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Groklaw Refutes LinuxWorld Story About AIX Sources
rimberg writes "Maureen O'Gara printed a story about what allegedly was said in the last court hearing between IBM and SCO. Groklaw had eyewitnesses at the hearing. None of them reports seeing Ms. O'Gara there. Furthermore, none of them heard any of what she 'reports' about IBM supposedly claiming not to be able to find code. Let me repeat that. IBM never said anything like that, according to groklaw eyewitnesses."
Ayayay no me gusta!!!
fp 4 adi jew die
Groklaw is heavily censored and always has been. PJ deletes/hides posts on a regular basis.
Groklaw might have once been a useful site, but between her money grab with the Linux "insurance" scam and her nazgul posting policies, any credibility afforded Groklaw is LONG since gone.
PLEASE take anything you read on that site with a grain of salt.
Don't believe SCO's revionist history! Han Fired first, dammit.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Jeff Merkey has been involved in contacting media figures around OSS centric sites, and it's the information he's involved in spreading that's problematic.
Like he's been known to do before, he spreads several versions of the "truth", often completely at odds with one another depending on which situation he's in at the moment. Having had to deal with him in the past, I can only say: He's going to get worse, and quickly. Never was a repository of 'just the fact ma'am' needed.
The plan? to push management towards prosco.net as it will appear one HELL of a sane place compared to OSS news sites that insist on following Merkey's manipulations.
Indeed interresting.
Now, where did the rumor that IBM said it couldn't find the sources come from ?
some people believe that o'gara is more believable because you know what she looks like. http://images.google.com/images?q=Maureen+O'Gara&h l=en&btnG=Google+Search/
On the other hand, it's impossible to find out how PJ looks like. Or for that matter why she doesn't use dots in her initial. How could we believe her!!
nt
Clearcut case of failing journalistic integrity.
Let LinuxWorld know what you think of the journalistic integrity of their writer.
Make it polite, short, and to the point.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I have not provided a link deliberately. If you wish to read her article, you can find it, I'm sure by a Google search or off of Slashdot, since they made what I consider the unfortunate editorial decision to give the story more widespread readership than it otherwise would have received.
http://www.busyweather.com/
It seems even Maureen O'Gara thinks the article was not true:
( http://www.linuxworld.com/story/46800_f.htm)
"Maureen O'Gara commented on 23 October 2004:
* I'm really sorry everyone. I want you all to know that this was really intended as a satire piece, but the editors didn't realise and have published it as fact.
It was really hard to keep a straight face while writing it, and I was obviously hoping for the same reaction from my readers.
Oh, the ads here are satire too. Have you read the M$ TCO one? It's a hoot!"
So I think there is nothing to see here.
-- Esa Pulkkinen
Everytime a story involving Groklaw comes up these kind of posts appear on /.
They always claim that Groklaw is not a reputable source, make certain claims about the site, like for example that it has a nazgul posting policy and never, ever back their claims up with anything.
Also note that these kind of posts are always posted by ACs. (Just like my post, I know, but I simply don't have an account).
These kind of posts are neither interesting, nor are they insightful, they are plain and simple FUD!
Yesterday, I posted that O'gara has as much credibility as Didio in the original topic. I did so before reading the article.
I formally retract that statement. As bad as Didio (and Enderle) are, Ms. O'Gara has sunk to a level beneath them. It looks like she is willing to tell outright lies without any effort to check facts. Rather than ignoring her stories, I will now read them so that I may keep up with the statements that IBM is likely to use in a lawsuit against her and her and anyone who prints her stories.
www.votenader.org
1. The McMansion Tax Break--
Taxpayers can deduct interest on loans of up to $1 million used to buy one or two personal residences.
Would you limit the home mortgage interest deduction so that it subsidizes the purchase of one basic home, and would you redirect some of the tax savings to help qualified renters purchase a basic home?
Yes.
2. The Inequitable Home Equity Break--
Congress offers less than certain homeowners preferential deduction for consumer loans.
Would you limit the deduction for interest on up to $100,000 of consumer loans (called "home equity loans") that benefits only homeowners who itemize?
Yes.
