Daniel Lyons of Forbes Admits Being Snowed by SCO

certain death writes "Daniel Lyons of Forbes Magazine has admitted to being snowed by SCO, regarding their lawsuit over Linux and SCO code. He specifically mentions Groklaw's role in the case, and regrets his early articles giving the company the benefit of the doubt. 'I still thought it would be foolish to predict how this lawsuit (or any lawsuit) would play out. I even wrote an article called "Revenge of the Nerds," which poked fun at the pack of amateur sleuths who were following the case on a Web site called Groklaw and who claimed to know for sure that SCO was going to lose. Turns out those amateur sleuths were right. Now some of them are writing to me asking how I'd like my crow cooked, and where I'd like it delivered. Others in that highly partisan crowd have suggested that I wanted SCO to win, and even that I was paid off by SCO or Microsoft. Of course that's not true. I've told these folks it's not true. Hasn't stopped them. The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe. It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right.'"

Comments

Thank you, Daniel

[Iphtashu Fitz]

It's nice to see at least some journalists out there in this day and age are willing to publicly admit when they are wrong.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[frup]

I think it's more like changing sides when the battle turns foul.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[jgarra23]

Thank goodness and yes, you are right and Mr. Lyons gets kudos for being wrong and admitting it but he brings up a good point which drives me batty- that conspiracy theorists seem to think that the truth is much more exciting than it is, I've long thought that it was silly to accuse him(Lyons) of being paid by SCO or anyone else and I really wish these "theorists" would think before they speak as their words ruin reputations and cause problems where there should be none and make them look like the jerks they (the theorists) usually are. I have a better name for them, libelous mukrakers.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's more like changing sides when the battle turns foul. That's right, it's not ok for a man to admit he was wrong. If he does change, call him a flip flopper. Under no circumstances can people ever change. I'm sure you never incorrectly assessed a situation either or have ever been wrong.

People like you make me fucking sick.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[arth1]

Um, why? It's not like he could deny it...

And his rudeness in persisting to call those who were right "nerds" says a lot more.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[MightyMartian]

Except that it has nothing to do with "nerds" or "amateur sleuths". It had to do with people who knew Unix, knew its history, knew how systems like Linux and Minix were developed, and laid out the facts. It was skunky little financial journalists who, whether paid shills or not, chose to believe the unsubstantiated claims of McBride and SCO's lawyers, who, from the very beginning, refused to question the fact that these guys were never willing to actually demonstrates alleged infringements, and who got capital to fund their lawsuit in mysterious ways.

Perhaps in the future these fine financial journalists, when dealing with matters surrounding technology, should do their fucking jobs and talk to the actual fucking people who know about the fucking technology, as opposed to a pack of fucking litigous bastards whose business model amounted to extorting licensing fees.

I don't think any better of this piece of Wallstreet crapola than I did ten minutes ago. It's impossible now for him to defend his indefensible position, so why the fuck should anyone give him the time of day on it.

Makes you wonder just how lacking in due dilligence and basic investigative techniques this particular cadre of journalists are. Okay, they're not liars. They're just fucking retards.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[hey!]

I think it's more like changing sides when the battle turns foul.

Is this my cue to call you a f***tard?

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[EvanED]

Um, why? It's not like he could deny it...

He could have just not written about it more, or tried to argue that the court came to the wrong conclusion, or something like that.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Anonymous Coward]

It had to do with people who knew Unix, knew its history, knew how systems like Linux and Minix were developed, and laid out the facts.

Yah...a nerd. Sorry, but that's what those type of people are relative to the general population. It's definitely not a bad thing, just the way it is. It's not a bad word.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Em Adespoton]

I give him kudos for admitting he was wrong; I give him a tsk tsk for the way in which he did it. He labels the group at Groklaw as "amateur sleuths" which, in my book, implies that he is a professional sleuth. Why, then, did the "amateur sleuths" who are a collection of individuals, ranging from slashdot geeks in basements through to paralegals, lawyers, software architects, engineers, and probably even a few journalists and PIs, do due dilligence, while he plainly states that he did not?

