Slashdot Mirror
Kurt Gray on Andover, VA Linux, and LinuxWorld
What a short, strange trip it's been by Kurt Gray
I started working at Andover in December 1994. When I was hired here, there were two other full-timers: Bruce Twickler, our boss from Andover, Mass., and a former college roomate of mine, Ed Lecuyer, who got me hired there. We were publishing PhotoMorph software at the time.
Back then, at our office in Westford, Mass, we used boxes of our software inventory as office dividers. Everyday was casual day. We hired more people. A VP of Sales. A CTO and other people. Then we moved to a bigger office in Acton, Mass. We published more software and Web sites.
I became Andover's sys admin and CGI programmer. I was using Linux on my desktop at work and moved some of our Web sites onto Linux servers. Linux made my job easier and more fun so I used Linux and got addicted to reading Slashdot/Freshmeat/Themes.org. As we hired new programmers and sys admins I set them up on Linux boxes.
Then we bought Slashdot. Then we bought Freshmeat. Then working on Slashdot and Freshmeat became part of my job. I can't complain. Then we bought ThinkGeek, AnimationFactory, QuestionExchange...
So today I find myself actually ironing a pair of pants in a hotel room at the Sheraton New York then rushing downstairs for a cab to our booth at LinuxWorld. I get to the convention center and people are watching TV screens near the entrance where Bloomberg news is buzzing about the big deal betwen VA Linux and Andover.Net.
I had some drinks at the hotel with Chris Dibona and the VA gang but I've never met Larry Augustin. I don't even recognize all of the people I work with now. Most of my coworkers have no idea who I am either. What a short, strange trip it's been.
My Sloppy Transcript of Larry Augustin's Keynote
President of IDG introduces Larry Augustin. Applause.
Larry points out that this auditorium [at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan] holds 3000 people. Neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs have packed this hall when they've spoken here, but yesterday Linus' keynote was standing room only and a full balcony.
Point taken. Audience applause.
Larry talks about how he used to work at Bell Labs. They had Sun machines with preinstallaed software but Larry and his coworkers would download and install free software, not because it was free but because it was better.
A toddler in the audience starts whining. Larry says it is his daughter. Audience chuckles. Baby cries. Baby carriage is wheeled out of the hall. Audience swoons.
Larry talks about how he contributed Bison++. Talks about why Open Source is more efficient and more economically sound.
Rod so-and-so from Intel Marketing comes out and talk about Trillian Open Source code release. One of the engineers from Intel comes out. It's demo time. Real IA64 hardware running IA64 Linux. They have Apache, sendmail, etc. ported over. They demo Apache serving Web pages. Engineer says the porting process was very fast and easy -- "It was a delight," he says. He demos a real time 3D rendering of a skull with rotation and lighting changes. Larry asks, "Is this your skull?" Laughter. Demos MPEG player playing "Prince of Egypt." Full screen. Demos Doom IA32 version, to prove that IA32 binaries run natively on IA64. Intel marketing guys talk about how Open Source helped Intel get Itanium out the door faster thanks to VA and Trillian team. Intel guys exit stage right.
Larry talks about the needs of Open Source projects. Hosting. Community building. Sh*t! my laptop has 36% battery power left! I really should have left this plugged in last night. I'm a dumbass. Before I lose power I want my family to know that my battery died peacefully and painlessly and it was all for the best. I need a plug. I need juice. 35% battery left. Larry is saying it's wrong to separate users from developers. Larry introduces SourceForge. Larry says he'll talk about that more later (after my battery dies I guess). Maybe if I sit closer to the wall there will be a plug. 33%! Sh*t! I picture Abe Simpson at a Springfield town meeting shouting, "Get to the money!" Another SourceForge slide on the big screen. He's going talk about how VA got to SourceForge. He mentioned how he used sites like Freshmeat! 32% battery left. Larry talks about how source code is usually not permanently archived.
Larry introduces John Hall [not maddog, the other one] from VA, who will demo SourceForge. Shot of SourceForge home page (live!) on the big screen. 31% battery. I need a plug. John makes the point that they're hosting open source projects for many platforms. Larry mentions he wanted a finanical organizer and found a program called GnomeGNUTaxes (sp?) -- audience laughs, applauds. That's all I can stand. I have to find a plug.
Damn. I just went all the way up to the balcony looking for a plug and the plug's a non-standard! Sh*t! I'm closing GNOME and shelling out to save a little juice.
29% Battery. John talks about the Quake project. John announces patch manager and and a new code builder/compiler on SourceForge. John exits stage.