3. Poorest Families, Poorest Child Care--
Tax credits help working parents who owe taxes pay for child care costs.
Would you reform the child care credit do that it helps low - and moderate - income working parents who don't owe taxes and can at least afford their child care costs?
Yes.
4. Social Security's Insecurity--
The Social Security Trust Fund is likely to be bankrupt by about 2042. Yet the highest paid Americans don't pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages.
Why not fix Social Security's long-term solvency problem by making taxes apply on all of their wages?
I would.
5. A Sick Policy on Health Insurance--
An employee's health insurance premiums paid at work are exempt from income tax - no matter how deluxe a policy that tax payer chooses.
Should the tax exemption for an employee's health insurance premium paid at work be limited to a basic premium for a basic policy, and would you deny the tax break to managers if their employers paid more of their premiums than they paid for rank-and-file workers.
See Response to Question 10.
6. The Oh-So-Golden-Years Pension Break--
Top managers not only get bigger pensions, they also get enormous tax breaks on their employers' pension contributions.
Would you stop giving tax breaks for much higher pension contributions for highly paid employees than for rank-and-file employees?
Yes.
7. The Great Pension Robbery--
Forfeiture rules can deprive employees of pension accounts crucial to their long-term security.
Should Congress prohibit pension plans from deriving employees of their pensions after they have been employed for at least three years?
Yes.
8. Education Out of Reach--
Congress helps students pay for college by giving them, or their parents, tuition tax credits that reduce their taxes.
Would you reform the tax credits for college tuition to help households who don't owe income taxes but often need the assistance the most?
Yes.
9. Single and Paying for It--
A single person who doesn't earn enough to escape poverty may still owe income taxes.
Why shouldn't Congress do for single persons what it does for a family of four - exempt them from income tax until their income rises well above the poverty level?
It should.
10. Medicare's Drift Toward Insolvency--
By 2026, Medicare is unlikely to be able to pay for all of its hospital and nursing home bills.
*crickets chirp*
Right.
But the editorializing just hurts groklaws credibility... Had PJ reported just the facts that would have been great. Adding crap like "blarney", etc, just lowers the bar and makes it all seem childish and ironically; calls into question groklaws credibility...
In a statement released to the press today, O'Gara said, 'I actually voted for the AIX code, before I voted agaisnt it.'
Hold a moment here.
Doesn't Linus _own_ the Linux trademark now? This being the case, is there not
some form of direct action he could take, forcing anti-Linux websites from using
the word "Linux" in their name?
So I think there is nothing to see here.
Nothing other than another rapid response refutation of what used to work in the good ole days.
Groklaw wins again!
Thank goodness we have people like those involved in Groklaw who actually know their law and subject matter, and are able to correct this sort of misinformation.
Companies like SCO depend on the poor skills (or the dishonest collusion) of "journalists" so that they can continue their skullduggery.
Personally, I think SCO would do anything, even get a jornalist to lie for them, in the hope that they might just be bought out. SCO is a sinking ship full of desperate liars, but I think they're desperate to appear like they might be worth purchasing. After all, their days are sorely numbered.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
"IBM's patent department is actively lobbying Europe to legalise software patents. They have invested millions in fighting example cases to leading European lawcourts such as the EPO's Technical Boards of Appeal and the German Federal Court in order to soften and eventually remove European restrictions on patenting software. They have also threatened European politicians that IBM might close down local facilities if software patents are not legalised in Europe. IBM has also prevented the US government from conducting studies on the value of software patents for the national economy. In the wake of the Opensource hype, IBM's rhetoric has become relatively moderate, but nonetheless it is supported by real pressure. IBM has acquired approximately 1000 European software patents whose legal status is currently unclear. Given the great number of software patents in IBM's hands, IBM is one of the few software companies who may have a genuine interest in software patentability. Once software patents become assertable in Europe, an IBM tax of several billion EUR per year may be levied on European software companies."
If you have any facts to refute anything posted on Groklaw, you can post them here.
If you don't, we have to assume you're just posting innuendo on SCO's behalf.
Most of this rubbish is actually rather transparent FUD. Let them kick and scream. In the end, it can only help in spite of the authors' biased intentions.
what Slashdot's next story will be?
