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Dvorak on the LinuxWorld Fracas
An anonymous reader writes "John C. Dvorak has entered the fray, offering his opinion on the O'Gara LinuxWorld flap. From the article: '...the Linux community is slowly evolving into a state of mob rule, with the cheerleaders being paranoid crackpot leftovers from the waning days of Amiga.' "
Nice troll. Where is that quote in the article? Crackpot leftovers from the waning days of Amiga MY ASS!
*smashes keyboard in half*
And I don't want to take your stupid little javascript survey either, damn I need a smoke.
If you ask me, Dvorak is the paranoid crackpot leftover from the waning days of the Amiga. Every community has its lunatics, just watch some Jerry Springer, your local city hall meetings or sit on the city sidewalk on a Friday night. For the Linux or Amiga community to have them is a sign of balance. Its the media that ends up giving them the light that stereotypes the whole community.
What the Linux community needs right now is a good leader. Someone to make everyone realize that the community is the one that is in charge of the direction of things and help them to focus their efforts.
Okay, yeah, I think I see your point here, John:
We should be more understanding towards useless "journalism" and media flamebaiting, because without those practices you might actually have to come up with something insightful or worthwhile every week to fill out your column and earn page hits. Hey, I can see where you're coming from -- that'd take legwork, insight and generally staying on top of the industry. I imagine that's hard work, and trust me: I'm right there with you on the "I don't like hard work" page.
BTW, congrats on getting your flamebait article on the front page of Slashdot. It's good to know that *some* "journalists" are still able to use (a) and (b) successfully to drum up (c). It's gotta be a good feeling to walk into your boss's office at review time and wave around yet another spike in ad impressions courtesy of the Slashdot crowd -- I hope you're appreciative enough to include Zonk on your Christmas card list!
Anyhow, hope preparing your standard self-righteous indignation column for when (d) inevitably rolls around is going well. Aw, who am I kidding, I know you're an old pro -- I'm sure you were already writing that one when you handed in this last article to your editor.
A little trolling, and two columns done and in the bank. Must be a nice life.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I'll say Dvorak has some good points.
I don't believe that either PJ or O'Gara are paid shills and Dvorak does a good job of explaining why.
I also believe that O'Gara was merely being controversial.
Interesting conspiracy theory that the rabid zealotry may be astroturfing on the part of MSFT, etc... I'll point out that said zealotry has existed for much longer than MSFT has been concerned about FOSS as a threat. Case in point: Stallman.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
...than a toadying suck-up to vendors.
DaGoodBoy
My God! It's full of Voids!
As it is, all pending Dvorak story submissions should be entitled:
Opinions are like assholes - no one wants a whiff of Dvorak's.
Here's the deal John:
1. There were many reasonable people offended by O'Gara and her attempts to intimidate Jones. And that's what you have to call it, because if you're trying to find out if someone's a stooge for IBM (Dvorak suggests this is all O'Gara was trying to do), you're not making your case by publishing the address of their mother.
2. Calling for a journalist to be disciplined, up and including being fired, for a clearly inaccurate and evil piece of journalism is not, in any way, "nutty" or indicative of "mob rule". To lump those who have done so with those on the fringes making death threats is to lump all christians with anti-abortionist murderers of doctors, or all muslims concerned about the US presence in the Middle East with Osama Bin Laden.
It's really that simple. Something did something clearly wrong to many of us, so many of us publicly expressed our disappointment. Some did so angrily, some didn't.
