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Maureen O'Gara No Longer Welcome at LinuxWorld
flood6 writes "On the heels of yesterday's article about unrest at LinuxWorld, editor James Turner is reporting in his blog that Sys-Con Media has decided to purge Maureen O'Gara from the print and online publications." From the post: "Sys-con Media listened to what I and my fellow editors, their advertisers and the readership was saying, and made the correct decision. Maureen O'Gara's bylined material will no longer appear anywhere in the Sys-con universe of sites or publications. We have received this commitment in writing from Fuat Kircaali, the publisher." PJ at Groklaw also has commentary on this development.
That's sort of like kicking Michael the hell out of Slashdot.
I mean she thought she was doing sco a favor, (paid shill?)
Didn't another SCO henchmen - Jeff Merkey - already tell us the personal details of PJ? This MOG person's account doesn't seem to fit the picture Merkey painted.
It's not surprising, really, since MO'G's last article on Pamela Jones so clearly overstepped the bounds of decent, public interest journalist.
Incidentally, was I the only person who felt that insinuating that PJ's religion was wacko was particularly ironic, given that Maureen's paymasters at SCO were based in Utah, home of the not-exactly-christian-orthodox Church of the Latter Day Saints.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
It only took them two years. I'm sure they kept her so long because of immense ad revenue generated by all the angry OSS supporters who felt the need to read every offensive article.
I am happy to see that Fuat Kircaali & the Linuxworld editors are standing up for quality journalism. I am looking forward to reading future articles there.
Nah Nah Nah Nah,
Hey Hey Hey
GOODBYE!
And please don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
The Army reading list
Was Maureen O'Gara REALLY pro-SCO or just being destructively sensationalistic?
Why did a magazine called LinuxWorld continue to print garbage by someone who is so obviously anti-Linux?
by sys-con imho. they have repeatedly shown themselves to be anti-linux and they are only doing this because of the pressure [and potential legal issues].
they are most certainly not acting because it was the right thing to do.
sum.zero
It's not censorship, you moron. No magazine or website is morally, legally or ethically obliged to publish anything, by anybody. Especially considering O'Gara will expect them to pay her.
If O'Gara wishes to continue to spout her drivel, there are roughly 27 trillion channels remaining open to her.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
...before their server melts.
Sys-Con has decided to listen to its editors, who took a very courageous stand, its readers and advertisers and will no longer publish any of Maureen O'Gara's writings. Here is the story, from James Turner, Senior Editor of LinuxWorld, who, together with Dee-Ann LeBlanc, forced the issue by announcing Sys-Con would have to choose between them and O'Gara:
The good news is, the right thing happened in the end. Sys-con Media listened to what I and my fellow editors, their advertisers and the readership was saying, and made the correct decision. Maureen O'Gara's bylined material will no longer appear anywhere in the Sys-con universe of sites or publications. We have received this commitment in writing from Fuat Kircaali, the publisher. Checking around the web sites this morning, I can see that her material is already almost entirely gone, I assume the remainder will dribble out over the next few days. Now we can return to producing a world-class web site and print magazine, with the kind of editorial control that we think is critical. You showed your support for our position, I hope you'll be equally kind to us with your readership.
My faith in the human race is restored. I do thank all those who took such a stand, publicly and privately. It means so much to me to know that there is still a line, an ethical line, and some things that we agree we ought never to do to a fellow human. Sometimes, covering the SCO saga, you can start to wonder what has happened to the human race. SCO's fundamental problem is, they never see that line until they have crossed it. Then they wonder why they are failing as a company and in their litigation.
By the way, we found out how many comments we can have before the software sinks, on the last story. It seems 1,181 is our natural limit, so please don't add any more comments to that story. We are holding on by our fingertips, while MathFox works his wonders. It's never happened before. Remember when we had to move away from Radio Userland because we were having too many comments for the software? Well, again we have so many comments the software is groaning. Here, we can make the necessary changes to be able to grow right where we stand. Your outpouring of support made a difference. I fell asleep with a smile on my face, believe it or not. I had no idea so many people cared so much about Groklaw and about me. I thank you all very much. I'll remember yesterday all the days of my life.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
Ok, the summary didn't make it clear to those of us who don't RTFA. Who is she, why isn't she welcome and why do we care? Thanks.
... although it was a terrible unethical article (and I really felt for PJ yesterday), isn't getting rid of MOG a bit like sacking Ronald McDonald? Who are we all going to laugh at?
I'm vaguely familiar with the name, and I recognize her as someone with something to do with the SCO story, but it was frustrating to read the article and still not really understand what the problem was. I mean, I *know* in a general sense, that she wrote articles that were favorable to SCO's position, and I'm sure that this development follows from that, but there's not much in the article that would bring someone up to speed, which makes it poor journalism.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
To support groklaw, I would love to have a yellow wristband that says GrokLaw on one side, and Anoymous on the other. Just so I could spot other GL'ers and /.'ers and smile ...
How bout it Taco? Would be a great way to support yourself and GL!
'n good riddance
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Censorship is when the government bans publication under threat of arrest and imprisonment.
She was basically fired.
Get it straight.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
What is reprehensible and really hard to stomach is that she stooped to such lows as attacking Ms. Jones privacy.
Reminds me of the methods of a science fiction space opera nut cult.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
The "yesterday's article about unrest at LinuxWorld" link in the Related Links sidebar points to http://linux.slashdot.org/__SLASHLINK__
I understand the consequences of this error are grave.
No. This is not censorship. The publisher pulled her off the "air"... There are such things as bad PR.
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
And I don't have much more than a clue. Can you or someone give a brief summary of what has been happening so those of us that never heard of her before yesterday know what is going on?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Not really. MOG has the freedom to start her own "Groklaw"_alike blog and rant to her heart's content. No one will be reading unless she starts making sense, but them's the breaks.
Shouldn't there be an official apology and counterstatement on the main pages of all SysCon sites which published the story? And how about personal apologies by Fuat Kircaali to PJ, maybe even some sort of compensation?
Fine. If that's YOUR definition of censorship, then please give me a lot of money so I can buy airtime at a TV station and say what I think to the world.
:)
What, you don't want to pay for it? That's censorship! You're just trying to silence me, you dirty commie!!!
The Tlog - a technology blog
While they may be purging your main articles written for them, further down the page they have link after link to MOG's articles on LinuxGram.
I would be more interested in seeing a public apology rather than just taking immediate damage control and going for the cheap (yet obvious) solution.
I don't drink because I have to, I drink to stop the voices in my head!
This is not censorship. There was no internet-wide ban of O'Gara stories. Maureen O'Gara is free to post her stories on another magazine's website, a personal blog, a newspaper, wherever. Sys Con Media decided that it was not in their best interest to carry her stories, so they removed her from their site. They have no obligation to print her material.
Always out to keep the Scottish Man down.
O'Gara, dug your hole deep, now lets see you get out of it.
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
Ding, dong, the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding, dong, the wicked witch is dead!
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's not a question of if she'll show up again, but when. There's too much at stake for the other side to allow such a willing tool to go unused.
My bet that she starts her own blog. That way she can have a platform to expound on her quirky worldview, without these pesky editor types watching over her shoulder.
Or she may choose a new pseudo'nym and start writing about life in White Plains, Westchester, and anyplace north of the East River and east of Long Island Sound. She seems really fascinated by that area. O'bsessed, you might say.
sigs, as if you care.
SCO and its minions can never again complain about Linux "zealots", not without being laughed right off the stage, because compared to them and their tactics, it's clear now who are the pros at intimidation and terror.