Another blow for journalistic redundancy.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
MIT scientists have shown a direct correlation between tiny breasts and anger management issues. Film at 11.
The piece was intended as a satire that was mistakenly posted as a genuine news article. This whole thing may be just a weird mistake, but if so I would hope the editors at linuxworld put a disclaimer or retraction up ASAP, or they may be getting an unfriendly nastygram from IBM's lawyers. I don't need to be a lawyer to know that posting verifiably wrong information about somebody can get you into serious trouble.
My rights don't need management.
maureen@sys-con.com
Here is what I think Slashdot did wrong yesterday when it first reported the O'Gara story. Remember, /. has great control over how a story is reported. It is NOT just putting up a link and that's it. A headline is created by /., and the editor posting the story has the ability to add editorial comments to what the submitter added. Finally, they usually get many simultaneous submissions, which means the one submission they picked is the one they think has the most interesting wording or the best links or something they feel makes it most post-worthy. With that in mind, let's see how /. handled this story yesterday:
The submission came from Ghostx13, and here is what he or she wrote that caught /.'s eye: "A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
OK, is this slanted? Yes. The loaded question at the end, the complete acceptance of the underlying Linuxworld story facts, all leads an air of acceptance of these facts. 'Does IBM have something to hide?" That's a laughable question given what the facts turned out to be, but it's a question that, left unchallenged, serves the wishes of SCO very well. That is precisely the sort of uneasy feeling they want us to have about IBM.
Did CowboyNeal add any editorial comments to this? No, he did not. On the one hand, that's good because he didn't choose to add any slanted thoughts to the already slanted submission. On the other hand, he didn't issue any caution about the submission as /. sometimes does. That, in itself, is an editorial decision that amounts to him implying that the submission stands on its own. Because they chose that submission over any of the others, it implies they were satisfied with it as it was.
Now here is the title that /. added to the story: "IBM Tells SCO Court It Can't Find AIX-on-Power Code." Well, that is no longer true, is it, even if you read the O'Gara story at face value. So the headline refers to past circumstances that the actual submission contradicts. Again, an editorial slant that makes IBM look worse than the facts show.
Finally, go back and look at the comments to that story and see how many people contradict the idea of the story, point out the true facts, etc. So yeah, I do think /. made an "unfortunate editorial decision" to the story. They didn't just give a link, but they made a series of editorial decisions that gave extra weight to that link, weight it did not deserve. Did CowboyNeal do this out of ignorance of the facts? Probably. He may not have had the time to research this. Was it deliberate, to stir up the readership and get lots of angry comments? I have no idea. But it wasn't a good editorial decision, IMO.
"I like Groklaw for the facts.
If only PJ didn't hurt her credibility by doing ....
I went to the hearing, and all I got was this lousy staple remover
Google exploits its foreign translators!
Instead of the Slashdot editors making the final say on what gets posted as a story. Why not have a list of stories that people can mod up or down. Then only let the stories that have a high enough score get on the front page? That might of kept this story off of the front page
Are you truly surprised that it would still apply?
This SCO story isn't just one instance of bogus journalism - it's a hypotypical example of the weaknesses of the journalistic profession as a whole (although I hesitate to lump that person in with the real professionals). This sort of thing isn't something that we're ever going to "get over", because it isn't just a "sign of the times". It's an endemic condition.
There's always going to be a difference between conscientious professionals and sloppy hacks. In any profession, not just journalism.
Caveat lector.
- Peter Ravn Rasmussen
I'm not saying they are but their whole claim to fame is debunking SCO stuff so what happens if something turned out to be true? Could they ever admit it? They are so invested in taking the anti-SCO side I don't see them as able to really bring an unbiased analysis. I like the bias in favor of Linux and IBM of course but I don't want smoke blown up my ass if something illegal actually did occur! Mainly because I don't want a nasty suprise after false sense of assuredness.
So now that IBM has handed over millions of lines of code to SCO, and SCO's engineers have poured over it, will IBM be going after SCO for IP theft? What is to keep SCO from using IBM's IP from this revealed code? Even if the code is 'old', algorithms and processes don't necessarily age, and may very well still be applicable. How is this handled?
