Slashdot Mirror
Mindcraft Posts Linux Hate Mail
drwiii wrote in to tell us
that Mindcraft has posted a few choice responses
by Linux zealots. Quite offensive- don't read it you're pure of
heart. <SERMON> I get CC'd on this stuff a lot so I knoW
that these are not only real, but they are only scratching
the surface of the crap that lands in the INBOX of anyone on
the Internet who breaths anything that isn't glowing about Linux.
And I'm embarassed by it. Please remember that how you say something is often
more important than what you say. But in messages like
these, what you said was childish and offensive, and you make us all look like raving loonies.
This doesn't hurt Microsoft or help advance Linux-- in fact
it does quite the opposite. Please Please Please read
the Linux Advocacy HOWTO.
Bad advocacy killed OS/2, The Amiga, and still threatens the Mac-
don't let this happen to Linux.
</SERMON>
Rationality is far rarer than emotion.
The masses... act like masses, with the sanest voices of reason being drowned out. It is far easier to hurl vitriol and bombast than it is to carefully craft a measured, thoughtful response; even more so, when such rational answers seemingly lose themselves in the Abyss as the recipients hold aloft the most burning messages as symbols for all, and wash their hands of the matter. This is especially true when the recipient has a particular interest in cultivating immaturity and spite, and bearing those missives as testament to the apparent idiocy of the whole.
The capacity for anger is within us all. When messaging is so accessible, and the temple doors thrown open forever, the shouts may drown out the whispers -- for who gets more attention?
Thank you for your time.
I don't know what's more juvenile. The people who wrote the hate-mail or the "professional" benchmarking organization who put a link to it on /Default.htm for potential customers to follow.
yes..PC Mag did. Upside : Linux proven 33% faster than NT when serving to NT clients using Samba.
Downside : Apache proved significantly slower than IIS when serving static content on web pages. They didnt test either the new kernel httpd implementation or a faster server than apache. Would have been interesting to see results for that.
Yes, it's irresponsible for people to act like this, esp. about something they care about. I don't subscribe to their actions and certainly do not promote their actions as appropriate. As a member of the Linux community, I think it is easily said that we are sorry that this happens.
But we all know that is something that is almost status quo here on the Internet; it happens, it's not only the Linux crowd, and while wrong, I certainly am not stupid enough to think the entire community is made up of zealots. I am not saying that since it is prevalent that it's okay, I'm saying it's expected.
Rather, the fact that Mindcraft is posting these letters is showing me something about them. They know as well as anybody the price paid in the computer industry. It's a "cost", an issue, of publishing and dealing on the Internet.
The fact that they not only cannot handle this, but with their well-known anti-Linux sentiments, this is indeed a return fire for them. We challange Mindcraft's integrity professionally and financially (you think anyone else is going to look at Mindcraft's results as impartial? No, they are going to say "Gee, it's Mindcraft, they can't run a test right"), so it's fighting back.
What I'm interested in is the question: Did they handle this *entire* Linux outrage appropriately? No, they've returned fire to the linux programmers sent during the 2nd run of their benchmarks. Are they justified in their posting of these hostile emails? Maybe, because of the acrimoniousness and childishness of the email. But it shows that they professionally cannot hold their own on this issue. Publishing email, even hostile, aggressive email sent to you, at least to me, is a no no. In fact, it lends more credibility to the notion that they are striking out against the Linux community instead of waiting for their questioned credibility to be potentially validated at the 2nd, more fair(?) run.
Mindcraft has neither given view or context of these emails. Meaning, they have not requested they these things stop. They simply posted them, trying to make a case of neutrality by not giving an opinion, but at the same time saying something by not giving their request or viewpoint. They know what they are doing. They know how it looks.
I would have expected better from the Linux community. But I know that is difficult given the nature of *any* community, Internet or not. To Mindcraft, I expected them to act professionally, not via retribution. Like trying to get fair benchmarks, that is apparantly too much to ask for.
Microsoft's deathgrip on preloads killed OS/2. Blaming it on the victims may be a popular pasttime in the tres duh press, presumably because so many there were/are fully vested in the Windows world, but it is completely wrong. Bad advocacy did not kill OS/2. Before it died, it was outselling Windows at retail. It would have outsold Windows on preloads, if it could have gotten itself preloaded. But it couldn't.
That is how MS maintains its monopoly, by shutting out competition. That is a ceiling that is still in place, by the way, and one that Linux will be bumping up against soon.
Joe Barr
The Dweebspeak Primer
This story talks about trying to avoid people
having a negative impression of Linux users,
but I think its already too late.
The reality is, Slashdot users, by and large,
are much too quick to bash anyone who criticizes Linux, constantly spread FUD and bash MS, and
IMHO, display far less intelligence than
they supposedly have.
There is near constant noise on this site against other platforms, against anyone not technologically oriented (business men, sales people, marketing, management), constantly bashing of anyone who doesn't agree with the GPL, etc.
Linux is just an operating system, it is not the second coming, it is not a way of life, and it's not going to change the world. As soon as realize that there is more to the world than operating systems and computers, you will be alot better off.
I'm surprised that Mindcraft has posted electronic mail in what appears to me to be an obvious violation of the authors' copyrights (well, maybe I'm not that surprised). If it were my letters being plastered for all to see you can bet I'd contact my lawyer - an outfit like that ought to be able to pay a tidy sum...
Use newsgroups instead. That way, we can determine the voracity of your statements instead of your memory.
You describe a different picture than I've ever seen, I don't believe you.
IMHO reposting a private email in a public forum without the prior permission of the writer is at least very.. very inethical.. and it's against the netiquete..
Here, in Hungary, it is also illegal.
Someone doing this could face some really hard time in the court..
But even if it legal (probably is) it clerly describes how pathetic this Mindcraft atack against the Linux community is..
They are attacking 10M+ people and their only proof is 10 flaming emails.
I really don't think this hurts us.. Any IQ 70+ man clearly see throught... It hurts MS much more, if the readers beleive that there is a connection between MS and Mindcraft.. and most of the people beleive this.
If anything is going to hurt Linux the most it is the *perceived* image of its users. The way so many of its users act on the net automatically establishes the connection of linux_user = immature, loud mouthed, offensive geek.
Perhaps a good analogy is the low-rider phenomenon. When one sees a pimped out low rider with tiny wheel crusising down the street, one usually assume that the driver is a violent, machismoistic, minority, socially unacceptable gangbanger.
Think about it, that stereotype is nearly universal and guarenteed that it will impossible to shake.
Do we want Linux to be the "low rider" of the computing world?
Those hate mails are certainly immature and should not have been sent. However it is quite unprofessional for Mindcraft to post these, as if they are trying to insinuate that this is the norm in the Linux community. Most of us do not send things like this, but getting flamed by idiots is part of life on the Internet, and Mindcraft is going to have to learn to deal. Mindcraft, your constant raving about the hate mail you've received gets no sympathy from me at all. Please try to act professional.
It seems the writers have little experience
with the fact that e-mail, especially a
strongly worded one, can just go off and
start living a life of its own.
This guy is right on the money with this statement. If you are going to send email to somebody with a traceable account (or post in usenet for that matter) don't say things you normally would not in public, or put in writing. The internet is a public forum, and many people don't realise this.
I spoke to a person in human resources who told me about a conference that she went to. One of the talks was on hiring senior level people. In the talk it was suggested that if the position was one of serious importance that the candidate was being considered for, it might be a wise idea to do a internet and usenet search for possible webpages, discussions, postings, and emails the person may have written.
Apparently they are already using this strategy in two other areas: for service companies looking to hire people to contract out, and for companies looking to hire contractors.
Almost all states do not require the keeping of information that pertains to why people weren't hired. This screening pratice apparently does not violate any known laws because there is currently no legal preceedence in this case. Plus it can be dismissed as the employer did not hire the person based on their views, but rather their communications skills (e.g. instead of "I tend to disagree with your viewpoint" the candidate wrote "FUCK OFF WHORE SEMIN DEAMON").
DO you think they would post any of the intelligent comebacks? no, they post only the ones that make people look stupid.
Linux crashed? Care to be a little more specific? The only "panic" or "oops" I've seen since 1.3 has been because of dying hardware... Following links to your page, it seems as if you're an active developer... as such you should know that just saying "it doesn't work" isn't good enough...
;)
In short: What was your system doing, how were you doing it, and what do you think the problem might be?
These three things could help you keep your systems solid...
As for cyrix...
>I'm curious what percentage of Linux users are
>raving loonies. 30%? 40%? What fires them up so
>much? Perhaps they are mostly adolescent brutes?
>In any case, all the hype about Linux I see in
>SlanderLot.org is most likely no good for Linux.
Are you for real? Hahahahahahahha... This is way too funny... Here we are, in the middle of a post about how worthless OS wars are, and how flames and name calling only degrades the users OS, and someone posts a message calling Linux users "raving loonies".
I _really_ hope that this post was made in jest, although the cynic in me tells me that the poster couldn't see the irony in his post...
_sigh_
Computer users are pretty much representative of the population. We have our geeks and nerds, our business execs, our kiddies, our morons, our jerks, and our loud mouth bigots. These people can use whatever operating system them want... which means that _every_ OS has jerks and morons using it.. it also means that every OS has intelligent users.
Dear Sirs and Madams:
I apologize for the unprofessional behavior of some Linux community members. I'm quite certain you realize that anytime you gather 5 or 10 million people together in something, there will be those who will be professional, and there will be those that due to a lapse in judgement write the things that you've posted to your linux net rage webpage. I hope you realize that while there was much anger due to many things regarding your tests, and I'm certain you can understand it whether or not you agree with it, and you're displaying the down side of constructive criticism of something that people care about.
I'm quite certain that if I criticized anything on the internet, with or without facts to defend my position, I'd end up with a similar looking Inbox. It's a sad reality that the internet makes dissemination of information and opinions from anybody, to anybody, quick and easy. Sometimes it makes it so fast and easy, that there isn't sufficient thought involved. I'm not defending the actions of those who submitted those particular comments to you, but I hope you can understand that it isn't everyone.