Larry introduces developers from KDE and CMU Sphinx. (Sorry - didn't catch their names.) Larry asks them about their projects. 26% battery. KDE developer says they're moving development over to SourceForge.
OK, here's the plan. I'll keep typing until my battery dies, then try to remember the rest. Larry asks why Sphinx went open source. Developer explains that there was a risk there could have been patent issues with Sphinx so they open sourced it to get it in the public record. Audience applause. Developers exit.
Larry mentions Freshmeat, Theme.org, and Slashdot. Larry announces VA acquired Andover.Net. Applause. 23% battery left. Larry introduces Trae McCombs from Themes, Rob Malda from Slashdot, Tony Ganthrop from VA, Adam Green from Andover. Rob immediately asks Larry for a flat screen monitor -- Rob says he can take that one (the huge one on stage). Audience laughs. Larry says these are the people who run these fine Web sites. Applause. Guests leave the stage. Tony hugs Larry when leaving stage. Audience laughs. Larry wraps up. Questions from audience. 20% battery left.
First question: Someone annouces they open sourced some natural language translation software. Larry thanks him for the announcement.
Second Question: Developer of PHP thanks Larry for hosting PHP. Mentions that the build tool on SourceForge is nice but we need build tools for other non-Intel platforms. Larry agrees.
Third Question: Any plans to integrate Freshmeat and SourceForge? Larry says Freshmeat is an index and SourceForge is an archive so he wants to find a way to "pull those together." (I can't help but be nervous about that.)
4th Question: EMC employee asks about VA's business model concerning hosting open source. Larry says Andover sells advertising and VA will also offer corporate support services with hardware. Battery: 18%.
5th Question: Open Source has always been politically confrontational and corporate sponsors will probably discourage confrontations, so would VA be willing to host code such as DeCSS? Audience applause. GOOD QUESTION! Chris Dibona fields this question. Chris says with the Andover acquisition that VA will be more involved with the DeCSS issue. Larry interrupts Chris and says "We'll try to help out with that." (hmmm...)
Larry says lets wrap it up there. We're done. Battery 14%. I'm going back to the booth.
Does anyone know how much of the development is moving to sourceforge?
is the new freshmeat sourceforge type deal moving over? It seems like a little duplication now
sparkes
*** www.linuxuk.co.uk relaunches 1 Mar 2000 ***
blog and junk
Salon did an interview with Rob yesterday at LinuxWorld. They talk about VA Linux. Check it out here:
t ml?CP=SAL&DN=110
http://w ww.salon.com/tech/log/2000/02/03/slashdot/index.h
------
IanO
------
Objects in Mirror are Losing!
Less than 24 hours after claiming that "creative control will remain where it's always been", we already have spokebeasts writing "features" for their "media outlet". *sigh* Time to move on...
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Maybe next year he'll have a laptop with a Crusoe processor. :)
Besides the new article posters, I haven't seen that much of a change in the way Slashdot has been run so far. Lets hope it stays that way...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
So does this mean VA will be stepping up to bat for DeCSS? The amount of cash and lawyers they could bring to the table could seriously turn the tide in our favor on this issue. I'm sure that as good as the current lawyers are they are no match for the hundreds of people generating paperwork for them that the MPAA has. After all, a common tactic used by large lawfirms is to swamp the opponent with paperwork that MUST be returned.
Plus, with a massive legitimate company telling the judge that DeCSS is necessary perhaps he'll take it a bit more seriously?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
heard a blurb about it while driving home from work last night - one of those stock reports brought to you by your friendly local brokerage..
No alter ego today.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I think this article is nice, but definitley not up to standards on a person working with the company for a long time, nor a person who reads Slashdot regularly.
Just some random thoughts:
- using software boxes as dividers, hell, I think that's better than just buying crap from a company
- I hate taking notes hehe
With feeble attempt issues,
Matthew
_____________________________________
sortakinda.ca | canadian paraphrasing.
But who cares about Andover?
I mean really, all they did was buy a couple of popular Open Source sites. Can you say 'getting in late in the game'? I mean, before they bought slashdot the only thing most of us had heard of them was when that idiot columnist guy wrote a completely unrehearsed piece about Unix and open source in general, and then wrote another piece about how people at slashdot sucked (because we flamed him, etc). A couple weeks later, The bought slashdot.
Now, Andover has been bought out by VA, well great. Now the "leading opensource news site" is owned by $5 billion corporation that has a vested intrest in promoting its services above others. Fantastic.
A couple days ago CmndrTaco said that it was "funny" that Time was reporting on AOL's jacked up AOL 5.0. Will it be 'funny' now when slashdot reports on VA's screwups? Or will VA just never make screwups, is that it?
