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The Register vs Groklaw: Who Gets It Right?
microbee writes "Over the past weeks Groklaw has been running a series of articles on new discoveries about SCO and Project Monterey. Surprisingly (to me, as I love both sites), The Register published another article to counter the argument of Groklaw's serials, claiming "it's difficult to envisage Groklaw's conjecture swaying a court case, but it provides SCO with valuable public relations ammunition."" There's also a rebuttal on groklaw as well.
If Groklaw seems biassed in the SCO-IBM case, that is because the facts support IBM's view of the case. This is not entirely true. Groklaw is biased in a way, but not to the extent of misreporting facts, rather they do sympathize with IBM. So if a fact is posted that's not in favor of IBM (and this does happen) they're reported as "a problem for IBM's case, how should this be solved?" whereas if a problematic fact arises that hurts SCOX, it's quickly pointed out that this is the latest in a long string of facts exposing their lies and misrepresentations. While the latter is also factually true, the emphasis is on pointing this out. Of course, some of the comments go either way in being totally biased for or against. Of course, groklaw being biased at least in its attitude is not a bad thing in itself. In fact, if it wasn't, it would be a lot less interesting to read. Rather like The Register itself.
Is this not done in the effort to be even righter? Did not Newton himself point out evidence that his theory could not explain and thus that it was incomplete, and have not others made extenstions to the theory that have it very much "righter"? Is not one of the possible advantages of Free Software that it can easily be examined and changed to make it better?
Isn't this how we want things to work?
I don't hang out at Groklaw much, but in the few hours I've spent there I get the impression that PJ is very open to corrections, even soliciting them, and takes them to heart.
This is the side I'm likely to bet on. Nobody ever gets everything right, but the people who cling to their wrongs remain wrong, the people who admit their wrongs correct them and become "righter."
And then get critized for admiting they were wrong and retracting/correcting. On the other hand if you "correct" your view to a wrong one to gain popularity you are often cheered as a hero, and elected President. Is a puzzlement.
Henry Clay said, "I'd rather be right than President." I'll got with that, and PJ, not because she's infallible, but because she clearly, and publicly, knows that she isn't.
KFG