Darl McBride and Laura DiDio have complained bitterly about receiving nasty email and late-night phone calls. That's kid's stuff by comparison. Without commenting on the latest O'Gara article's contents, because I am considering legal action and can't comment directly at this time, think about this: Have Linux "zealots" ever put up personal info on how to find Darl McBride's mother, with pictures of her home and the number on her mailbox so any stalker can find her readily? That was O'Gara's intent. Has anyone published who DiDio calls from her landline phone? Can you imagine the press conference SCO would hold, and what names they would call the FOSS community, if anything like that happened?
Who are the "extremists" now? The "cyberterrorists"? The violators of the law and of all things decent? Who are the enablers of stalking and violence?
But the big picture is this: it's official now, not just a guess, that my readers simply don't care who I am or what I am. They really don't. Groklaw isn't about me, and my work stands on its own. Anyway, they know me by now as a person, because in my writing they see my inner person, how my brain works, my heart, my ethics. We're old friends by now, and you always stand by an old, true friend. That is exactly what has happened.
Groklaw is exactly what I told you from day one, a blog written by a paralegal who became a journalist. I do it myself. All by myself. Well. Me and the entire worldwide FOSS community. All the rest is just their paranoid ravings and imaginings. Literally thousands of members and readers contribute to Groklaw, and millions read what we present.
You know why? In part, because I never take the low road. Really. That's the secret to Groklaw's success. It's a place on the Internet where we can speak to each other as adults, in a civil atmosphere, without meanness or ad hominem attacks and work together with a common purpose, regardless of our varied backgrounds and preferences in other areas. Politics is off topic. So is religion. And so are insults. I don't even let comments remain if they attack people like Maureen O'Gara. I once wrote an article to ask people not to attack her verbally, when others did so on another website. (In that article I wrote that she was a good journalist. I take that part back. I tend to be too kind.)
I have been flooded with emails of support and donations. I'd say whatever the dark side's intent, it has boomeranged. And I also want to thank everyone for all the words of support and the donations. I will try to write to you all personally in time, but I couldn't wait to tell you how touched I am by the overwhelming number of good wishes. Thank you. It means everything to me that you responded as you have and have seen through this latest and most foul attempt at intimidation and character assassination. Did you notice? They only attack me as a person. What does that tell you about the integrity of Groklaw that they were forced to stoop to that?
On a personal note: I've heard from several who are seriously warning me that they think SCO is setting me up so that they can arrange my "suicide". You know, like Val Kreidel allegedly was so overwhelmed by what was printed about her by Maureen O'Gara and others that she ended it all?
I have no experience in such things, so I can't evaluate their warnings, but I have taken note that three persons on the SCOX Yahoo Finance board, one known to be a SCO supporter if not an insider, have already predicted my suicide, two of them since this article.
So I feel I should say this, just for the record, just in case, worst-case scenario: I don't believe in suicide, and I certainly don't care what Maureen O'Gara thinks about me. So if you hear about my "suicide", it isn't one. And you can take that to the bank. She has
This wasn't an "opinion", this was a blatant personal attack and harrassment. If Moron O'Gara had just said "PJ sucks!" she would be ok. When you start publishing names, addresses, and phone numbers of somebody and all their relatives, that crosses the line from free speech to threatening speech -- which is not protected by the First Ammendment.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/2005/02 /22/the_jonesogara_feud.php
> Shouldn't the editors and slashdotters here who scream censorship at every turn be unhappy about this decision.
... the real world does not work like that, as some principles are regarded well above others, including subjective ones like "merit", such as the merit of MOG's column.
No one is telling her she cannot publish. No one is shutting down her site. Sys-con is declining to purchase her column because of gross unprofessionalism. Firing someone for failing to perform the duties and responsibilities of their job is hardly censorship.
It's common among geeks to assume laws and principles are some sort of rigid inflexible code. if publisher.cuts_off($writer) $action="CENSORSHIP";
And doesn't it put the lie to your bait about us "screaming censorship at every turn" when "we" indeed do fail to live up to this charicature?
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
it worked four me...
pj said she was considering her options.
whether she sues or not, there may end up being criminal activities and subsequent prosecution here...
sum.zero
Okay, let's think about this.
...and therefore LBN fired O'Gara, and you think O'Gara was censored?
Maureen O'Gara posts a story, which includes:
1. PJ's address
2. PJ's phone number
3. Some comments about PJ's car and the contents
4. Some snide comments about PJ's religious affiliation
5. Some snide comments about the interior of PJ's place
6. The address of PJ's mother
7. Pictures of PJ's front door
8. Pictures of PJ's car
Get a clue.
Now that I think about it, how come all MY brilliant writings do not appear in sys-con's publications. Only one explanation: Censorship! Pure and simple, cruel and UnAmerican! I am ALMOST POSITIVE that the first amendment requires anyone who runs a magazine to print everything I say. How the hell did I overlook this grave injustice?!!
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
THis is like the NYT reporter that was fired for just making crap up. Thats more or less what she did.
Besides it doesn't make sense for a pub. titled 'linux world' or 'linux business jornal' to have a rabidly anti-GPL anti-Open Source person on staff.
That would be akin to Microsoft hiring Richard Stallman to write about how bad proprietery software is.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
She wasn't fired - not censored, fired - for her opinion. She was fired for producing a particularly odious example of yellow journalism and stepping over the line with a gross violation of privacy. One which may well be legally actionable.
I honestly thought that the new servers at Ibiblio could handle a Slashdotting... Apologies for the disruption in service this time.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
Hearing that Maureen will no longer publish her nonsense articles is certainly good news. But nowhere does it say she actually got sacked by sys-con.
Without evidence of the contrary , I must however assume she is still "Editor in chief" of "Linux Business Week" and thus still getting paid by sys-con.
The only thing which was made clear is that she could not publish articles authored by herself anymore.
Cheers,
Andre
I think you're overstating things. She'll still be around, shilling at linuxgram, and I'm sure we'll see her at SCOForum 2005 if there is one, holding what I can only presume will be an absolutely worthless keynote speech. And just when you thought nothing could top The Endrool...
I'm not sure that sacking someone that writes lies, and badly written ones at that, is strictly censorship, is it? I mean, did you read that last article? It was the ravings of a loon.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well, just last year the thing was called Censorship by some very progressive people...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Oh is that why it says [tubgirl.com] right after the link? That explains alot!!
Amazing what a loss of advertisers can do.
But I still want to see her around. She and her kind have done more to help Linux than have hurt it. Everytime they FUD, they get called on it. MOG, Dido, Enderle, Dvorack, IDG, Gartner, etc. are losing their credibility.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Does it actually matter?
The Tlog - a technology blog
Did someone pay MOG enough to compensate for losing what little credibility she had left? I don't believe that - not because this would be "too evil" but because it would be plain stupid.
Phew. I'm seriously baffled.
Minor nitpick - in the UK you have a 'Right to Reply' about an article published about yourself. The newspaper has to print your reply to that article, and most usually either bury it or place it on the Readers Letters page. In short, some magazines, websites or newspapers are legally and ethically obliged to publish some things.
Well, if you want to conflate a "Bush" gag with a systematic invasion of privacy and character assassination, sure. Yes, they're exactly the same.
The problem I had with SlimFast's response was it was vastly disproportionate to the whatever offence Goldberg may have caused (which was clearly not that much, because Laura Bush was doing much more risque material at the Press Lunch last month).