I have to admit that I stopped thinking of him as a viable journalist shortly after he started covering this case. In his article, he mentions that he based his writing on what SCO told him, and that he'd been burned once before by not bothering to cover the whole DOS lawsuit. If I had been in his shoes, I would have immediately done a search on Unix, and found out about the BSD/AT&T lawsuit, and how that turned out. At which point, I would have (had I not already known anything about the situation) thought, "Hmm. Sounds like there might be another side to this story," and, being a technical journalist for a financial rag, used my contacts at, say, IBM, or even some uninvolved third party like Red Hat or Novell to try and get a full picture before reporting.

Corporate Feed Reporting has got so bad nowadays that unless I see evidence in the first paragraph of an article that it is either an opinion piece, or that the reporter has consulted multiple parties, not just copied and pasted some text out of some document provided to them by some other party, I just skip over the rest of the article and do a search on the topic for an article that at least clings to a shred of journalistic integrity.

An idea I came up with after reading this yesterday:
Why not apply a rating system to journalists similar to that being used on Wikipedia by the UCSC crew? A journalist's rating is affected by whether they follow journalistic procedures in their writing, who they sell their article to (separate rating system for publishers based on the ratings of journalists who publish throgh them), accuracy of factual reporting, whether they include large blocks of text found to be non original, etc.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[MightyMartian]

I suppose bitter describes it. His pat apology with its backhanded insults doesn't cut the mustard with me. When he publicly admits "I failed as a journalist. I was not reporting in an unbiased fashion and never even bothered to ask some of the guys who were deeply involved in Unix since the olden days, or some of the guys like Linus Torvalds who develop and maintain the kernel."

Now that would be an apology. This "nerds" and "amateur sleuths" isn't an apology, it's an insult and an indication that he probably doesn't even know how he went wrong.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[EreIamJH]

Exactly. He says he was snowed by SCO, but it seems to me that he chose to be wilfully ignorant. The key omission from his article is any explanation as to why he chose to ignore the analysis provided at Groklaw. He's like a man at the races guessing which horse is going to win based on something superficial like the colour of the jockey's shirt.

Seems to me he's a 'sound bite' journalist - he sees his job as merely copying down a juicy sound bite instead of actually researching a topic. That said, it could also be that he's too lazy to do the research, or too thick to understanding the technical analaysis at Groklaw.

Probably all of the above.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[ritesonline]

Give the guy a break, why don't you? He reported on a case and believed a large-ish multinational's story as did quite a few others but unlike them he's putting the record straight and unlike you he's able to use the appropriate language.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Penguinisto]

Not so sure... GP phrased it wrong, but the point is still there: most folks figured that SCO was wrong a long, long time before Lyons gave up defending them. They also refrained from belittling those who sought the truth, such as Groklaw.

If someone changes their mind, cool - esp. if someone changes it after careful consideration. But after their pet theory/ideology/etc gets squashed like a SCO's bug on IBM's windshield, and after so vehemently defending the likes of McBride & co.? Sure, he hedged his bets after awhile - all pros do that.

IMHO, I can understand what the guy is feeling. His call was bad, his credibility on the matter is toast, and he probably didn't enjoy having to write that. I will further give him at least the props for loyalty to his ideas and prognostications (then again, it isn't like he could magically change them and think no one would notice, either).

That said, his behavior was quite crass, somewhat elitist, and quite frankly, he gets what he gives, y'know?

/P

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Tatarize]

It isn't like it took much sleuthing. We are SCO we own Linux. Buy a license from us, we own the code that made it do the stuff it did before even though it doesn't that stuff on embedded devices... buy a license on the embedded device too. --- Hm, my spidey sense is tingling... I think they are full of crap.

That's the amount of research it took. Then we applied the fact that IBM didn't have retards for lawyers and predicted a victory for IBM. This guy is pretending it took any research at all to come to the right opinion is an insult. It took five seconds of "hey these guys are lying through their teeth" to come to that conclusion. It's like finding an argument that concludes "Therefore, Bananas can fly." -- We don't need to know anything about the argument to know that it isn't sound.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[glwtta]

And his rudeness in persisting to call those who were right "nerds" says a lot more.

I keep reading these comments in the thread - since when did "nerd" become and actual, serious insult? Did we have to trade it to the PC Police to get "black" back a couple of years ago, or something?

Lighten up. Personally I prefer "geek" (mostly because it's more accurate), but anyone who has strong feelings about the technical merits of "SCO vs The World" is, by definition, a nerd.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[div_2n]

It seems to me that nerd is to geek is as jock is to athlete. While both carry similar semantical underpinnings, one sounds like and is most certainly meant as an insult and the other is merely a very descriptive adjective.