It's the height of paranoid fanaticism (and yes, I use the word paranoid quite justifiably):
to lump together a diverse group of people with differing opinions and charge them with some conspiracy to attack you.That's assuming you're not trolling for webpage hits. I assume the editors were by posting this article.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
So Dvorak has seen another chance to jump in the lime light and play the under-dog
and stir up some controversy by calling all of us who called for O'gara to be fired "lunatics" (not just those who issued death threats , who are quite likely a bit mad)
Don't buy into this , he is just trying to kick up his readership .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Dvorak is on crack if he thinks that there are any businesses that are going to give a shit about the MoG/PJ flap. Businesses adopting Linux and other FOSS products are looking to reduce TCO and also trying to make sure that they don't end up being 0wnz0r3d by Microsoft into perpetuity by having their corporate data locked into proprietary file formats that change from release to release and by being locked into licensing schemes that become ever more onerous and increasingly expensive as time goes on. The antics of the various players in the MoG/PJ flap are going to have about as much impact on the adoption of Linux and FOSS as Steve Ballmer's video, the one where he jumped up and down like a chimp, had on the adoption of Windows XP.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Well, he lives by his own words doesn't he? He drums up an article or two on controversial subjects, gets them posted on Slashdot and his column gets more hits than the rest of the articles combined (stages scenario, I don't know the exact figures off course).
The problem is that the Slashdot editors also seem to love the controversy a Dvorak article is sure to bring in, having someone to bash is just good for business I guess.
that on the one hand he says that the linux community needs to grow up and denounce and eject extremists and fanatics, and on the other hand, criticises them for doing just that with OGara
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I think that that point was lost on Dvorak. Whether or not O'Gara is a paid shill or not is beside the point- what she did was not, and should not be considered by Sys-Con, to be appropriate.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
From the article:
Oh, brother. In the olden days, O'Gara would have been given a medal for generating readership. But in today's world of the so easily offended, she's apparently let go instead, and things calm down as the hissy fit subsides.
This is the key, right here. It's actually slightly shocking that he let himself shine through so clearly in this paragraph. Dvorak is actually just upset because, y'know, that's his schtick. Generating readership by making inflammatory and offensive articles? That's pure Dvorak. It strikes fear into his black little heart to see someone get fired for doing exactly what he does, so he lashes out at it.
Who needs to be right when you can be controversial?
Random and weird software I've written.
Dvorak: "In the olden days, O'Gara would have been given a medal for generating readership."
Earning another medal then, John?
And there's only one thing wrong with that logic.
It's complete bollocks.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Dvorak states that 'Crazed Lunatics' are something that normal people simply don't want to associate with and that if Linux becomes associated as the OS of the 'Criminally Insane', the OS will be dropped by regular people. That's absolutely not true.
What has crazed fanatic lunatics done to set back religious groups?
Absolutely nothing.
There's still plenty of Christians, Jews and Muslims running around, even though each of those major world religions has more then a few criminally insane followers counted amongst their faithful.
Now, I am not saying that Operating Systems are like religions. They aren't. What I am saying is that people will go with what works for them, regardless of how many kooks are associated with it.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
What amazes me is that O'Gara was literally stalking PJ and published personal information about her on the web and this bozo thinks open source people are dangerous.
evil is as evil does
He got one thing right...
First let's get a few things straight. All of O'Gara's assertions are nutty.
Some of them go way beyond nutty. Dvorak acknowledges that O'Gara tracked down and photographed PJ's home and PJ's mother's home and posted pics in her column
But rather than point out the problem with this type of "journalism", he praises it.
Oh, brother. In the olden days, O'Gara would have been given a medal for generating readership. But in today's world of the so easily offended, she's apparently let go instead, and things calm down as the hissy fit subsides.
Right, thank god we have PC Magazine to sustain the flame of responsible journalism. What an asshole.
In recent years, he has become a professional internet Troll. He knows that he can get a lot of page views by saying things to inflame passionate groups (Mac users, OpenSource advocated, etc.) and he does so at every opportunity.
My advice for you is the same as with any other Troll: Do Not Feed.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Why do people confuse articles with editorials? He's not reporting news, he's voicing his opinion.
Windows over Linux == trolling.
Linux over Windows == advocacy.
Right?
This whole article is flamebait and doesn't provide any new insight. Dvorak's taking a fringe minority of the Linux community and presenting them as the larger group. There's nothing new about death threats. Small groups of angry people make death threats all the time over everything. It's always happened in society and will continue to happen.
