Slashdot Mirror
Negative Webmonkey Editorial on Andover/VA Merger
BigTed writes "Webmonkey has got an interesting article up about the VA Linux takeover of Andover and its effect on *gasp* Slashdot and the Open Source Community." Personal note: I almost quit when I heard about the merger, because I had exactly the same worries Jay Greenspan expresses in this editorial. Since then I have been personally reassured by Larry Augustin that VA Linux has no desire to mess with the content on any Andover site, including Slashdot. I'm posting this story, even though we've been over this ground before, primarily so that we don't get accused of bias by not posting it. And yes, we will continue to post news of Red Hat, Penguin Computing, and others in the Linux corporate community, same as before. Everyone who works on Slashdot, and everyone in Andover.net management, has sworn to defend Slashdot's editorial independence. Period. - Robin 'roblimo' Miller, Editor-in-Chief, Andover.net. Update: 02/09 05:16 by CT : here is a Salon Story by Andrew Leondard expressing the same concerns as the webmonkey bit.
I guess stories like these are necessary to make sure the journalistic independancy is still functional now that /. is part of this "mega-corporation" :) It's good to see that they're "allowed" to post even negative views about their owners. Good going.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
First Slashdot -> Andover.net then Andover.net -> VA Linux. With the current shopping runs of big companies, how long will Slashdot be free ? They said they have a contract to save their rights, but how long can they keep it up?
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
If the worst comes to the worst and editorial control is lost (not that I'm saying it will) the Slash code is always available. Someone can set up SlashNot, and the community can leave VA high and dry. No problem. Or am I missing something?
If some Big Nasty Corp. acquires /. and starts dinking with the content, how many hours do you suppose it would take before an alternative site took the ballistic ride to success?
/. will be reluctant to tip the scale by meddling, unless either truely clueless or else hostile to what's going on here.
Actually, it's probably just a matter of time anyway, due to the ever-growing population of astroturfers and ex-segfaulters. But a corporation that shells out big bucks for another whose most marketable asset appears to be
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The point of the article is more, that VA will have to act more like MS & Co. to stay alive in the marketplace. Thus, there will come increasing pressure on /. Not so much overt pressure along the lines of "don't cover RedHat"; more a creeping tendency to slant stories, favour story x over story y, etc, in a way that is of benefit to VA. I'm not saying that this is the case; but this is the main thrust of the article I think.
So, this is a negative post about VA & Andover. And it's posted with a very obvious piece of editorialising which tells a very obvious story. VA get to add positive comment to their stories before they get posted. Do Redhat get the right to reply to stories in the headline? Do Penguin get that right? I doubt it.
Alternatively, this is a slightly more subtle attempt to avoid discussion on this subject. By making the headline a mini-feature in itself, a large portion of the discussion will be about Roblimo's comments, rather than about the original story. They're trying to manipulate us!.
</ADVOCATE>
My actual opinion on this? I think the quality of Slashdot has declined somewhat since I first started reading it, which was quite a long time before anyone had heard of Andover. I miss things like the war against using www.slashdot.org instead of slashdot.org aka TDwww(TMS). On the other hand, I have also changed a lot in the time since I started reading here, so it is just as possible that the 'problem' is with me, not Slashdot.
I'm glad to see the guys who put this thing together get their just rewards. I think that the code is finally open, VA are a well-known and well-respected company in the community, and there is certainly no more need to worry now than there was about Andover, and they don't seem to have (directly at least) caused any problems.
This is my normal sig - it just happens to fit this posting well:
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
What a lie. Just as Wired is out of touch these days, so is Hotwired/Lycos. Webmonkey has only headed downhill in recent years, producing progressively simplistic, shallow, "beginners" articles suited to who? None other than the beginners using Tripod and Lycos.