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
MO'G, is supposedly a tech "journalist" who has been covering amongst many other subjects the SCO vs everybody story. Basically, the open source community dislikes her ( as I see it) because 1. She is obviously biased against Linux, and pro SCO. This is not an opinion, as much as fact. Simply by reading what she writes and seeing that no matter what the decision is in the court case, it is always a win for SCO, even the time the Judge in the case said that so far SCO has provided no evidence of their claims, MO'G painted it as a win for SCO because he had denied a motion they had put forth. 2. She has made rather vile accusations, and published personal information about Pamela Jones, the host of the website Growlaw (http://www.groklaw.net/) who has been providing, what I consider to be a very detailed and comprehensive site tracking every bit of the SCO vs the Linux world cases. 3. She is a hack writer. If I claimed to be a journalist, I would at least try to make sure that what I was writing was close to being correct, but it seemed that even when she could have easily gotten the correct facts, she preferred to write her own version of what happened during court appearances, even though she wasn't there.
The Growlaw site is at least truthful. Documents are retrieved, or linked from the court, volunteers go to the court sessions and write what actually occurred. MO'G wouldn't have attracted so much attention if she had at least been a little more intelligent about how she wrote her stories about the trial. I mean,lots of journalists are writing the story, and some are SCO positive, and they aren't attracting the same level of criticism that she is.
Hopefully this helps a few of the people who were unsure of who MO'G is, and if you want more information, go to the Groklaw site.
SCO, MOG et al have been trying to destroy GrokLaw for some time now. And with one bit of good news, Slashdot does the dirty work for them...
/public/vhost/g/groklaw/system/databases/mysql.cla ss.php on line 108
Warning: mysql_connect(): User groklaw has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in
Cannnot connect to DB server
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
I heard Microsoft is hiring. Maybe she could work on the Get the Facts campaign!
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
PJ has put a helluva lot of effort into blowing holes in SCO's FUD. In fact, I think that she deserves considerable credit for pretty much snuffing out SCO's publicity campaign. That SCO's supporters would stoop to this level is indicative of just how badly things have become. It's been months since there's been any big SCO news item. Nobody cares any more, though all the shareholders that are going to get kicked in the balls when this whole thing slides into oblivion taking their money with it will in the fullness of time. And I personally won't shed a single tear for them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I know editor is a dirty word here on slashdot, but with a supposed profesionally publication where the hell were the editors?
Don't most people expect writers to bring drafts and editors tweak before publishing? I mean did NO ONE on staff read this article before it went live? Did they just hand her a publish account and let her loose?
She sounds like scum, but there's some serious procedure problems as well that allowed this kind of work to happen.
However the NUJ Code Of Conduct (which has absolutely no legal force) mandates that journalistic Good Practice includes allowing a Right To Reply. There was some recent legislation tables that legally mandating it, but I think it died when the election was called.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This action brings up the question: does this put LinuxWorld in the same category as every other partisan hack? While O'Gara's latest column appears to have been over the line (the world will never be able to judge after this), is full removal of all her material necessary?
From this, I gather that claims of censorship only apply when it's someone you agree with.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
I'm glad everyone has done his or her part. I know I wrote a letter to Sys-Con; I sent it to half of the departments as well as Mr. Kircaali through their online contact pages. How many others did something similar?
The debate over whether the LDS church is Christian or not is not really appropriate for Slashdot. Suffice it to say, LDS believers think that they are, and non-LDS believers don't. The LDS church may have different beliefs that mainstream Protestant and Evangelical Christianity, but none of them are extreme or offensive. It isn't a high pressure cult, and it doesn't profess any sort of belief stranger to the outside observer than any other major world religion.
It certainly does not merit the label "wacko," and there is no way that the parent poster tossed about that term without fully knowing that he would cause offense. Mod the parent "-1, Flamebait."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Censorship...pure and simple.
MoG can publish her opinions as much as she wants. In any venue that she can.
She has done so. Now comes the consequences of her speech.
People are free to vote with their dollars. Vast numbers of people are free to let advertisers that they don't approve of advertising on a site that features such a hateful personal attack which is completely irrelevant to the SCO vs. The World cases. Publications, upon hearing the reaction of advertisers, are free to can MoG.
There is no censorship here. MoG is free to publish elsewhere, such as on the G2 properties which she has complete control over. Anyone wishing to support her with advertising or subscriptions is completely free to do so.
Are you saying that I must be happy and shut up about what MoG writes? Are you censoring me saying that I am not free to express my disgust to the advertisers? Who is the censor now?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
She's told you her credentials, idiot.
She's a paralegal. She specifically states IANAL.
The rest stands on its own merits on the blog and the commentary from its readers and the linked to court documents.
This is the point O'Gara and SCO never understood. Which is why PJ won.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Are you saying that a publisher is obliged to print anybody's articles, even when they so completely step over the line? Nobody is saying this nice lady cannot write stalker instructions, it's just that this publisher won't be helping. Private companies are permitted in most Western countries to print or not print what they like. Censorship is when the state decides what can or cannot be printed.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Groklaw allows anyone who's willing to take the time (and it takes a lot of time), to understand just how (un-)likely it is that SCO will win some or all of its major lawsuits.
This is why no one really cares who she is.
The publisher has stated she'll no longer by published on ANY sys-con site. That includes LBW. She's history!
21st-Century-Citizen
RTFB, idiot.
The blog isn't about PJ doing analysis nobody else can do. It's about discussing actual court documents with a community of people who can analyze for themselves.
Everything on GrokLaw stands on its own merits.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
She makes her (lack of) qualifications quite clear on Groklaw. She is a paralegal, but she does go through the various filings and explain for mere mortals what's going on. The SCO camp has been trying for some time to get rid of Groklaw, and I guess this bit of scummy "reporting" was the latest attempt. Why don't you go to http://groklaw.com/ and look for yourself?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"My world is pain!"
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
If I were P.J., I'd be filing charges on O'Gara right now. Her actions are likely sufficient to fall under 18 USC 875(c), the Interstate Stalking Punishment and Prevention Act of 1996. She traveled across state lines in an effort to violate the privacy of an individual who has quite reasonable fear for her safety. O'Gara may also be liable under New York's anti-stalking laws as well.
At the very least, I'd be filing for a restraining order by now.
Furthermore, Sys-Con was exceptionally negligent in ever allowing that sort of thing to be published. Not only is it a gross and blatant violation of journalistic ethics, but it's quite possibly opened them up to a devastating legal action.
It's beyond disgusting that something like that would ever be published - most bloggers wouldn't dream of pulling crap like that, but to have a supposedly "professional" organization allow potentially libelous and obviously private information to be disseminated is absolutely unconscionable.
Well, we still have Laura Didio and Jeff Merkey (of Murky research?) for those times we just *have* to read the truly outrageous.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Anyone have a link to the original story? I couldn't seem to find it on Google, and everyone seems to have consistently not included the link in their stories.
I've read a few of these "advertisers are what matters" comments now, and while you're correct to an extent, I think you're looking at this a bit too cynically. Advertisers are quite often the only source of revenue for magazines, particularly trade magazines. But don't kid yourself. Nobody thinks they can print 72 pages of ads and get away with it.
One way that trade magazines stay afloat is that they offer advertisers the value proposition of having a carefully targeted readership. If you're selling consulting services around MySQL and you advertise in LinuxWorld, you can safely assume that you're reaching an audience with a much higher likelihood of being receptive to your message than if you were advertising in the Daily Mirror. That's not just an assumption advertisers make -- it's a fact that's aggressively promoted by the sales force of any trade magazine.
If your magazine is losing readers, however, or even perceived as losing readers, rest assured that the advertisers will realize it even before your CEO does. This kind of bad publicity isn't worth it for any magazine, even if some evil corporate brain behind LinuxWorld had a secret agenda to destroy Linux. You can't push a secret agenda if you go out of business, and it sounds like the salespeople at Sys-Con wisely saw that this was the way this was heading if the bad press lasted much longer or got much more inflated.
Breakfast served all day!
