Slashdot Mirror
Intel Employee Caught Running OLPC News Site
An anonymous reader noted yet another story about credibility and disclosure on-line. An OLPC news site highly critical of the project was run
by an Intel employee who actually is working on a project that competes with the OLPC. Oh, and the site failed to disclose this pretty serious bit of bias. The article talks about the most extreme interpretation ("Intel secretly bankrolls blog that disses competitor") but even the less extreme version ("insider badmouths competitors anonymously at night") is pretty fishy. Just more reasons to never believe anything on-line, including me I guess.
How many times is this going to happen before corporations realize front organizations don't work on the Internet?
CowboyNeal rocks!
Put jokes aside, isn't this normal? One of my friend found some parameter of an IC he is using online, it turned out to be totally wrong, my the other friend searched density of a chemical online, and he ended up with a wrong compound. I found many mistakes on Wikipedia, like 99.99% charge-discharge efficiency of lithium ion battery. I think most people have learned the class someway.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
from the clues, I'd say TFA was written sometime at the back end of 2006.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
We have to consider the message that was delivered. It is irrelevant who said it, or who he or she works for.
The criticism could very well be completely valid. It wouldn't matter if that criticism was delivered by an Intel employee, a priest, a mechanic, or a school teacher.
Likewise, the criticism could be completely invalid. Again, it wouldn't matter if that criticism was delivered by an Intel employee, a priest, a mechanic, or a school teacher.
And that's why it's the reader's responsibility to consider what he or she is reading, and perform due diligence in verifying what is said.
And say that this blog never really had that big of a following. I just scanned the front page, and it didn't seem like it was any worse than a lot of the biased crap that I've seen on TheRegister. The conflict of interest angle is certainly a black mark on them, but I think it makes them look more desperate than anything else. Personally, I think this just smacks of the sort of crap that Saddam's information minister pulled denying that U.S. forces were gaining ground in Iraq.
If Intel were smart, they'd start on a program to give away Eee PCs to kids that show a strong desire for science and engineering. Don't give them to the sort of kids that are just using them for porn in Nigeria, but give them to the studious kids who might actually use them for something cool. The Eee PC is a good deal more powerful than the stuff from the OLPC program, so giving away 10,000-20,000 high end Eee PCs might do a lot of good in the right kids' hands.
The headline says "caught" as if this person was doing something illegal or unethical. Please explain.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Okay, after being forced to dive into the sources by lousy reporting, here is the story:
Christopher Blizzard has posted to his blog that Wayan Vota, a main writer for OLPC news is the director of Geekcorps. That Wayan Vota writes for OLPC news is not a secret (his name is on every post). And a Google search for "Wayan Vota" turns up the Geekcorps result as its third hit.
Now, on Geekcorps' website, of one their technology partners is listed as Intel.
I don't know about you, but that's enough to convince me that the black helicopters are involved! What a conspiracy.
BTW, is this the Digg effect? I notice more and more looney conspiracy stories over there all the time. Maybe it's spreading.
"never believe anything on-line"? As opposed to believing anything that is printed on dead trees? Just apply the same rule to the internet as to books or newspapers: Use your own brain.
TFA: "It turns out that one of the site's authors works on an Intel project that is competing with the OLPC. Oops."
TFS: "An OLPC news site highly critical of the project was run by an Intel employee who actually is working on a project that competes with the OLPC."
TFS: "Just more reasons to never believe anything on-line, including me I guess."
q.e.d.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Wayan seems to be replying to every article about this.
His argument seems to be:
It is a coincidence that he is working on a competing product to the OLPC.
It is a coincidence that he started a "personal" project slandering his business rival and getting Google links to the OLPC.
It is simply standard procedure that he is buying negative Google ads to promote his personal site. (You know, the way you buy Google Ads all the time for your personal projects.)
His screeching denials are more damning than anything else.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
How is this any different than (insert most media sources here)? If you're jusy waking up to the fact that many "news" sources recieve payouts for favorable reviews, or to be critical of someone elses work, then I'd say you've been living under a rock.