I hope you understand that while the majority of the Linux community has felt the benchmarks to be biased, unfair and generally irrelevant, that most of our leaders chose to write intelligent criticisms of the benchmark, just as you wrote a criticism of Linux with respect to NT, simply and professionally. Name-calling and the use of profanity is as unjustified as it is pointless. I'd like to apologize on behalf of the authors of the messages you are displaying and also on behalf of the authors of the inflammatory messages which surely you received but did not publicize.
I sincerely hope that you'll reconsider your decision to publicize those particular examples of net.abuse. I think it's probably best for the reputations of the Mindcraft corporation and the Linux community, both, to not display what we all know is one of the saddest realities of the net.
Sincerely,
Kevin Way
Reading some umm... texts often makes me ashamed of being a human, yet an alternative of becoming a corpse still isn't bright enough for me to willingly switch to it. The same applies to operating systems.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'm afraid I have to disagree. It is my understanding that emails, like any other form of correspondece, are copyrighted material even if the author does not explicetly include a copyright notice. You may not copy and/or distribute the email without the author's permission.
In practice, this is not always done, but that's not the point.
-- Erv Walter
Absolutely. It was shocking to see that remark to the effect that 'bad advocacy killed OS/2': you'd think Slashdot would be better informed about the Microsoft antitrust case.
Anybody with a strong interest in seeing Microsoft continue to expand and destroy until there aren't any other choices at all, would of course be strongly in favor of blaming bad advocacy. It sounds sort of plausible, it allows a useful fiction that individual consumers control the industry and can make or break distribution channels merely by their whims, and it's a useful smokescreen to cover up the fact that a software trust has been putting the screws to everybody it can, for at least ten years. If you truly believe that bad advocacy killed OS/2, then it's a very easy step to conclude that the thing to do is practice only _good_ advocacy, and trust that niceness and reasonable dialogue will persuade manufacturers who are being presented with ultimatums of "enough with this Linux now that the trial's over, otherwise we will multiply your license fees by 10 times and lower your worst competitor's by 10 percent just to break you".
If you really believe that good advocacy and civil polite discourse will persuade key distribution channels to permit the existence of Linux when faced with penalties of that scale, then please ask Tinkerbell to sprinkle some fairy dust on the linux kernel to make it faster, as you might as well believe in her too.
We'll be lucky if they don't have open-source-derived software declared an obscenity to be blocked from network transmission, if we seriously go around acting like good advocacy will be enough. We are at war. Of course Mindcraft lied. They're at war too- just on the other side. If they _did_ allow us to pay them to slant the other way, they'd never see work from MS or any commercial vendor again. They have to pick their side and stay with it, and they will- it's too late to stop now.
Foul language and brutal accusations of treachery are not _unwarranted_, they are just totally _unhelpful_. Often such outbursts aren't worth the temporary feelings of relief and self-righteousness they bring. Get used to the idea of not doing this: it's not because such attacks are _unfair_, no! The point is, this is too serious for mucking around like that! It's no joke. _Legislation_ is being railroaded through every which way to support the Microsoft trust in particular, and to render proprietary software free of any responsibility in general. If the government antitrust case doesn't end in radical adjustments, then what? I'll tell you what: cursing and reviling people is going to seem damned inadequate at that point. It won't help anymore, when your ISP goes under/is bought out/develops its IT committment to standardize fully on MS/IP or whatever might be waiting out there- it is not unthinkable that the world's communication infrastructure could end up collectively owned by various trusts with no tolerance anymore for anything but the technological mainstream. Linux will not be _outlawed_, necessarily- but you'll have to call up BBSes again, because the Net will be off limits- and reverse engineering the protocols will mean jail time, and getting caught communicating will prove guilt. There are situations where you would be _assigned_ a computer just in order to pay taxes and be a citizen- given enough economizing and reduction of cost and given continued emphasis on standardisation, the 'citizen's PC' is not unthinkable. You'd better believe tampering with it would be against the law.
Welcome to '2004'. This screed has been in the true spirit of Orwell's '1984': a desperate attempt to paint things _so_ black that reality could not rival it. If you think it's incomprehensibly outrageous, consider this: if I'd made it less vitriolic, reality would have already outstripped it. We're living amid the first virtual war, and few people can comprehend it as yet: by the time the regular person finds that their existence is centrally monitored and entirely regulated through a private company in Redmond, by the time that company, having nothing left to conquer, moves in on government itself (who saw the report on the Microsoft 'game' in New York, of hunting terrorists? WHY are Microsofties _training_ as _cops_? All in good fun, never mind all that equipment...) then it will be too late for anything but _physical_ war. And that should not have to happen...
Me, I don't write to people like Mindcraft. I wouldn't know what to say to them. They don't know their danger. People don't understand the nature of power- the instant it regroups and begins building under a new guise, it's the fable of the Blind Men and the Elephant again- it's a treetrunk! it's a snake! it's a wall!
It is power. Raw power on a scale beyond all third-world countries and beginning to be beyond some of the big-leaguers. And because they're not training troops (and _why_ were Microsoft managers 'hunting terrorists' with thousands of dollars' worth of technical support in New York City? Are they really satisfied with being a shoddy merchant anymore? WHY are they rehearsing such cop-games, what's putting it in their heads to recreate in such a manner?), people want to behave like they're the same entity that was running around in Bellevue, Washington, coding 'Typing Tutor'.
People who flip out at stuff like the Mindcraft reports are only reacting instinctively to something they don't properly understand- a quiet but pervasive shifting of power all over the world. Information is power. Control of information is serious power. It's rather childish to behave like old men sitting around in judge's robes and senators' suits are still the top of the totem pole, still the authority figure. They are not what they used to be- they don't move fast enough- sooner or later, they've got to go.
This doesn't have to be the future, but placing a trusting childlike faith in the power of the individual and the charm of civilized advocacy is not a helpful move. We're at war: maybe a new kind of war, but a war. We already know many of the terms- Microsoft, for one, has leaked some of their plans (such as the subversion of common standards, something which would have been noticed anyway). I'm only saying that it would be out of character for them to stop there, or to think small.
Anybody wishing to believe that Microsoft (or anyone in their singular position) shows respect for limits, or thinks small and humble, may go on doing so all they wish, but are implored to not weary wiser people with their inexplicable beliefs.
No no no....
Mindcraft: "Sir, you've attacked my integrity"
The World: "Yes."
Exactly. No matter how much CmdrTaco begs and screams, flames will not stop. I run some little fan website for a music group, and even I get flames along the lines of "your sight sux d00d, u need to use fraimes."
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Basically if you want the general public to read your message you have to post something worth reading.
No, you just have to post something that the moderators think is worth reading.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
One: They are still trying to repair their damaged reputation at the expense of the community. (In my opinion, they should publish an objective and unbiased report next time.)
Two: There are a few zealots out there! If someone insulted your mother or girlfriend like Mindcraft insulted Linux (by not even consulting members of the community the way they consulted Microsoft on the test) you would get mad too! Possibly even pounding the living daylights out of the offender!
Maybe... we should resort to carefully researched and worded FUD like Microsoft is doing? Or, should we speak our honest minds? We SHOULD practice diplomacy and prove our mettle - yes. But, these reposted emails do underscore the powerful objections that many in the community felt when the Mindcraft findings were posted.
I would have to say that instead of posting hate mail from a few choice individuals, in an attempt to discredit the whole Linux community (and probably at the behest of Microsoft for propoganda purposes), Mindcraft should apologise for not properly consulting the community on the tests and ultimately gain our respect and support.
After all, we are the generation of technicians and programmers they may hope to do business with in the future.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Posted by _DogShu_:
.01% of the linux community, and Mindcraft is just trying to characterize the entire linux community as a bunch of 13 year olds who should wash their mouths out.
It seems to me that Mindcraft posting the rantings of 10 people is just childish as the people who originally sent them the messages.
I realize they probably got 1000 more just like them, but that isn't even
The only difference is they are "talking shit" in a public forum, and trying to characterize all Linux users in this forum, and characterizing these users to the whole world. The difference is they are "talking shit" behind our backs.
Posted by generic kewl tech reference:
Some time ago, when the online service Prodigy was trendy, I was one of the moderators of some of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons groups. I bring this up because occasionally one of those concerned, well-meaning folks who think all role playing games are the work of Satan would post a message to that effect, collect the one or two hundred "Die you fskng Nazi! Choatic Evil ROOOOLLLLLZZZ!!!" responses, then post them on the religious boards as evidence that role-playing games are the work of Satan.
Whether the tests were fair, and in fact the relative worth of NT vs. Linux is irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. The point, as many people have pointed out, is that people will say stupid, childish things. There is no way to stop them, and people who disagree will use said stupid, childish things to their advantage.
Now that I'm through pointing out the obvious, what about starting a "You think THAT'S bad, look at what we get" page? Well, there is the point that it would be stooping to the same level. Is that a bad thing? Perhaps if you posted a website of the hate email, and invited people to contribute the trash that they get on any subject. Impartially mocking all these lamers may do a better job of discrediting them than letting this devolve into yet another OS religious jihad.
Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:
Subject: "Net Rage" as spin control
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 13:51:33 -0400
From: David Mertz
Reply-To: mertz@gnosis.cx
To: sales@mindcraft.com, info@mindcraft.com
It really is disappointing how craven Mindcraft has been in its own
defense. I followed some of the press about Mindcraft's initial rather
biased "benchmark" of WinNT and Linux, including the various retests and
the like. "Lies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarks" -- as they say.
At a minimum, it seems clear to any dispassioned observer that Mindcraft
took money from Microsoft for the purpose of producing results that case
Microsoft in a good light. Lots of selection bias went into choosing a
test environement; and lots of sneaky tuning (or de-tuning) was done on
compared machines to produce the desired results. Further, Mindcraft
was not very upfront about what was going on, especially initially. It
looks a lot like the kind of polls that politicians and political
interest groups use to "prove" their desired conclusions.
All that said, I never actually bothered to do anything besides read
about the ongoing "benchmarks", and maybe mention the issue to a few
acquaintances. But then I happened to encounter the newest agit-prop,
which seems far more deceptive even than all the initial tests were.
Essentially, Mindcraft now seems intent on slandering the Linux
community (of which I am not really a member, beyond very peripherally,
as it happens).