There is a big difference between anti-Linux opinions and personal attacks. Personal attacks can get you sued; getting rid of somebody that is very likely to involve your company in expensive litigation is only smart business. PJ can sue, write up her own documents, and not even pay filing fees since she has no income. However, any company she sues faces thosands in legal fees just to file a response, and if they file a response, they automatically lose. Sacking Moron O'Gara is just good risk management, not censorship.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Who exactly is she. . .
.
She is a paralegal. That means the value of her legal opinion is not that of a lawyer, but in excess of the general populace.
What she would be an expert at is the gruntwork of the legal profession. Knowing the ins and outs of the "system," which, as it happens, is her role at Groklaw, because. .
. . . why does her opinion matter so much in this case.
It doesn't. O'Gara is a pure opinion piece writer. Groklaw is fact based. They publish the court records. This is PJ's area of expertise. While commentary on the record is offered legal opinion is defered to lawyers, who, oddly enough PJ is in contact with and who actually write for the site.
The value and accuracy of the material at Groklaw can largely be judged by the fact that SCO and O'Gara choose to attack PJ on a personal level, rather than than attacking the validity of the material and opinions available at Groklaw.
Such is always the tactic of the irrationally vicious. Same crap as saying that if you don't approve of attacking Poland you're for terrorism and and against God and the Homeland.
You always know that someone is full of shit when they start resorting to this sort of thing.
Next thing you know they'll start implying that PJ's lying because her dog looks funny, whether she has a dog or not.
O'Gara and her ilk can say any lies they like, because they are speaking "opinion." PJ can't, because she is speaking the court record.
KFG
Just my $0.02
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No braces.....
OK, now it works.....
So, if Moron O'Gara wrote an opinion piece advocating shooting the president, would sacking her still be censorship? I'm sorry, but publishing personal attacks on people and incitement to harrassment constitutes a HUGE liability for a company, and I'm sure Sys-Con's lawyers would have advised them to sever all ties.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Maybe you're right, but I think it's OK the way it is. I read it more as "[the notion of] patches..."
Censorship is something a government does. Private companies can opt to not publish anything they wish.
Breakfast served all day!
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
Well, that's what I heard!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
i said that whether pj sues or not, there may well be criminal charges [eg tresspassing, stalking].
i don't think pj considers the attack by mog to be simply petty. this is part of a large-scale stock manipulation and fraud in which two people have already commited "suicide."
sum.zero
SO who's next, Enderle or Dildio?
Speaking as an avid reader of Groklaw, the problem is not PJ per se. The problem is that Groklaw has been quite instrumental in digging out the evidence that gives lie to SCO's various claims (I wouldn't be surprised to find out after the case is done that Groklaw's research was used by both sides in their preparations).
Whether Maureen O'Gara acted under direction from SCO and company, or whether she is just a biased journalist, remains to be seen. But the recent spate of articles against PJ is more of an attack against Groklaw's effectiveness (and by inference in my opinion, free and open dialog). The fact that O'Gara et al have stooped to personal attacks in itself says a lot about their desperation (again, IMHO).
It's really comical in one sense, yet dangerously close to blatant hate mongering (I can't think of any other way to say it, sorry). For a professional journalist to publish personal details like Maureen O'Gara did is inexcusable (I'm sure Maureen wouldn't want her personal details published on a web page -- imagine all of the anti-SCO kooks out there that might use it for nefarious purposes).
In any case, apparently the only thing that SCO can come up with to counter Groklaw is to try and paint it as an IBM lackey or worse, and so both Groklaw and PJ has been under attack recently. All I can say is, when it comes to trust and integrity, who would you pick: SCO or Groklaw?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Calling the Mormons not "christian-orthodox" is not the same as saying they are not Christian. Considering that they are a minority with significantly different views than the majority of Christians, I think it's quite appropriate.
Nor were they called "wacko", that was a reference to MoG's attitude towards the Jehovah's Witnesses, who are also not exactly "christian-orthodox". I don't think gowen was endorsing the term being used against either religion.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
It does look like censorship "Big Brother" style (ala 1984).
If I'm reading correctly, they're purging all references to one Maureen O'Gara. It will be as if she never existed, never wrote those articles.
Is that what we really want? I know a lot of "historian types" are worried about the fluid nature of the 'net and how an article or reference can be there one day, and completely vanish the next. Seems like there should be a better way to handle it. Maybe a big scarlet letter added as a background image for the "tainted" articles.
I think you are confusing anti-Linux criticism with "smear campaign against an individual". I could freaking care less about anti-whatever opinions... everyone has opinions and can pretty well spout them off at will. I'm sure this isn't the death knell for doubters, criticism and FUD. In fact, it would be a bad thing if it was: the Linux crowd if *fueled* by every off in left field wacko who overstates the "communist conspiracy" or other hyperbole. Gets the blood pumping. More reasoned criticism is also a good thing as it identifies weaknesses and allows them to be exposed, attacked and resolved.
This was neither. This was a personal attack run by an angry, bitter woman against another woman. Not seeing what there is to *support* in that behaviour.
Sig under construction since 1998.
From the G2 website, and the "help wanted" link. It's obvious she isn't qualified, on the basis of intelligence, accuracy and wit.
.
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Ah, yes, the thrill of the old-fashioned "yellow press" of the Hearst newspapers, where no muck was too deep to rake and no fact important enough to check.
That's what I said. Your like is to the Yahoo SCOX message board. So how come you get a 5 and I get a 1?
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
Oh my fucking god. This O'Gara bitch calls herself a fucking journalist and publishes this stuff? Anyone that defends this kind of action taken against ANYONE should just give up and publish their own details in this thread, because you'll be giving up any semblance of a right to privacy - or you're a hypocritical SCO planted fuckwit.
LinuxWorld / Sys-Con isn't censoring anyone, and if you think the decision to pull Mog's articles is censorship after reading the article in question, you're a moron. What Mog did is a total and complete violation of every ethical standard that any reporter should ever aspire to in the realm of news publishing.
I mean, shit. I'm practically in a blood feud with my slimy, asshole brother that refuses to pay me money he owes me from the 2 years I spent working for him, and even I won't stoop so low as to publish this kind of detail about his life online. For Mog's publication of this sort of crap to be anything remotely kosher, PJ would have had to have molested Mog as a child, run over her new puppy and pissed on the corpse!
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
I just now read that article she wrote. I think it's the first thing by her I've ever read. Someone copied it into a comment on slashdot.
She really reminds me of the gossip columnists in a Howard Hawks comedy of the 30's or 40's. It's weird how she takes you back.
Those were fun films, but I had assumed the somewhat stock characters were a parodies. I guess there ARE people who talk/write like that.
But I'd expect her to write for a paper called _The Tattler_.
There's a difference between having a pro-SCO, anti-Linux opinion and simply spouting SCO's FUD. O'Gara or anyone else is welcome, IMO, to say: "I think SCO actually has a legitimate complaint against IBM, and here's why..." That's quite different from the poorly researched, poorly reasoned crap that O'Gara has been writing for the last year or two. Her articles so closely match the tall tales that McBride and Stowell have been telling that one can only conclude that she's a big part of the SCO PR team.
Your preface was a lame
'Cause it's either that or you're a total moron.
Since this is
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Which is just what SCO would prefer.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Umm, IBM Vermont is not in Burlington. It is in Essex Jct and Williston, although Williston just mean they are on the other side of the river. Most of the engineering and testing is done on the Williston side with the main fab being on the Essex Jct side.
IBM also employs 8,000 people directly in it's Vermont plant and another 6,000 to 7,000 via contract for support services which range from custodial to water treatment, to construction crews, to grounds keepers.