To claim Webmonkey (or Hotwired) have been unaffected by their own ownership dramas is outrageous
Remember, Webmonkey are the same people who claimed ownership and copyright of everything posted to their email discussion list - prompting users to leave and form evolt.org
In contrast, Slashdot has continued to operate as it always has - the material posted hasn't changed, and I do believe that roblimo et al would leave if the site's editorial independence truly were in jeopardy. That will be our signal, as site visitors, to stop using Slashdot.
Bad form, Webmonkey!
-- mind over pixel
Either this guy is trolling for hits from Slashdot, or he is truly ignorant.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
But what if VA starts doing some really, really bad?
Say VA gets in an etoys.com like scandal. Do they let Slashdot cause them serious harm by posting highly critical stories, and letting Katz do his things, all mobilizing thousands of readers to turn against VA?
I doubt it. We won't really know what Slashdot's editorial freedom is until VA hits some hard times.
I'm posting this story, even though we've been over this ground before, primarily so that we don't get accused of bias by not posting it.
/. article writers are always worrying about not seeming biased, it will be just as bad as if you blatently were. You can't post every article that is negative about VA, but whenever you don't, I can promise people will jump on you for it.
You can't force yourself to be impartial, and in the end, if the
Having a communal site like Slashdot owned by strong corporate interests is simply a bad idea, and I just don't think it can work out in the long run. There is an element of trust in the fact that community is willing to let a couple of people decide over what topics will be discussed here, and that trust is human, not corporate. I think the reason there is so much antagonism against Jon Katz here is that many of us feel he is abusing that trust, using Slashdot as a pulpit for his own preachings rather than choosing stories for us.
Having Slashdot owned by Andover was one thing, because Andover was a web company based on the idea of selling banner ads, and therefore had the very clear of objective of getting as many readers to return here as often as possible. With VA it is a lot more fuzzy. VA obviously do not have banner adds as their main source of income, so they have other agendas for wanting to own (even if you keep claiming they have no control over) the backbones of the community.
The relationship between the Slashdot community and VA Linux is somewhere between mutualistic and parasitic, and I share many peoples concern that it is leaning toward the latter. I guess it should come as a bucket of cold water to those who keep claiming that the influences of corporations and money will not harm the open source community, that they started by grabbing our favorite node for discussion right from our grasp...
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
What I have trouble fathoming is why VA-Linux would want to be associated with a site that currently appears to be crumbling at the seams due to the activity of its users.
/. reader I am dismayed at the current troll activity. What's worse is that I just cannnot see it going away.
As a long time
If the troll activity continues, I cannot see VA allowing Slashdot to continue - let's face it, would you want your company associated with a site that consists about 30% of references to grits and Natalie Portman? I wouldn't.
Just my 2 öre!
A little planning goes a long way...
If we follow the logic pronounced in this editorial the german CT magazine is supposed to speicialize in the anal interfacing techinques to the almighty vend'a (brownnose the vendors) as much any other magazine does. Oh well it does not. And this is the reason for it to stay alive. And it keeps getting advertisments from all big vendors though it bashes tham on regular basis.
Same shall be true for Slashdot across its mergers and acquisitions. The moment it will go brownnosing it shall die.
So it either:
1. Goes the CT way. It may even increase advertisemnents (if they are not double-click I personally do not mind).
2. Goes the "countless number of owned sites and magazines way" and dies mizerably beeing read by nobody.
An intersting side note. So far the CT business scenario has been successful only in Europe...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Well read media has almost always been owned and controlled by large corporations, where as Slashdot has been seen as a user managed discussion server, usually impartial to the debate of the day. But now, things might be changing. What this presents is a chance for once for a business to actually deliver an impartial news/discussion source.
...Same problem here, maybe.
Does anyone really give credibility to a CBS story on Viacom, or an ABC editorial about the practices of Disney? How about th good old days of NBC and GE?
This could be make or break time for Slashdot. Your typical Slashdotter is of the cynical breed, not likely to be gullible to ingest the soothing words of your average CEO that "Don't worry, everything will be fine."