I seriously doubt it is by accident that he used the insult instead of the adjective here. He was made to look like a tool by us geeks and clearly isn't happy about it.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[MightyMartian]

No, ignorance is not an excuse. If he was over his head, he should have not written about it at all. If he is incapable and/or unwilling to learn a little history, then he should have just left the thing alone. He was, willing or unwilling, knowingly or just ignorantly, aiding a scam, and he bears a good deal of responsibility for that. Worse, his apology is no apology at all. He's still trying to pull some superiority thing, like somehow being an out-his-depth journalist is better than being someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

There seems to be a few people around here that think spreading lies, but through ignorance rather than intent, is somehow better, or less bad. They're both bad, they both can do harm. He owes every single developer of the Linux kernel, including the guys at IBM, an apology. He maligned them, and until he does that, rather than this rather shallow generalized apology to "nerds" and "amateur sleuths", he hasn't apologized at all.

So fuck him. He doesn't have a reputation in my books, and deserves all the derision that gets heaped on him.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Seumas]

I don't understand how a JOURNALIST can get snowed by a company like SCO in the first place. Whatever happened to educating yourself, conducting some degree of investigation and then reporting? How is taking what the subject of your reporting says to you as gospel journalism, in any remote way? What is this guy -- Larry King?

Also, how does a guy who writes articles in a financial magazine about lawsuits get off calling *anyone* nerds?!

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Eskarel]

Meh, I'm a nerd, and I use linux on a daily basis and open source software wherever possible and practical both in my work and personal life, but I still think that RMS is an extremist. Logically speaking he is an extremist, the view he holds on software freedom doesn't hold any place for non free software and so is therefor the extreme of that view. You don't have to believe the solution to your problem is in shooting everyone who doesn't agree with you to be an extremist.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Lord Kano]

I'd agree with calling RMS an absolutist. But what could be less "extreme" than software philosophy?

LK

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[fwarren]

Well in the OJ trial

1. They got the outcome the wanted...no riots in LA.
2. To believe OJ was innocent because he was framed. You had to believe the lead detective took a bloody glove from the scene of the crime, planted OJ's DNA evidence on the glove, and deposited it at OJ's estate. All because he was a raciest, which had to be the case. Because 12 years eariler, someone heard him use the word "nigger" one time.

Generally speaking. When the police find a glove with the blood of the victim, and the dna of the accused. At the accused's residence some miles away from the scene of the crime. The police are not grand standing and usually have a pretty good case.

A better example might be the Michael Jackson case. While most people may believe that Jackson molests young boys under the age of 16. It seems that these 2 boys were NOT molested by him. It was stupid for the DA to bring that case against Michael Jackson. Even Geraldo Rivera was able to show that the DA's case was full hot air only a week after the DA decided to indite.

A reporter is not supposed to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. They are supposed to collect facts and make meaningful determinations about those facts. All information is not to be given the same weight.

As far as you charges against Groklaw. From all the reading I have done there. They would have been open to real evidence. If there had been an article where IBM said they were going to bury SCO with there own code. It would have turned heads. If SCO had actually produced code so the linux maintainers could mitigate the damage. Groklaw would of looked at the code, and I believe had admited that someone was in the wrong for putting it in Linux.

From day one, when SCO said "We are not telling you what lines of code infringe, or you will remove them and say you are not liable." It was pretty clear they were not to be trusted. Step one would have been to ask that code to be removed. Step two would be to prove that IBM put it there in the first place.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[h4rm0ny]

With the greatest agreement that it was your cue to deride the original poster, fucktard would be a better word than 'fucktard.' There is no inherent property of the word fuck that must make it offensive. The fact that it is considered vulgar by some goes back to the Norman invasion of England when the language of the gentry became French and anyone who wanted to consider themselves upper class, spoke in that language. English words such as fuck and cunt became derided and were considered the language of the common masses. Indeed the word 'vulgar' is merely Latin for 'common.' It's simply a class thing. As the middle classes arose and put on airs and graces, they too started to condemn the language of the common man. Printed and written matter taking it's first steps amongst the middle and upper classes naturally led to such words being excluded from popular medium.