Ever hear of journalistic independence? I guess not.
Yeh, yeh, mark me down...
Amber Yuan (--ell7)
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Hey, with all the time spent whining about the laptop battery, you could have spilt the beans on the beanies. Feel free to edit out useless notes after you relieze that there is no cause for concern about your battery.
Thankfully, these companies have (so far) proved to be trustworthy and are valuable members of our community. But will it stay that way? How long can it stay that way?
To me, the Linux community has never been about market share, marketing, "owning the desktop" or any of the other goals that these companies are espousing. It's been about cooperation, sharing, helping someone you don't know compile their own kernel for the first time...
This certainly won't change for me, and I imagine it won't change for most of us, but now the sources we depend upon for unbiased news are possibly about to become tainted. I know the reputations involved are without reproach but with SEC requirements, "quiet periods", appearance of impartiality and whatnot I can't help but wonder if this isn't a good thing (tm).
We've seen vague assurances from some of the parties involved that "creative control" will remain the same. Please, please go a step further: Let's see some of the controlling parties come forward and let us know what these changes mean and don't mean! We need official word that integrity isn't going to suffer! When I read a story about a Microsoft product on a Ziff-Davis rag, I consider it sketchy and possibly unreliable. I don't want to feel the same way when I read a VA Linux story on Slashdot.
--
my notebook doesn't need batteries
Is it me or has Slashdot become completely lame now that it has sold out completely, not once but twice? Now all I seem to read are articles about how XYZ company that bought the parent of Slashdot is so wonderful and John Doe employee of that company is so cool. Snore.
What happened to the stuff that matters? I want articles about idiots trying to boot Linux off pocket calculators, Japanese toliets that analyze do-do and chicks that can calculate PI to 100 decimal places.
Get off your IPO high horse!
> Larry says these are the people who run
> these fine Web sites.
I hope Kurt Gray made a mistake and that Larry isnt that clueless about his own holdings. Trae did indeed found themes.org, but he doesn't work on it anymore, he runs linux.com. As the project manager of bb.themes.org, I have been privy to enough events to know that VA is more interested in politics and hype than the open source community. Hey, they are out to make money just like everyone else, but I doubt we will see any articles on /. to the tune of "VA is the Microsoft of the Linux world" like we got with Red Hat. When VA went public, lots of people got "the letter" but curiously, none of the people who volunteer at themes.org did, even though themes.org was the most popular site in VA's stable of web sites until yesterday. Ever notice how every VA web site is redesigned whenever there is a trade show? This mandate alone has seriously kept themes.org from completing a decent design that loads well in any browser. Will we see a /. redesign every time there is another trade show, too? VA has always scared me, but now that they have such wide reaching potential to hurt the community, I am more scared than ever.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
I agree that "the posters make the place", but I DON'T agree that "not the guys at the console". Sure, we're the ones that provide the feedback, create the threads, move the discussion along, etc. But the "console guys" create the topics. By selective topic creation (for instance, this content-free, VA Linux rah rah rah piece) /. can control what we discuss. And what we discuss can easily turn into what we care about--it should be the other way around.
--
Java banners:
Bad for users because Java kills Netscape
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Slashdot is getting lame for other reasons -- mainly, because for some reason moderators are getting more and more anal retentive. More and more often, legitimate posts are moderated down in flames, just because they express a non "mainstream" (WRT to this medium) opinion, or because they're slightly offtopic. But being slightly offtopic can be useful, at times, to draw attention towards something related for example.
Is'nt it interesting to notice, for example, that if some demagogic "libertarian" invokes the Holocaust for the BILLIONth time in defence of the right to buy Uzis at the supermarket, he gets to +3 in minutes, whereas if you just slightly disagree that this is good idea, boom! Bye bye, Karma.
And I guess this is a self fulfilling prophecy ... reload and watch my score ...
I'm a little bit confused about the questioning of Slashdot as a "trusted" news forum. This come especially after Andover has purchased them, and now again as VA purchases Andover...
In my mind, Slashdot is still one of the most trusted news forums for me-- because someone can post a message openly criticising their journalistic integrity. There really isn't that much journalism going on by the Slashdot guys, relatively speaking. The ratio of content on this site between what the guys in the Geek Compound here in Michigan post, versus the content posted by YOU worldwide is incredibly large. And the fact that YOU can moderate and score that content is amazingly bold too. If you can, list for me the number of news sites which get as much or more traffic as Slashdot that have a similar tradition of openness.