This once small town has boomed into a upper middle class suburb that exists solely for the purpose of housing IBM employees. I lived there for a while and can say that IBM was revered for what it did for the economic development of the town via taxes. It was hated for the environmental damage it did. There is no aquatic life in the river for a 1 mile stretch after is passes through the IBM plant.
A few other odd pieces of trivia are that the original fab was in Williston. It was moved after a chemical spill. The EPS told IBM that if so much as a bottle of IPA was leaked into the contaminated ground they would be required to remove the earth under the buildings and dispose of it as toxic waste.
IBM decided to instead move the fab.
That particular plant is the foundry for most Nortel equipment as well. The layoffs that happened there about 5 years ago were because Nortel canceled over 60 million in contracts in a weekend.
So don't pretend to know about IBM Vermont. At least get your facts straight before you troll. IBM is more then a company for many it is a way of life. There was a time when having a job with IBM meant having a job for life. That time has passed but the attitude of IBM as a provider has not and influences peoples opinions in everyday life.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
She is not a "public figure" - she posts on a blog. You can read her opinions and the court documents she helpfully provides, and decide whether or not you agree with her.
If you are only willing to agree with someone when you know who they are, that's fine and I'm not so much calling you out on that, but all that really means is that you shouldn't be reading her blog.
What is this, 1984?
To pull that last article is fine. It was a wretched piece of journalism that should never have seen the light of day.
But now these enlightened folk are removing all of MO'G. Her articles were good enough for them for years - only now does she suddenly become unacceptable. Will they also return the advertising dollars her articles brought in?
What a cowardly act on the part of LinuxWorld. It reminds me of communist leaders being air-brushed from official photographs after they've been purged. In *real* journalism, once something is published, it's published.
Reeta Skeeter. Anyone else had that association?
I don't consider this censorship.
The way I see it, they are removing all her craptactular articles from circulation because of her lack of journalistic integrity.
With this latest article (which I can't in hell understand why SysCon even published) MOG has basically revealed for all the world to see, what an evil, stupid, bitch she is.
I'm sure Maureen wouldn't want her personal details published on a web page -- imagine all of the anti-SCO kooks out there that might use it for nefarious purposes
Not a bad idea. Sauce for the goose and all that.
I'm sure one of the more nutty of the brethren are working on that right now.
It would be amusing to hear mareen screech about that.
Can you not see, that your sense of "proportion" is heavily biased by your agreement with Whoopi and disagreement with Maureen?
I happen to disagree with both, so I can see right through your rhetoric :-)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Enderle, Dido, IDG, Gartner, Yankee, and of course, MS (tough one there). On the side with little swipes are Sun and Dvorack.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Maureen O'Gara's bylined material will no longer appear anywhere in the Sys-con universe of sites or publications.
That's a pretty damn narrow promise. It says they will never put her name on another article again. Why not just say they will never publish an article by her again? Because they want to continue publishing her under other names, and allow her to stay on as an editor.
I have to admit, I came into this knowing nothing, and still know nothing... but come on, that line alone is sophistry at its most transparent. Plenty of words, promising nothing of substance.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Basically, SCO, Maureen O'Gara, et. al. can't attack Groklaw because everything they present (with the exception of the legal commentary, often provided by professional lawyers) is court record, and therefore not subject to criticism. Groklaw points out the documents, and provides a layman's translation of the documents, but doesn't make any claims as to the validity of claims or evidence contained therein.
So, if you can't attack your opponent's position, you attack him or her directly. It happens all the time in the political arena (if you vote for my opponent, you will be voting for a convicted puppy-kicker), as well as the legal arena (character witnesses and credibility attacks, anyone?), and often in the journalistic world (hell, that's basically what journalism is these days), so it was just a matter of time before the mud was slung over the technical fence.
What's really fantastic is, in the O'Gara "article" under discussion, the only way she backs up her implication that PJ is an IBM lackey is by pointing out that she lives in "IBM Territory". So, I'm sure, do hundreds of thousands of others. Is everyone in this area an IBM stooge, O'Gara? Then, MOG goes on to attack the woman's religion, for crying out loud! So she holds a religious belief you yourself don't subscribe to. Big deal. You know, SCO is located in Utah, and they have lots of Mormons there, maybe Darl & Co. are a bunch of Latter Day Saints stooges and kooks.
Everyone, open your eyes! It's so obvious that the Mormon Church, Brigham Young University and the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee are behind the SCO actions!
Set the bar high, then bring a tall ladder.
one less female in their lives...
I'd say that the most likely reason Sys-con dumped O'Hara because of liability concerns. Writing an article like that about anyone is an invitation for a lawsuit. Writing it about someone who runs a legal blog and who can probably call on a tremendous amount of pro-bono legal help is just plain stupid.
You drive untill the SMOG test is up, then do all things to get it passed, and if you fail, demand $ from state(in california)get it fixed and if you still fail, dump it or sell it in Nevada! So MOG failed the SMOG test, I hope she'd clean up her engines, sensors and what nots now.
>
The term "born yesterday" come to mind on this commnent.
What diff does it make? IF she was the head of IBM PR the documents and references would still be the same.
You HAVE to be friggin kidding... right? Please tell me you're joking... this piece is a smear job, pure and simple ...
You were right except the parts where you mention "Fired". MOG was not fired and in fact still holds the title of "Editor in Chief" there.
Her articles were pulled, but she was not fired. Where in the article did it say MOG was let go or fired?
according to the now fired one. Groklaw is one big IBM love-fest and anyone who can't see that has already drank the kool-aid. We all like free stuff, including OS's. It's fun. But to side with the Death Star so easily creeps me a bit.
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
While I'm glad that such a (seemingly) bad journalist has been kicked, there's a couple problems...
By removing all her articles from LBN, they are in effect doing history revision. If I want to see just what she wrote to decide for myself how bad she was, I can't do that. They're removing evidence from public view.
Also, we're seeing nice double standards of the Open Source community: When someone we don't like publish personal details on someone we do like, it's stalking. But when someone we do like do the same to someone we don't like (e.g. spammers), it's a strike for freedom. It doesn't matter if they've done good or bad, publishing personal details like that is stalking.
Still trying to find the article that this whole thing is about while I can, but LBN is rather slow. Not readily seen at her page on LBN.
-Lars
Best post ever on Slashdot, and its posted by an AC.
For the love of all that is holy, don't link to the real article. Blindly questing for page hits is what got us in this mess to begin with.
Google cache, text only.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Um, you're new to this internet thing, aren't you?
Bemopolis
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Never underestimate the power of geeks in large numbers.
Seems to be true.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Here's a link to the google cache of Maureen O'Gara's "Exclusive: Who Is 'PJ' Pamela Jones of Groklaw.Net?"
Speak truth to power.
Where does religion fit into this? What's PJ's religion and why is that supposedly a big deal?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Damnit. That's the second time that's happened this month. :(
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
I don't approve of what was done to McBride either, but PJ had nothing to do with that.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yeah, but everybody gets tired, eventually, of correcting the same mistaken views. Especially when they're voiced from a position of ignorance but phrased like they have the weight of authority behind them. 'RTFB' was a pretty fair retort.
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
Read it for yourself at: this google cache, or at any of these pages.
Intresting, but I'm sure if you took all the odd things about anyone you could make them seem like a freak.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
yeah, but ....
if MOG had been a print journalist she would have been fired but all her previous articles would survive in libraries and microfiche etc.
It would not be practical (or leagel, ethical, whatever) to hunt down and remove everything she had ever written for that journal.
The situation with a web publisher is different because it is possible for them to remove the pages so that people can no longer read them. They _may_ still be online in The Wayback Machine or something similar, but for most people they are gone, they have ceased to exist.
This is not a good thing. It is revisionist, changing the historical record to show a particular angle rather than taking it as it comes.