By posting a prominent link on its home page titled "Net Rage",
Mindcraft is essentially trying to mischaracterize the whole community
of Linux users/developers by implicitly claiming they are all ill-spoken
spewers of explitives, and cannot think or argue clearly. I also think
you have probably directly misappropriated the letters of those folks
you posted. It is hardly clear that an email grants publication
permission.
In any event, I am quite certain that you received many thousands of
polite, curteous rebuts to your published benchmarks. Many of these
almost certainly contained detailed and well-thought technical
critiques. Rather than make any of those available, you have picked
though the whole batch to find the half-dozen respondents who got
carried away and swore. This is extremely dishonest; and is insulting
to reasoned discourse.
I also believe that the newest propoganda, like the intitial benchmarks,
are going to come back to bite Mindcraft. Deception is a lot harder to
maintain than honesty... and yet again, this will not be hard for most
people to discern.
Yours, Lulu...
it would also let them see just how stable their boxes are under the /. effect.
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
At first I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Mindcraft were being honest and gave it a real try. I was assuming that there was some honest reason that their test disagreed with every bit of anecdotal evidence out there.
But this latest tactic of theirs proves me wrong. They *are* biased shills and this proves it. You don't take a community as large as the linux community and act like 12 e-mail messages represents the whole. That's bigoted bullshit on their part.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
As a side not I find it disturbing that Linus thinks it is ok for people to write off color source code.
I'm not going to reply to the rest, I think being rude to somene else should qualify you for the highest level of scrutiny availiable.
But, why are people getting so angry about profanity in the source code? Linus and hte other kernel hackers have no one to report to with this code than themselves, and people really need to get it together and realize that perhaps the writers don't find profanity profane, or just don't care.
Be professional and drop the angry-zit-faced-teenage-hacker image!!!
Define professional. I think what they do on a daily basis is more than professional, they work after hours, keep a good schedule, and make sure they meet their deadlines. How many "professionals" can you say do that?
-Erik-
These responses, while regrettable, were entirely predictable. Mindcraft is putting them on display as a brush with which to tar *all* criticism they've received, and to draw attention away from their own clearly biased methodology.
They told at least one direct lie in that report. It's important we keep the real villans in perspective, since I'm sure all villans receive immature flames as well as well reasoned criticisms and it should never be a reason to dismiss the points of their better critics or to let them off the hook.
--
Employ me! Unix,Linux,crypto/security,Perl,C/C++,distance work. Edinburgh UK.
Xenu loves you!
Reading stuff like this makes me ashamed to be a Linux user... Well, not exactely ashamed to be using it, but ashamed to be compared to mindles idiots who use Linux.
The fact that some Linux users flame is a pretty stupid reason to use or not use Linux itself.
Probably not that many FreeBSD users flame (a couple here on Slashdot do, though). But there are a lot less FreeBSD users than Linux users, so that is to be expected.
I've been flamed by Windows users plenty of times. Doesn't bother me. I base my opinion of Windows on the performance/reliability (or lack thereof) of the operating system itself, not its users or advocates.
--
I think the beheaviour of these Linux Zealots is quite childish, on the other hand: why publish this? What if we would publish all the BS that was posted on slashdot by Microsoft fanatics? I think it's equally childish to publish the abuse.
MindCraft and anyone else that gets mail like this should make it public.
The fact is that the linux community has allways been like this. Even guys that have used Linux longer then me. ( 4 years ).
I guess that people can't figure out that this type of behavior is not acceptable on the net. If mindcraft wanted to all they would have to do is send e-mail of that type to the isp's it came from and those accounts would be shut off. These e-mails are coming from the same type people that make fun of Windows only users. Maybe they don't get it. We have to be nice. We have to tell truths. Not throw mud. If you can't speak as a authority on something you have no bussiness addressing issues like mindcraft.
E-mails like this make me sad... I remeber the OS/2 wars. People thought that OS/2 programmers were a bunch of flaks after reading comments like this... So now the same mentality is at work to bring down linux too.
Didn't your mom tell you if you can't say anything nice then keep your mouth shut? She told you that so that people would not thing she raised a idiot.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
MindCraft and anyone else that gets mail like this should make it public.
The fact is that the linux community has allways been like this. Even guys that have used Linux longer then me. ( 4 years ).
I guess that people can't figure out that this type of behavior is not acceptable on the net. If mindcraft wanted to all they would have to do is send e-mail of that type to the isp's it came from and those accounts would be shut off. These e-mails are coming from the same type people that make fun of Windows only users. Maybe they don't get it. We have to be nice. We have to tell truths. Not throw mud. If you can't speak as a authority on something you have no bussiness addressing issues like mindcraft.
E-mails like this make me sad... I remeber the OS/2 wars. People thought that OS/2 programmers were a bunch of flaks after reading comments like this... So now the same mentality is at work to bring down linux too.
Didn't your mom tell you if you can't say anything nice then keep your mouth shut? She told you that so that people would not think she raised a idiot.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
I tired to take a look but apparently my browser is evil and wishes harm to a bunch of other equally shoddy software products.
Sad that someone would destroy the platform / browser independent potential of a web site by rejecting certain browsers.
But hey, probably cuts down on the flames when you only let people who already think like you into your website...
Sorry 'bout that...stupid enter key. Anyway, fwiw, my take on all this is that Mindcarft got caught, called on the carpet publicly, and really didn't do too much to dispel the over-all idea that they were just an MS shill. They also must have been living under a rock, in a cave, on an island with no 'net access NOT to know that publishing an MS-paid for report now, just when Linux is hitting the trade rags big time was going to piss a lot of people off real quick - I'm sure they were aware of the Holloween docs and the Linux community's response to them.
So, to publish a, to put it mildly, controversial report dissing Linux in favor of NT, they must have been the most naive group of people on the planet - or in the computer biz - to be surprised that the Mindcraft inbox would be full of less-than complimentary emails. I'm not saying that the flamage was justified, nor am I sure that Mindcraft is acting maturely in posting it. But they had to be aware that they were asking for trouble from the get-go. I do think pouting in public and selectively posting the emails of loons shows a distinct lack of class.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
You're overlooking the fact that just about every community has loonies like these. Post something positive about Linux and you'll get a bunch of MS loonies flaming you. It isn't representative of the community as a whole though. They conveniently ignored this and posted the childish responses in an effort to sway people's opinion in their favor for having to deal with a bunch of kooks like the Linux community. I think they are trying to divert attention from the real issues, and they chose a very unprofessional way of doing it. It says a lot about their company.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Not sure how Linux is more accessible to such people. I would think it would be the other way around. I don't entirely buy the whole 10 to 1 ratio either. One unscientific test does nothing to prove anything either way. I think there are just a lot of nuts out there. They hitch their wagon to whatever strikes them as being cool. Windows isn't cool to many of these people, so they flame anyone who seems favorable toward it rather than Linux, which is obviously cool. ;) I don't think you can fault the Linux community in general for the actions of a small, but vocal minority who most likely have nothing to do with the OS itself, other than the fact that they may screw around with it because they think it's cool.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I will agree with you on the account of Mindcraft being referred to as a 'whore' in some of the e-mails which they posted - I guess that's as accurate a word as you can get.
OTOH, some of the language is pushing it. I understand the sentiment of many of the e-mails, however, I can certainly understand the thought that obscene words can be overused. When it's every fourth or fifth word, it's getting a bit overdone. They (the e-mailers) should try to clean it up some, at least. However, others' points that Usenet often picks up much nastier flames... well, I can't disagree with that, either.
The Linux community does need to persuade those few who would try to use swearing to prove a point to use it a little differently. I can see swearing... but there's a point where it's just too much.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Let's think about this for a second. Would they really do that? Would they REALLY snap up just the e-mails that suit their purpose? (i.e., painting all Linux users as flaming loudmouthed morons?) I think we know the answer to this.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Yes, boys and girls, it's there.
This issue came up recently on the linux kernel mailing list. And many of the same arguments that are being used here to try and limit the flamming were used there as well- and my opinion remains the same.
Anyone who is looking for an excuse not to use linux, or to advise other people not to use linux, will find one. It doesn't matter if Pope John Paul the Second nominates Linus Torvalds for Sainthood- the decision has already been made. The accusations don't even have to be true- look at Bob Metcalf's recent article.
Anyone who looks at the issue honestly won't be swayed (either way) by flamming, or by profanity in the kernel (are you _sure_ there's no profanity in the source of NT?).
>Those emails certainly are an embarrassment to the Linux >community,but what is Mindcraft trying to prove by posting them >prominently? What does that crap have to do with Mindcraft's stated >mission:software, system and network testing?
Simple. This is part of the Microsoft PR response to the NT server bug fix fiasco. If you can paint everybody who says anything bad about Microsoft or it's allies as a Microsoft or Mindcraft hater you can try to negate the impact of it. Won't work, because nobody trusts anything Microsoft or it's defenders has to say anymore, but they have to make the effort....
Without Windows, novice end users could/would merely use the GUI systems that all predated Windows.
The world does not need Microsoft. Even the grannies can get along without M$.
With no IRQs or exploding registries or phantom PnP devices, they would likely be better off.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What makes you think the people who use terms like 'Micro$haft' are geeks? They're clearly not geeks because they're spending far too much time acting immaturely and writing foul mouthed email and not nearly enough time writing good quality code.
Linux attracts a broad spectrum of users, but I strongly suspect that the geek population of Linux is a lot lower than many people think. Forums like Slashdot which try and promote Linux as a "geek" culture don't help matters one whit. It's a case of geek implies Linux, not Linux implies geek.
In fact, I'd also be willing to bet that the vast majority of true contributors to Linux are of a reasonble age (30+) and have responsibilities of a family or job. These people often have the skills and acquired wisdom necessary to write truly great code, something that younger coders often don't have (even if they think they do). I would expect a few rare exceptions, but there always are.
Which means that the vast majority of Linux users are non-contributors. They are either teenagers or in their early 20s. They don't have any real kinds of responsibility. They may have reasonable skills but lack the wisdom and experience to apply it.
Is it any wonder that given these people as the majority of "advocates" then all Linux users come across in general as childish immature imbecilic dolts? That is the current opinion regarding Linux users amongst computer professionals I know, and opinions like this are not formed lightly.
