007 when the storage servers were reorganized. All these applications are open
source.Interface
The ODP database/editing software is closed source (although Richard Skrenta of ODP did say in June 1998 that he
was considering licensing it under the GNU General Public License). This has led to criticism from the
aforementioned GNU project, many of whom also criticise the ODP content license.[59]
As such, there have been some efforts to provide alternatives to ODP. These alternatives would allow communities
of like-minded editors to set up and maintain their own open source/open content Web directories. However, no
significant open source/open content alternative to ODP has emerged.