So here's the message.....
VA Linux, you are the new kid on the block. Fine, you are the biggest kid with a lot of resources behind you. Be careful, we are watching, and we ARE smarter than your average person.
No, that would damage the forums as has been discussed many times before. Anonymous posting is a useful service and there are plenty of legitimate AC's who post good comments.
There are also clowns like this, but that's the price we pay. I can't see the balance changing all that soon.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
So what can SlashDot do in this situation to maintain long-term credibility, short of a mass-resignation of the SlashDot editorial staff? Well, if any form of undue influence was going to manifest itself it would undoubtedly be in the form of article selection, currently a closed process. If this process was opened up to the SlashDot readership, possibly through something similar to the current moderation system, then the editors of SlashDot could correctly point out that they couldn't exert undue influence even if they wanted to! Editors could still submit additional stories (like Katz), so if it seemed that almost every editor-posted story was pro-VA then this would be painfully obvious (as opposed to a subtle censoring of anti-VA articles which would be much more difficult to detect).
At the moment this is something of a toy debate, but things change and I think that it is almost inevitable that Rob and co. will probably have to do something like this in the future if they don't want to risk their integrity and readership.
--
The risk is that we may see monopolies on parts of the new "Linux industry". These might become a problem in the future, when new managers take over. Also, if the kind of editorial bias that people discuss occurs at all, it will be subtle, gradual (and probably in the distant future).
I think for these reasons it is important to make sure there are strong community-owned organisations to keep some kind of parity with the Slashdots and Sourceforges of this world.
If enough influential organisations stay away from the profit goal, then we'll be able to keep the Open Ball rolling...
Fixing copyright
Give us micropayments and the web is destroyed.
Now there are free(beer) sites and some services that require a payment. With micropayment we would have to always keep an eye on the meter, no casual surfing around.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
When MSNBC was created, everyone assumed that Microsoft would muck with the content. Over the time that it has been around, how many Slashdot stories have referenced positive Linux or negative MS stories at MSNBC? I can remember 3 rather devestating ones right off the top (including an entire series on how easy Linux was to install and use).
Slashdot will continue the way it is now for a while. If and when it gets unpleasant, I suspect that we'll see the original people leave and the "info for the new users" to start showing up. It won't be VA touting their own strengths, that would make them stupider than MS, but I could certainly see a watering down of content in the next 2-5 years. For now, though, Slashdot is the best geek site on the net!
Thanks Roblimo, CmdrTaco, Jon, et al! It's been a fun ride (I say this as a reader, submitter, followup contributor, stockholder and geek), and I trust your standards enough to keep reading, learning and sharing.
This ain't freshmeat.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Hmmmm ... there are occasions when it's appropriate to cry "wolf", and one of them is when there's a big hairy <i>Vulpus vulgaris</i> at your door.
To clear up some misconceptions:
Roblimo wrote:<i>Everyone who works on Slashdot, and everyone in Andover.net management, has sworn to defend Slashdot's editorial independence</i>
Robin Miller is a guy who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for. But, the fact is that his reincarnation as an "Editor-in-Chief" at andover comes as a new development in a long career as an independent, freelance journalist (how do I know this? I'm a lurker on the "netslaves" mailing list). Roblimo has no experience of dealing with a corporate environment and, indeed, has actively avoided corporate situations because he is no good at them.
I'd like to ask roblimo, if he's reading this, the following question: It took you a long time to develop enough trust in andover.net to commit to working for them full time. How did you manage to develop the same level of trust in VA so quickly.
Second, you hint that your reaction to "pressure from above" would be to get out, quick. I don't blame you for this. But you have that option; you can support yourself as a freelance, and have done so before, so you are psychologically capable of leaving. CT et al probably aren't, so they are susceptible to corporate pressure.
enough roblimo-bashing, I feel bad enough already.