I hope that MOG's previous articles are not withdrawn/removed/censored by sys-con. After all without bing able to see her articles how will people be able to see what a lousy 'journalist' she was?
The most recent article of course should be removed because of the personal information it purports to contain about a woman called Pamela Jones. As the The Inquirer points out there is no proof that the woman MOG's article attacks is actually the 'real' PJ.
Felix_the_Mac
"....MoG decided to find out a little more about who was behind the attacks.... MoG simply wrote an investigative piece on a noteworthy individual..."
And publishing PJ's personal information furthers the discourse _HOW_???
respond, please, AC
O'Gara is editor-in-chief of "LinuxGram", which isn't surprising since she's the founder of G2 Computer Intelligence, the publisher of that periodical. That has no official affiliaction with LinuxWorld or Sys Con.
To be fair, she wasn't fired by Sys Con, since she has never held a position there. Use of the term was meant to contrast with the allegation of censorship, rather than be a precise description of the business relationship.
Personal experience you're speaking of? ;)
;)
"And, yes, many of them are Asian transsexuals - and believe me, most of those you cannot tell the difference - especially in the dark."
How can a magazine expect to be taken seriously by those they pretend to serve when they knowingly publish garbage like this? Easy, they count on jellyfish to suck it up like reality TV.
I may have read a Linuxworld once or twice I can't remember. But I now know that I cannot possibly consider the magazine a viable resource should I be looking for one at some point.
1) They knowlingly published the garbage and compromised their principles in the process IMO.
2) The withdrawl statement is swiss cheese. The magazine is ultimately responsible for what they publish. No apology, no regretful withdrawl. Pathetic.
3) How can a publication which is willing to whore itself with trash be looked upon as a valid resource? It can't.
I have to conclude then, that Linuxworld is a smteaming pile of shit.
This is fascinating. I love groklaw, and read it with enthusiasm for its insight and research and yadda yadda yadda.
/. or don't you remember that?) All was in the claim of freedom this or expression that. When in the end, it was really just a big invasion of privacy.
/. directly, but the writers (and commenters) that should learn a sense of propriety. When that sense is lost, we have to deal with the bullshit fallout such as court cases and threats.... and we all lose. Yet, here we are on /. cheering the removal of the complete works of an (albeit annoying) journalist. Whether you agree with the journalist or even if she qualifies AS a journalist is akin to whether you believe SCN is a religion or not... who cares? Most here hate both, but cheer the removal of the works of one but not the other.
But does anyone notice the irony here? You're happy and congratulating yourselves for censorship. When Scientology tried to get details of OT3 removed, there were about 500,000 postings of OT3 that popped up (including here on
These addresses shouldn't have been published, and the OT3 pages should've likewise been removed.
It's not groklaw, or LBN, or
Go ahead... if you can't appreciate the irony (no matter what you think of $cientology and no matter what you think of MOG) add me to your foes list. But this is two-faced if you ask me, and frankly, I don't particularly like either of the above examples as a religion or journalist.
Good hit. So maybe PJ does not exist at all. Does it matter, if SCO is now dead horse?
There you are, staring at me again.
Oh come on. The O'Gara article is obviously a pure vicious character assasination piece. It starts off with infantile name-calling when she calls PJ a harridan. She's obviously looked very hard for anything bad she can say about PJ and tried to take mundane little anecdotal things and use them to make PJ look like a crazy lady. Reading between the lines, it seems pretty obvious that, among other things, she conned her way into PJ's alleged mothers apartment. She tries to make the mother look like a crazy lady as well based on the fact that she wouldn't admit to Maureen that she was PJ's mother. How do you think your mother would act if some stranger came to her door asking all sorts of odd probing questions about you? Would she be completely forthcoming. She makes a ridiculous bigoted attack on PJs alleged religion. Then, she tries to paint PJ as a paranoid who has gone on the run from imaginary enemies who are out to hunt her down and get her. Considering that Maureen O'Gara was obviously out to hunt her down and "get" her and that Maureen even mentions earlier in the article that someone may have been trying to break into her apartment while she was gone, then even if it is true that PJ did skip town because she was worried about people being out to get her, she's obviously not paranoid.
As for what a 61 year old woman has to do with open source software, she is obviously of interest to Maureen O'Gara, an alleged technology reporter. The fact that the majority of people involved in open source software in one way or another are male and under 60 doesn't mean that everyone else is excluded from the club. The main characteristic of open source/free software is that everyone is welcome as long as they play nicely and share.
Finally, no matter who it is, I don't think that exposing every minute detail of anyones family to intense public scrutiny is very nice. It can sometimes have a legitimate purpose if you are exposing ties and relationships that through publically released information into a new light. For example, let's say a stock analyst gives a relatives startup which is undergoing an IPO her strongest buy rating, then that conflict of interest is best made public rather than kept secret. Or, how about the fact that Bill Gates mother was friends with some of the IBM bigwigs and may have given Micro-soft the inside track on the contract to supply an OS for the IBM pc being relevant to the question of whether or not MS succeeded purely on it's own merits? Unless there are some important ties to the whole SCO issue in his family details (like his brother Kevin being a lawyer for SCO, just as an example) then I don't think Darl McBrides personal and family information should be dragged out into public, especially not for purpose of personal harrassment. Not that Darl McBride himself seems to be above doing that sort of thing to others
The fact is, Maureen O'Gara apparantly wants to show that PJ is both a crazy lady and a shill for IBM in much the same way that many of us believe that Maureen O'Gara is a crazy lady and/or a shill for SCO/Microsoft/etc (no particular evidence that I know of that she works for SCO or MS directly, but some of her writing makes many of us believe that either that is the case or that she is just crazy). Maureen certainly doesn't succeed in showing any sort of connection to IBM. She also utterly fails to show that PJ is anything except possibly a little high strung, and she doesn't even really manage to be all that convincing of that.
Phone numbers and addresses are *not* public information. They are made public unless you object, which PJ obviously does.
PJ has repeatedly said that her identity is not to be published or pursued and that she does not wish to be a public figure.
Your privacy is to be respected and acknowledged as a law abiding citizen.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
How's it going with the job search
So who is this person and why does everyone seem to not like her? What did she do that was so bad? I didn't see any of the things that she wrote. ever.
I re-read the article that got her fired. I also went back and read some of her other postings. I stand corrected when I called Linux World "Big Brother". They did the right thing by getting rid of her. Thank you to those of you who called me a troll for my original posting...you were accurate, and I earned it.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Aha! So that explains the recent worldwide drop in gay chickenhawk sightings... they're all on Polk St.
Maureen O'Gara's company, still has the article online, without the pictures.
She won't stop yet, and being fired will only make her more eager to spew hatred and private details about PJ.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I read her a couple of times and that was - I didn't think she had much to offer - and some of her reporting was not factual.
Whether Maureen O'Gara acted under direction from SCO and company, or whether she is just a biased journalist, remains to be seen.
Nothing is that simple. Obviously O'Gara works on the edges of the computer world trying to get scoops(The word vulture seems strangely appropiate).
She has obviosly thought that by ingratiating herself with SCO she will have a front seat in the fight. It is no coincidence that on the last phone conference SCO announced they had private eyes looking into PJ. A few weeks later MOG gets here scoop. However I doubt she was ever directly paid(although the distinction is marginal)
However she has made two cardinal journalistic mistakes. By getting so close to SCO, she has lost all objectivity to a point that her articles cannot be trusted and also she has allowed it to become personal with PJ.
No good journalist would ever allow those things to happen. In doing so she has lost any respect that others may of had of her. Basically she is now an non-entity.
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
For the love of all that is holy, don't link to the real article. Blindly questing for page hits is what got us in this mess to begin with.
