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JBoss's Fleury Abjures Astroturfing
comforteagle writes "JBoss head honcho Marc Fleury has laid down the law about Astroturfing in the aftermath of being accused of the practice without actually admitting it was done. 'Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's put the professional back in professional open source. "Astroturfing" is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.'" jg21 writes "After the Slashdotting of the whole issue, the wider community took up the theme. LinuxWorld's editor in chief took to task those who sought to "pollute the knowledge space," and then Richard Öberg and Cameron Purdy took up the theme with a call to raise the cyber-bar when it coms to integrity. Now JBoss's CEO has recanted: there will be no more fake posts from JBoss staffers, he says. Hmm, time will tell."
This is a brief description of astroturfing. I honestly had no idea what the heck it was.
No, this isn't an attempt at karma-whoring. Don't mod me up if you think it is. I figured it'd be more helpful to Google it myself and post the definition then to post a stupid one-liner "WTF is astroturfing?"
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A quick blurb..
"A "grassroots" action or campaign is one that is started spontaneously, and is largely sustained, by private persons, as opposed to politicians, corporations, or public relations firms; a "grassroots" campaign comes about because of the popular feelings of some mass of people, as opposed to being the creature of the powerful.
"Astroturfing", then, is a campaign crafted by politicians or spin-doctors, but in such a way as to appear it's the result of popular feeling rather than crafty manipulation by political or corporate elites".
Hmmm.
"You may have heard about recent charges in online forums that some JBoss employees, including me, were personally involved in anonymous postings on developer sites."
The answer to your question: YES.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Truthfully, how many people had more 1/4 of a clue what this story title meant?
/. before, but it slips my mind as to the exact definition, quick lookup: astroturfing n. The use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement, through means like letters to newspapers from soi-disant `concerned citizens', paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by a PR group (astroturf is fake grass; hence the term). This term became common among hackers after it came to light in early 1998 that Microsoft had attempted to use such tactics to forestall the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust action against the company.)
Okay:
JBoss (is Java Server software and a company)
Fleuy (No idea, a guy who works at aforesaid company?)
Abjures (what? is this spelled right? after a quick google/dictionary.com lookup it means: 1. To renounce under oath; forswear. 2. To recant solemnly; repudiate: abjure one's beliefs.)
Astroturfing (ah, I've heard this around
Wow, that was a lot of work and I still can't put it together nor do I care to after all of that work as it seem quite boring anyway. Damn, geek elitiest with your word-of-the-day calendars!
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
When is the last freaking time you actually paid attntion to and responded to any anoynmous poster in any technical disucssion? This isn't "anonymous coward" style anonymous, it's the creation of a plethora of accounts that have real-sounding names and participate in real conversations (sometimes with themselves.) For more information, refer to Rickard Oberg's blog and Mike Spille's blog. (BTW - Rickard is one of the authors of JBoss.) (Just in case you didn't figure it out from my login, I'm the Cameron Purdy that purportedly co-authored the article with Rickard.) Peace.