Keep reading past that point. He is replying to someone who has used an M$ variant, and then goes on to say...
This reads quite clearly that a geek should know better, a geek shouldn't exhibit "not an ounce of logical thought", and geeks should "use their brains", and from the grammar you can see that the geek in this case is in the first person, ie the person he's talking to. It's obvious that he's telling the previous person that if they want to be a geek they should stop using terms like M$, because it is very ungeeklike to attack in non-technical or non-logical ways.
And you're misunderstanding me: I'm well aware that geek is a positive term.
Well, as I said, it is my belief that being 30+ does have something to do with it. That was my assertion, the point of my post, the thrust of my argument. The greatest contributors to Linux are for the most part older, wiser, and often have a family to look after. My belief is that proper geekdom goes hand in hand with age, because with age often goes increased responsibility not only for yourself but also for others. It is by having this responsibility that you act in proper geeky ways: being rational, calm, collected, arguing in logical and technical ways rather than flaming or insulting.
I didn't base my assertion on this, and I don't see where you got the impression that I did. In fact I made no conclusions, only an assertion.
I only made one assertion, and it's pretty clear that you didn't understand it. Also you didn't argue against my assertion, instead you just presented your own differing assertion. I presented a reason for my assertion, whereas you just made some incorrect claims about what I think and therefore concluded that I was wrong.
I'm sorry, I think you're one of the geek wannabes I was talking about.
I always wondered why I got instantly moderated to -1 whenever I said something negative about Linux. So far today /dev/hda has thrashed solid for 3 hours and Linux has crashed twice, with the only consolation from Linux users being "Cyrix sucks. Get a real chip."
Whether Microsoft had anything to do with the posting of these flames or not, it is something that they would have done good for themselves to have done. Truly, our response to the whole Mindcraft issue is of the nature of herding cats, exactly as Dave Taylor said in a recent interview.
Through our lack of unity, they managed to use our own words against us. Attacking a process, from it's weakest point. Just like the halloween document said.
Kind of ironic, considering the Halloween document was used against Microsoft in many quotes from people.
Oh well, popularity of my OS aside, back to coding for fun...
Because they identify with it. Someone says it's bad, it means they are bad for using it. It's a theory anyway.
So here we have someone, probably not too stable to begin with, taking anything someone says about their OS as a personal insult, in a society where the only emotion men are allowed (even encouraged) to have is rage, and anyone is surprised they write flaming incoherent frothage? I'm surprised they haven't resorted to guns & bombs!
So, kids, next time you feel that ol' demon anger creeping up, repeat after me: "I am not my OS, I am not my OS, I am not my OS."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If you want help with a linux problem you should problem try reading comp.os.linux.questions or a newsgroup or mailing list related to your problem, and posting if your question goes unanswered. Not only will people probably be more receptive to your question, you're a bit more likely to find people knowledgable of your particular problem than on a news item about emails posted concerning rigged benchmarks.
Here's the problem.. It does make them look better.. I makes it look like their accusers are the idiots, and not them..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
If those are the picks of the worst email they got over their little stunt, they should consider themselves extraordinarily lucky. Those were relatively mild flames.
The one regarding tennage shooting was pretty bad but still... that's nothing.
where did you learn to write i have never seen punctuation so bad ya must have learned it at the ee cummings society for creative punctuation?
With some indentation, this example would have been great, e.g.
if (thing == mine) {
printf ("you suck")
}
else {
printf ("you suck");
}
much better than
if (you == suck)
{
printf ("you suck");
}
and much mor consise. Much more readable as well. I think the first example is more in keeping with K&R, although I haven't seen that for quite some time (forty bucks for that little freakin' book, I mean, come on.)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Oops, should have went into HTML mode; this got butchered in the translation. This was actually indented (and, I assume, so was the original post.)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I would say that it shows that the people at Mindcraft are just about as childish as the people who sent those emails in the first place!
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to inform you that, while I was disappointed in the writings of some of my more overzealous community members, it was far worse, that you chose to post their private e-mails with you in a public forum. Legal ramifications aside, these mails were sent to you in confidence, as is this one, and should have remained that way.
Also, this is a vain attempt to produce negative publicity about the group that have become your 'opponents' as of late. However, your focus on the few 'bad apples' is purely prejudicial, and thoroughly unprofessional.
I am not a zealot, I'm just a programmer who has to try and fit in with the many people who would rather mouth off that do anything constructive. In any grass roots movement, you have the few hot headed individuals, but they do not, by any means, represent our community as a whole.
You have my permission to post this message, though I'd appreciate if you'd obscure my e-mail address, as you failed to do on your previous posting. Please take the time to read about Netiquette, and the inappropriateness of posting
private messages like you did.
Regards,
Aubin
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
asinus sum et eo superbio
asinus sum et eo superbio
in omnibus veritas
I guess we have to strike a balance between telling the truth (which, IMHO, most of those mails on Mindcraft's page *do*, albeit maybe a touch more directly than they oughta) and playing the good diplomatic game.
Mindcraft *is* in Microsoft's pocket. It's complete idiocy to pretend otherwise.
-- adr
Well, I wrote this back during the APSL controversy, put it on the web but didn't let anyone know about it. So now I am... I'd post it here but it's a little long for the boards.
It's an essay about preference, evangelism and zealotry and the best way to win converts.
"In comparisons and discussions over the various merits and demerits of various operating systems, conversations usually degrade into the inevitable 'zealotry' argument. As a Mac OS and a Linux user, I've found myself and members of both communities called 'zealots' and dismissed in an argument which is frustratingly self-referential."
Read more of "Fighting the good fight"...
Enjoy.
IANAL, but I thought that emails were considered public unless you notified the person on the other end they were private.
I wouldn't publish any email anyone sent me, but the fact is those emails are malicious. I think we need to realize that what we'll be held accountable for what we say and should be responsible in how we communicate with each other.
I don't know the legal aspects of publishing emails, but I doubt a copyright suit would prevail. I'd think a defamation/libel suit by Mindcraft against the people who emailed those letters would have more success- especially if they CCed others.
I don't support Mindcraft's testing procedures, as they've been used falsely against Quicktime and Apple in the past, and what I know about the Linux tests galls me too, but I also don't support the zealots who don't know how to respond rationally and responsibly.
Just because this is the Internet and flames are common does not make this type of conduct alright. I can't say it's morally wrong or anything of the sort, but please, act responsibly. If there's one thing you can do in life, it's take control of your life. If you like to flame people and call them all manner of nasty things, please reconsider your actions.. expressing your anger may satisfy you, but it does more harm than good, to yourself and to others.
Not true. You send someone a piece of correspondence and it's theirs to use as they wish.
To the best of my knowledge, this has always been true.
Wow, there's a non-issue if ever I saw one. As far as I'm concerned, when someone flames me (especially so stupidly) the whole netiquette thing is gone.
Would you think me rude if I said "shut the hell up" to someone who just screamed into my ear?
It's a bit unprofessional of them, and it doesn't reflect well, but it's not an issue of politeness.
To the best of my knowledge, it has never been a violation of copyright to publish correspondence that someone sends you.
Similarly, there's nothing illegal about taping your conversation with someone and then broadcasting it.
It's a bit rude under normal circumstances, but not illegal.
We do need to mellow out--sleep on any angry messages, then re-read in the morning, edit and send--however, I can't help but think that some of the worst nonsense is spawned by MS loyalists, even employees. Sure, that sounds paranoid, but if they have a dozen plus employees looking for ways to trip up Linux, a logical tactic would be to play up one of the few weaknesses in Linux, ie. the abusive cracker element. I would not rule out that salaried MS employees are logging in as Anonymous Cowards and posting the worst stuff we see. If they can stir up a storm, misrepresent the Linux community and cause us to waste time, they've succeeded in their mission.
What to do? All I can think of is that we should gently remind others in the industry that a lot of loose cannons can post comments, and like the "Barkto" incidents years ago (MS employees posing as users in forums), the bottom 10% of input has to be considered suspect "outlier data" and ought to be discarded from any analysis.
Whenever I'm tempted to write something as brainless, and offensive as these posts (which I am on occasion), I get the following vision:
........ mean ?''
[shot fades to several decades in the future]
Old man bouncing an eight year old on their knee. Eight year old looks up and says:
``Wow, these RayBan web glasses are ace Grandpa, I'm going to look your name up on deja.com.''
Pause.
``What does
Oh dear, how embarrassing.
Remember, your email's are likely to come back to haunt you, so consider carefully how you express yourself.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Ok, it's sad how those people acted and all, but what was Mindcraft trying to achieve by posting those emails? More bad emails? hrm, weird situation.
-cjr
Sure there are a lot of raging teenage hormones out there, hormones that should have been used fro dating, but actually get applied to OS holy wars. Sure, a large portion of these sit with Linux users. (The 3rd wave of them, anyway - after the developers, and the technically adventurous).
That's true for people who have discovered any new religion, be it MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, and - yes - Windows. These tend to get ignored by the mainstream press nowadays. They are supposed to do this, being of a technically less savvy demographic composition. But somehow it makes stories every time such 'rage' appears in a new arena, like the "new" world of Linux.
In either case - relax. OS/2, MacOS, etc. failed for other reasons. They did not fail because of overzealous advocates. Even if they did, it would be for factors not relevant to Linux and Open Source(TM).
To me, this whole Mincraft deal just stinks more and more. Why are they so obsessed with proving that Windows is the way to go, that Windows users are of a genetically superior breed, etc. - even if it costs them so much PR? It sounds kindof like Robert Cringely's description of Bill Gates in his book - he just has to prove himself to the world - prove that he really, really can do something. Mincraft now are at a stage where they just want to say "We were right" long after facts slap them in their face over and over and over again..
Perhaps rather more interesting than these silly emails is Mindcraft's rebuttals to the reporting they received after the 1st "benchmark" tests.
Personally I'd be interested to see some rebuttals to these rebuttals ...
Regards, Ralph.
For example, if we all pasted the following into our nearest xterm:
I wonder if the resulting mail flood would teach these guys a lesson?For those of you who don't want to sort through all the above gibberish, it basically sends the following email to each of the mindcraft "Linux zealot" poster children:
Please send the above letter... any responses apreciated...