Now, on to the much-vaunted "contract" which guarantees slashdot's editorial independence. It's worth spit. Rob and Jeff do not have any contract which stops the vast majority of their net worth from being tied to the share price of VA Linux. It's not that they might come under pressure from the shareholders of VA Linux; they <i>are</i> shareholders of VA Linux. Since I wouldn't trust <i>myself</i> in a situation like that, I find it hard to trust anyone else -- this is not a slur on their honesty, just a statement of fact.
Finally, the argument which prompted me to post this screed:
<i>If slashdot isn't seen as being independent it will cease to become popular</i>
This just ain't true! For a start, there will be no big red BLINK-tagged announcement that "Slashdot is no longer independent". More than half of the slashdotters won't even notice. No matter how assiduous we think we'll be in looking out for evidence of bias, it's not human to keep your guard up all the time. And the natural instinct of those who love the site is to defend it, so the people who point out when independence is going will most likely be slapped (and moderated) down.
Second, the argument isn't even true! Biased new sources do not "lose all credibility" and they do not "cease to be popular". The Murdoch press is not unpopular. ZDNet is not unpopular. MSN is not unpopular. As long as slashdot is mostly entertaining and informative, we'll continue to visit, even if we suspect that some of its coverage (always a minority) is a bit VA-slanted. We might need to get some other sources of news, but we'll continue going to slashdot. Most of us won't even bother to use other sources.
Extrans ain't working, but I quite like the look of the tags <img src=http://farmsex.com/babeofthemonth.jpg>
j5m
slashnot.com,.net,.org are not available, at least according to the netwroksolutions lookup page.
-josh
Actually, the internal joke is that I do so much worrying about editorial integrity that no one else has to do any. There's truth to this. I come out of "old school" alternative journalism, back when weekly alternative newspapers were more interested in covering news the increasingly monopolized dailies overlooked than in selling futon ads and 900-number "telepersonals."
So please do wait and see. I work with people I respect; we don't always agree, but we *do* respect each other and each others' opinions. We screw up from time to time because Slashdot is, in many ways, an experiment in new ways to gather and distribute news. By definition, when you are experimenting you are bound to fail more often than if you stick to the "tried and true," but on the whole, I believe we have more successes than failures. And that's what counts in the long run.
More than anything, I worry about losing Slashdot's freedom to innovate (if I can use that phrase without stepping on a Microsoft copyright *grin*). One of the beauties of Slashdot is the fact that it's constantly changing, and if Rob et al are ever held back by a risk-averse management more interested in this quarter's profit than in trying new things that might lead to a better product (in this case, news and discussion) later, this site will slowly wither away.
But again, I do enough worrying about this for the whole bunch. I don't mind doing this, because I am a natural worrier. Note that both my Slashdot and "Andover corporate" e-mail addresses are easy to find because I *want* feedback and take all reader concerns to heart, even ones with which I don't agree. I try to personally answer as much e-mail as I can, although I've admittedly been getting a little sloppy on this front because of increased e-mail volume and increased job responsibilities.
My main point, though, is to make sure you know that it's not just Slashdot people who worry about the site's integrity, but the entire Andover management crowd. A large part of the reason Andover bought Slashdot in the first place is that it was the most popular news site among Andover employees. And it still is!
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
Bullshit.... show me two worthwhile AC comments in the history of slashdot and I will be amazed.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
...guy who used to be with Wired. I mean, they got close to IPOing at least twice and never quite mananged to cash in. Probably just jealous.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The connecion here is too good to pass up.
Since Slashdot is open source -- all the way up to the code actually running -- it is possible for a dedicated group of folks to create a new Slashdot if this one gets corporatized.
By opening the source, Slashdot's most irreplacable assets are now the skill and integrity of its story authors and editors. Which means that if that skill and integrity falls too low, slashdot can be replaced.