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
Standard SCO tactic - carefully timed press release via shill to manipulate the stock.
SCO vermin are either trying to make a quick buck through this, or they are trying to prevent a freefall of the stock once it slips below the $3/share mark.
Over the past weeks I've always seen SCOX rebound in the last hour of trading every day I've checked. Far more often than other stocks I've followed, to the point of curiousness. Who on earth would be in a rush to buy SCOX at the end of the day? Regularly? And why? Hmmmm.
Friday that did not happen.
Also on Friday (I'm assuming after markets closed - no timestamp on the article) we get this absurd piece from O'Gara, SCO shill at worst, clueless hack "journalist" at best.
Someone's trying to make a buck. Either that or SCO is no longer able to prop up their stock with timed buybacks and are using this as a way to avoid a sub-$3/share freefall.
Delisting a stock takes time, but having your stock head toward $1/share is a good start. I have a feeling that drop to a penny stock will accelerate if SCOX falls below the $3/share mark.
I know IDG has many profit motives for catering to Linux. They haven't had a perfect record. However, they were one of the first companies to 'get it' and I think there is a large amount of respect given between them and the community.
What I want to know is: What does IDG think about this magazine using its trademark? Does it want its expo name associated with it?
If you look at the current list of articles on the site, they seem pro Linux, the have many unique and postive articles. However the 'scoops' that get picked up by other sites appear to be totally biased against Linux. Someone is approving of the spew from Maureen O'Gara. Someone is paying her for this. Is the SYS-CON management/editorial staff looking for yellow journalism as it sells hits?
If so, they are shooting themselves in the foot here in the long run. Just as these are the only articles people read on their site, they will be the only ones people think the write. However, right now they are also damaging IDG's credability by direct association.
Hello LinuxWorld editors,
3 153851359).
I was very disappointed with the article "IBM Tells SCO Court It Can't Find AIX-on-Power Code" (http://www.linuxworld.com/story/46800_p.htm) by Maureen O'Gara. I was offended by the demeaning tone of the article which shamelessly mixed personal opinion with reported fact. However, it has come to my attention that the article may not even have fact in it - another reputable news site, Groklaw, apparently had several people on hand at that particular hearing and not only reported that nothing Ms. O'Gara claims to have happend did, but also that Ms. O'Gara was never there. The full article is available here (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2004102
I hope you investigate this matter to discover if Groklaw's claims are true. This is a serious breach of journalistic integrity that should not be ignored if LinuxWorld expects itself to be seen as a source of reliable news.
Thanks,
<me>
aureen OGara commented on 24 October 2004:
LinuxWorld sucks WEENER!
Don't buy it!
Really, this magazine SUCKS WEENER!
It must be her.
MS paid them $20M to change names after it looked like they were going to lose the very dubious Windoes Trademark. MS sued and pretty much lost.
Help fight continental drift.
Maureen and SCO have a right to say whatever they want, even lies. They do however have to deal with consequences. This latest fiasco does illuminate some things about Maureen. She's not a fact checker or she's a spin doctor. The other thing is that she might have an insider on the pro-SCO side.
In this case, the inside information that she presented might harm her more than anything. Should IBM desire it, she would have to answer to the court about this inside information. IANAL but I don't think she can hide behind the 1st Amendment as documents are sealed for a reason. She might have to divulge her source. At the very least an admonishment from the court.
Some people here seem to disagree with Groklaw printing PJ's opinions and her policing policy. It's HER site. She can print whatever opinions she wants and police it however she wants. If you don't agree with her, don't read it and/or start your own site. The difference between her site and other sources is that she also has all legal documents to back her up.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
There are good reasons for not giving it wide-spread attention.
First is that the judge sealed the hearing transcript. Probably because one of the SCO lawyers tried to read sealed material into the record. Sealed material is not for the public eye. Helping to spread it could even be an offence, but IANAL.
Second, links to stories that are debunked on Groklaw have a tendency to disappear, so the links could very well be dead soon.