FWIW I completely disagree with the above. Extra page hits to this story are no skin off my nose. What I object to much more strongly is articles on Slashdot without the links to the material being discussed. I spent quite a while to find the link I posted, and I wanted other people not to have to waste their time. I had not seen the Google cache link at the time.
Oh, she's still publishing, it's just going to be on http://www.g2news.com/ instead. She owns that site, and only answers to her subscribers.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
What does a 61-year old grandma have to do with open source software? Nothing.
WRONG!!!
Please tell me how being old or a grandmother disqualifies someone from being relevant to Open Source? I've written documentation for 3 different Open Source projects. Yet, if you investigated me, this is what you'd find:
A 33 year old father of two who tends to be introverted, spiritually eclectic, drinks, smokes(tobacco), and has a history of post traumatic stress disorder. I'm a human being, with frailties and shortcomings just like you, PJ, or anyone else. None of that changes the fact that I have made myself relevant, in my own small way, to Open Source Software. PJ has made herself relevant in a very large way, my contributions are paltry and pale in comparison to hers.
You could also look at it another way, what do SCO's lawyers have to do with Open Source? They're lawyers, not coders, yet, they have a relevance, even if we don't like it.
Further, and I'll bet this strikes closer to home for you. What does being a male who masturbates to pornography have to do with Open Source? I gurantee you that the majority of males involved in open source have masturbated to pornography and yet they are still relevant to Open Source.
her contact phone number is on her website:
Editor: Maureen O'Gara (516) 759-7025
ogara@g2news.com
G2 Computer Intelligence, Inc.
323 Glen Cove Ave., Sea Cliff, NY 11579
Tel: 516-759-7025
Fax: 516-759-7028
I don't drink because I have to, I drink to stop the voices in my head!
The works of Maureen haven't been banned, this magazine has just stopped publishing them. Maureen can, does and will continue to create her works elsewhere and anyone who wants to read them is free to do so, albeit maybe having to pay Maureen for the privilege.
I think the Scientology issues you mention are different because they involved attempts through the courts to remove material completely from the public domain.
There is a difference here and it's an important one.
Now that the SCO vs IBM case nears it final resolvement, and the heating wheel is getting tuned up at position 10, strange things seem to happen. So its not really that surprising that types like the Bill O'Reilly's and Ann Coulter's are being put into full powa play : They just start jerking the knees of the persons in question which are of most annoyance. It all reminds me again of that ice skating tragedy where Tonya Harding ordered her opponents knee caps to be jacked out :
:
....
http://clientservernews.com/
"
Who Is Pamela Jones?
By Maureen O'Gara
Only one person in the world has ever claimed to have met her - in the pressroom at LinuxWorld in Boston complete with a Pamela Jones badge - and described her as a fortyish reddish-blonde who giggled a lot.
Oh yeah? Wonder what cold crème she uses. Pamela Jones is a 61-year-old Jehovah's Witness who lives in a shabby genteel garden apartment in desperate need of an interior decorator on a heavily trafficked commercial road at 304 North Central Avenue in Hartsdale, New York. Hartsdale is in Westchester and Westchester is IBM territory.
"
Unbelievable, if anyone happens to knows PJ well, make sure the vicious O'Gara's won't get a chance to knock out PJ's knee caps.
Robert
Please explain your reference to "shady anonymous cowards"
This is why no one really cares who she is.
Yep, and she'd be the first to agree I'm sure.
On another note, who she is is particularly interesting to me. It demonstrates that people who seem to fit a certain stereotype on the surface, can go much deeper and shatter those stereotypes at the core of their being.
I also think it's worth noting what a humble woman like PJ can accomplish that the money at SCO can't. What a blow to the big ego's who think they are something because they have money and attorneys and yet here is this woman they judge by outward appearances, thwarting their BS public perception campaign. LOL.
That article did not really say who she is. That article only addressed who she appears to be. If you want a glimpse of who she is, one need only go read her writing, see what she has built and accomplished. The surface details are meaningless. Groklaw is a testament to who she is and what kind of person she is.
In a way, her outward appearance makes her that much more dangerous a foe to people. My Aikido teacher is in his 50's, he's this short Japanese man who does accounting part time. He looks small and not much of a threat. I'll bet he weighs 150lbs. Yet, my 200lbs, my strength(can bench 250), and my youth are all vanity. I couldn't kick his arse if I wanted to. Many times he has done things that have blown me away, nearly magical. For one, he had me and several other students come at him, just to try to restrain him. With atounding control, discipline, and gentleness, he deflected the 3 of us(all of us physically bigger than him). I honestly could not get to him. I ended up face down on the mat before I even knew what was going on. I pity anyone who judges him by how he appears and attempts to push him around. They will leave that encounter bewildered, in pain, and humbled.
The rich powerpunks at SCO are just too stupid to recognize that they don't have what it takes to stand against someone like PJ. They don't understand or recognize the nature of her strength because they don't value inner strength or truth, but they think appearances are all that matter. They are wrong and everyone who thinks that way will lose when they go against someone whose strength is being true to who they are, as opposed to masquerading as something they aren't.
Everyone, open your eyes! It's so obvious that the Mormon Church, Brigham Young University and the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee are behind the SCO actions!
The Mormon church is one of the world's largest genealogical information repositories; and a majority of that information sits inside an IBM S390 running a thousand instances of Linux. Personaly I think its more likely that McBride would be excommunicated from the church rather than acting in it's behalf.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Had a few errors indicating not enough child prcesses available. If your systems aren't pegged elsewhere, might try upping those limits.
Greets to PJ.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Agreed. But when the information of spammers and IP lawyers is posted, it's from publicly available sources like court records, DNS lookups and the like. Sattellite photos from public map sites is also fine.
:-)
But outright stalking is wrong. Especially when it goes toward family living at a different address. Was it even the right PJ?
If she had looked up her maildrop address in DNS, I couldn't care less.
Plus, you have to remember that guy carrying a weapon, checking into hotels under assumed names,angry with PJ, with millions of license dollars to lose. All those spammers got, IIRC, was loads of free products delivered to them. Actually, they should find those Anonymous Cowards and pay them for their service.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I feel like we are seeing the birth of a new term in Internet slang. In five months I predict a wikipedia entry, a series of "All your MOGs are belong to us" slashdot posts and something about Soviet Russia but I haven't quite worked that one out yet. I had no idea who MOG was prior to this but I have a feeling she will live in infamy as Internet slang representing the swift justice applied by the masses when one does something sleazy in the face of a techno-community. She will be the Roy Munson of Linux without the whole hot girl ending part.
How big of a fuck-stick do you feel the need to be?
You have any idea how shameful and lame it was for O'Gara to post information like that, true or not? And the best idea you can come up with is to repost it in a forum thread?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
To quote Michael Ironside's character in "Total Recall":
About goddamn time.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush. That was a good one.
I also got a good chuckle out of the Inspector Dan Rather Mystery
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Six of the ten "Latest Articles" at sys-con.com are by Maureen O'Gara as of two minutes ago. I'm glad I long ago ad-blocked everything sys-con, but by the speed of their server it looks like they're gonna rake it in on impressions alone.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Who penned for the suit-happy SCOG
under blogging pretense;
Due to bane consequence
We'll have to wait for the Mog-Epilogue
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
- MOG is free to write whatever she wants, and have it published by anyone who agrees to her terms for doing so.
- We are free to read it, or not, as our tastes dictate
That means there is no censorship taking place.Now, here's your homework assignment: Go talk to someone who lived behind the Iron Curtain and was only able to read 'Truth' (the English translation of 'Pravda') that was approved by the Party censors, or perhaps someone who had a relative or friend that was critical of the ruling regimes of various countries, that just 'disappeared' one night. Then come in here and talk about censorship.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
It is obviously not time to let this drop yet... it seems that there are a ton of MOG article still available on sys-con. A quick look at the ones from May 9 at 4pm, and a few relevant older ones, and it seems that the feedback for those is still active.