In this sense, VA/Andover/Murdoch/Fox/Disney/MegaCorp would be foolish to try to comprimise the reputation and integrity of Generalissimo Taco: They would be burning the only really valuable assset Slashdot has. The open code guarantees that all the rest of Slashdot is replaceable, and so provides a sort of insurance policy to us that we have do not have a Soft Taco Supreme.
--G
I've noticed that nobody has yet asked ``Why'' Why IS VA, a linux hardware company buying andover, website hosting/owning company?
Why did they purchase it? Companies don't tend to foolishly spend a whole lot of money for no reason.
Is VA doing this because they support linux, that they are going to funnel more money into linux projects? If this is it, then why buy slashdot/freshmeat, you'd be better off creating another Precision Insight, or funding Abiword or GNOME development.
Is VA doing this because they want to (eventually) bias the editorial content, like the media companies?
Or, is Andover falling over, and VA came over as a white knight to rescue the important linux infrastructure of Freshmeat and Slashdot? If this was the case, then haven't we heard about it before?
Microsoft buying/building MSN and MSNBC parallel doesn't work in this case. There is a strong strategic reason for it. Microsoft along with AOL knew that computer networks and widespread ubiquious networking was going to happen. Both fought over controlling it, though (thank god) the open internet blindsided both. Microsoft thought with their OS monopoly and content that they could funnel and attract people into their own commerce network and make lots of profit. VA doesn't have this reason, andover's most public properties don't sell anything more than banner ads.... (unless they're planning on changing this?) And banner ads aren't going to scale to large profits.
So, why did VA butt their nose in where they knew it wouldn't be desired, into purchasing a company that seems to have no importance in any strategic plan?
Well, andover's been around since 1992 (albeit in software publishing rather than online ad-serving), so at least someone heard about them before.
;)
As for whether slashdot has improved or depreciated since the Good Ol' Days (TM), I'd have to say it's done neither. C'mon, you remember what a pain it was to read/post on slashdot before threaded comments were implemented, and you remember how nice it was when nested comments were later implemented (and if you need to remind yourself how inconvenient it was before, just hop on over to technocrat.net, unless Bruce has upgraded to the latest slash version). Cachedot.slashdot.org was cute in its day, but isn't it nicer just to have the main site have more serving capacity? (Of course that could use another upgrade, and cachedot was long after the primordial age you're pining for.) The editorial content hasn't changed much -- slashdot was always quick to announce, quick to get it wrong, and quick to retract. There're certainly more trolls than before, but that's inevitable and the moderation takes care of them as it should.
I'd say it has to be you.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
A. This is the same AC you responded to.
But are you the one, true AC?
B. I never see 'first post' posts because I set my filter too high to see them and hence, do not get annoyed like most of the anti-AC retards around here.
But do you see your own posts? If an AC posts, but has his threshold set at 1, is he still an idiot?
C. I still think your original post lacks enough grounding to make your conclusion. I am indeed saddened that someone moderated it up further.
I couldn't imagine why he was bothering to argue
with an AC, so I lowerd my threshold to see. I shouldn't have bothered.
D. I just poured a bowl of hot grits down the front of my pants in protest.
Ah, a true troll. Now I can set my threshold back up to 1.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Perhaps CmdrTaco shared the same concerns as Roblimo before all of this happened. He might have heard that VA was going to buy Andover.net and end up with control of Slashdot.
:)
:)
If that's case, then he made a very intelligent move, and it's called Slash
Think about it, there was probably the fear that VA would gain control of slashdot, and there would be nothing the current maintainers of the site could really do. So they rush and get the code out there as a form of insurence. Now, anything happens, they simply jump ship, grab a tarball off of sourceforge and start anew. I don't think there is much doubt that the readers would follow.
I've been trying to figure out why the sudden change in their stance on slash and why they released it so fast, now I think I know.
Finkployd
Before the buyout/merger, would Slashdot have posted anti-Slashdot articles at all? I don't particularly remember any, although Slashdot wasn't as high-profile back then, so external critical articles may not have existed.