Groklaw is dedicated to accurate reporting. Providing links to bogus articles could give the articles more credit than they deserve.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
A few months ago I read an article on slashdot about the creater of linuxworld advising against reading linuxworld now.
He said that since linuxworld was taken over, it seems the entire purpose of linuxworld is advocate msft.
Who took over at linuxworld? Any msft connection?
I think Maureen O'Gara, and LinuxWorld have an agenda. I also think msft is behind it.
Yeah, I know, tinfoil hat and all. But, I've followed this scox-scam for a while now, and I've followed msft for even longer. There have been way more dirty tricks than I can even begin to remember.
Again, JMHO.
Remember the *other* O'Gara story? About IBM's "discovery abuse"? Funny, that may well have been put out by SCO--see here. Groklaw refutes yet another wild story.
:]
As an aside, though, that sure looks like a direct quote of the article in the story above. I wish submitter had at least put it in quotes... *sigh*
Giving her articles front page placement on Slashdot is exactly what she intends. It get tens of thousands of ad impressions, her bosses think she's writing controversial, hard hitting opinion pieces, and everybody is happy except a bunch of fuming Slashdotters. This is EXACTLY like Rob Enderle - these people desperately want attention, and they don't care if it's negative.
Please dear Slashdot editors, once it's been established that a particular writer is trolling for page views (i.e. they brag about how hated their articles are and exerpt Slashdot hate mail their publication has received) STOP giving them the front page placement they want, or you'll just encourage more of the same.
I'm sure the /. editorial staff will jump right on this. Not checking the background of a story could even lead to duplicative stories being posted. Heaven knows, /. would never do something like that.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I don't dispute that the man seems to me like he has a screw loose (and that just from the posts I've seen by him--there are plenty of others who offer evidence that would tend to support the idea that he's clear out of his mind).
:] Damn, someone ought to make a movie out of it, though I guess it'd be hard to explain the importance of it to people who didn't follow this...
Anyhow, if you read this Groklaw story, you'll see that there may be a SCO lawyer connection here. That might be bad, because when they talked to O'Gara, they sure went on a lot about the privilege log and such concerning that privileged document SCO tried to read into the public record (which is *bad*). In other words, it *really* looks like SCO is leaking things it ought not to the media. Now, I can't prove any of that, but I would say that it's certainly beyond the appearance of impropriety to even discuss that with the media.
As for Merkey, here, I doubt he was behind the O'Gara stories here--I suspect O'Gara and a source close to SCO were. Expect IBM to be on the ball here and to start seeing just *what* all SCO has told the media. Now then, you're probably right about him coming up with more wild stories (buying Linux for $50,000 and putting it under a BSD license to "save" it... after he removes all the "SCO-owned" bits).
In other words, we can expect a LOT of crazy stuff before this story is over
This SCO case is turning into some kind of messianic saga, complete with apocrypha. Linus backs up, but does he save?
--
make install -not war
... a slander lawsuit!
Or am I being too optimistic?
Although Maureen O'Gara is creeping quite lowly, I wonder if she is worth much attention as a person. There are enough prostitute scribblers in the media and they are totally immune to any moral outrage.
Instead, let us consider her role in SCO's delaying tactics. Last month, she was kind of announcing that SCO would charge IBM for fraud:
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/46384.htm
And why? Because of a killer story unearthed from IBM e-mails SCO got during discovery. Well, if you have been following the SCO-IBM case from the beginning, you may recall that SCO charged IBM of fraud in the initial complaint of March 2003. They retracted the charge in the 2nd Amended Complaint of July 2003, which is the one currently valid. Just imagine, SCO would ask the judge for permission to revert to the initial fraud charge in a 3rd amendment. And they cannot simply amend the complaint, they need permission these days.
One month has elapsed since Maureen's Sept. 18 exercise, SCO is not murmuring any longer of fraud charges, nor is Maureen. What can they do to keep the FUD simmering and delay the case to the end of time? A 3rd Amendment would help. Maureen proclaims it is already in place (in other words, accepted by the judge after consultation with IBM) and under seal. This time the reason is non-licensed code included in AIX. Needless to say, the issue is another rotting carcass of zero importance. For details, please do a search on Groklaw.