Loren Osborn
Loren Osborn
HD Thrashing is indicative of a lack of real memory for the application you're running. While Linux will run in as little as 4Mb with minimal to no modifications, it can't run a lot of graphical stuff in that small a space. 16Mb is the minimum RAM for GUI apps and you really need 32 to 64Mb of it to make it work well.
As for the crashing, well, Linux, strictly speaking, doesn't crash unless you're running alpha drivers or bad hardware. Linux will stretch the limits of your hardware and may show problems that don't show up regularly under Windows 3.11 or 95- just as random crashes that can't be explained...
Care to e-mail me with more details of what's going on? I won't guarantee results, but perhaps we can muddle out what's going on and fix the same.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I'm no lawyer, so I can't speak to the issue of copyright on email recieved.
... dpeterso, you out there?).
But, if Mindcraft IS violating anything whatsoever, I trust Joe Barr will call them on it. I can almost guarantee that since they posted this, they have recieved even jucier responses from him. Joe's been going back and forth with MS advocates/trolls since FIDONET (anyone out here ever been a BBS operator? and if so, do you have some archives? grep for Joe!
I expect Joe's website has a link to this in the form of a "badge of honor".
this is nothing new to OS/2 users. some zealots get nasty and sure enough the press reports every ugly sentence and portrays the users of grassroots movement X as a bunch of jerks.
.001% of linux users (or trolls) or 10% rant like the examples, the perception will be put forth that this is standard linux user behavior.
Joe Barr I see is listed repeatedly. What a suprise. Joe was just as much (if not more) mean and nasty in "support" of OS/2.
Get used to it. It's gonna get worse. The net and deadtree rags will pick this up and ram it hard. History repeats itself.
Asking everyone to stop ranting nastily is not gonna do a lick of good. Regardless of whether
team OS/2 was essentially slandered into oblivion by this process. looks like the crosshairs are now fixed on a new target.
To Linux' advantage, the like of Nick Petreley are at the forefront of influential rags like Infoworld, he can help give persepective on this. in the dark days of OS/2, we had Stewart Alsop in Nicks place, shamelessly furthuring the FUD and encouraging the false perceptions.
just my $.02
Now we know who the foul mouth biggots are! Granted, I have a few unkind words about operating systems that suck, but they were outright offensive and abusive with those comments. Those comments contain no useful content and are 100% crap. You cannot reason with pointless profanity. It just annoys and serves no real purpose.
It wasn't advocacy that killed OS/2 or Amiga. It was lack of marketing. If you want a product to succeed, you market it. You don't just rely on word of mouth.
I used OS/2 quite a bit. I had to stop using it due to lack of support.
I had 3 Amigas in my heyday of Amiga-geekdom. I had to give them up because it became impossible to find a place (locally) that would repair them on the offchance they needed repair.
The (Commodore) Amiga architecture was so much better than typical IBM compatible PCs. OS/2 was tons better than Windows.
What killed them both? IBM killed OS/2. Commodore killed Amiga. Period.
Hell, my Amiga 1200 (14mhz 68020), 4MB RAM (2MB fast 2MB chip), 130MB HDD, left p133's (32MB, 1.2GB) in the dust.
However, I probably shouldn't get on a big advocacy kick now, eh?
Everybody with half a brain knows that MS only stays in business because they have the money available to bribe and burgle their way through the industry. For me it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that some mc folks raised their earnings considerably in conducting these benchmarks (probably the same in those wicked Novell / Solaris tests) , so it should not come as a surprise to anybody that Linux "lost out".
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
Zealotry didn't kill the Amiga, Commodore refusing to market the Amiga killed the Amiga. Yes, it put a lot more of the focus on the users, such that THEIR zealotry - since they were the only ones actively trying to promote the platform (while Commodore execs were ignoring and someties actually BADMOUTHING the platform!) - took home a lot more of the spotlight. But the real problem was that Commodore couldn't have marketed a cure for death, and nothing the users did differently would have changed that.
That said, I'm sickened by the nasty reputation the Amiga user base has gained over the years (which continues in some circles to this day), and am disturbed to see the Linux base repeating the Amiga community's mistakes. Most bothersome is seeing Linux users shoot down Amiga users in exactly the way Amiga users used to shoot down other platforms - as though there were no parallel.
However you'll notice, although there ARE a lot of Windows bigots out there, it hasn't hurt that platform - mostly because it has enough "real" marketing to cover for it.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Sorry, I don't agree. I read linux-kernel mailing list for a while, and even if many people have strong opinions there (and not everyone having the same opinions either) the amount of flame per-se is rather low (that is, name-calling, and opinions thrown without any sort of backing).
It is well known that Linus is not particularly fond of microkernel architecture, yet I don't remember that particular quote. Could you give us some link (if possible with some context, Linus has been known to be quoted out-of-context many times, with bad results when combined with his tongue-in-cheek kind of humor...)
"Bad advocacy" didn't kill the Amiga. *Commodore* killed the Amiga. There were some problems with the way the Amiga was marketed (it wasn't), the way it was upgraded (was ECS and then AGA *that* much of an imporvement?), and the way that it was entirely too easy for Joe Q. Application to die and take the system with it (AmigaOS 2.x seemed to crash less than 1.2/1.3, but still...) , but "bad advocacy", IMO, isn't very high in the list of reasons the Amiga died.
-- Rick
For the Amiga, anyway, I'd have to consider "dead" as an appropriate word. It's no more alive than the Atari 2600 is at the moment, and most people consider that a "dead" console. :)
The Amiga was a proprietary hardware platform whose parent company went out of business. They were succeeded by several other copmpanies that also went out of business (Don't bother mentioning gateway - as of yet they have released little but vapor). Hence the Amiga as we have known it is - dead.
That Amiga hardware that *is* still out there running ought to be getting rather dodgy now - I know *my* A3000 requires multiple tries to boot correctly!
"Dead" hardware, IMO, is a bit easier to talk about than "dead" software.
-- Rick
| My A1200 works like a charm.
;)
It's also a year or two younger. Just wait.
-- Rick
Agreed. That, and the fact that the PC became a good platform for video editing. This stole the only market share that Commodore owned.
Nowhere near as horrible as I expected. The messages were all quite tame. Childish and inane to be sure, but par for the course for *any* polarized subject of Internet discourse.
/. to keep their fingers on the bleeding edge and all that. FUD fodder.
An interesting tactic on the part of MS / Mindcraft, to post the vitriolic replies. Futile, but interesting.
Funny bit is, by calling attention to it on Slashdot, a much larger portion of the Internet Community will now be aware of it. You know, all those media types who peruse
Nice move Mindcraft!
Still futile, though ; )
Carry on, people. Nothing to see here. That's it, keep moving. Nose to the Grindstone an' all that. Jolly good!
**>>BELCH
Mindcraft carefully selecting their data to prove a point? I'm shocked.
I'd like to see a respected Linux community member post their share of Microsoft advocating rants they've seen/received, and then calmly explain the unique dynamics of online discussion (nay, the tradition) for the casual reader.
I'm not advocating noise, but its just sad to see them parade this (unpleasant, granted) behaviour as Linux specific.
Perhaps, though, the fact that Linux is truly owned by its community makes them more predisposed to this sort of behaviour, although OS discussion in general seems to be traditionally religious.
I just wanted to elaborate on something that I mentioned in my last post. Mindcraft may well have seen posting all those emails not as an attack on Linux but as a defense of Mindcraft. From that point of view, it's quite a different matter to post the worst of what people say about you. Maybe they posted those emails in preparation for addressing the complaints.
If I worked for Mindcraft, I might think something along the lines of "people think bad things about us because Linux people have been saying bad things. Let's undermine the credibility of the complaints against us, which will help to revive our credibility."
This doesn't excuse them from casting Linux users in a bad light, but it was not an unprovoked attack, and perhaps the attack hit more than it was aimed at.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
This is going to start a riot, but I don't actually think that posting email is necessarily a bad thing. Sure it's rude, but the people who had their emails posted really haven't earned Mindcraft's politeness. What this should do is reflect very poorly on the people whose emails were posted. Naturally, that's not what will happen, but it would be just. It's like if someone whispered "you're a jerk" in my ear, and then I told everyone I met that this person thought I was a jerk. What's wrong with that?
That's not to say that I find Mindcraft's posting of only the choicest emails in good taste. I think that they should have made it clear that those emails reflected only the worst of an often good lot, and posted the good with the bad... and this only because of the association that people will make with Linux. But being called a whore that many times isn't likely to make you respect the people who call you a whore, whether or not you are one.
It takes guts to publish bad things that people say about you. It can be a first step in addressing their complaints. Time will tell.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Let's be a little more mature about this. Quit acting like a bunch of 10-year-olds.
Just what exactly is it about e-mail that makes that kind of language and verbal abuse legitimate, when it wouldn't be in a regular letter? Let's grow up, people. It's stuff like this that is only furthering our bad image amongs the unconverted masses.
Its tough when an operating system, in this case Linux, is judged by all the outsiders (and in some cases ourselves aswell) by the actions of the users.
What can be done to prevent it? Nothing I guess.. Linus himself isnt Linux, RedHat isnt Linux. The users are in themselves, Linux. And when the users behave badly, the Linux community behaves badly. Therefore, Linux is bad. To the wintel-world that is.
Maybe I'm biased, but I always thought Linux and Mac users - on average - were a TAD smarter than the average Windows user. I rationalize this because some thought process went into choosing your OS, rather than the blank stare you get when you ask a Windows biggot how or why they "chose" MS Windows as their primary OS. Still, there's enough idiots to go around to every group and association on the planet.
Given Microsoft's past of paying people for "stuffing" pro-Microsoft Letters To The Editor and to various "community" talkback forums, I WOULD NOT put it past them to have creatively put together a few embarrasing emails which then can be linked to us.
Microsoft HAS used tactics like this and EVEN when they get caught, what's the fallout?? Did CNN even report when Microsoft paid workers to email and write letters regarding USDOJ vs. MS? i know it got mention in some newspapers, but the media doesn't seem to get offended when manipulated by someone with large advertising pockets...