Just because it's Microsoft in this case makes this newsworthy?
It's bad journalism to be sure, that is all.
They really do happen. we have all seen outrageous things like this happen with MS and Intel before. More likely than not, this has funding by Intel and MS. Afterall, he runs no commercials on his site (i.e. it makes no money), and yet he is buying ads elsewhere. So what is his angle on it? Think it is just a free service that he is doing? I seriously doubt it.
This is just another OSS vs SCO/MS/Sun type angle being able to OLPC vs OLPCNEW/Intel. I would also not be surprised to see MS in this, but that has zero proof.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The OLPC News website in the past months has build up a reputation for sharply criticizing the $100 laptop project headed up by Nicholas Negroponte.
Please, please, please stop calling it "the $100 laptop." With the current prices for anything less than a million units roughly twice that figure, it's hideously inaccurate.
When they get it down to $100 and stop charging wildly different prices based on order quantity (a scam since all the tooling is done, and they won't be placing individual orders with their manufacturers), you can call it the $100 laptop.
Please help metamoderate.
He's working on his own version for his employer. He presumably thinks it's better. That would explain why he's working on this project. It would be great if more people who were critical of products created a better version.
It's only a blog. It's not pretending not to have a bias. It's a blog. They're all biassed.
He's allowed to say what he likes. He was critical of the OLPC when Intel were amongst its proponents, so it seems pretty likely that this is his personal opinion. as such it would have been a bad idea to mention his affiliation with Intel since that may have suggested it was the company's views rather than his own.
Looks like the case of the fake Open Document Foundation, that had nothing to do with ODF itself, and was just spreading FUD (probably trying to get money from Microsoft, in that case).
On the good side, these "schemes" tend to be found and revealed really quickly these days.
The B1G1 program gave US purchasers the same green & white one that impoversished children were getting because there was no way to make an alternative color. Yet the picture clearly shows an all-red OLPC at a trade show. Non-green/white plastic does exist after all and , wonder that.
Has it been proven that he maintained that site under bosses orders or at least during work time? Just because an Intel employee runs an adult site doesn't justify a headline "Intel supports porn".
The title of this story is just wrong. Nowhere -- other than at Slashdot itself, that is -- the "Intel employee" is even remotely identified as an Intel employee. This is just cheap -- is there another kind? -- sensationalism.
;-)
I know Slashdotters love conspiracy theories, but this one is not only far-fetched, but the title is purely misleading.
For the record, I work at Intel, although I have nothing to do with Classmate PC or OLPC. I just searched for the guy's name on our directory and he's either not an Intel employee or he uses another name (oh, here's another Slashdot theory!)
Or I'm just lousy at searching for names
Slashdot, with its numerous Microsoft bashing and Linux praising articles, is owned by OSTG (or SourceForge, whatever it's called) which has everything to gain from, er, the promotion of Linux and F/OSS.
So, where's the full disclosure on this, hum?
I write bullshit
Just to let you know, in case you haven't figured it out... Intel doesn't need to badmouth the competition. Intel employees are some of the biggest zealots available on the market and HR at Intel hires based on how much of a zealot a person can be for their brand. Brand loyalty is the number one trait that Intel HR is looking for in a potential employee, above and beyond skill level. If you have ever had a conversation with an Intel rep you will know exactly what I'm talking about. They store up a bunch of company info and spew it at you, nonstop.
Therefore I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this is a zealot who decided to take the zealotry to another level in the form of a website.
Zealots take business to the personal level, and therefore it would be false to suggest this was a paid-for stunt by Intel... even if they cop to it. A PR person might suggest that Intel takes the fall for this in order to drive the free media exposure higher than it has to be (businesses actually do that stuff sometimes), but that wouldn't be the truth, IMHO.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
This piece of news only makes me prouder to be completely Intel-free (only PowerPC Macs and an AMD-based PC here). Not that I had anything against Intel so far, but from now on I'll never buy anything Intel-based.