At this point, let us refresh a few other details of the case. SCO succeeded in Summer 2003 pushing up the closure of discovery and the start of the hearings. But when Judge Kimball set November 2005 as new date for the hearings he also said very forcefully that there would be no further delays. However, a 3rd amendment would possibly make his position untenable both in respect of discovery and of hearings. If SCO gets a 3rd amendment, they will be able to request additional months for discovery and the case would skid to Spring 2006.
Parallel to the 3rd amendment dreams, SCO is also trying hard to disrupt operations of the magistrate court managing their discovery shenanigans. First they introduced papers at the very last minute before a discovery hearing so IBM could not respond. The magistrate judge postponed. They took a dislike to her and tried to get Judge Kimball to convene an emergency meeting to bypass her. He refused. In the discovery hearing on October 19, they read from confidential material and it takes two interventions by the judge to stop them. One week after the hearing, Maureen O'Gara helps spread confidential details plus blatant lies purporting to be confidential material. This is an attempt to trap the judge in formal procedural errors - from which the desired delays may hopefully follow.
Memo to los SCOjones: you will not get a 3rd amendment, not even if Maureen O'Gara and LinuxWorld present fresh fanciful reasons in November and December. The reality check is approaching, drop by drop. Next Spring one of the three pending Partial Summary Judgments requested by IBM will have been decided. It does not matter which one because that will be your end in any case.
Ladies and gentlemen,
If you write to LinuxWorld, that letter confirms that they have readership and ad views, which is a good thing, and encourages that behavior.
If you write to the sponsors and question their integrity for sponsoring such an article, THEY will contact LinuxWorld, and that will threaten LinuxWorld's income, which LinuxWorld will see as a bad thing. Hopefully this would discourage the behavior that you want discouraged.
SCO has no employees even technical enough to remove the spyware from their windows machines.
It's not a government organisation, but rather a self control entity by the press.
The idea is, that the public or victim of a press campaign can file a complaint and they will determine if the general agreed upon press ethics where violated by that media and/or journalist.
Of course there are a lot of frivolous complaints around the lines "they shortened my letter to the editor" (which is perfectly fine as long the meaning is not distorted) or "this article hurt my feelings" (which a paper is not obliged to respect in the first place, you can stop reading it after all).
What is a clear violation is to publish gross accusations (Politico Suchnsuch embezzled the church bingo fund and then fucked a pig) without confronting the victim with such allegations prior to publishing. A practical example was a paper being reprimanded for fotoshoping water stains to a blood red color, to make the site of a terror attack more ghoulish.
Of course lying outright, possibly knowingly and heaven forbid! taking payola for such an outrage (alas I don't know if this was the case and would never accuse a fine member of the press of such an atrocity) is about as much violation of press ethics as humanly possible.
Finding are published and the idea is that the media in question is publicly hung up high and dry and shamed into humility.
It doesn't replace a libel court case, though but overall it seems to work pretty nicely.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I believe that was linuxtoday.com not linuxworld.com
Look further down for another comment from "her":
# Maureen OGara commented on 24 October 2004:
* LinuxWorld sucks WEENER!
Don't buy it!
Really, this magazine SUCKS WEENER!
Is it her? Methinks not.
these people desperately want attention, and they don't care if it's negative.
And if links to their stories are posted, at least remind us that Enderle and O'Gara went to the John Dvorak school of Journalism. where they majored in page hit whoring.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
GrokLaw = Niggerrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssssss
Good idea. However, since sys-con (the company behind this) has supported Maureen's spamming operation, I can't say I think they all that much in the way of "integrity". Complaining to them about anything has been a waste of time for me.
Allow me to explain. About two years ago I started getting "newsletters" from Maureen. To my knowledge, I never signed up for them or gave sys-con my primary email address. These were sent using a mailer by Lyris (according to their site "Lyris develops opt-in email marketing software"... oh, great), and were as spammy as can be. 10K to 20K of HTML marketing. Here's a partial sample:
To: "linuxgram"
...
From: "Linux Business Week"
Maureen O'Gara's LinuxGram
Maureen is single-handedly the reason why most companies in the software have abandoned having press conferences !