What is new these days, and I think Dvorak and other "journalists" are having trouble grasping, is that the media is now being held accountable. Since the late 90's there's been a larger number of reporters who have had to resign in disgrace over fabricated stories. Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, and just this week, Newsweek is being raked over the coals. News execs are certainly afraid with some comments lashing out at "bloggers." They should be afraid because in their history, they've never been under more scrutiny by their audience. Journalists are more afraid these days, and I don't think that's a bad thing. For once, there's a checks and balances system for them.
We need a leader to tell everyone we don't need a leader?
No, we don't. Why bother putting the weight of a world-wide movement onto one individual, when the thing is doing fine on its own?
I'm reminded of a story from the Book of Judges (in the Bible). Israel had been more-or-less confined to the hill country by the Philistines because they kept failing to listen to their judges, who were sort of like Linus, ESR, RMS, et al. It was a meritocracy of sorts. Israel clamored for a king, though, so they could be like the other nations. Through Samuel, they were told the king would take away their freedoms and tax them for his own purposes, but they insisted. They ended up with King Saul, a megalomaniac of, er, biblical proportions.
sigs, as if you care.
I believe John is severely deluded.
First of all, PJ's articles have been very accurate.
MOG took a role in media sensationalism, inaccuracy, and FUD. When her articles descended into ad hominem attacks, people reacted.
People emailed SYS-CON advertisers.
Fuat Kircaali called up individuals emailing advertisers, and threatened to sue them.
Instead, the OSS community threatened a boycott of SYS-CON. We made our positions on anti-OSS publications well known.
I guess because I received an unfriendly phonecall from Fuat Kircaali threatening to sue me over my emails, that I am somehow one of these crackpots?
Instead, I will rebut with this:
John Dvorak is not fully acquainted with the overall tone of the MOG articles, and the SYS-CON support for her anti-OSS sensationalist agenda.
If threatening a boycott, is somehow construed as a death threat, John Dvorak should stop pointing fingers and instead enroll in english 101.
We still haven't seen any evidence of a DDOS. No logs, no IP addresses, no documentation.
We still have an unapologetic publisher (Fuat Kircaali)
We do have "media analysts" pontificating on subjects they appear to be thoroughly ignorant in.
I guess John Dvorak is following in the MOG tradition. Will he be syndicated by SYS-CON next?
I've figured this whole mess out!
O'Gara = Jones!
This was just a scam to escalate O'Gara/Jones to a media frenzy!
Don't forget, Einhorn WAS Finkle! Finkle WAS Einhorn! Einhorn was a man!
And they said zombies weren't real!
Don't bother with RTFA. The article is a complete troll. I feel had for having read it. The gist of the article is, "So two women got in an online argument. What's the big deal?" Dvorak conveniently ignores the central issue behind the uproar - the publishing of PJ and her mother's addresses, complete with photos and (practically) driving directions. He replies to several messages in the forum, but never to one covering this most central of points. So either:
A) Dvorak thinks this is within the bounds of ethical journalism, or
B) His articles weren't getting much attention lately, and he knew which buttons to push.
I vote for (B).
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
In today's world of the so easily offended you sure look like one too, John. Otherwise I fail to see what this troll is all about. Are you protecting bad journalism here?
You should remember who your clients are before talking that much. Do you really fail to see why the kind of visibility that O'Gara received and that you seem to admire so much is actually bad?
First of all I would like to know what kind of proof you have that any of this is real. You wrote that Groklaw's claim about O'Gara working for Sco are just words, yet you publish an article saying that the death threats existed, and that they come from this community.
Get your facts straight. The whole effort that you descrive as an act of violence from this community was just a ton of complaints to Sys-Con regarding O'Gara.
Reporters have the freedom to speak up their minds just as much as we do. You should never forget that it works both ways.
diegoT
state of mob rule, with the cheerleaders being paranoid crackpot leftovers from the waning days of Amiga
Cheerleaders: Score +12. Hopefully naked cheerleaders.
Paranoid: +2. Everyone should be paranoid.
Crackpot: 0. Have you ever tried to smoke crack from a pot?