Personally, I don't feel that Slashdot has any particular responsibility to put themselves on a whipping post to "prove" their independence.
--
So how would you feel if instead of VA Linux buying Andover, if it had been Dell instead? Or maybe IBM? Sun???
Everyone here would have completely freaked out, but because it's a company they "like", they feel it's OK.
How would you feel about Microsoft buying up Redhat and then seeing Bob Young paraded around saying "it's fine! Redhat will be the same Redhat it's always been. It says in our contracts that we're to remain committed to open source."
In that scenario, again, people would freak out, thinking that Microsoft had ulterior motives for the deal.
Andover went public. They had bucket loads of cash that could have been used to beef up slashdot's boxes, connection, etc.... They didn't need to sign up with VA Linux.
I think it was very irresponsible of either Andover or VA Linux to do this. It's simply amazing that not many other people around here feel that way. It shows the brash nature of these companies and the people behind them. The day after Redhat went public, everyone was proclaiming that Redhat should buy SCO. The day after VA went public, everyone was proclaiming that VA should buy SGI. And then they scream that Microsoft buys a stake in a media company, thinkint that will forever tint that organizations views.
We all bemoan the idea that some day, all the new moneyed interests in the Linux market are going to figure out some way of advancing their own financial interests by screwing the community. So, just think of this merger as insurance against at least one company's doing that. If slashdot/freshmeat/everything-else-andover.net-bou ght defines the community or at least the most vocal portions of the community, then having VA's revenue tied (in part) directly the community's happiness is a good incentive not to act contrary to the community's collective desires and interests.
:-)
If it were just about slashdot, then I might agree with some who'd say that the problem with corporate influence is not the obvious problems we see with companies like Microsoft but rather the subtle corrupting influences it has on a movement full of idealism. But remember, while slashdot may seem overly dominated by trolls and kiddies who wouldn't care about such corruption even if they could see it coming, Andover's other sites (particularly freshmeat) are dominated by the precise people who take the time to notice and care about these things: the programmers who fuel the open-source movement.
The sky is not falling. Now if only VA wanted to help the community a bit more with some more free hardware, we'd deign to be satisfied.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
The article makes a big deal about VA Linux vs. Redhat, saying that they're going to be going head-to-head and they'll probably cause at least the demise of one of them. Basically, all I know about VA I've learned from reading Slashdot (although I will soon have VA stock from this nice little buyout), but I've always thought that VA was primarily a hardware company and Redhat was primarily a software company. To me, it seems, it's much more likely that these two companies will work together rather than against each other. Does anyone else see it that way, or am I wrong about VA Linux?
On a side note, even with all this commercialization, the Linux community is stronger than ever. The companies that are investing themselves in Linux (like VA Linux and Redhat, but not companies like IBM) understand the community and are doing everything they can to support it and each other. It's a far cry from the nasty capitalism that most companies partake in.
The big danger isn't about slashdot becoming VA oriented. VA could concievably be good for Slashdot. The big danger is what happens if a bigger fish than VA decides to buy out VA.
VA are trying to show themselves as a united open source/linux front, and doing a pretty good job at this. This does leave them open for other sharks.
If Microsoft decides that they best way into the Linux market is to buy out VA, what happens then?
If another company buys out VA and decides to really interfere in Slashdot, or sell it off to Lycos or Time Warner because it isn't needed or doesn't match the parent companies "vision", Slashdot could really end up suffering this way.
What needs to be done is to make sure that there is an Iron Clad contract that allows Slashdot a way out in the event of a hostile takeover.
They have this in that nobody can fire Taco or Hemos, but after this contract is up for review and Taco and Hemos decides that working for MS or Time Warner isn't where they want to be, Slashdot will fail.
As far as editorial independence goes, most news sites seem to have a fair amount of leeway from their owners e.g the Linux DVD community has received a fair amount of support from the press despite the fact that a large number of their associate companies may be part of the MPAA.