Linuxgram is published weekly by G2 Computer Intelligence Inc.
Send press releases to: news@g2news.com
Subscription price per year: $195/?140 individual reader.
Maureen O'Gara's LinuxGram Breaking News
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-linuxgram-2307683E@mailbox.sys-con.com
I will assure you that, for me, sending the blank unsubscription email was about as effective as pissing in the wind. I complained to every address I could think of @sys-con.com but the garbage continued to arrive. I finally had to resort to adding this block to sendmail:
207.178.67.103 ERROR:"550 known spammers (sys-con) blocked by SPOO database"
Suffice to say that I've (whenever possible) avoided doing business with sys-con ever since, and have lost most of the respect I might have had for them. So now they're spreading lies about the SCO case? Big surprise. Maybe there was some cash in it for them.
I have a hard time understanding why Slashdot ran the first story about Maureen's article... Nice to see that CoyBoyNeal has a purpose besides stupid polling options.. Idiots...
Heheh... no, I didn't make it up. But somebody else did. Umberto Eco, to be precise.
Look for it in Eco's The Name of the Rose. Eco uses it (judging from context) to mean the quality of being an atypical but illustrative example, and applies it to describe that quality which lists and list-making have of creating a sense of understanding where none may actually exist.
I'm the meme thief... I don't coin phrases - I steal other people's coinage.
- Peter Ravn Rasmussen
I'm not quite sure I can follow this, but see
this story by Maureen O'Gara. Hmmm, maybe they both live in the Netherlands.
Heh, while you're right that calling someone a troll doesn't make them one, grandparent is right.
Yes, Groklaw does censor the comments. PJ is up front about what she deletes and why. PJ does have a bias against SCO, but she's clearly able to separate fact from opinion, and does so quite well. She gives us lots of facts to work with. This article was pure innuendo. It appears to be nothing more than SCO talking about sealed documents to the press.
Now, did you have any valid criticism of the site, or did you just want to point out that calling someone a troll doesn't refute what they say (though the easily verifiable facts I've posted above should take care of most of them)?
I just wanted to chime in and say this is really sad. The propaganda efforts have reached Soviet-era levels of hilarity. How soon before they airbrush Linus out of his highschool yearbook?
Nobody comes here for just the stories
Actually, a large majority do, according to Taco himself. Comment posters are a small percentage of the readership of Slashdot. Most people don't bother.
IBM's counterclaims include copyright infringement claims--SCO has been using a whole lot of IBM's GPL'd code after violating their license and losing all rights to use it.
IBM documented all that code for the court with specificity (which SCO seems unable to do despite a year and a half waiting, and two court orders).
Yeah, but what would /. do for stories if it weren't for R. Piquepille?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If someone complains, and the JSN reprimands some newspaper, the newspaper in question has to print it like "The JSN has reprimanded Blah Magazine for forging numbers and other evidence in the story about corrupt politicians." And they also have to add some related background information.
AFAIK the chief editor has to take the heat.
I bet this kind of thing exists in many, many countries.
Wouldn't an effective way to complain about poor journalism be to complain directly to the advertisers whose ads appear in association with the matierial?
A simple statement of "As long as you continue to support the publication of (insert description here) such as in/at (insert example here) I will aviod the purchase of your products, and encourage my friends and workplace to do the same."
PJ says, in so many words, that she cannot hold Slashdot in high esteem. I agree.
PJ also once said she started Groklaw because she didn't want to register at Slashdot. This is both understandable and fortunate. Groklaw is today a terrific site. Thinking of what the wankers here would do with items she posted, I shudder.
Finally, it's time again to look at the possibility that Microsoft have further infiltrated the world of Linux and put journalists in their pocket. Maureen O'Gara seems a likely candidate.
Write Sys-Con's advertisers, express how disappointed you are that they've chosen to associate their name with a disreputable company, and that you'll be taking that into account in future purchasing decisions.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
The LinuxWorld site is run by Sys-con, a company which publishes many useless magazines. It may also publish some good ones, but I've never seen any.