And as you reply to my message to tell me I'm full of dung, just think about it. You're posting to tell me I'm full of dung. You can do that. And if one of the Slashdot guys posts a story that's completely wrong, you can tell the world that he's full of dung too! In fact, you can go even further and do a bit of corrective journalism and post links and resources which tell a fuller or more correct story.
And what other news medium showed a public figure recant a statement in realtime?
I'd really like to know just what it is that Andover has changed about Slashdot, because maybe I'm actually full of dung, but I haven't seen it.
THAT, is the big question. We will know if we see something anti-VA soon, or not.
I think the fact that VA Linux layed out a big wad of cash for slashdot and it's andover brethren probably means that they're going to try and keep the good stuff coming. If VA Linux just wanted ad space, they'd advertise. Purchasing internet companies is a significant investment, and turning andover.net into a valinux.com mirror would just be stupid.
I think we should wait for a few weeks to decide whether this is good or bad.
hg
Drop the
Did that strike anyone else as unbelievably bizarre? I mean, am I supposed to say "Oooh! I better catch that one, it's a rare public appearance by Kurt Gray? WOW!
Or was Roblimo just joking?
--
You're not full of dung (unless you're Irish like me, we're all full of shite!). You're absolutely right. However, we don't have any control over the content on the homepage, ie. the stories. This is what most people see and read. Do you really think that every slashdotter reads all the comments, let alone most of them?
You can argue that these folks should be going the extra mile themselves and digging below the fold into the comments to get the real dirt, but that would be missing the point.
The integrity at the comments level will remain the same unless sweeping changes are made, and that's a good thing. The integrity at the news story level now has the appearance of impropriety, and this is a bad thing.
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The DeCSS reference got me thinking. :-)
What about VA installing it on their machines that they sell
Or putting money into a hardware implementation of it or something?
If this is the guy who's admin'ing Slashdot, is it his fault that it's so damn slow all the time?
Either they need a bigger server, or they need to rewrite Slashdot in C rather than Perl.
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Sounds like jumping from 32 to 64 bits caused a huge performance hit. If all they can do is run an MPEG-I player full screen with no audio, my Celeron 550 can do that. Why do you need 64 bits to run the same web server that runs just fine in 32 bits? Maybe if higher clock speeds were possible in 64 bits there would be some use in graphics, but Kurt said he only worked on graphics in 1994. Today he works on web servers. Graphics software is a worthless waste in today's industry. Intel isn't giving much of an incentive to upgrade the existing 32 bit credit card and web server software to 64 bits.
After talking to another friend about the potential for decline in the journalistitc integrity slashdot may succome to as a result of the merger, I believe that the only way to be certain that no one is playing favorites is to start linking to *all* of the submitted stories.
If Penguin Computing (who competes with VA Linux) announces something interesting on their website which is in turn submitted to Slashdot, how can we be sure that it won't get dropped simply because Slashdot's owners are competing with Penguin Computing?
There have been many cries in the past about allowing the general browsers of the site be permitted to view unposted stories, which has so far been denied, but I think that now that Slashdot's integrity may be called into question, it makes more sense than ever to allow access to the other submissions.
A possible alternative would be to allow the moderation of articles *before* they are posted with moderation being granted in a similar fashion to comment moderation. If ten people with such status vote that a certain article should be posted, it instantly gets posted.
I personally don't doubt Slashdot's integrity in the past or the present, but without knowing what *isn't* getting posted, there's simply no way for us be certain that things will remain that way.
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
I'd be surprised if VA did. They'd be killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Most newspapers, believe it or not, are not family-owned or staff-owned ventures. They're part of larger media conglomerates: Hollinger/Southam, News Co, Thompson, for example. All the US's major TV networks are owned by conglomerates. These conglomerates frequently have business interests elsewhere.
Some media sources have owners that have an active involvement in day-to-day activities. Look at Conrad Black and his pet newspaper (and money sink), the National Post. Some networks blunt coverage of their parent conglomerates, like CBS did when news about pedophiles working at Disney surfaced (see the Brill's Content Mouse-ke-fear issue). Some newspapers run scared from hometown corporations, like the Cincinatti Enquirer did after it ran, then withdrew, a major expose on Chiquita. And some just leave their newspapers alone.
I think, since I have no reason to think otherwise, that VA is going to leave Slashdot alone. They have no media experience and they really have no interest in using Slashdot as a major advertising vessel quite yet. Remember that their equity valuation is largely based on a hugely successful stock offering, not on an especially large market share.
They might be tempted, but even the slightest hint of interference would destroy Slashdot's credibility outright. Things like this have a way of coming up, no matter how deeply buried they are.