Those people who consider fuck to be a bad word, independent of any intent behind it, will not be fooled or mollified by a few wildcard symbols inserted in it. Those of us who do not consider the word to be bad (i.e. those whose language has not been corrupted by upper-class French sycophants) and therefore would not have been offended by the word, are now instructed to be offended by the emphasis placed on the word by the inclusion of the wildcard symbols, as their inclusion clearly signifies that regardless of our own opinions the intent is to be obscene. And we are more concerned by intent than we are by accident of form due to cultural background.

Now of course, you are free to write fucktard or f**ktard as you choose and I would not presume otherwise. But for the logical reasons in the previous paragraph, I believe that it would be better to write either fucktard itself, or some other words entirely, perhaps, 'oxygen thief' or other amusing term. It is disturbing that people's objection is to the fuck part of the compound word fucktard, when the latter part is clearly derived from retard, a clinical condition. But such are the vaguaries of word-prejudice.

-H.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Vanders]

I'd like to point out that it's attitudes like yours that have given us the politicians of today who will never, ever, admit to be being wrong. It's like changing your mind, even in the face of new evidence, has become some sort of moral weakness.

Changing your mind and admitting your were wrong is healthy and normal, and we need more people to do it more often.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Anonymous Coward]

And he wasn't "snowed". He mantained his biased view, in favour of SCO, for years -- until it became absurdly clear that SCO didn't have anything to support their claims.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[ti1ion]

I think you are going to have to come up with some proof of your assertions about Groklaw and your claim of false "facts."

I began reading Groklaw not long after the suit was filed. Someone on Slashdot mentioned it and I checked it out. What I found was that PJ asked the same question everyone else was asking: where is the code? Some things in the initial filing by SCO were just silly, like the whole "Linux was a bicycle and IBM stole our code to make it a Cadillac" bit. PJ objected to it, as did others. The problem was that SCO never provided any real evidence. When SCO's lawyers made assertions that were wrong, Groklaw corrected them. PJ and others dug up information and discussed how relevant it was to the case. I would agree that for a while PJ's personal comments became a little tiring, so I skipped them. But, it is rather understandable when she was being personally attacked by not only SCO and their lawyers, but also by Lyons and other journalists who could not stand being called out for their "press-release reporting."

So, please show me where (and since you say it was frequent you should have no trouble there) false "facts" were presented.

Re:Thank you, Daniel

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep reading these comments in the thread - since when did "nerd" become and actual, serious insult? Did we have to trade it to the PC Police to get "black" back a couple of years ago, or something? How about "open source supporters" or "advocates". That would be more informative to the reader. "Nerd" or "geek" seems to only distort the story and hide information within a buzzword.

He's only...

[ackthpt]

He's only a journo who got it wrong.

I wonder about the investors who will now lose pretty well everything they banked on the crapshoot.

Then there's also the poor employees who will undoubtably suffer as they seek employment elsewhere. I'm quite certain most of them don't say a lot of bad things about Darl publicly with their names attached, but they have some real feeling of betrayal all the same.

So a journo got it wrong, not like he's Dan Rather being lead down the garden path and left there by CBS researchers and management.

of course he doesn't have a crapshoot for $70 million either...

Re:He's only...

[sfjoe]

I wonder about the investors who will now lose pretty well everything they banked on the crapshoot.

Don't feel too badly for the investors. Last I looked they consisted largely of insiders and speculators. This isn't an Enron that took people's retirement savings through underhanded machinations.

Re:He's only...

[Reverend528]

Had they done even the weakest analysis of the SCO case, they would have passed.

It seems to me that reading a "reputable" financial publication would fall under "the weakest analysis".

Speaking down to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although the majority of the crowd here knows better than to take it that way, it's a amusing to see the term "nerd" used in a derogatory fashion once again. How very 1980's of him.

-foo

Courage.

[Mr. Flibble]

I like this guy, he is willing to admit he made a mistake, furthermore, he made it in print. Albeit online print.

If we only had more journalists willing to do this about other things... Like Iraq, WMD etc. It takes courage to admit you were taken in, I applaud this.

Re:Courage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Self interest could also be a motivation for the apology. His reputation as a journalist is in tatters. This is a necessary first step in trying to salvage his reputation. How much is remorse and how much is playing the game he has to?

Took it like a trooper...

[Captain Sarcastic]

Daniel Lyons thought that SCO had a case at first... or at least had enough nuisance potential that someone would eventually blink and pay them off.