Leftovers: 0. Ambiguous score. Are they chinese takeout leftovers from last night, or 3 month old covered in an as yet unknown species of mold?
Amiga: + Eleventy trillion.
Author: +2. Has-been industry sycophant with mediocre technological expertise -3, shares surname with inventer of superior keyboard layout +5.
Total score: Eleventy trillion + 16. Dvorak would never compliment linux advocates, so this confirms my theory that he has mercury poisoning and is saying random things in his mad ranting. I vote to remove his feeding tube.
Remember, LinuxWorld's "staff" wasn't paid. So with no pay and no control, of course they quit. "Quitting" is barely a meaningful concept in a situation like that.
IMHO, the worst think that happened in the personal computer world was the appearance of a strong leader in the form of Bill Gates and Microsoft. MS corralled the PC industry and dominated it.
In the build up to the MS dominance was a great deal of talk about the need for a leviathan that would dominate and curtail the computer industry. We got what the pundits wished for.
What the computer industry needs is a framework that allows development on multiple fronts.
That people develop rivalries or have egoes is really not a problem. The communitarian belief is that we will have paradise when everyone has denied their ego. If no-one had egoes, then we would all be zombies. The existance of feud between two linux pundits really is not a problem. Nor is the fact that different businesses want to define their place in the market.
The fact that there's too many ideologues like me who want to bubble on about our ideologies is annoying, but not quite a category killer. Although it is a sign of problems in the linux community. Personally, I had a ton of ideas I wanted to develop. I've looked at open source as a way to bring some small new businesses into fruition, but really only see pitfalls and dead ends in linux development. Not being able to see a way to participate in open source software development that does not leave me destitute is a big problem.
It seems to me that the way for a business community to thrive there needs to be a way for the members of the community to invest their time and resources into the community, and receive returns for that investment. Historically, the best way to do that has been with the establishment of property rights.
The last thing open source needs is another leader. It needs a stronger business framework where people are making money and thriving.
FTA:
It may be that this is actually a deep Astroturf PR campaign orchestrated by Microsoft to discredit open source and Linux.
Yeeaaahhhh.....that's the ticket: PJ isn't a stooge for IBM as O'Gara would purport. She's a stooge for MICROSOFT! Yes! That's it! Microsoft pays...no, no, wait, Microsoft invents PJ and has this so called "journalist" post some seemingly insightful but in hindsight clearly superficial and superfulous pro-Linux articles to gain acceptance and credibility among the Linux wackos. Now they pay O'Gara to pretend to aggrevate "PJ" with real and veiled threats, which sends PJ -- and therefore all of the Linux wacko sheep -- spiraling into oblivian and the entire Linux community implodes under its own weight.
That, my friend, is some solid investigative reporting.
The weirdest thing I've seen lately has been the craziness provoked by a feud between tech writer Maureen O'Gara of LinuxGram/Linux Business News and her apparently bitter rival, blogger Pamela Jones (PJ) of Groklaw. It began some time back when the two exchanged barbs over intimations that Jones was somehow a stooge for IBM in the SCO-Linux battle and that O'Gara was somehow a stooge for SCO. You can see where this is headed.
So over the past week O'Gara tracked down and photographed PJ's home and PJ's mother's home and posted pics in her column, with veiled accusations that the entire Groklaw site is a front for IBM in its battle with SCO. Once this article appeared, all hell broke loose in the Linux community, with editors scrambling. There was removal of the offending article with apologies all around. Then came accusations of this and that; staffs of editors quitting in protest; publishers befuddled; veiled threats of lawsuits; vituperative attacks on multiple parties, including the LinuxWorld publisher, editors, O'Gara, and PJ; several worldwide denial-of-service attacks on LinuxWorld's parent company, Sys-Con Media; calls to Interpol; O'Gara's "firing"; and a flamestorm on Slashdot and elsewhere.
Oh, brother. In the olden days, O'Gara would have been given a medal for generating readership. But in today's world of the so easily offended, she's apparently let go instead, and things calm down as the hissy fit subsides.