Trying to pass off competition bashing as objective news is already bad, but trying to sabotage a charity-funded non-profit association really means being the scum of earth.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Perhaps it is another coincidence that a lot of people searched for olpc today and clicked on the sponsored olpcnews link? :D
It's a blog, nobody should take the contents of a blog seriously. I'm constantly amazed that people take blogs as a primary or secondary source of information. The truth none of it is backed up by journalistic integrity or as much that would be contained in a personal diary. Blogs aren't news sources people, and people who write blogs aren't "reporters" just like Dr. Phil isn't a real doctor and Col. Sanders isn't a real Colonel.
Offline isn't much better, either. When I have to choose between offline and online, I think online is actually better.
Just in case anybody's wondering why Vota hasn't posted anything to explain this... I think he might be a little busy at the moment, since he's getting married today.
Not that that affects any conflict of interest either way, but he is a private citizen who's been running the blog in his spare time for at least a year. Sucks for him that this hits Slashdot today.
For my part, I've been reading olpcnews for a while and I think it's a serious stretch to call it "highly critical" of OLPC. Vota seems to love OLPC in general and has started a forum for Give-One-Get-One donors (like himself) to post hacks, guides, and help for the machines. He's pretty critical of Negroponte, but it seems that that's mostly because he (reasonably) believes that Negroponte's utopian rhetoric harms the project.
I'm not sure I've seen him weigh in strongly either way on Intel, but he's certainly very against seeing Windows on the OLPC, and has posted articles from other authors that are quite critical of Intel. So IMO: pro-Intel bias, maybe. Anti-OLPC bias, no way.
No jokes, please
'Astroturfing' implies an aggressively critical (or really just very negative) portrayal of the object in question, secretly funded by an organisation.
Reading the posts on the website however, there are a large number of posts that are either:
A. very positively inclined towards the OLPC, or,
B. critical of the relative educational merits of the project.
While B seems to be where the beef lies, the problem with that is that the only realistic way Intel could make money from competing with OLPC is to launch their own laptop for the same segment - and one that by all accounts is likely to be even pricier. To occasionally question the relative priority of money is absurd if your goal is to outcompete at a higher price for the same segment and with the same rationale. Furthermore, a very large number of posts are very positive, as below:
December 2007:
"Wow, 150,000 G1G1 donated XO laptops for children in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda. Once they start shipping, it will be an amazing New Year for everyone's favorite XO laptop."
"..And did you start to shake with excitement when you saw the DOOM on XO video?"
"I am very sad to learn that today is Mary Lou Jepsen's last day at One Laptop Per Child... she made the XO the greenest laptop ever made... And Mary Lou Jepsen is Number One to me for more than her technical contributions to OLPC. She also kept the program real, skipping the grandiose statements for getting things done.. She delivered us clock-stopping hot technology without pretense. She just delivered. From all of us who care about OLPC, may we deliver you the best wishes for you and yours in 2008 and beyond."
"If you have an XO laptop, you've seen the XO safety screen. Right about now, I'm thinking about safety in a much larger context. The concept of safety education for children, taught through the XO laptop. Recently a man died in my arms, his blood still warm on may face from an unsuccessful attempt at CPR revival. In a quiet moment afterwards, I thought it smart to add basic first aid information to the OLPC library."
"Will your child be safe carrying around one of the hottest, and scarcest pieces of consumer electronics ever released?"
And so on, and so on. How can a huge number of statements like these be reconciled with the claims that Intel funded an anti-OLPC blog?
Did he do something wrong by not disclosing that he was contracting for Intel? Possibly yes - he did not however do anything to hide the fact either. There are however a large number of claims that he has done something more than that, and 'astroturfed' - the tag to this story is even 'astroturfing', and that implies a hidden negative bias. The people who accuse Intel of funding an anti-OLPC blog without having actually shown that such a strong negative bias for own gain exists deserve to be treated like shits, like people who have done something extremely wrong - like accusing someone of pedophilia without cause. You do not publicly accuse someone of being a hired tool for astroturfing without at least some good evidence, or apologise if you are wrong. If you do you are an ass, and represent evil.