If you want to keep up with media watching, get a subscription to Brill's Content or another media magazine, like Adbusters. Be conscious of your media.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
We need official word that integrity isn't going to suffer!
Yes, that's what will reassure us! An Official Statement!
It just isn't healthy to consume this much unintentional humour at one sitting
So does this mean VA will be stepping up to bat for DeCSS?
I think you'll find VA being very careful about their actions regarding DeCSS. VA is getting bigger, more powerful. That means they are going to work hard, very hard to establish a reputation that is acceptable to the "general public". I truly hope that VA will make a stand on the side of DeCSS... I think they believe they have too much to lose, however. I hope circumstances prove me wrong.
Large companies lack warmth, and the larger they become the further they stray from the community. It becomes an issue of money-greed-power. I don't mean to bring up the negative points, but I cannot be entirely optimisitic either.
This is an interesting union to watch, however, I wish all parties concerned the best, but there will definately be rocky times and differences in opinion. Every action is important and will ultimately seal the fate of what is to be. It will be interesting to observe what direction they go in.
meow
Trae McCombs runs Linux.com. Greg Sanders runs Themes.org and Tony Guntharp runs SourceForge. And last, Trae (not Tony) hugged Larry at the end of the presentation....typical OctobrX behavior. :-)
Greg Sanders - kfc@themes.org - Colonel_KFC
Greg Sanders - kfc@themes.org - ElCoronel
I think Rob will continue to do the right thing. He's on *our* side here, remember that. For the amount of shit he puts up with from the "release slash" trolls, the "you didn't accept my submission" trolls, the "first post morons", and everything else, it's a wonder he's even still at it.
I don't know Rob from anyone, but from what I do know about him, he doesn't seem to be the kind of person who'd compromise his reputation to bow down to the almighty corporation. Has VA ever fucked up? I actually can't think of a time where they did. If they do in the future, I trust Rob would post it. But from the VA track record and what they've given to the community and what they continue to do for us (SourceForge is so cool) I don't think we've got much to worry about.
Give Rob a chance, flame him later if he screws up, but I don't think he will.
The submissions response is getting a bit crappy now. I submitted an article about trillian yesterday that was rejected. What's more newsworthy than Linux on a linux site? This was submitted in the morning (about 9am) and was rejected an hour later. Some 6 hours later, the story was posted. My question, do the Andover people even read the submissions anymore? Seems there is a tremendous bias about what gets posted and when.
I'm outta here.
Now, you'd think after merging with VA they wouldn't need revenue from the ad banners so they'd just get rid of them or do the "community banner" thing like VA does with linux.com.
..is a power that mass media has always had. It used to be that you could trust /. to be "totally" unbiased and out there, now that is no longer the case. Whether or not there is a conscious decision to skew content, VA is still paying all the checks and the posters of stories now have an obvious vested interest in promoting, or at least raising awareness of, their company. When tech rumors can cause billion dollar swings in stock valuations, you must be able to trust the source and now we now it's tainted (the potential for ulterior motives has increased a hundredfold)
Unfortunate but such is life when big money knocks on the door and demands action, one way or the other.
+&x
Of course, we are slashdot. We just don't get any money, or get to make any dessisions...
I think that's what's pissing people off the most here (I know its what's pissing me off). We made slashdot what it was, and then Rob goes off and sells the damn thing, without even consulting us. Many of us felt betrayed. We felt like we were part of a community, and then? Well, it was made apparent that we were just a group of people that could be bought and sold.
Amber Yuan (--ell7)
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Larry mentioned in his speech that he wants to find a way to pull those two together.. hasn't that already been done with http://server51.freshmeat.net/ ??
Actually I thought the whole battery loss bit was great. The article would have been far from boring with out it, but I wouldn't have sighed with relief when he managed to make it to the end had he "edited [it] out". Heh, there's nothing like a little geek drama to spice up some note taking.
I know David Letterman. David Letterman is a friend of mine. Rob Malda is no David Letterman.
My existing code lives at scoop.kuro5hin.org, and www.kuro5hin.org is running scoop as well. The downloadable sources are screwed up right now, but that will be fixed this weekend, along with (hopefully) open content moderation.
--
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
"Outside the community" like VA? Ha.
--
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
There's an article in Salon today that pretty much sums it up for me. This sort of bullshit is just icing on the cake to what this article has to say -- I just thought it would take longer for Slashdot to show signs of being completely owned. I mean, this is depressing. A mere day after Rob promises that Slashdot will stay independant, we start seeing fscking press releases from VA/Andover. This is the very basis of what worried me when Slashdot got bought.