What exactly is the point? To show that their are immature people who can send email? I think we're all well aware of that. To show that Linux people are all raving loons? That's a sad generalization, as bad as assuming that all teens are vandals because some are vandals. To show that Mindcraft feels hurt by this? Possibly, but is quoting the messages necessary?
The link to the page on Mindcraft's home page is "Ouch! Net rage (road rage on the Information Superhighway) defined." Are they trying to show what sort of stuff happens on the net? Mindcraft didn't seem like the sort to study the social atmosphere of the net, and the page is lacking any sort of analysis. Are they really trying to compare a bunch of stupid email to road rage?
Frankly, I think a few people were a little pissed at getting the mail (and understandable), and quickly through the page together. While this is understandable as an individual, I think it's in poor taste for a corporation.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Even though those letters make linux users look bad, my lasting impression after reading it (and seeing the link from the main page) is the immaturity and lack of responsibility of mindcraft to display letters by people who actually wrote something worthwhile.
In any crowd you can find losers, especially considering the thousands that must've written in. I'm sure there were a number of "YeAh bizn1tch, NT ruLeZ, YOu RoCk." letters as well.
Others might not think so, but I think it makes mindcraft look worse to publish these letters. They're once again trying to undermine linux by making the users look like losers.
This case is a strong precedent that one can not use copyright to protect one's privacy and reputation, the only real damages that the people who wrote these flame emails can claim to collect.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
My theory is that the sort of people who flame a lot have issues with powerlessness over their world, and Linux is more accessible to such people.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
I think it's fine that they were flamed, but a little less vulgarity, perhaps. If those were the worst posts they had, I actually think they got off pretty easy.
Companies are just going to have to deal with this. When they put up total bullshit they will be called on it. The era of one way top down communications is over.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Would you think me rude if I said "shut the hell up" to someone who just screamed into my ear?
Yes you'd be rude - but your rudeness would be understandable and justified.
But that's not what Mindcraft did. What they did was comperable to selecting choice bits of the scream and airing them on public radio, followed by full name, phone number and address...
Not good.
Host your own websites, anywhere!
It is my belief that MindCraft's integrity is more questionable now, then ever. Why would a company who claims to be impartial to a specific OS platform, take such useless rabble and post it to the public. You cannot honestly tell me that Pro-Microsoft individuals didn't send email to the effect of "GO MindCraft LINUX SUCKS!". I know they did. A friend of mine loves NT and sent one. So why didn't they post that. They are obviously partial to a specific platform and a specific software makers OS, and this is just more proof. Rob.
Awesome!
yeah but now the linux community lost its reputation -which is what MS/Mindcraft wanted most. This is war folks! Accept a few casualties to do some real damage.
---
Slashdot talked about `MindCraft II' (the re-run of the test) some time ago. You could always search for it. Red Hat sent three kernel hackers, Microsoft sent three marketing people :-) Of course, it was during the first day that the director at MindCraft came with the immortal quote (when one of the Red Hat people questioned the Microsoft sponsorship): "You're challenging my integrity."
I guess that quote says it all...
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
Another place where this is quite common, is religion. People judge religions based on their believers, which can be quite distressing...
:-) (Or perhaps it's just money that plays God here.)
Well, OSes are getting more and more like religions anyway
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
I have noticed something very disturbing, lately. People have been making disparaging, or even ever so slightly negative remarks in the press about Linux, and then reporting the sheer amount of flamemail they get.
I have a feeling our collective chain is being yanked.
There are two things I think are happening:
1) Flamebait is being publicly flung about, and many members of the Linux/Open Source communities are taking the bait. "Incite to riot" would be the term that comes to mind
2) There are 'ringers', people who pretend to be part of the community who are sending flame mail just to make the Linux/Open Source community look bad. Many of these people may just be malicious, not involved in any conspiracy.
I believe (with no evidence but observation and a paranoid mind) that Linux and Open Source software users are being manipulated in order to discredit the Open Source movement to corporate America.
Any ideas on how to combat this?
Don't let Mindcraft "mind craft" this into a Linux/Novell idiots campaign. Idiots like this were around long before Linux became a hit. These are the type of people that scurry around trying to crash other peoples computers because they have nothing better to do and because they have little other power in real life. The feel 'empowered' by the anonimty of the keyboard.
Only a retarded reported for a web based media outlet would try to make a case that these kind of people represent any large group of people as whole. Generally people have more sense than that.
My advice? Remove this story from slashdot because it is not a story worth telling. MindCraft is only showing its own insecurity in posting those emails. The real power lies in knowing what is truly important and ignoring the rest.
http://windows.scares.us
Mindcraft is only proving its lapdog status to M$ and Bill Gates by posting such email on its site.
This technique can work both ways.
I cannot count the number of obscene and/or childish msgs that I have seen posted by M$ clones on this website, LinuxToday, and the various newsgroups. If a website were to begin posting those anti-Linux messages the effect would be the same, but in the opposite direction.
We are at war, and propaganda counts.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I'm ashamed to be part of the Linux community right now. What did this name calling accomplish? The problem is that Mindcraft now thinks the Linux community is full of people that are immature and like to call names.
What Mindcraft did was not appropriate, either. They shouldn't have posted confidential e-mail on their web page. But that doesn't make what people said ok.
To the people who wrote those mails: Please remember that you're speaking for the *entire* community. I wasn't happy with the way Mindcraft did the tests, but I don't think they are whores or whatever else you chose to call them.
Paul
This is just an atempt by Mindcraft to turn the credibility tide. Its old and does not merit any more comments.
Help fight continental drift.
I wonder if people who write bad things about Windows, or support Linux get flamed like this.
Maybe the people who run linux.org or such sites should put up a site like this.
If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
Microsoft/Mindcraft published these emails because they have no other way of attacking Linux.
That said, the authors are too immature to be embarrassed. Publishing them only awards bragging rights and encourages more of the same. Just like First Posters and Usenet flamers, they are the graffitti writers of the Internet.
Every category of every human endeavour has its own version of these losers. They consume and destroy, and never contribute.
--
Infuriate left and right
Linda Tripp is in hot water for this very reason. It is illegal, either in most states, or in all of the US, to record a conversation without the other party's permission. Absolutely illegal. People have gone to trial for taping conversations which show knowledge of a crime and taking those tapes to the police.
Flat illegal. You can be busted.
--
Infuriate left and right
Yes, I'm one of the dingbats that sent Mindcraft one of the posted mail messages (A Centofanti if you're wondering).
Was it a stupid, mindless mail message: sure! Would I do it again: Probably.
I realize that it wasn't the most constructive bit of mail they got on the subject, but it summed up what I was feeling at the time. In response to to an earlier post: Yes, this is something I would say to the CEO of Mindcraft. The choice of words may be a little on the blue side, but I still feel that either they were honestly trying to tune Linux to perform at its best and they were incompentant at it, or they were shilling for MS by tilting the results (which is what I suspect). Mindcraft posting only these e-mails doesn't do much to sway my opinion on this matter.
Just my 2 cents worth (and prob. 2 cents too many)
A Centofanti
I'm not sure which is more childish - publishing the rantings of 8 year olds, or the rants themselves.
Really - who are they convincing here? I don't think many adults will be swayed by reading this - it's obvious the people who sent this material were not the brightest bulbs on the tree. Advocates of linux should just ignore mindcraft. They shot themselves in the foot, and now they're just trying to be vengeful and childish.
--
It's sad to see ourselves portrayed as a bunch of semi-literates whose idea of a quick-witted riposte is, "Fuck you, you asslicking whore."
My particular favorite was the person who laid the blame for incidents such as Columbine at the feet of Mindcraft. That was rich. Can you lead me through the logic to that conclusion, Sherlock? It's a little fuzzy to me.
This is our public image, folks. If we (as a community) are going to claim to be a meritocracy, then let those who have proven themselves to be the best spokespersons do the job. If the best rebuttal you can create contains a curse word of any stripe, hit that CTRL-C, and let someone else do the talking.
When items such as these get posted for the world to see, it's reminiscent of the old E.F. Hutton commercials. When tripe like this gets posted, everybody listens.
I am very concerned (and frankly disgusted) anytime I see it advocated that we use (i.e. abuse) the so-called slashdot effect "for our advantage". Slashdot is fast becoming an ugly mob. This does Linux no good in the long run. It does Linux no good in the short run, either. It just makes us look like children, because *WE ARE BEHAVING* like petulant children. Please, people, *THINK* before you do something that can be presented to the world and show us up as the wild hot heads that Mindcraft and others would like the world to see us as.
Regardless of the fact that these guys appear to have gone out of their way to abuse Mindcraft, I do have to admit I laughed hard at the one accusing them of being "incompetent boobs at best".
Did they seriously think they would get away with not having some email responses like this (probably in the small minority of all the other ones that they received describing the flawed methodology in their first test)?
Dogcow
I don't know of the US laws but here in Sweden it's illegeal to repost any infoormation recived in mail (at least smail) to any person without the premision of the author.
There are immature people in all walks of life.
There are zealots in all walks of life.
And yes, indeed, there are immature zealots.
I'm not even beginning to excuse the behavior that these people have shown, however, I just have to say that this looks like a nicely wrapped example of the kind of (dis)information that companies like Mindcraft like to spread. They've received hundreds/thousands of emails with regards to this test, and they've provided their own sample "statistically representative" of the Linux community. Sure. Do they honestly expect me to believe that this is the _usual_ type of correspondance that they received? My guess is that the overwhelming majority of those emails were along the lines of "I disagree with your results.....The particular benchmarks sound like they were chosen to specifically target Linux's weaknesses...I have been working with Linux for years and it soundly outperforms NT...etc etc etc". Instead, Mindcraft posts a page with 5 or 6 flames. As if the Windows/Mac/Prolife/Prochoice/Catholic/Protestant crowds are made up of a better stock than Linux users....oh yeah, those people don't flame anyone.
Please.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
Not everyone is well versed in the English
language so I wouldn't see that as an indication
to anything.
As for the insults, it was provoked and you
should see it as just another flame war.
To say that only Linux users will respond this
way is knowing little of human nature.
When obvious lies are brought up some people
will respond and some won't. These people
said things that many of us felt like saying
but chose not to.