As a real journalist, I can tell you from first-hand experience that in the more credible publications, (a) if a journalist was getting anything of value from a company (money, travel and accommodations, etc.) he would not be allowed to write about that company. (b) If an expert were writing something about his specialty, and he was getting something of value from a company as a consultant or something (which is legitimate), that expert would have to disclose his financial arrangements to the readers.
You can see these disclosures in scientific journals all the time. I just signed a disclosure form myself, in which I affirmed that I had no financial interests in the story I was writing about.
I admit there are a lot of astroturf publications in which an advertiser can buy a story, sometimes written by a PR firm, without disclosure, but I think most people who read those publications realize what's going on and give them the credibility that's appropriate.
I think the biggest concern is, what happens if you get sued for libel? The American libel laws tend to favor journalists who are writing about public figures, which means almost anybody who is in the news. If I make a mistake, as long as I was acting in good faith, they can't get damages against me.
To win a case against a journalist, a public figure has to prove malice. Malice is a specific legal term which is different from the everyday meaning of the term, but one example of malice would be writing defamatory charges against a competitor.
The worst case I can think of offhand was a TV producer for one of the major networks, who left TV and went into public relations. One of her clients was a bank, which was competing with Safra. The ex-producer got the bright idea of faxing unfavorable stories about Safra to newspapers and magazines, most of them in underdeveloped countries. The stories were anti-Semitic and contained false, defamatory statements about Safra.
When she was working in journalism, she was used to keeping her sources confidential, but in public relations, there's no such confidentiality, especially when people get sued for libel, and lawyers start taking depositions. She was so stupid that she didn't realize that her fax machine was sending her own phone number at the top of the fax and could easily be traced back to her. So she and her banking client got caught. (But they would have caught her anyway, because when lawyers sue somebody for libel, they can force the defendants, or anyone connected with the case, to disclose lots of information.)
Safra sued them, and the bank finally settled for several million dollars, which Safra contributed to charity, as I recall.
But the point is, if you're a journalist, you're operating by one set of rules. If you're getting paid by a company, and acting in their interest, you're operating by another set of rules. If you don't disclose your financial interests in the matters you write about, you're skating on thin ice, and opening yourself to libel. You're also dragging your client into liability for big (multi-million dollar) damages. If they sue you, all the facts will come out.
I expect that Intel will decide that they don't want to be associated with Wayan any more.
I work for a major engineering company. My views do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, and I wish it to remain this way.
So, if I personally felt that my employer's project was superior to a competitor's, should I be forced to disclose my employer? What if I felt my employer was following the wrong marketing strategy? Should I disclose then?
The problem, as I see it, is if I disclose my employer, people will associate my opinions with my employer. Or worse, if I am critical of some new technology, will assume that my employer is also critical of said technology. Either situation can damage the reputation and possibly the business prospects of my employer. In light of such, if people knew who employed me, I would be less likely to state my opinion, for fear of the negative repercussions.
Unfortunately, all too many people are willing to discredit others based on their affiliations and associations rather than the strength or weaknesses of their arguments. The problem, as I see it, is that everyone seems to want an unbiased source, rather than dealing with the fact that this is almost impossible in the real world, and rather than evaluating the bias of the debater, we should be debating the merit of his arguments. Sadly, because so many are concerned with the authority and credentials of the presenter, those of us who actually have authority on technical issues are loathe to discuss them in public. I would rather have my arguments evaluated in light of their strengths and weaknesses than whom has chosen to employ me.
And for this reason, I chose not to divulge my employer. I want my arguments evaluated on their merits, without respect for my authority in the field. Too many people have adopted the practice of taking a position in a debate based not upon the merits of the arguments, but rather, the authority of the presenter. I expect people to think; I'm not here to make up your mind for you.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
You mean we should consider that when someone runs an pro or anti-'something' website or blog that the person may have an agenda? Shocking!!
But I do.