Although her article was removed, you can usually find it on the Google cache (an interesting situation if you think about it), and I'm sure someone will mirror the piece eventually. Whatever the case, I've seen this feud become ridiculous and invasive, but I've seen worse on network TV with less-public figures than PJ. I would have paid no attention to the whole thing if I represented the collective thoughts of the Linux community. What difference does it make?
First let's get a few things straight. All of O'Gara's assertions are nutty. And I'm not talking about the yet-to-be-proven assertion that PJ is a 60-year-old dowager stooging for IBM. That's just ludicrous on the surface. Yet that is what is claimed.
First of all, IBM has lawyers, and it sure doesn't need to have someone find out via the discovery process that it's fronting a Web site about this case. That would simply never happen. Besides, IBM is not that clever. There are also enforced policies against this sort of thing.
It's wrong to assume that IBM expected the SCO battle to drag out like this from the outset. Unlikely! And I should mention that just because I, for example, developed an early timeline of the SCO history doesn't mean I'm a stooge for SCO or IBM either.
That said, the Linux community figures that O'Gara is being paid by SCO or Microsoft or someone bad. Again, if this were so, and if it was ever proven or stumbled on during the discovery process (nothing to take lightly), it would be a disaster for the litigation chances of the company doing the paying. It just wouldn't be worth the risk. It appears to me that O'Gara is just being overly provocative to get readers. And apparently it doesn't take much provocation, as the Linux community is slowly evolving into a state of mob rule, with the cheerleaders being paranoid crackpot leftovers from the waning days of Amiga. "Too nutty even for the Mac community? We welcome you!"
Now these lunatics are issuing death threats? I can tell you that my mere mentioning of any of this will result in incredibly hateful attempted postings on this forum and on my moderated blog. What is wrong with these people?
If anything is going to kill Linux and the open-source movement, it's the presence of certifiable lunatics in the ranks representing the users. It may be that this is actually a deep Astroturf PR campaign orchestrated by Microsoft to discredit open source and Linux. It sure seems like something weird is going on.
I can tell you this much: Normal people do not like being associated with fanatics and lunatics. Once Linux gets the image as the OS for the criminally insane, it's a dead duck. Unless the community gets a handle on this, grows up, and rebukes the extremists, the trash heap of history is where this is all headed.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
That is the way these "journalists" handle it.
Since we cannot see the actual email, he is free to describe it in any way he desires.
Given that he has already characterized the Linux community as "criminally insane" and "lunatics", you can be sure that he will be portraying the emails as from such individuals.
BUT you will also NOT see a SINGLE case of any email being forwarded to the cops/FBI for legal action regarding communicating a threat.
Not
a
single
one
.
Meanwhile, if it were you or I who received an emailed death threat, we would have the appropriate message and headers carried to the local authorities for investigation and possible arrest.
No arrests will be made.
No criminal cases will be opened.
No email will be sent to the authorities.
But much will be said in his articles about the tone of the threats he received for his unbiased and fact-filled article about Linux extremists.
Today is the 16th of May, 2005 and it is 11:25am Pacific time.
That is my prediction.
I'm posting anonymously for reasons that'll become blindingly obvious in about three sentences.
My employer asked me to do this. We are involved with a particular industry that is rampant with Old Fogeyism. As I tend to rant anyhow, I posted a rant on a highly visible mailing list. My boss came to me and, to my horror, prodded me to keep flaming away. Flaming customers, mind you. Not usually a good business strategy...
I had my reservations, as an old-time Troll. I couldn't see the benefit. But my boss has an understanding of business that I lack, and I've learned to trust him. So I did it. I was my usual asshole self. I put fifteen years' experience in net.flaming into a post that was factually sound and very logical, but with my inner asshole coming out like Fran Drescher's voice in a granite cathedral. (Not that you have to dig deep to find the inner asshole where I'm concerned, mind you). It was so offensive, that only the people who already agreed with me already could agree with what I said, no matter how sound my logic was.
The next day, the boss told me: Now apologize to everyone.