You don't have to use the Copyright statement to retain Your copyrights. There is a international treaty about this (sorry, forgot the name) and US has finally signed this treaty so this applies to the States as well.
This means that all original works You produce are protected automatically. No (c) plah-plahs needed.
One thing to remember is that copyright covers only the specific outlook of the work, not ideas or content. In the case of written works this means that you can use the exact same plot in a novel as long as you don't copy word-by-word. Same thing with programming, exact same functionality can be used, but not by copy-paste -method (unless there are some patent issues...)
Let's see, since I started my first semester many yars ago in CS, EVERY professor told some joke about "CS people can't communicate", or finishing phrases with a "but as you know, we talk difficult". I always thought that this is a lie, but there's another problem around there.
People, a lot of people (not all), is loosing it's hability to commuinicate ideas.
I found myself sometimes unable to express my thoughts even english is obiously not my languaje. (in fact, spanish is).
I would be in deep trouble explaining a Mindcraft guy everything I think about their tests, and is quite simple to tell him something more direct like "Jerk" or a plain "F' You!", that's the easy way.
Many people suffer the same syndrome using it's own languaje. I've seen it many times. I remeber this teacher assistant back trying to explain why he believed that client-server model sucked (poor him...) and he finished in a way very similar to those stupid mindcraft mails.
But every of us should start thinking that there's a lot of people around there that sees groups o millions of people like the open source movement, or just the linux users or bsd users as 1 single person or maybe the 10 persons who e-mailed those insults to midcraft.
And they will think that there's millions of us who are all like crazy bastards who will bomb redmond with a H bomb, just because we are anti-monopolistic (at least many of us).
Remeber the article of "Bob Ethernet"?
Well, maybe that's the image we are giving, or the image that they are getting. And that's bad.
There's a real need of a PR, but a decentralized PR group. Every one of us is a PR representative of what we think and what we like, and we all should be carefull of how we exercise it.
I still remember OS/2 advocates being ridiculizated by media, and I have to admit that some of their moves where childish and silly, not the kind of actions that will attract people.
At the end, our better panphlet to promote Linux is Linux itself (or Bsd, or the OS model itself).
Be carefull, future depends on today.
PS: Not bad for somebody without formal english classes!
Gang,
Don't take Mindcraft seriously. No one else in the IT field does even friends and collegues of mine who sell and advocate Windows products laughed at the incredible idiocy displayed by Mindcrafts feable attempt to redeem themselves after they were laughed at by many major news organizations.
Don't even bother writing to them folks. They are not even worth your time. They are a tiny company trying to pretend they're not.
Just some down to earth advice for you,
Nick
This is a pretty goofy viewpoint.
Bad advocacy didn't kill OS/2, or the Amiga, or hurt the Mac. There are much larger market and technology forces at play in the computer world than whether or not some loonies on IRC make potty-mouth statements. I think CmdrTaco's heavy involvement in the enthusiast world has distorted his perception of the relative importance of such ranting.
Now, it's always pathetic, and sad, and disheartening that such folks insist on responding to events in this way. However, it's not going to go away. There will always be those on the internet who are 14, or act 14. Deal with it, filter them, or act with sufficient integrity that you don't get this kind of crap thrown at you.
As for the other end of things, it'es pretty simple to minimize the occurence of these things. It's a modified of the time honored "count to 10". When you get angry, write the mail if you must, but don't send it for at least 4 hours. Re-read it. Eliminate unnecessary drivel. Excise insults. Take out statements which are irrelvant to the point at hand. etc. etc. etc.
A little restraint can make the world livable for all.
-josh
Why? I think the phrase "don't descend to their level" is quite pertinent here.
.. the contentiousness didn't help mind you.
Negative advocacy didn't alone kill OS/2. Lukewarm support from IBM, sole proprietor of OS/2 killed it
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Copyright on letters remains with the sender, not the recipient. Strictly speaking, Mindcraft violates US copyright law by publishing letters without permission of the authors. And I'm pretty sure they did not bother getting permission!
A sorry lot of letters, too. I guess of the 7-10 million linux users worldwide, 5 million or so must be under age 17. They obviously need more parental supervision.
mp
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
It's interesting to note that amongst most of the UK's technology journalists such discordant voices are referred to as "the Taliban", and are said to "give Team OS/2 a good name". Whilst we can ignore these things as one of a few bad things about a normally enjoyable task, the publicity that such attacks engenders in the US seems to have carried across the Atlantic.
One of the most important things about good advocacy is that it's gentle persuasion, not hitting people over the head with insults and flames.
How am I, as a writer and a consultant, able to get the good things about Linux and Open Source across to my readers and clients, if the public face that they see linked to those products and tools is a screaming abusive child?
Most of us in this industry are adults who are able to make reasoned judgements about the tools and technologies that are right for a job. Quite often that may mean using or working with Microsoft or Sun. Unreasonable Open Source tantrums won't change that.
S.
What they are displaying is a typical sample of flames that you end up seeing when any highly debated topic is discussed online. Even the Linux community has its share of assholes.
IMHO, I'm not sure I'd label them childish. Based on
I would say that Mindcraft doesn't understand the how an internet community sometimes reacts to controversial issues. I doubt that they've spent any time in any Usenet newsgroups otherwise they wouldn't be so thin-skinned.
OTOH, for the Linux community to mail bomb somebody like old Bruce is pretty out of line though. After reading in a recent Salon article how he was reacting to anyone that he felt was slighting his reputation (``You are challenging my integrity.'') it's obvious that he has absolutely little to no tolerance for anybody that disagrees with him. If people continue to e-mail him flames he'll continue to react in the self-righteous, pompous way he did... he'll post the e-mails to show how superior he is.
BTW, Don't bother to flame me on my opinion. I've been flamed by Carl Lydick in comp.os.vms and once you've been flamed by the best...
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
My response to Mindcraft
Dear Mindcraft,
I find your actions concerning the hate mail you received over the NT-Linux benchmark deplorable. I question your motives in posting the original benchmark results, as well as posting the flame mail you received over it.
I am a system admin at an 8000 person company. I am an MCSE, as well as Linux user and advocate. However, when I choose an O/S to run here at work, I use the best solution for the job required. It's fairly obvious to me that you have never heard of this principle, as using a quad processor system to serve files and static web pages is clearly in violation of that. Where would you propose such a system be used? It seems to me that you were aware of this when you posted the original benchmarks, and the resulting revelations of your shoddy leg-work to support these claims destroyed the rest of your credibility with me.
I was content to let that lie, and not take it any farther. However, your posting of the "fan" mail you received doesn't sit well with me at all. Yes, there are a few immature members of the Linux community that do not have the eloquence to state what they feel without crass language. There are also members of the Microsoft community that react the same way. This is human nature, as I'm sure you are aware. That leads me to the conclusion that you have posted those e-mails for a reason to suit yourself. It strikes me as an attempt to regain credibility by portraying the Linux community as "fanatics". This kind of rash generalization further reinforces the lack of credibility that you have with me. Suffice to say that any further benchmarks by your company will be dismissed by me as propaganda, nothing more.
Matt Bardeen - MCSE
Linux User/Advocate
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Greetings,
I was just curious why Mindcraft has the Netrage section on its webpage?
How is this even remotely related to your core business?
I agree that these e-mails are quite harsh. Can you imagine some of the
e-mails
that ZD, PC World, and even non-computer related websites such as Disney
must get? Perhaps they have posted e-mails such as these that they have
received,
but I have never heard of them doing so or seen them on their corporate
websites. It
comes with the territory.
This really makes Mindcraft look like they can't take the heat. It's
unprofessional as
well. Don't worry about the jerks. Stick to your core business.
Tom
Opening brackets go on the same line as their related statement, as the example shows. Anything else is heresy. You will burn in /dev/hell, SIN-Ne-R. The Computer is your friend.
check dejanews for "netiquette" -- that should get you started. Much of the stuff harkens back to a more civilized, or at least civil, net, but much is still applicable.
:-)
There are exceptions to the "thou shalt not post private email publicly" rule, such as when you're being stalked or threatened, but even then it isn't so much an exception as it is a "I know this is wrong, mae culpa, but I feel I have no choice because this person is threatening my life, and if I suddenly disappear I want you all to know who the culprit probably is!"
Hope this helps!
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Posting private emails in a public forum without the author's expressed permission is one of the more heinous violations of accepted netiquette anoyone can engage in. Whether it be USENET or a personal (or in this case corporate) webpage, it is clear that Mindcraft not only lacks the integrity to do a reasonable and well balanced benchmark comparison, they also lack the integrity to refrain from violating people's privacy by holding up private correspondence to public ridicule.
Do I approve of the flames these messages contain? No. Such immature flamage only hurts the image of Linux to those less clueful. Nevertheless, Mindcraft's abuse of the net in publishing the emails in question are far and away worse than anything anyone wrote them could have been. Perhaps someone should point Mindcraft towards a FAQ or two on proper behavior and netiquette.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I mean, Micros~1 is indeed the spinmeister of FUD. And the more zealous of the Linux supporters gave lots of nice ammunition to the Mindcr~1 entity (brainshare wholly owned by Micros~1).
"Look at these. Do you really want to be using a system where THIS is the level of maturity of its proponents?"
--
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Upon first look, I wouldn't think most people would buy NT for mission critical enterprise class computing. But they do.
I've come to realize recently that while the typical person thinks the majority of the other people are rational, the majority of the other people aren't being rational at all.
Why do people read tabloids and watch Jerry Springer? Because if it's on the web, or TV and it's exciting enough, it's true.
I hate that crap.
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
I run a web page and even I get e-mail like that. And I don't even do anything offensive. I get e-mail telling me I suck, or that I'll go to hell. Blah blah blah. So who's to say that mindcraft isn't just posting their choice of e-mail to make it appear that Linux users hate them? I'm sure I could prove that people over 70 hate me by publishing just those hate mails about my disrespect for adults or something. Geesh.
If anything bothers me with this page, it's that the general public will swallow it, hook, line, sinker, and boat. Perhaps Mindcraft would like to publish ALL of their e-mail instead of being a typical information manipulator.
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
I went to this site (as probably did all of you) and I was very embarrased. If Mindcraft *did* throw the tests, thats *their* shame, not ours. We as a community have the BEST -- hands down and we know it and that should be all there is to know.