In the non-HR version of our employee listings, there are two listings for 'Vota' as a last name--Paul M and Eric J, both ex-employees who left in 2000 and 2001, according to the database. Geekcorps employees, it would seem, are not Intel employees.
Jeesh, go visit right now. The lead article's titled "10,000 Give One Get One XO Laptops Going to OLPC Mongolia". Hardly the stuff of astroturfing.
You really want _negative_? Go visit their forums (same site) and read the posts from the hundreds of "Give One Get One" donors who've been out $423.95 for over two months now and still have no XO laptops to show for it, due to OLPC's incompetency and inability to manage the program. _That's_ negative stuff.
Full disclosure: I'm one of those unfortunate donors.
Depends, especially, whether what they said is independently verifiable, and how much effort you're willing to put into that independent verification. I mean, what are you going to do? Look it up on Snopes?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It's not correct to say that the blog is "independent" and that should be reported. But, there are all sorts of blogs out there that have hidden associations to a business.
I know of one company that is (or is planning on) having a blog that is "independent". They don't believe that what they are doing is wrong. They believe that customers are ignoring what they say about their product as salesmanship or hype. So, they feel that they need to report the information as coming from an independent source so that people listen to it. As far as I can tell, they aren't lying about the data (I don't know that much about their product). But, I don't fee that it's right to promote the blog as independent.
Therein lies the problem with "salesmanship". The bigger the lies, the more people ignore what all salesmen say. Which results in the salesmen having to come up with bigger lies, creating a type of Ouroboros.
Corporatist/plutocrats and government/politicians, are like national/global-clerics and dogmatist/reactionaries.
... then fuck a politician ... vote'em all out, and in only one term.
They are connected (so damn tight) at the hip you can not tell who is the fuckor or the fuckee, but reasonable and compassionate folks know that those fuckors and Fuckees are all fucking US into the poor-house and maybe death.
Anyway, if you cannot fuck a corporatist
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
As usual, TFA is over a year old.
/.
Blizzard didn't produce evidence that Vota was an Intel employee, only
that the Geekcorps organization may or may not have some Intel funding.
Otherwise, usual quality news here at
for a while now. Does anyone realize the linked article is A YEAR OLD? It was written Jan 2, 2007. Subsequently, you can see a little back and forth with the accused (Wayan Vota) in the comments section through Jan 4, 2007. Then no one comments on the damn thing for *AN ENTIRE YEAR*. Then someone makes a comment on Jan 4, 2008, and the accusations fly again. Jan 12, 2008? Slashdot picks it up as if it's news. Problem is, Wayan quit Geekcorps a long time ago, so the article is no longer valid except that at one point in the past, there was an undisclosed conflict interest that no longer exists. At its height, you could say this was a bit shady and Wayan has most certainly continued to be an open critic of OLPC, but come on now, can we at least check the year before posting out-of-date crap like this in the future?
I haven't read olpcnews.com often but I thought it was VERY well written. It took me over 15 minutes to get a nagging feeling that something was very wrong with what I read (and I hadn't heard of the site before, I found it while googling for OLPC; olpcnews.com sounded more appropriate than "laptop.org"). I think it is quite difficult to impart on your readership the feeling that a project is well-meaning but delusional ("trust me, I've worked in the third world" - ffs).
What annoys me personally is to find this anti-OLPC criticism site BEFORE finding the project website; it really doesn't bother me too much that this Wayan person tries to wipe the floor with the OLPC project; in case it's fair criticism it can be used to improve and strengthen the project, and else, well everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
But I think it's really bad that he chose to deck out the website in OLPC-XO green and white and doesn't have a clear disclaimer saying he's working for a direct competitor, because it may confuse some of the readers (say, oh, ministers of education) that this is a more or less independent source of information.
BTW if you made an anti-Microsoft site microsoftnews.com, using Microsoft's logos and colour schemes, run by a RedHat employee, I think you'd get sued by Microsoft for trademark infringement (Mike Rowe Soft, anyone?). But maybe I've seen too many American lawyer drama's.
