First, a question: Is measuring open source contributions really useful? Well, the folks at startup Ohloh would no doubt answer in the affirmative and then explain how it hopes to profit from doing just that. But its effort to do so has raised the hackles of open source contributors in more than one way. “There are reasons to be skeptical about Ohloh, but every new social force — and open source is surely such a force — goes through many iterations and takes many different turns before maturity,” Bill Snyder explains, then puts a positive perspective on the whole thing. “Even if individual implementations fail, the next guy will have something to learn from.” Technology Industry