I know that it's Rob's ball and he can do what he wants with it, but I feel like /. is moving farther and farther away from being something special.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Sorry folks, but the LinuxWorld chair got it wrong when he said, "Neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs have packed this hall when they've spoken here, but yesterday Linus' keynote was standing room only and a full balcony."
I've been there for Gates and Jobs. They filled the hall too.
Linux is big and getting bigger, don't puff if up to be even bigger than it already is. That's a common corporate BS game, that Microsoft plays especially well. The Linux world doesn't want to play there.
Steven, Editor at Large, Sm@rt Reseller
http://www.zdnet.com/sr
Everybody is going nuts over "journalistic integrity". I look at it this way:
Rob and the guys have been doing this as a hobby for fun for quite a long time. Now lots of peripheral things have happened, but Slashdot is still a bunch of techies writing news for techies. Do you really think any of the admins would really stand for it if Andover or VA attempted to pollute their integrity with gratuitous articles? So Andover "bought" Slashdot and VA "bought" Andover. It just means the checks have different return addresses on them, that's all. I think it is quite obvious that techies and the open-source community are the MOST touchy when comes to exploitation or commercialization. Why would VA or Andover want to shoot themselves in the foot by pissing off their whole target audience? The only way you win in this new market is by the good graces of the community. Nobody wants to piss anybody off.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"And what other news medium showed a public figure recant a statement in realtime?"
TV... Radio... Town criers... (oyez, oyez, the mayor is speaking of seting the witches free. Come say your piece!) Let's not get carried away with the instantaniety of the web. Life has always been realtime -- with an amazing bandwidth.
In modern life, the act of 'recanting' means announcing it to the media (You can't 'recant in your heart'; it's not Galileo's world anymore). Every live press conference, debate, or press seige on the way from plane to limo is potentially a real-time recant. You've probably seen dozens of real-time recants, and never thought anything of it.
I strongly agree with your major point, however, you are presuming that everything works as we like to assume it does.
Suppose I told you that yesterday, dozens of posts critical of
It happened. And I'm even glad it did.
The posts were announcements and demonstrations of a weakness in the Slash
This action protected us from possibly dangerous embedded HTML, and though I'd have prefered to see it handled diferently, I full appreciate that the 'need for speed' was pressing.
However, they never announced what they were doing this or how to view the downrated posts (browse after manually changing the filte level in the URL to -9999)
I trust
As regards editorial content and viewpoint: whatever their intent, guys who were on display at a packed Jacob Javits Center yesterday (vs. hacking in torn underwear behind the quasi-anonymity of a monitor in 'the compound' in MI) can be forgiven if their viewpoint drifts or mutates. We've all seen the process a hundred times both in real life and on the web
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
On a side-note, what happened to TacoHell?
/joeyo
2^5
seems to be the norm here.
Not that I object. Quite the contrary. Anything that serves as a watchdog _needs_ to be suspicious. Check the replies and the moderations and always take with copious quanties of NaCl.
Er, which people would those be? The "true meaning" of the phrase is a reference to criminal court proceedings and nothing else. It is a legal principle in some countries that in cases of ambiguous evidence, the defendant shall not be considered guilty. In the real world outside the courts, its no better an assumption than any other.
A random wild plant that someone says "hey maybe we can eat this" is considered guilty until proven innocent - I won't eat it without evidence that it won't harm me. A stray cat is considered innocent until proven guilty - I don't assume it has rabies and will lunge towards me to bite when I say "hey kitty kitty." Large corporate entities which buy news and discussion media devoted to their area of investment are considered guilty until proven innocent - there is just no good reason to assume that a company would let one of it's investments endanger the others.
The legal principles of one system do not a global philosophy make.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I was at the Javits Center in NYC for about three hours. I talked to Rob Malda for quite a while about the Slash engine. I saw Hemos, Roblimo, and a number of other people around the booth. They were getting ready for their party, where they gave out some awards. They looked like they hadn't slept well in a few days.
The conclusion that I came to, and it seems obvious from my perspective, is that articles posted about the Andover-VA merger are being posted because the Slashdot authors think that they will help the community understand what's happening, and what people are thinking at the moment. Whether that is actually true or not is entirely dependent upon your perspective.
I've worked trade shows in the past. The world outside the convention center could have ended yesterday, and people working the show floor probably didn't notice. You have a tendency to think you are aware of what's happening in the world, but you almost certainly miss a lot.
I think the Slashdot authors will produce more understandable, insightful stuff about the merger once they get a chance to go back and sleep in their own beds for a few days. But, considering the environment they are in at the moment, they are doing a pretty good job.