P.S. it seems microsoftnews.com is still available, I just checked to see if it was a RedHat-run covert operation ;-)
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
name(OLPCnews.com)
employer( if he does work for Intel )
I prefer a space between function name and the open (.
I have a similar problem. Sometimes if find 'jjjkkk' (and other vi commands) in my Word docs.
I also took money from Intel in 2004: they paid my salary for the entire year. Then, when my division was closed, I joined with Nicholas Negroponte to start OLPC. Calling Wayan an Intel employee is like calling me one.
OLPCnews is a great forum for commentary on the OLPC project, they are sometimes critical of OLPC, and like all of us sometimes get things wrong, but they are mostly amazed by and very supportive of OLPC. OLPCnews is certainly helping build the OLPC community that has expanded as a result of OLPC's "Give One, Get One" program.
I think Wayan is doing a terrific job.
- Mary Lou Jepsen
(former Chief Technology Officer of OLPC)
I think it is time for legislation to require a separation of work and home. What you do outside of work should be your own business not up to your employer to decide.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
It looks like the original article was posted on 1/2/07, making this story over a year old already! Why post now Slashdot?
1. I don't believe he's an Intel drone. He's never hidden his GeekCorps credentials. He's simply passionate about the subject of laptops for kids in the developing world - which is what GeekCorps, and OLPC (and, perhaps, even the Classmate) are about.
2. The attacks today belong also in the category of mischief. He's actually getting married today. (No, I wasn't invited, and I'm not miffed. As mentioned: I've never met the man.) But, give the boy a break: kick him when he's in a position to defend himself.
3. OLPCNews, on more than one occasion, has printed drivel. It's made mistakes. It has criticized OLPC both when it needed criticism, and when - frankly - Wayan or other writers simply didn't understand what they were talking about.
But calling OLPCNews an Intel flack is nothing more than playground name-calling. Stop it children! Go back to your rooms.
On another front, Vota said that the "Give 1, Get 1" program's distribution is " totally messed up."
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0200021S1YOK
"Interestingly enough, I don't think OLPC has made Intel an enemy," Vota said. "I think it will essentially go back to May of this year, where we had a very strong, open competitive environment. And to some extent, I think having Intel as a competitor will improve OLPC,"
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/61061.html
He consistently uses what my mother used to call backhanded compliments.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
This strikes me as the exact same brand of stupidity which Microsoft's strong-arming companies into using Windows or IE represented... in that it was completely unnecessary.
In the same way Windows and IE were going to win out eventually on pure superiority of their product, so too all Intel has to do is wait around for the XO craptop to fail. There's absolutely no reason to engage in unethical behavior, because the result you are looking for is ALREADY inevitable.
The XO is doomed, simply because it can't even deliver on the pathetic goals it started out with. By the time Negroponte finally gets his little craptops rolling out, Dell will likely be selling low-end, fully functional Windows machines at the same price point. Now granted, it's probably going to take OLPC about three more years to even roll anything out, so Dell and other manufacturers have a pretty wide time frame to work in.
It's just flogging a dead horse, and it's really sad to see them engage in this kind of "poor winner" kind of behavior. They end up winning, but it just makes them look bad.
he is a republican and took his lessons from the white house?
It was a delayed Y2K error.
"An anonymous reader noted"
"Just more reasons to never believe anything on-line, including me I guess."
Maybe especially you, I guess.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm sure most people working at Intel or Microsoft probably are cool.. Such as the people who probably worked hard for many months making an Intel chip work inside of an Intel version of the XO and having all their work scrapped by a strategical decision at the managment. Or the Microsoft employees who have worked over a year on the XO version of Windows XP. Anyways, I've suggested OLPC to release many more videos on the Internet to let people know what's going on and to let people know the truth while there are all these positive and sometimes negative stories going around on all the big and small media. OLPC is a huge hope for many people following this industry and in my opinion there should be a bit more blogging and video-blogging going on from within, more then http://planet.laptop.org/ I do what I can as an independent fan at http://olpc.tv/
Such a great oppotunity to bash Intel and I see no posts modded funny. Is this really Slashdot?