As to their being biased in favor of MS...possibly. Or possibly they are merely biased in favor of their big advertisers. They've clearly proven themselves an unreliable source of information in a number of areas (not just this one...I won't take their advice on java, either, e.g. Or on Unix system administration.)
This is a pity, because many once decent magazines have ended up there.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Guess what? Lately i found there isn't a LinuxWorld Expo planned this fall or winter in the Netherlands. I guess LinuxWorld.com has some problems getting their record straight.
Robert
I see absolutely nothing satirical about that article. What makes you think it's supposed to be a satire?
It was Linux Today. The creator of that site objected to the abundance of Microsoft ads on rotation.
that cowboy whats-his-face posted the original to get the slashdotters to go after linuxworld and its ilk?
I guess we could add #4, that she's really a transgendered "he", but I'd say you could swallow that inside of #1.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
> PLEASE take anything you read on that site with a grain of salt.
s/that/any
On second thought, also:
s/site/media
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
From the Editors of LinuxWorld Magazine
October 25, 2004
Summary
LinuxWorld Magazine's LAMP Technologies Editor, Martin C. Brown, writes an open letter to LWM readers and the Linux community, on behalf of the editorial team for the magazine.
Dear LinuxWorld Readers,
Publishing is a fickle business, and in today's world where your comments and responses can immediately be denounced and exposed, even more so.
There has been a significant amount of discussion regarding recent Maureen O'Gara stories published in LinuxBusinessWeek regarding the SCO/IBM case. As we understand, as of today, she is standing by her story and actively seeking to unseal the court documents mentioned in her story. However LinuxWorld and Linux Business Week are two separate publications.
We'd like to start by pointing out that these news reports are published (and indeed, Maureen writes for) LinuxBusinessWeek, not LinuxWorld.com. Yes, it can appear as if the information is published by LinuxWorld, but the content belongs to www.LinuxBusinessWeek.com. Linux Business Week is controlled and managed by a completely different editorial team than us. We realize that the distinction between the two Web sites and the magazine isn't clear at the moment, and along with other visual presentation issues of the Web site(s) we are addressing as a matter of urgency.
The editorial team would also like our readers to understand that we at LinuxWorld are not unaware of the issues raised by our readers. Comments, advice, and opinions have been reaching us editors, both here at LinuxWorld and through other sites such as Groklaw and Slashdot, and they don't go unnoticed. Indeed, comments and discussions among the editors have followed every article published, often with even more in depth discussions on the ongoing fallout from similar news stories. Some of our editors have even threatened to resign over the issue, such is the strength of feeling amongst the editorial team.
While our role as editors is to marshall and organize content, there are limits to our capabilities and it's not within our power to go checking every single fact and detail reported by the writers and reporters who provide material for our magazine and Web site. This is especially true for the writers who have been providing content for many years. Obviously, in the case of the news stories provided by Maureen O'Gara, it is impossible for the editors at LinuxWorld to read and verify material that is published in any of our dozen or so sister publications or other sites and magazines.
In a recent article (http://www.linuxbusinessweek.com/story/46800.htm) on the SCO/IBM court case, a number of facts and information has, based on information and commentary supplied by other groups, suggested ostensible (albeit unproven) mis-reporting by Maureen O'Gara. We can't really comment on the accuracy or otherwise of her reporting she provides to LinuxBusinessWeek; none of the editorial team signing this letter were at the hearing. It does seem, however, that based on the available evidence from Groklaw and other parties who were present at the hearing that there are more people disagreeing than agreeing with Maureen's account of the proceedings.
Therefore we at LinuxWorld.com (the Web site) and LinuxWorld Magazine (the print magazine), would like to make it clear that we do not approve, contract, or employ Maureen O'Gara. We have no association with Maureen O'Gara of any kind. This obviously means that we are unable to approve or veto any of the stories that Maureen O'Gara has written, irrespective of their source.
We also want to point out that as editors of the best Linux-focused magazine on the planet (http://www.sys-con.com/2002/PR/05132004.cfm), we are totally and 100% committed to providing unbiased, reasoned and intelligent information on the Linux platform. We at LinuxWorld and our supporters at SYS-CON are not, and never have been, supported or driven by anything but the desire to re
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