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ABCNews GNOME Acticle
dumptruck
was the first of many to send us this ABC News article
on The GNOME Project.
Features a picture of Miguel, and a lot of people have noted
that there are an abnormal number of mistakes in it.
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These are from the last 4 days or so.
e 1b.htm
p ?ArticleID=4578
2 911,00.html
http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/may/0503/sid
http://www.varbusiness.com/news/breakingnews.as
http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/news/0,4538,225
Now, let's wait and see how many seconds it takes for this post to go -1
As a few others have stated, one has to keep in mind that these articles are written for the layperson that may have an eye on what the latest 'spin' is in this 'new linux thing' (direct quote heard recently from a friend with a rather large tech stock portfolio when he heard me mention the OS on my laptop). Ever try to explain what linux, X, and the difference between a desktop environment and a basic GUI is to an everyday Mac or Windows user? Most people just have a hollow stare, even when they really want to understand.
;-). Oh yeah, my e-mail and domain are no longer active.
The point made about the authors' lack of knowledge as pertaining to current linux development can possibly be due to the fact that anyone with a real thorough working knowledge is most likely working in the computer field and not a columnist. What we (linuxers) may need is some sort of a centralized press consortium to release more accurate announcements at a central location. Possibly yet another mailing list where the releases can be hashed out for detail and accuracy before their public release. If such a group were formed, wouldn't it be wise to have representatives of the 'major' projects such as KDE, GNOME, X-Free, and the kernel developers as examples?
Due to the fact that most of the development is done on such a large scale with so many participants, the logistics of disseminating accurate updates are a bit complex. I think that some sort of centralized information source would be a great asset and fix many of these articles. I don't mean a help page for active linuxers with details that will go over the heads of the mainstream computer public, there's a ton of those. What we may need is a laypersons guide to linux. Quite frankly wording descriptions will be an interesting task.
Realize that when someone such as Caldera or Redhat makes a press statement that they indeed have a business interest at stake, and rightly and fairly so, the same for the GNOME or KDE developers, although they don't have profit in mind of course. Anyone representing these groups will obviously only include pertinent information to their efforts. What is needed is a sort of neutral ground, community based information source for the general public.
I appologize if this is a bit of a ramble, be glad I'm not a columnist