Not what I would call an adequate removal of that trash (amazing, if you haven't read the article in question, please do so now, I'm actually a bit shocked it got published anywhere !!!)
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I tracked down the "article" mentioned and agree that such denegrating discourse should not be published. Nonetheless, I wonder if the idea of deleting every reference to an author reminds anyone of 1984.
is that censorship won in this case.
Whether you like what she says or not is irrelevant. You do say that O'Gara is an opinion based writer, and whether you agree with the opinion or not has no bearing on it. Whether its true or whether its false, or whether truth beats out opinion is not important.
Part of the whole freedom of speech thing means you have to be responsible enough to handle it.
And guess what maybe YOU will be censorred one day, and when that happens I will laugh!
Yes, and I'd say she exhibits even more irresponsibility by publishing personal data on someone that she only thought was PJ. If, as is possible, O'Gara is wrong about the identity of the individual she was (ahem) researching then this is even more disturbing. This seems excessive, even for O'Gara. If PJ does take this to court, it might be enlightening to take a close look at any recent deposits to Maureen O'Gara's checking account. I'd not be surprised if she got a tidy sum from SCO or someone in exchange for this hatchet job. Doesn't make a lot of sense, otherwise ... unless this is personal, somehow.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Besides, it's only censorship if you eliminate material that someone else owns in violation of their wishes. It's entirely okay to decide not to publish material that happens to belong to you! It's idiotic to even bring up the issue of censorship: O'Gara is only an employee, and doesn't have any Constitutional right to publish something that her employer doesn't want her to. Too bad that the aforementioned employer didn't make that decision months ago.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Wanna learn about the LDS faith. don't go to xmormon.com and expect to learn anything useful. thats like going to microsoft for opinions on linux. try looking at http://www.lds.org/ do a little research into what the church believes. Go ahead, I dare you
Two people involved in this mess have already "committed suicide" under very unusual circumstances. One of them was a Canopy employee who just received 3 million in options vested immediately. The other was Ray Noorda's daughter. She supposedly shot her self in the head after winning the Norda/Canopy court case. It has also been pointed out that both were practicing Mormons, a group with a very low rate of suicide as their admission to heaven is forfeit if they take their own life.
Whether Ms. Jones has anything to fear is immaterial. As I read it, the police themselves have requested that she publicly establish that she has no intention of commiting suicide. I can think of a lot of reasons for that. If someone was stalking Ms. Jones, then a faked suicide has just been eliminated from the playbook.
-Hope
She throws out innuendos without any facts or proof. One is that the CEO of a medical software company in NY is PJ's son and that he got his job because PJ started Groklaw. There is absolutely no proof or link to this, she doesn't even explain why she thinks this guy is PJ's son (he has a different last name) other than a "technical writer" with the same name once posted an article on GrokDoc. Personally I think MO did a google search on any name associated with Groklaw or Grokdoc and found a guy with the same name that lives in NY. There's quite a leap to saying it is the same guy, and another leap to saying it is PJ's son. Even if that is the case, there is a HUGE leap saying that he got his job (which he had at least since early 2003) as a reward from IBM for PJ starting Groklaw. MO tries to draw a conclusion but the facts just aren't there to the point of the conclusion being ridiculous. That isn't journalism, that's muckraking.
SCO (and I believe myself that MO is on SCO's payroll but I can't speak to the truth of it) hates PJ and Groklaw. They blamed Groklaw for the failing of their Linux licensing initiative. All Groklaw did was put it out in the open and examine it's virtues (or lack thereof). Let's see, a company claims to own IP in Linux and wants to charge $700 per processor for a license to run it. Wait a minute, the software was already purchased from someone else, shouldn't SCO be going after the distributors? Isn't it true that the whole scheme is illegal since their code would be violating the GPL? It would be like a book writer suing anyone that went to a movie illegally based on his book for $100 because he owns the ideas. Was SCO taking crazy pills?
xmission (not xmormon) definitely has an not-very-fond-of-the-LDS bias, it was just a handy reference to illustrate the controversy, coming up early on Google for "blood atonement".
Wanna learn about the LDS faith. Frankly, I have excellent reference material on most religions, but 99% of it is in dead tree format, so it's not very useful for a Slashdot post.
Still over at LBN
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
All of this broke this morning. O'Gara was out of Sys-Con and all of her work was going to be purged from their servers. Well, here it is 12 hours later and not only is the front page still wall to wall with articles by O'Gara, but her author page is still up. In fact, the only thing that ISN'T up is the one particular article from last night that caused all of this bruhaha in the first place.
Don't these seem like obvious places to start sowing that salt they were promising?
It will be interesting to actually track this issue and see if Sys-Con does, indeed, rid themselves of the O'Gara nuisance. So far, it just looks like lip service.
Thats good but on top of that the one thing she needs is emotion. Next time she sais something about OSS that almost makes you cry it's so full of shit, just laugh. For evrey person that gives her the time of day, a slighted look, or a full out flame basting its a +1 in her book. Don't give the dog her bone. Shes just trying to influence the plebs that don't know linux from dinnerware and we are looking like tards fighting with her because she is a tard. People see that, they may not have a clue what an OS is but they know emotion. This bitch is a one trick pony I will assure you that she is nothing more than a passing fad and once ignored who will bother writing about her? If someone was to do some research on where her articles are posted / published you will notice that they are only there because nerds check out the site to froth over her. Really how many joe-six packs do you know would follow something like this? None If you ignore her she will dry up and disappear like a genital wart. She has no future in the industy and if the nerds brush her off where do you think she will go from there? Hollywood, Springer? Sad thing is the only people taking her seriously is us.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
and harrassment.
MOG published unlisted numbers, invaded PJ's home, harrassed PJ's elderly mother, published addresses and photo of the homes of PJ realitives.
Sys-con would be insane to be a party to that. BTW: the article is published on MOG's own site. So, the story wasn't "censored."
Censorship is when someone forces you to not speak or not publish something. In this case, people are taking down the articles voluntarily as a form of punishment for the party involved.
What you would expect of a reputable publication is that the editors get to decide what goes into print, while those furthur up in the company get to decide who the editors are, then run other bits of the organisation. The fact that the editors had to "take a stand" to stop publishing material from this person in my opinion shows that it was a bullshit "political" appointment from above undermining their authority.
Seriously,
If all parties enter into the arragnement willingly, what is wrong with it? I could understand having a problem if someone was coerced or otherwise forced into the arrangement, but as long as all parties are of an age where they can give consent and do so of their own free will, I see no logical reason to object.
Nice Marmot
She has a constitutional right to publish anything she wants irregardless of what her employer wants, excepting libel and slander. What she does not have a right to do is use her employer's equipment to do so.
Nice Marmot
If you use konqueror and try to see what James Tuner has written, you see nothing! The page it's completely empty! You'll have to use firefox / mozilla instead.
And I thought in a Linuxworld you could use free software. Oups. My fault.
I had not seen the Google cache link at the time.
I had not seen the Google cache link either, but by searching Google for the URL, Google will give you one. I agree that the content of the article is relevant (even central) to the discussion, but part of the reason that it is relevant is that the content of the article is an obvious troll for page hits from the community. The best available tool for discussing trolls without feeding them is Google Cache.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Say something against the Linux-Mind-Control-Ideology, even if a bit funny, and people mod you into oblivion. People used accuse MicrSofties of this narrow-mindedness not too long ago. Too bad people with the most negative opinions post as cowards.