Is there a law that requires it? If not, quit whining. Shouldn't believe anything you read anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I am a frequent reader of the OLPC News site and it seems to me that Wayan Vota loves the OLPC project, loves the XO hardware, and is NOT some Intel-funded slimeball whose purpose is to disparage the OLPC project. What is Wayan's biggest disagreement with Mr. Negroponte? He thinks that kids need more help to learn how to use their laptops than is envisoned by Mr. Negroponte. So do I! My first thought upon running the XO software was, "Where's the freakin' F1 key or the question-mark help icon?" Do I need to trawl the OLPC Wiki for the most basic details about how the software works? Guess so. Anyway, this has to the be the most unfair sliming that I have ever seen in the five plus years that I have been reading Slashdot articles. It's especially got to hurt coming on his wedding day.
2006: Wayan registers olpctalks.com. Wayback shows it reporting unbiased OLPC news.
Wayan registers olpcnews.com in Aug 2007
Wayan quits Geekcorps in Sept 2007 to start a new job as "editor of the OLPCNews blog"
His new site is now a OLPC bad news site. WTF? Executive to blog editor. Yeah. Right.
Perhaps the truth is spreading.
I write of OLPC News. I am not Wayan Vota, but have known him form some months now as we exchange constant emails about subjects. This is a case of real bad reporting on slashdot.
1- Wayan Vota is NOT an 'Intel Employee'. Ok, in some point his company did business with intel, but to call him a paid blogger by intel is a long conspiracy stride by an uninformed net echochamber. He is getting married today, and I think this is not the wedding gift he was expecting.
2 - OLPCnews is not "anti-olpc" or "pro-intel". You have clearly never read o line of that blog. Some headlines:
3 - there is no number 3. Unfortunatley, althought I write for the blog in question my low"Classmate PC: Intel's Two Hour-Long Joke"
"Intel Can't Take the (Low) Heat & Power of OLPC XO"
"Halloween Horror Story: Nigeria Buys Windows XP Classmates"
I challenge anyone to find a post truly complimenting Intel for it's classmate. There are posts criticizing OLPC, but mainly criticizing some negroponte's statements, some of the foundations failures or something that was left unaswered, after all we are an independent news source. But never a post was written against the fundamental idea of one laptop per child and most posts on the XO are clearly praising it.
Alexandre van de sande
blog.wanderingabout.com
Here are some photos of the OLPC next to a Dell D610 at LinuxWorld last year. Very small! http://www.flickr.com/photos/barl0w/1101266148/
Here are some photos of the Asus Eee PC next to a Dell XPS M1330 from CES last week: http://flickr.com/photos/barl0w/2180093088/
Just because occasionally one of those is found out doesn't mean they aren't working. For every one that's found out, there may be many more that aren't found out.
And don't forget astroturfing in posts. And where do you draw the line anyway? I'm pretty sure that Microsoft and Apple employees, for example, post on Slashdot, say bad things about Linux, and say good things about their own company's products. Is that astroturfing or merely corporate group-think?
To be honest I haven't read olpcnews a lot, so I just now looked at a few december 2007 articles to see if I was wrongfully criticizing him (and I was, from looking at the december 2007 articles :-)).
Then I looked at a january 2007 article: I quote:
don't you agree that the "spin" on this story is unnecessarily negative? Note that he doesn't say anything bad about the logo, somebody else did and he's just reporting it.
Personally, your logo reminded me of the highly minimalistic dutch cartoon rabbit Nijntje and not of the Jolly Roger flag (it's the whiskers).
Some more:
January 2007, OLPC and youth gangs quote:
(I didn't understand the problem -- surely there are good things to be learned as well as bad things from the global community?)