So he thought wrong. So did the people who thought the CueCat would be a tool found on every household computer.

As far as I see it, he's taken his lumps, and he's ready to go on with life.

Works for me... so am I.

I respect a man who can admit he was wrong

[earthforce_1]

I hope everybody shows class and doesn't rub his nose in it. It was probably a very hard admission to make. You didn't see Maureen O'Gara admitting she screwed up, incredibly she is still holding a candle for SCO. Rob Enderle just claimed he hadn't been following the case in a long time.

Re:I respect a man who can admit he was wrong

[Daniel Phillips]

I too respect and appreciate the apology, but it doesn't fix the fairly significant credibility problem that Lyons and Forbes have as a result of his part articles. It would seem that Daniel Lyons only apologized to his readers, not to the people he has wrongly attacked. I therefore do not accept that his apology as it stands is full and sincere, or deserving of my respect.

What about the attitude?

[irtza]

Its one thing to admit your wrong. This may redeam character but not credibility. With a history of being wrong and smearing those with a different view, he sets a precedent as being an unreliable news source and despite whatever appologies are given - a liability to Forbes as a trustworthy news source. He would have to work to regain credibility with people checking the facts against what he said. It would be easier to just move to another source of information. If this is merely an attempt to regain face in the journalist world, it will fall flat with any critical thinker

One step further, for someone writing on the technology field - it doesn't serve his purpose to put out condescending statements like "the nerds got it right".

Re:What about the attitude?

[crankyspice]

With a history of being wrong and smearing those with a different view, he sets a precedent as being an unreliable news source and despite whatever appologies are given - a liability to Forbes as a trustworthy news source. He would have to work to regain credibility with people checking the facts against what he said.

SCO's case was at least strong enough to survive early motions to dismiss, despite IBM's high-powered team of lawyers working to debunk the SCO version as thoroughly as possible. That a judge, after years of discovery and motions, was able to finally decide authoritatively that SCO was in the wrong and the geeks/nerds/whatever had it right, doesn't mean the case didn't, at some point, appear to have at least some merit. Saying "journalist shoulda checked his facts better" misses the point, I think -- if the facts were that blatant the litigation would have been over in 3 months, not 3 years. I can forgive him for not seeing through something it took a learned and experienced jurist some time to get through.

Sucks to be you, Dan-O...

[Penguinisto]

...after all, the mountain of Pro-MSFT shilling you've done all this time certainly doesn't help your case either.

'fessing up to being wrong? but how much of that is just to save your reputation, and how much is true 'oh, man, I messed up...' sentiment?

Forgiveness? Heh. Please. Any fool with two neurons would've figured out that SCO was shoveling manure a long, long time ago... and wouldn't have waited until their buddy was on the gallows platform before shouting long and loud about how he'd deceived you.

You've made your bed, Mr. Lyons. Now lie in it. /P

Idiot

[Creamsickle]

It was bafoons like this fellow that ever gave this ridiculous case any kind of credibility in the mainstream media. Even in admitting he was wrong he feels the need to disparage those who got it right. "The nerds got it right"? Anyone with half a brain got it right, Lyons. It wasn't about "amateur sleuths" or "nerds" or whatever other nonsense you feel you have to spout to make yourself look better. At least one part of what he said is true:

The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe The truth was, simply, that some people (like Lyons) were idiots with their heads up their asses, and some people actually knew what they were talking about. End of story.

Re:Idiot

[hey!]

It was bafoons like this fellow that ever gave this ridiculous case any kind of credibility in the mainstream media.

my irony sense is tingling...

Re:you're glad it's over

[ackthpt]

but i'm glad i wasn't aware it started. seriously, unless u had already known about this article is 0% interesting. "the nerds were right"? of-fucking-course they were, didn't he goto highschool?

Some writers dwell on words they've written. Some don't care and are already on to something else.

Where I went to college was a small college paper. Someone I knew wrote for it and as there's a thing as "lead time" -- that amount of time between when a writer turns something in and it is published, during which anything can (and often does) happen. She wrote something scathing, including mispelling the college president's name. Before the issue came out it was revealed the president had nothing to do with it and for the most part there really was no scandal. When the paper came out and I asked her how she felt about it she was "meh, whatever." Maybe it did bug her she listened to the wrong source or didn't bother to quiz the president directly, but she didn't appear to lament it one bit.