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
It's a really sad statement that a website can piss you off. This website is not made for you. From the begining the /. staff have made it clear that this site is for them but you are invited to come along.
/. an uncomfortable place for those of us who still like it.
/. wasn't a for-profit thing don't know what they are talking about. This place is run by the /. staff for the /. staff. I don't know where you get your spoiled brat sense of entitlment but it's is not only childish it is boring.
If you don't like, grab the Slash code (it's gpl now), make your own competeing site and shut the fuck up. You are making
I've been here since the begining and these losers who keep bitching about the good old days when
You're never going to get laid with that attitude.
Uh, even though the /. crew cannot seem to get this through there heads;
/.
Andover did NOT MERGE with VA. VA BOUGHT Andover.
Maybe they think they are actually the end-all of geek news. Damn, I know at least 10 SysAdmins that don't read
Please, deflate your heads and hit the floor running...
If you lika me like I lika you...
Uh, sorry :P
I cannot imagine VA or Andover being dumb enough to try to turn /. into a publicity rag. Any hint of censorship would raise a big stink. Even the possibility has raised a fair amount of /. commentary. I expect that any VA vs Penguin computing bias will be much less than the Linux vs Microsoft bias. /. seems to be one of the few sources of useful info about Microsoft products (and yes I've got Technet).
Disclaimer. I am reading and posting this with IE5/NT4. (Haven't taken the plunge yet.) Besides,
Off Topic. I just saw the QOTD, and the mouthful of coffe went flying. "Trust me" (translation of the Latin: "caveat emptor." How do they do these things?
the "quickies sections, etc"? pardon my ignorance
True dat to most of your post (except for the over used demagogic limosine lefty cliche's. "demagogic" is a term for beliefs that fall on the liberal-conservative spectrum of heartstrings, which libertarians tend to ignore in favour of looking at the mechanics of an issue, but we can't all be perfect). I think it's unfortunate that we see a lot of posts snowball their way to the top, but who gives a toss, realy? So some schmo has a higher 'karma' rating than you. Who's added more to the community? Who can goto bed at nite knowing that they did their part (start battle hymn of the republic here)? And who doesn't have to wory about going to hell for starting a new thread while quoting from another one, just to be noticed by the moderators?
In truth, those who screw with the system here or brown nose their way to high ratings may have a higher level of karma on /., but their karma in real life probably damns them to a reincarnation as a starving child on a Sally Struthers commercial. Just keep fighting the good fight. You'll get your due.
On another note, it's neat how people who bitch about the fact that their messages are likely to be moderated to a sub-zero rating often find themselves with 4's and 5's. Just goes to show that reverse psychology is real and that moderators are, in fact, lemmings.
hg
Drop the
Totally agree with elegant7x !
On a different note:
Is a rich geek still a geek?
Is a rich nerd still a nerd?
Corollary: Is Bill Gates still a nerd?
My personal answer is: No.
Zeb
Research Guide to the Palestinian-Israeli Co
Seriously, you can yammer on about the impartiality issue, but what I really want to know is if/when/how Freshmeat and SourceForge will be merged/reconciled/etc?
Thanks to whomever brought that up during the presentation.
You are right in that /. doesn't generate much original content, but that in no way means that it is safe for corporate, heavy-handed editors.
/. hasn't been the highest on the editorial responsibility meter. This just means that what little trust I had in it has been reduced yet again.
All they have to do is not to link to stories that show them in a negative light, and link to the ones that do. It isn't direct lying, but it qualifies as witholding the full truth. I don't have time to wade through hundreds of other news sites looking for stories. But then again, on the other hand, it is true that
But at least we still have the discussion forum.
This sig is false.
Dear Slashdot Readers,
Thank you for reading my site. It has come to my attention that some people have expressed interest in compensating me for the hours of hard work I have spent on running this site, whether by writing and re-writing the software that runs it, or by sifting through piles of e-mail and submissions to find interesting things to post.
I don't have to tell you how much time you have spent reloading -- truly, we would not be where we are without you.
I would also like to take this opportunity to ask your permission to sell this site to a company that is prepared to make it run faster and to enable me to spend more time making it better instead of standing in line at the soup kitchen. Consequently, we shall have a famous Slashdot poll dedicated to that very issue. The question shall be, "Should we sell Slashdot?" The answers will be "Yes", "No", "CowboyNeal", and "Why are you asking me, freak?"
Please take the time to answer, because we're obviously not qualified to make decisions about our labor of love.
Your friend,
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Check out these lines:
Juxtaposed with this:
And this: The whole breakdown of Larry Agustin's keynote is in short, trite language. Cold and dispassionate.