Of course the hilarious july 2007 Nigerian porn story; funny story but please notice the use of the English:
This paints the writer as an objective, trustworthy, even fatherly advisor. This kind of usage of English makes my skin crawl because he managed to magic away the word "but" by starting the sentence with "while", see: "I've discounted the ... fears of others ... [but] I haven't spoken about ... natural curiosity of children". By the way, I agree completely with his conclusion:
And about your screen: (I admit i'm cherry-picking now)
june 2006 Ethan Zuckerman review quote:
I guess you must have greatly impressed him then, by actually realizing it :-)
Somewhere (in 2006?) the tone of the articles changed.
This is the last one, very positive: april 2
This is ridiculous. Anybody who reads his blog knows that he is a fan of OLPC and dearly wants it to succeed.
If not, then even if your analysis is correct, any possibility of you having said otherwise doesn't exist. That's bias. Even though the bias never had a chance to affect your message.
As an employee, you will be unable to print some stuff about your employers product because of NDA and agreements, whereas if you had no ties yet found out these things anyway, you could. And that's bias too.
Have you thought about working in the white house? You would be PERFECT. Deny everything!
Man... all this has done for me is totally discredit slashdot.
Let's see the charges against him --
failure to disclose -- he used to work for a nonprofit that had ties to a company that is anti-OLPC
Um..failure to disclose means you have something to disclose. I'm not seeing it.
1) Until like last week, intel was on OLPC's board
2) he no longer works for the non-profit in question
uhhh.... not getting the issue
I blog about olpc. Should I check the corporate partners of every place I've ever worked for?
2) google ads
um.. I see all sorts of bizarre "contextual" google ads. I haven't seen any negative ones that point to olpc yet, but I'm sure google has them. Just as when I talk about being a G1G1 donor, I get ads for sperm donation. gonna have to prove some malice here.
3) the site is anti-olpc
OLPCnews is a great, independent source for people who love their XOs. For me, as a donor, his site has helped me find a community to help navigate my way around the XO -- or I should say, his XO, because he was so tired of all the donors whining about thier lack of XOs that he loaned one out to whoever won a contest -- which was me! Sight unseen. I could have ebayed his XO by now. Sounds like corporate bastard to me!!!!
He's a really enthusiastic member of the community who calls things like he sees them.
Bless the people at OLPC, but they are too swamped right now to help me install Opera. They are worried about their target audience, kids in developing nations, as they should be. OLPCnews has provided the support that G1G1 users need to make their Xos work. So if he's an agenct of intel, he's doing a piss poor job.
What concerns me most is how this sort of thing happens over and over. This is bs, but small in the scheme of things. This sort of innuendo and half truth is lately becoming really the way we do business in the U.S. We think all accusations are equal without looking into them. It's the Crossfire mode of information -- we'll give side one and side two equal time to shout things at each other, because they must be equally valid. People get disgusted, decide they can't believe either one, when all it takes is a teeny bit of research to make up your own mind. Instead, we act like all information is equally true and there is no way to verify any of it.
It scares me.
Geeks should know better. There's lots of ways to verify things. Start by taking a good look at the olpcnews site, especially the forms.
As a regular reader of OLPCnews, I'm going to second Alexander van de Sande on calling "Shenanigans" and/or "Bullshit" on this Slashdot article.
Thanks for setting folks straight.
More likely than not, this has funding by Intel and MS.
MS, sure, but Intel?
OLPC is Linux. It'll probably never be Microsoft.
OLPC is currently AMD Geode. If Intel delivers a superior solution, I see no reason they couldn't use that.
Why would Intel sabotage its potential future relationships? There's something missing here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I call bullshit on this one. As everyone who knows me or has read what I post on the Internet, they can all say I am in nobody's camp except of my own f-cking ego. I have challenged Wayan and even Negroponte on their opinions about the OLPC. If anything I find them to be naive as well as a little miopic to what the OLPC can do...hardly a shill for Intel.
But to respond to the point of the poster above me, the reverse is true too. How many times will one of us be slandered or ridiculed because of an idiot posting something incredibly wrong or slanderous about us but that people cannot help but add to the confusion by automatically believing that if it is on teh Intarweb, it must be true.