The Tragedy of Bedope, Segfault, and User Friendly

As the legendary Julian Seban wrote in his classic, "Eating the Ether: Seeing the Vibes from Cyberspace," the Millenium would see a massive counterattack on the free nation of Cyberspace. The closing of Bedope, User Friendly, and to a much lesser extent Segfault, mark an ugly passage in the history of the Internet. This is a geek tragedy, a black day for nerds in every corner of the world. Heads up. This is stuff that matters. We could be next.

You won't see it reported on the evening news or on the front pages of newspapers but three of the Net's most important sites -- UserFriendly, Segfault and Bedope, were shut down today after a series of lawsuits by the same people who sponsored and passed the Communications Decency Act. Protests in Washington, New York city, and Toledo, Ohio were held spontaneously this morning but were, of course ignored by the media.

I know what most of you thoughtful kick-ass programmers are thinking: "What the fuck is this shit he's writing about now? How much more can we stand?"

But as you can see from the site, it's not just me. Bedope changed Net history, and was one of the sites that led directly to the spread of the open source and free software movements. Along with FidoNet e-mail, it challenged powerful computing companies in a way that had never occurred before.Bedope wasn't just a website, it was a movement, an inspiration and a gathering spot for kick-ass geek programmers from all over the world. This shut down shouldn't be allowed to stand. As to UserFriendly, one of the Web's bravest and most powerful voices has been shut down. Because it was a biting comic strip, and not useful information about things like writing manual pages with groff, UserFriendly didn't, of course, belong on Slashdot, and wasn't permitted here. Not macho enough. But still, nobody wants to see them get whacked. This stuff happens all the time, off-line, but not online. This cute little site was one of the first to push for programming with gcc, in the x2-CCC format. And then the C++++complier, familiar to all of you.

As to Segfault, it often sucked --actually, it always sucked -- but since when does that matter? That doesn't mean it doesn't have the right to operate.

We have to help these people out. If you have any class or pride as a geek, you'll for your own Bedope/Segfault/UserFriendly support group. But make sure to customize the C-Kermit first. (example: # cp/usr/local/lib/kermit/ckermod.ini~/mykermrc. You know what I mean. As the legendary cyber-guru Julian Seban said in his Nine Laws of the Net: "Bite me. Then Bite Me Harder."

jonkatz@Slashdot.org

Comments

Who?

[bobalu]

same people who sponsored and passed the Communications Decency Act.

Who?

What the hell is wrong with you people?!

[MrgnPhnx]

I know y'all don't like Katz, but he's RIGHT. But here you are, making fun of him, or acting like this is an April Fools' joke. This is SERIOUS.

I'm not generally a violent person, but when I saw UF gone last night, I about turned cracker, had I known who this corporation was. I loved reading that every day, after I discovered it late last year. And Illiad made fun of *everything*. Microsoft, Linux, ?BSD, Intel, Star Wars, ISPs in general. Red Dwarf just this week. And it's all gone. Archives and everything. The web is smaller today.

Les the Book

April Fools!

[BiGGO]

They fooled you all.


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Attaboy!

[slayer99]

I don't believe that the ./UFBD community can afford to let this happen. (Assuming it's not an April Fools prank :).

If a large corporation thinks that any of these sites can damage them then perhaps they should have concentrated on getting their reputation into a state where we support them instead of criticising them. It costs them less time, money and effort simply to reach for their lawyers when someone points a finger and says "you suck!" - I don't think that this is an acceptable situation.

And, yes, Segfault suck. They wouldn't publish my "Rage Against The Microsoft" soundbite. :)

Not Funny

[tomreagan]

This is just not fucking funny. Yeah, you read the article, you realize that it has all been a prank, and the whole stupid thing was a joke from the beginning. But this was something that really does happen and we really do take seriusly. It's one thing to have an outrageous joke, but when you allude to "threatening letters" and then shut your site, people get really pissed. This is just like Orson Welles and the invasion from Mars. People take it seriously.

Also, if you're going to have a joke, at least make it funny, because the writing sucked. Satire is supposed to epitomize hyperbole and go way beyond reason. Jonathan Swifte's "A Modest Proposal", which is about eating babies is funny, but just a couple of cheesy, somewhat obvious jokes is not.

Bad idea + Bad execution + Bad topic == Bad joke.

Other than that, slashdot is great. Thanks, Rob.

Not meant to be funny

[BeanThere]

April Fools "jokes" aren't necessarily meant to be funny. If they were obviously parodies, then people wouldn't be fooled, would they? The idea is to try trick gullible people, not to write a parody. So the articles are supposed to be "almost believable".

So only geek sites are important?

[blowdart]

So why should we be worried about just geek sites? Isn't that either a) short sighted or b) looking out for your own ass?

Thats not the most productive of attitudes, surely you (thats you Americans, we Brits don't have any rights to free speech believe it or not) should be worried about *any* type of net censorship, if it's by big business, the $ceintologists or the government. They're all equally unacceptable, but you only raise a fuss when sites you like get canned.

Not good enough folks, it's a case of I only complain when it affects me.

So if you're going to complain about censorship, don't limit yourself like this, it only does the geek reputation harm.