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50K Linux Man Bites At Merkey.net
magnany writes "In a recent article, former TRG CEO Jeff V. Merkey had offered to pay 50K USD for a BSD-licensed Linux. Groklaw did a followup on his offer, to which Jeff responded by notifying the FBI of Groklaw's 'hate crimes violation.' Merkey doesn't exactly have a great record, either, which is made even more apparent by his recent threats to file suit against Merkey.net for slander and trademark infringement, amongst others. In addition, he has also reported Merkey.net to the FBI's hate crime department. What could Merkey.net do to get Jeff V. Merkey off their backs?"
There are numerous spelling and grammar errors in the letter that Merkey supposedly posted, and note the blatant CC to Maureen O'Gara. I don't know, my troll alarm is going off. Is it legit?
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
He's clearly trying to defame GrokLaw and put it's credibility into question. Why not sue him for libel, and tack on a charge that he's trying to con the Linux community into selling their nestegg to him for a mere pittance of what he would make if the deal went through?
Groklaw is biased against bullshit. And this guy seems to be mired in it.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Why are responsible slashdotters encouraged to ignore trolls but such a blatant one gets an entire story? After the very professional way the kernel developers tore him apart you'd think the issue would be over.
Don't feed the trolls!
groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
It's so pathetic. When does it all end?
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
For a really BSD licensed Linux, I'd ask for a contract with Dell to ship Linux by default ... ...
...
:)
And AOL to add Firefox on their CDs
And BSD a Linux 2.0 kernel
After all I'm not in this for the money
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Interesting bit:
... and ...
... Or maybe he and Linus really are buddies...
Linus Torvalds (and myself) are entitled to apolgies from GrokLaw, and SCO regarding
their false and misleading claims Linus missappropriated trade secrets or infringed their
copyrights and that I was involved in a scheme with SCO to further their false,
misleading, and libelous allegations. Groklaw has also posted numerous emails and
comments attributed to me which I did not author which libel Linus and myself, and
were designed to create and perpetuate animosity in the Linux Community.
I thank Linus Torvalds for being a true friend and working with me to resolve these
issues, despite all the heat and mud flying around.
Seems like he's just trying to associate his name as closely as he can with Linus (and thus represent an "official" linux line)
> Or maybe he and Linus really are buddies...
Definitely not!
This world is too violent as it is, please man, no more bloodshed.
Thank you !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
As far as I can see this guy appears to be seriously abusing the minorities aspect of the hate crime laws, but AFAIK there's only so often you can waste FBI resources before they want a small chat with you, in a nice room with little in the way of comfortable furniture.
..
I mean, some of the hate crime work is really serious, what this guy is doing is almost insulting..
And, (AFAIK, IANAL) isn't it illegal to repeatedly threaten legal action without following it up?
Just musing
Insert
Surprising that posters here don't know any better than to take the bait. These "kill Merkey" comments do not help. Some clown like Dan Lyons at Forbes may very well use those comments to prove that the linux lovers over at slashdot are actually a hateful, violent, crowd. Danny did that with comments from the yahoo boards - comments which were far more tame btw.
What makes you think this is going to work? The core of NT is stable & secure already, it's extensions and concessions that have been made towards being more 'usable' that bring the whole system down. How is reimplimenting everything on a new OS that has a weaker/coarser security model going to make things better?
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
The guy had claimed to have a cure for arthritis, reguarly smokes and grows peyote and now this?
This guy is way out there
>The core of NT is stable & secure already
;)
As a demonstration of NT/XP's "security," here's a bit of homework for you. Grab a copy of an NT/XP app called Erd Commander. (I'll leave it up to your good judgement as to how to obtain it)
Installing it takes a bit of doing in the scenario that you use, shall we say, the "online" way of obtaining software, so it's a chance to show off your leet `//areZ d00d credentials there as well.
Then, once you've got Erd Commander burnt onto a CD, change your NT/XP password, and forget what the new password is. Then insert the Erd Commander CD, reboot the computer, look for Erd Commander's "locksmith" tool, and laugh diabolically/cynically when you discover that it is possible to reset/change XP's password there to whatever you want.
An operating system that's capable of having its passwords compromised this easily is not secure, according to my definition. If hypothetically someone really wanted to cause some mischief, they could take the aforementioned CD into any library or educational institution running XP/NT, and they'd have completely unhindered access to the entire network...not to mention LAN cafes/PC baangs etc. I'm sure there are also an infinite number of other ways that NT/XP can be compromised just as easily as in this example. It's the proverbial monkey cage made out of peanuts...in fact now that I think about it, that's probably the best metaphor for XP that I think I've ever heard.
How is this any different than booting off a Gentoo LiveCD, mounting the filesystem and modifying /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow directly?