This bloke is doing his mea culpa, so he's of a different cut of cloth. There's all kinds, just like there's all kinds of people who run a business, from Warren Buffet to Darl McBride.

He did bring some of this on himself

[MikeRT]

If he felt this way from the beginning, he should have been clearer. He should have made it clear that he thought SCO was little more than a sophisticated shakedown artist--the Jesse Jackson of software companies if you will. I remember there being a distinct gloating tone to the articles when I read them back then. He seemed happy that OSS developers were going to possibly get their comeuppance. He struck me as one of those stereotype dumb businessmen who cannot tell the difference between the professionals who make real OSS work like the people behind the Apache projects, and the rabid zealots, most of whom are inconsequential morons.

No one except SCO should have been rooting for SCO, or even saying nice things about them. They are a parasite on capitalism. Regardless of his feelings about OSS development, he should have been honest about SCO, and admitted that they were just trying to extort their way into profitability.

Courage nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck him. He stood up and openly ridiculed the informed opinions of many thousands of IT professionals who actually understood the issue and knew that SCO was full of shit and doomed to fail. Even as he backpedals, he manages to insult us further, calling us "the nerds", and "an amateur pack of sleuths", as if our lowly science degrees and years of experience in the industry are nothing compared to his ability to write shitty blog-worthy articles about his own ignorance.

I say we lash him to the rigging and let him go down with the ship along with McBride and co.

Critical mistakes and rebuilding respect

[st1d]

Not entirely sure I buy the bit about it being a mistake, but perhaps he could have avoided the whole deal if he wasn't so eager to paint F/OSS advocates as amateurs. As a journalist, commentator, analyst, or whatever he's supposed to be, he lives on his reputation. Maybe next time, he might value his reputation (i.e., paycheck) enough to check BOTH SIDES of the argument in an unbiased manner. Maybe spend some time with a psychologist, examining why he has an innate desire to see the little guy lose, a community of volunteers destroyed by a failing corporate interest, and puppies being tortured.

Either way, he'd like it all to go away? After insulting millions of F/OSS users? I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon Daniel, sorry. The apology is a nice start, the roman catholic rosary is another option, and a whole lot of honest stories about how this community has built itself up from what many have said was a shaky foundation, to become a force even mighty MS has found itself bending to. Maybe some NICE ARTICLES about the people who have worked so hard to make sure that the code is clean, and so on.

You wanna win your respect back? The apology is a pleasant change, now get to work earning respect!

Re:RTFA

[MightyMartian]

With only about seven posts up so far on Slashdot I've already seen a couple that snipe at him for IMHO unfair reasons. He's a reporter, not a computer expert, and he was fooled by some slick con artists. Don't hold him to an unreasonable standard, unless you have never ever been wrong about anything yourself.

That's right. He's a reporter. And a reporter doesn't have to be a goddamn expert on aeronautics to report on a jet crash, or an expert on maritime engineering to report on a ship sinking. Neither does a reporter have to be a kernel programmer to report on a company claiming they were ripped off by Linus Torvalds and other Linux kernel developers. In all causes, a journalist is supposed to check his sources, supposed to talk to both sides, supposed to, through the process of investigation, become something of an expert. He doesn't need to know jack-shit about fork(), but he should know something about the history of Unix. With that kind of knowledge, he would have soon enough realized that there was a con going on. SCO wasn't slick. They weren't clever at all. If some "amateur sleuths" could recognize right from the word "go" that this was a scam, then that suggests that he's just an idiot, and the question becomes what is Forbes doing paying idiots?

The apology comes to late. If this guy, and his fellow SCO-whores had been doing their jobs, investor money might have been saved and a stock scam might have been prevented. All it would have required was making some phone calls to guys like Linus to get the scoop.

This guy, and all his cohorts, are shameful embarassments. They should be fired, not given kudos because, after the fucking company they were giving editorial blowjobs to has crashed and burned, they're shamed into admitting how stupid they were.

Re:"The nerds got it right.."

[Anonymous Coward]

"The retard got it wrong" -- how's that?

What Apology?

[HaeMaker]

Funny, I don't see an apology. Just complaining about the pile of....feedback he is receiving from the community.

He made up his mind, then decided the "facts".

[khasim]

He made up his mind that SCO was right ... and then he actively opposed any facts contradicting him.