Since then, I can actually see the repercussions. Many of them are just ripples from other things happening off in the distance, but the effect is clear: It was a kick in the ass to an industry that needed it, and suddenly people are wondering why that asshole on the mailing list was so damned mad. They're digging deeper.
You see this with SCO. Whenever SCO says something stupid and outlandish, the Free Software community will retaliate with venom, but others will also dig deeper to see: Do they have a point, and if so, how can we prevent this? Groklaw has become useful for this very reason -- for this purpose of getting the facts straight. Linus changed how he maintained the kernel. A lot of due diligence is being done on GNU/Linux that might never have been done anyway.
The whole O'Gara situation is causing people to look and think critically about the relationship between publishers, editors and content who haven't looked at such things before.
I was surprised to see the results of my little public flamewar. I wasn't surprised that people were pissed off; I was surprised that there was a genuine positive and creative response to it. My boss was fucking brilliant.
It shows that provocative writing does have a point from time to time. It is the little ego of the industry, goading people out of their complacency. Thank God this shit is not the only motivation we have, but it does have that use.
I thought the quote in the leader to this article was offensive, but it got me RTFA, and when I RTFA, I have to admit I laughed. I am laughing at myself, a true blue anti-MS zealot, when he says about the Linux community "Too nutty even for the Mac community? We welcome you!" It hits close to home, but he's right. I -am- too nutty for the Mac community.
So I think it's a bit more useful than just a scam to draw enough eyes that advertisers are happy; columnist journalism can occasionally benefit the industry.
Although most of the time, we're just trolling assholes.
The ONLY substantiated evidence is that the cops were called when MOG was harassing PJ's mom.Be careful, that could be taken as a "threat" by one of those "journalists".
And that is the biggest problem with these "journalists".
They don't know the tech or the industry, so they attempt to get by on National Enquirer style sensationalism and rumour.
Read John's column again and you'll see him reporting the allegations of "death threats" as if they were established fact.
Pure sensationalism and sensationalism can be had from any "journalist". It is harder to maintain readership for a sensationalist rag than for a real tech magazine.
You got to love journalists. They want power with no responsibility!
Take a look at Newsweek. They got one tip and checked not facts then publish a story the looks like it got people killed! When the Challenger blew up the camera crew kept shooting the faces of the crews families while the watched there loved ones die. Now O'Gara chases down some on and invades there privacy for no real reason. And the Linux community is upset? Dvorak feels this makes them the crack pots? My goodness for all the stupid things I have seen on Slashdot this has got to be one of few examples of justified moral outrage and human compassion. The fact that Linux community said in one voice "We do not care what religion she is. We do not care that she takes care of her elderly mother, we do not care what PJ looks like. We only care about facts."
Maybe Mr. Dvorak should take a lesson from this. You maybe free to write what you want but we also have the right to hold you responsible for the quality of what you write.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Gee, that's reaching deep into the bag of tricks: insult one group by insulting another that's well-known for fanaticism.
m ag.html
s p
Here's Dvorak's own words about his Amiga:
http://www.cucug.org/amiga/aminews/1996/961003-pc
And only a few months ago, he was insulting the Mac community by comparing them to the Amiga:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1745930,00.a
So why bring up the Amiga? Seems like Dvorak likes to drag a stick across the cages of owners of computers whose market share never exceeds five percent, then uses it as evidence that they're rabid. Puhlease! It's not as if the Linux market is a unified entity.
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
I can't say much about Slashdot. However, newsgroups have been around much longer; and this same disease of bitching about how the newbies are clueless goes back to the very beginnings of the Internet.
The use of moderation only works when the moderators themselves are actually knowlegable and civil enough to understand who is ranting, who is BSing, and what the relevant issues really are.
That's why I still feel that only you can really moderate the stuff you read. Slashdot's moderation scheme is a nice try. But ultimately, it only works after the fact --if it works at all. Participation in a discussion is the only way to smoke out who is full of themselves, and who knows his/her stuff.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I think "Finding your Inner Asshole" would be a great book, or at least an excellent seminar with box lunch.