The problem I can see is that whilst I appreciate that Slashdot is not exclusively a Linux site, such users must make up a fair proportion of its readership. And if there's one thing Linux users like it is lots of choice. It seems that choice is going to be significantly lessened if companies such as VA and RedHat gobble up all the myriad companies under their own corporate umbrella. A huge number of people moved onto Linux so they didn't have to do things the Microsoft way.
In the main I have no objection to companies growing organically, but the Linux market is starting to look very acquisitive, and in the end this may severly curtail the amount of choice out there.
P.S. Aplogies for any typos - just had LASIK eye surgery, so vision is a bit blurred out of one eye at the moment.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
how many of us would bother filtering them out?
:), rather than something slow like netscape.
.}
I don't think that I have *ever* filtered out anything with junkbuster until it blinked at me. It's annoying, and it sucks power. I had a k6-200 brought to its knees by just two open pages (ok, an unaccellerated server).
Guess what, ad folks--I do follow ads sometimes--when the text shows me something interesting. Usually that means (like now) that I'm using lynx, the one true browser
\rant{I used to go to foxnews a lot. Now it's impossible to read without java (so they can throw ads better, apparently). Guess what? I've found that cnn is almost as good . .
anyway, the point is that if the damned things didn't blink, and didn't prevent a page from rendering, we probably wouldn't bother blocking them.
I personally have received much flamage for posting announcements of software before it's really ready to be announced. And if you look at every single one of the slashdot Red Hat announcements the previous poster listed, there's about ten people complaining "why is this being posted here, this isn't news". AND freshmeat exists, and does an incredibly thorough job.
With all that said, if the previous poster really cares about whether it's posted or not, just keep submitting it. There's a bunch of people with posting privileges now, and only one has to find it newsworthy for it to go up...
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
The journalist on webmonkey asks, what if Microsoft owned Webmonkey? The question here is, is anyone afraid that slashdot will be biased toward Linux? Well duh! Slashdot is "biased." Slashdot is mostly:
pro-geek
pro-linux
pro-BSD
pro-Apache
pro-any company that does good things for Linux (IBM, Loki, etc.)
anti-any company that does anything against Linux
anti-software patents
anti-censorship
etc.
Bring on the bias! Forbid Slashdot should ever lose its soul in the name of trying to look unbiased. I'd rather have a site where the authors let their personalities show. If you don't like the bias, or at least don't like to challege that bias in the comments then you* don't belong here.
*you meaning "one" here.
If there is bias, you will hear about it in the comments, and so will everyone else. And the moderators are also the posters. The users send in potential stories, and usually their own comments are what get posted. When a top-level poster (like Roblimo) editorializes we see the bias as well. Great! Bring it on!
I read with interest your recent article on the Andover / VA Linux merger.
Unfortunately, it was marred by a significant error on your part. You appear to believe that VA Linux is a software company, and will thus be in competition with Red Hat and other distribution companies. Therefore, your logic goes, it is inevitable that Andover and Slashdot will be biased against Red Hat.
However this argument is based on a faulty premise. VA Linux is not a software company, they are a hardware company. In fact, it is apparently possible to purchase VA Linux servers with Red Hat software preinstalled.
To quote from "http://www.valinux.com/products/software.html":
"Although we do not create our own distribution, VA optimizes the Linux kernel for each system type and includes the most popular Linux distributions preinstalled."
That kind of wrecks your whole argument, doesn't it?
BTW, I am not associated with VA Linux, Redhat, or any other Linux company, so I have no conflict of interest. But I like reading Slashdot.
You, on the other hand, work for a content company. A really big one, in fact. And Andover is a content company. Perhaps you have a conflict of interest that affected the accuracy of your article?
(This email has also been posted as a comment on Slashdot, which covered your story).