The fact that Roblimo posted this article probably suggests that Kurt's sentiment isin't all that rare. Throughout Andover, Slashdot, Freshmeat..
Who can blame the Slashdot boys for cashing in? I'd take the money too. I understand it was quite a bit. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Whats kindof neat to think about is that because of Malda's pseudo-celebrity status, he could recreate slashdot in it's original image somewhere else, out of the clutches of money interests. that is.. when he's done getting paychecks.
Suppose that Microsoft started buying IDG. Is that essentially any different than VA buying Andover? Nope. If Microsoft did that we'd detest them, and we'd detest IDG. Why should we not detest a company that makes boxes which thinks it is appropriate to buy companies that publish software and news? You all are being way too kind - and too naive. Slashdot's Malda & Bates have all the money they need the rest of their lives. They sold their integrity to obtain it. They need only to maintain the appearance that they didn't, and to convince the bulk of you that they didn't. They'll be successful at that. It's very easy to fool the bulk of you. After all, they have been able to fool themselves about the whole situation. Bye, Slashdot,
Editorial freedom for Slashdot or not, I'd like to diversify my newsreading by quite a bit, like maybe check in with five or ten sites on my own instead of just Slashdot or articles on other sites that Slashdot refers me to. What other sites to Slashdot-ers read to get their tech news?
I've got a few to start, but not many.
I anxiously await your suggestions.
if Linus had somehow even created the perception of not being 100% neutral to the corporate Linux industry, we all would have been big losers.
i think we should all be v thankful to Linus for not succumbing to these 'corporate' pulls as the founders of slashdot apparently did when they first sold it to Andover. Just imagine if you were Linus, getting to those billions would seem tooooooo tempting. the only other person of such integrity i can think of is Gandhi.
however founders of slashdot may justify it, the fact is that (anykind of) leadership of the open source movement (or any movement) demands 100% purity/integrity which slashdot now does not have. it's easy to sell out for the present and then justify it for the rest of your lives.
With the journalistic integrity of those on VA's payroll in question, maybe they shouldn't be the ones to choose which stories get posted and which don't. I'm sure there are enough people willing to volunteer to do the selection.
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Didn't he/she post a story, not too long ago? I remember, someone posted a crack about "turning off comments" in the story.
Maybe if you actually bothered to read /. instead of just whining, you would have read the "official message" right here
Rob said:
Now whether that satisfies you or not is up to you. If you ask me, I'm fine with it - go and read the Slashdot Interview with Rob and Hermos (where we got to ask questions) if it's not. They were at pains to point out that they had a pretty good lawyer who got them a contract that let them say what they like.
For example, /. posted plenty of stories about the linux.com bidding war, and who was going to buy it, etc. Now if that wasn't in direct competition with /. and Andover (although I'm not sure if Andover owned them then), then I don't know what is.
I know this isn't going to shut people up. The way I look at it, if you don't like /., don't read it - or go and start your own competition. You can even use the slash code, now - so what's stopping you?
Right you are. Now I'll have to change my email again.
--
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
We were in fact, college roomates, and we remain good friends (although I am no longer employed by Andover - I left during the transition from a regular software publisher to the Internet model, because I was not interested in doing Internet stuff, NOT because I was disatisfied there in any way.)
Kurt is correct in his recollections of the early days of Andover. We had boxes of sh*t everywhere and we used most of it for office dividers. Bruce Twickler (CEO) had this silly software buyback promotion and most of this junk ended up forming walls between Kurt, myself, and my wife (who was also working for Andover at the time).
I can say, without resevation, that this could not have happened to better people. I lived with one of them and worked for another for 3+ years.
Kurt's point was simply to contrast the then and now. He is quirky sometimes, as his post indicates, but he is also ANIMATE about open source and LINUX. He won't let /. go to the dogs.
FWIW I only met Rob briefly at a party Andover was having. Instead of hanging out with the 'suits', he was sitting with all the techies, including Kurt and myself. He seemed to be a good match for the Andover corporate mentality - a fun, hard working individulal, and a GENUINE GOOD GUY.
Unless people's morals have changed radically since my departure, these are all real, good people who care deeply about open source and the company they keep.
Some will argue that money changes everything. But Bruce has had money before, and he risked it all to start a small software publishing company. Thanks to Kurt, he saw the LINUX revolution in advance, and was able to change Andover Advanced Technologies, a company worth less than the boxes of used software/office dividers, into something that will benifit software developers and geeks everywhere for years to come.
Yes Kurt, what a long strange trip it has been.