He belittled Groklaw and PJ (and he is still doing so) for digging up the real facts while he kept repeating the "smoking gun" claim of SCO as a "fact".

I could have accepted that INITIALLY, but as Groklaw collected more and more facts from the EXPERTS (the people who WROTE *nix) there is no way anyone who didn't have an agenda could have still believed that SCO had a case.

Yet he kept right on supporting SCO ... until they filed for bankruptcy and received a delisting letter.

Re:He made up his mind, then decided the "facts".

[MightyMartian]

That's precisely my point. His apology is worthless. It's rather like saying "That guy's house is on fire" while the cleanup crew is bulldozing the smouldering ashes. It wasn't just that he took SCO's side, it's that he had an anti-open source agenda from the very beginning, and with that, never once bothered to go to some of the opposing parties and ask them. You would think, since this so heavily involved Linux, that a call to Linux Torvalds would have been a very basic bit of due dilligence. He never showed any desire to actually be a journalist. His was an editorialist, and I think it's a damning indictment of financial reporting nowadays that there seems to be no difference in their minds.

Re:RTFA

[Eberlin]

Though I'll give him some credit for doing a mea culpa, here are a few things I have a problem with (as also expressed by the other slashbots already)

1) It took him a while to say what we've known all along -- that SCO got this wrong. I mean doing this after SCO files for bankruptcy is like vocally backing a sports team and then doing a complete 180 after that team gets slaughtered. He had what, 4 years to change his mind? Why just now?

2) The man is a journalist -- not an expert as you pointed out. As a journalist, why form an opinion without asking the experts? You know, do a little research like we were taught in grade school. He's not an expert...let alone a journalist if he isn't going to dig in.

3) Yes, the actual villains are the SCO group -- but they wouldn't have had much weight if any of these people didn't trumpet their case. Others have pointed out Enderle, O'Gara, and Didio as well. These were the people that PHBs and the like were listening to, not the so-called "nerds" who got it right. These folks share a responsibility in the FUD-slinging that went on.

4) I don't think I'm holding the man to unreasonable standards. I think admitting one's mistake in a timely manner isn't unreasonable. I'd like to think journalistic integrity shouldn't be unreasonable...especially if you're a journalist.

5) It's a tough sell when you end up wrong on an issue against a lot of zealots. I think he'll continue writing and the PHBs will continue to read his stuff. "Awww, he apoligizes when he makes a mistake. That makes him even more credible!" As for me, I'm taking anything these particular folks write with all the salt in Costco.

Best analogy today.

[khasim]

Congratulations!
Indeed when his buddy was standing upon the gallows, only then did he cry (and loudly) about how evil his buddy had been for deceiving him and abusing his naive trust.

It shows his true character.

If Microsoft ever files a patent suit against Linux, do you believe that Lyons will not be the first and one of the loudest proclaiming the righteousness of Microsoft's claim?

Note to Daniel Lyons

[huckda]

when the subject matter is Nerdy...listen to the Nerds, NOT the businessman's PR representatives who took you out to lunch to give you the "scoop".

I think you mean "whore".

[khasim]

It's been a while since balanced reporting that explores both sides of an issue outsold a one-sided rant. He's a professional, which basically means he does this to make money, so his first concern is selling the story with some truthiness on the side.

Naw. Lots of professions have ethical standards for their professionals.

Being a "professional" doesn't mean that you just do it for money. Although it can be used that way.

Being a "professional" also means that you follow the ethical standards of your profession. Otherwise your behaviour is "unprofessional".

The word you're thinking of is "whore" or "prostitute". One who sells one's abilities, talent, or name for an unworthy purpose.

Re:About this NERD label...

[Quarters]

""How the fuck can you spend all day sending and receiving emails and yet not know how to configure an imap client?"

Ok, so explain to me in great detail, including the most miniscule operations of every machine, every vehicle, and person involved, how the US Post Office takes a letter from your mailbox and successfully delivers it to another mailbox across the company.

Come on. You send mail How the **** can you do that and yet not know how it all works?

Idiot (your choice of words, not mine)

BAD

[steveoc]

Oh, for goodness sakes Daniel .. you are making it sound like it was a wild 50:50 guestimate of who was going to win the next Melbourne Cup or something. You make it sound like this time (by pure good luck) the nerds got it right for once.