Torrey Hoffman
Azog on Slashdot
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Next time we have Larry Augustin up for an interview, somebody remember this statement and ask the question:
"If you don't want to make any content changes to any Andover site, why, exactly, did you buy Andover?"
My guess is that the VA/Andover merger has to do with VA Linux wanting to increase their Linux mindshare, of emphasizing, in everyone's minds, that VA Linux means Linux, everything about Linux, all the time. If that's the case, it's a good answer, after all modern marketing is all about creating a "brand".
But, I'd like to hear the answer from Larry.
-Jordan Henderson
Those of you with your browsers set to "warn before accepting a cookie" will notice that /. has suddenly started trying to give out ad cookies. Just started today, I think.
Any relation to the VA takeover, Rob, or just coincidence?
And I notice that you have a privacy statement, but it doesn't tell me much about how these cookies are helping you "server me better when I return to the site".
ps - In the past I've supported you through thick and thin, but surely you're geek enough to realize that ad cookies are the first sign of generative disorders in a web site. Ditch them now, before it's too late.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Bias is most likely to appear in the form of an absence of negative stories about VA Linux and its business units. I'd be very suprised to see stories titled "VA Linux, Inc. - overpriced and overhyped?", or "Alternatives to Sourceforge". That's the usual problem with corporate journalism - negative stories don't get written. We'll see.
> Have you ever thought that some of us prefer a mixed computing environment?
/., why are you here? Why haven't you set up another site that will appeal to the millions of others who think like you do?
Some of us would also like a forum where every second post didn't draw a flood of you didn't mention my favorite toy responses.
If you're so unhappy with
Truly, Rob should change the tag to "News for Nerds and a Form for Whiners".
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Well, Linux is about anarchy, but most of the Linux companies dont do all the work for peace and love.
Must be troubling for an exec to know that all his best customers are anarchists. What better strategy than to acquire an established anarchist rag, pay its expenses, and let the editors keep on keeping on? That way when the anarchists start saying that the company is too focused on making money, "like everyone on this earth", someone will always pipe in and say "but hey - they fund our rag and don't futz with it, so there must be at least one cool dude on the board".
ps - I wonder whether any VA/Andover execs are following this discussion?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I've been thinking about the following for several weeks now. I just can't seem to get it out of my head.
I've been on the net since 1994, though with about a year of almost complete abstinence between 1995/1996. Before that gap I never used the web, just ftp gopher and Usenet.
After I got "reconnected"... there was a lot more web and I started using Nutscrape (on Linux, natch). I don't remember discovering Slashdot almost straight away but it seems like it's always been there. I mean, I can't remember surfing without Slashdot. When did it begin?
One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't even remember exactly what it used to look like. Same green/white colour scheme, sure, but I know it's had one or two facelifts since I started.
I wonder...did the dynamic duo ever think to archive copies of the site in its earlier incarnations, for posterity's sake? It would be bloody cool if they could put up some examples. I'd love to be reminded what Slashdot was like back in the early days. Not just the look&feel, but the news items and posts...I seem to remember there were a lot fewer professional trolls on Slashdot in those days, and even the ACs seemed more serious. Or is this just rose-tinted specs?
How about it, Rob and Jeff?
It all seems like such a long time ago now. Internet time is strange.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Enter a micropayment system. Who is likely to use it? As you say - professional content creators. The likes of AOL/TW, microsoft, RIAA etc. Companies that will make damn sure that there is no easy way to get the same information for free.
The result would (OK might) be that valuable information is locked up on the protected micropayment servers, while the free web is flooded with marketing material and FUD.
Remember "micropayment" does not stand for cheap payment. It stands for "a little amount per view" So it wont be "$0.05 a week" but "$0.02 a story".
This would be a web that suits companies like a glove. Not a web where I stumble on the occasional pearl browsing through annoying (but free) noise.
I've seen far too many business types drool at the thought of locking up their information (today freely available) in a micropayment system.
All opinions are my own - until criticized