Sure, you got it wrong and the nerds got it right .. but then again blind freddy got it right as well. Every man and his dog actually got it right. Every man and his dog that is, except for yourself and a small handful of (surprise surprise) 'Professional Tech Journalists'.

You didnt just 'get it wrong', you got ALL of the facts completely and blatantly ass up. Lets not pretend it was just an unlucky guess on your part - like putting a dollar on the wrong horse. What you did is akin to turning up in court to provide a character reference for Al Capone, and lavishing the most extreme praise upon most honest self when you barely know the guy.

OF COURSE anyone with half a brain knows why you did it. Nobody thinks you are incompetant or stupid - we just think you are greedy and unethical.

Re:No, it's not.

[Rary]

"If I've learned anything from recent Presidential elections, changing your opinions due to new information is a sign of weakness. One must make a choice and ride it all the way down."

At the time of this posting, you've been modded +5, Funny. The sad part, though, is that what you say is absolutely true, and not just of American politics. It's certainly true up here in Canada, as well. If a politician sticks to his guns no matter what new information comes out, then they're seen as being decisive. If they change their minds, they're weak, wishy-washy, and clearly not leadership material.

Voters are, by and large, stupid.

The clue that no "reporter" should have missed

[Antaeus Feldspar]

I'm sorry, but Lyons' portrayal of himself as an ordinary Joe who made a reasonable evaluation of the case which just happened to be wrong because SCO was keeping its deception so well-hidden is just plain wrong. There was at least one red flag which Lyons has no excuse for not catching.

That red flag was when SCO presented their excuse for not showing anyone (except under draconian NDAs) what the alleged copyright infringement actually consisted of. They didn't want that information getting to the Linux crew, they said, because that would allow them to remove the offending code.

That there is all you need to know to call "BS". It is your obligation to notify someone you suspect of infringing your copyright of just how you think they are infringing your copyright so that they can remedy the wrong. You cannot say "I would rather let them continue to infringe my copyright so I can soak them for more damages"; despite what SCO might have you believe, that is not the purpose of copyright law. As for the idea that the offending code would be scrubbed from the record in order to hide the evidence of past infringement, again, that's BS. If there was copied code in the kernel, as SCO assured us there was, SCO could have downloaded copies of the kernel twice a day to have a historical record of the violation.

Lyons still refers to "amateur sleuths" as though he's some kind of professional. What sort of "professional" doesn't investigate the most glaring contradiction between what someone claims they want and what they're actually trying to arrange?

Re:No, it's not.

[timeOday]

The problem is that they operate in a political realm where there are no objective assessments, where if you lose but spin it right, you win. So they campaign and make decisions based on propaganda. But then they make some real decision with real consequences (like starting a war or handling a natural disaster) and boom, reality asserts itself, and it hurts.

Re:No, it's not.

[kraemate]

>Voters are, by and large, stupid.

I have generalized this to "people are generally stupid".

Snowed by SCO or bought by MS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given his chronic anti-OSS ranting, you have to wonder whose agenda he is pursuing. At best, he listens only to those people who seek him out in order to push their own agendas. MS is really good at that, as demonstrated with OOXML and numerous other examples. OSS does not have a professional "spin machine"; attempts to push the OSS perspective are limited.

I have met some people (even in the IT industry) whose technological horizon is limited to what they see and hear during free lunches and golfing trips. If Mr. Lyons falls into this group, that would partially explain his tireless support of SCO up until bankruptcy time.

At worst, he's a shill, with or without direction from Forbes. Remember, some publications are well-known for writing articles that are favorable to advertisers. I doubt SCO is advertising in Forbes but I'll bet MS is. Was Lyons directed to write puff pieces for Forbes? Maybe his latest article is "taking one for the team".

Time will tell. Nobody gets to be this wrong for this long and retained as a journalist for a publication that has been thoroughly discredited. Unless, of course, he was just following orders, in which case he remains as a valued team member. His presence (or absence) from Forbes will tell the real story.

Re:No, it's not.

[omnipresentbob]

There's no problem with changing your mind, admitting you're wrong, and moving on.
There is a problem with not admitting you're wrong, and sticking to your problems.
There is also a problem with changing your mind, then changing your mind, then perhaps changing your mind again.

Hence "flip-flop" rather than just "flip". Indeed the adjectives "flip-floppy" and "wishy-washy" both imply a back and forth (perhaps more than once) situation.