However, their are the *Linux Religious* zealots that think that bad language and immaturity is effective -- it isn't.
I'm not a programmer, let alone a *real* contributor like the many who develoled Linux, but I do my part in the area of advocacy. And to have this happen... In a few lines, they distroy the credibility it has taken years to develope. These immature people are fueling the FUD we are hearing of now. They are giving MicroSoft (yes I call it by its proper name) the backing to say "look at this group if loose-knit, juvenile hackers that want to give you this crappy OS." FUD. It *can* kill us if we don't stop the potty-mouth.
Hell, yes I'm mad at Mindcraft. I was mad then and I'm still mad now, but I heard recently that Linus himself called this an opportunity to get a real-time look at how NT and Linux match up. There is *always* room for improvement. And once we improve, don't you think MicroSoft will too?
The pace is up to us, to see how far we can go. How far we can push the envelope. How much good we can do for everyone, and I mean everyone. If we are lacking, I know we will overcome. We will succeed.
Good luck to us all.
-Wes Yates
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I went to this site (as probably did all of you) and I was very embarrased. If Mindcraft *did* throw the tests, thats *their* shame, not ours. We as a community have the BEST -- hands down and we know it and that should be all there is to know.
However, their are the *Linux Religious* zealots that think that bad language and immaturity is effective -- it isn't.
I'm not a programmer, let alone a *real* contributor like the many who develoled Linux, but I do my part in the area of advocacy. And to have this happen... In a few lines, they distroy the credibility it has taken years to develope. These immature people are fueling the FUD we are hearing of now. They are giving MicroSoft (yes I call it by its proper name) the backing to say "look at this group if loose-knit, juvenile hackers that want to give you this crappy OS." FUD. It *can* kill us if we don't stop the potty-mouth.
Hell, yes I'm mad at Mindcraft. I was mad then and I'm still mad now, but I heard recently that Linus himself called this an opportunity to get a real-time look at how NT and Linux match up. There is *always* room for improvement. And once we improve, don't you think MicroSoft will too?
The pace is up to us, to see how far we can go. How far we can push the envelope. How much good we can do for everyone, and I mean everyone. If we are lacking, I know we will overcome. We will succeed.
Good luck to us all.
-Wes Yates
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I meant, how to respond to the tactic of people publishing flames to the public. You can't click 'delete' for a website or a newscast.
The nearest equivalent - just ignore it - might work. Or it might not. A failure to respond to mudslinging, unfortunately, leaves you covered in mud. Ignoring it may be the best tactic - one-sided mud-slinging makes the attacker look vicious and petty. The problem is that this particular kind of mud-slinging is designed to make the linux community look like the aggressor, so ignoring it may not work, in the sense that the public may believe MindCraft, or others that try similar tactics, and start to hate us, or at least think of us as too immature to deal with.
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
These are just flames, not even atypical flames in the net-world. There is nothing unique about them, except that they are selected examples posted to the web for PR purposes.
I'm disappointed in the people who did this, but I think you have to be realistic - out of the millions of people on the net, -any- topic is going to generate a certain amount of flamage. There are always going to be a few who just -have- to vent, however incoherently. I hope everyone will try to remember that putting even one gratuitous insult in your e-mail, no matter how good it feels, is only going to get you lumped in with the people incapable of spelling or finishing a sentence without a four-letter word.
I'm also disappointed in MindCraft. These kinds of e-mails are not unique to them, and the only appropriate response is to click 'delete.' (Mailbombs are another story - then you contact a net administrator for action.) It's no more mature to say, 'My goodness, everyone come and see how stupid and foul-mouthed this person is,' than it is to issue gratituitous and foul-mouthed insults.
I'm almost tempted to collect an assortment of flames from MS-fanatics speaking against linux from the newsgroups and post them as a rebuttal, but that would be too hypocritical given what I just said. I don't know -how- to respond to this. It would be nice if nobody that supports linux would ever send flames, in newsgroups or by e-mail, but it's not realistic. I hope someone can think of some way responding to such things before the day Microsoft's inbox gets read - with appropriate 'bleeps' on the evening news.
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
How about "Considering retirement" :)
I think writing about this particular subset of the Linux community has already been done here, so I'm not going to post about that.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is another kind of hurtful advocacy; the type that is, shall we say, not entirely true.
For example, ESR frequently says that Linux systems "never crash", which is not true. While Linux is certainly more stable than some other operating systems, it does crash - regularly for some people.
As I write this I am trying to figure out why three of my servers, all with perfectly good hardware, and all running 2.2, crash on a regular basis.
I think everyone could stand to go back and re-read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO.
1) Someone find the Taco an editor. We love you, Rob, but your grammar sucks.
2) Ahahahaha! If these were the worst repsonses they got, I need to warm up my flame-o-matic. Most of those were tame and ultra-typical net-trash flames. Of course MC aren't going to publish the well thought-out responses. As someone else pointed out, they don't understand how open discussions of linux with netizens work. Welcome, friends, to the modern internet.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Actually, linux's sucess will depend on how convient it will be for users to use it, not how elegant it is.
Thats why the fax still exists, even though email is a more elegant solution. Being able to put in a piece of paper and hitting the green button is a far easier concept to teach than moving a mouse to the send button.
---------- Real roxen error message: Error: The server failed to fulfill your query, due to an internal error in the i
This is an interesting reaction for a company to take in response to email flames.
I'm not surprised when journalists decide to devote one of their columns to the flame-mail they've received, but exactly HOW is it in Mindcraft's best interest to post this page and link to it off their homepage?
Its not saying "hey, mindcraft is the place to go for fair and accurate judgement" All its saying is "linux users are all a bunch of illiterate zealots" And whose purposes does that serve? Mindcraft doesn't benefit from such a statement, but Microsoft does. ("Would your network to an OS for which you can only get Administrators like *this*...?!?")
Not that I think that Redmond put them up to this; I suspect they came up with the idea all on their own.
In any case, I certainly am embarrassed to be associated with the people who wrote this claptrap. Oh well...guess it's time to move to GNU/Hurd.
-Felix
arvind rulez
whatever happened to that? are we afraid linux would loose?
Synergies are basically awesome, and they're even better when you leverage them. -PA
I've been doing this for years just for my own amusement, generally before a candidate comes in for a first interview. Sometimes it's quite interesting to observe answers to questions in relation to things that have been posted to the Net.
About the Mindcraft problem: it seems to me that people need to learn that this is just business. Ethics and netiquette are going to take a back seat when there is big money involved. This is a fact of life that people around here need to accept. I'm not about to start defending these messages as "typical net flames" and take Mindcraft to task for violating netiquette.
My mom always used to tell me never to write anything down I didn't want to see on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper. I think that's great advice. Next time you write to a feedback mail address or otherwise criticize a person or company, be aware that you have no control over that message once it's sent, and it could very well end up on a public web page.
Try not to embarass yourself and the rest of us, okay?
but comments are a work in progress--do you really expect people to keep checking back to see if we moderated people down?
How about setting the default threshold to 2. This will give visiting users a much better impression of slashdot and I imagine will also severally cut down on bandwidth. Basically if you want the general public to read your message you have to post something worth reading.
I bet mayor linux sites (slashdot, linux.com, linus torvalds himself) get tons of mail like this from windows users to lame to be able to install linux, or being disappointed office2000 won't run under linux. How about posting these?
No, Mindcraft's credibility remains where it was - they're awfully good at selecting their data to insure that the reader draws the conclusion that Mindcraft's sponsor is looking for:
Microsoft wanted data showing that NT was faster than Linux. Mindcraft arranged it. Then, they wanted data showing that Linux users are juvenile delinquents. Guess what? They got it - they sorted through all of the letters that they received, and picked out the ones that showed Linux users in the worst possible light.
So Mindcraft's reputation hasn't changed a bit...
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
One of you legal types out there please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that the author of a piece of correspondence automatically becomes the copyright holder. This is why literary editors have to get permission not from the letter's recipient, but from the writer or his estate.
If this is indeed the case, then Mindcraft may be violating copyright law by posting these letters on their web site. Thus it would be a good idea to document the existence of this page for future legal action...
However, IANAL, so someone who does know, please elaborate on this.
You want to see something really funny? I ran the page through The Dialectizer. It won't work from The Dialectizer page, something about Mindcraft's server not being standard. So I make a copy of the page and dialectized it. You can view the result here.
Whatever. Too bad you haven't got a sense of humor. I think it's just as funny in Cockney, or Redneck, or Elmer Fudd, or Swedish Chef, or Moron, or Pig Latin.
If you've got a problem with it, then read The Dialectizer's Not Discriminatory statement. If you still got a problem, don't bitch at me - I didn't write the program. Bitch at Samuel Stoddard, who did write it, at his feedback address.
Please try to have a nice day!
I would also suggest that you don't abuse the anonymity offered by various forums on the Internet to say things in a way that you would be ashamed to in Real Life.
Anonymity is an important tool. It allows people to say things that should be said without reprecussions, but abusing it weakens its value for everyone. Every jerk who spews sub-articulate hate through an anonymous channel undermines cogent criticisms arriving by any means.
Some people are objecting to the foolishness of people who sent these flames using real, traceable e-mail address. I think they are missing an important point:
Don't be a jerk & don't abuse the anonymity offered by various forums on the Internet to say things in a way that you would be ashamed to say in Real Life.
Anonymity is an important tool. It allows people to say things that should be said with less personal risk, but abusing it weakens its value for everyone. Every jerk who spews sub-articulate hate through an anonymous channel undermines cogent criticisms arriving by any means.
Anonymity should not be a license to act irresponsibly.
Advocacy is a good thing; zealotry too often is not.
Flamers are a breed apart. I'm not certain it is possible to appeal to their good sense (which may be in short supply.) It matters not what the reason for the flame -- flames are always offensive.
I'm not sure whether Mindcraft is guiltier than the flamers in this; both are acting childish, and before the dust settles, both will earn much ill will.
The best we can do, I'm afraid, is to take note, and to discourage if we can, any further flames.
--- Bill
What this is, indeed, is more of the same. It's a heavily biased anti-linux 'study' in the form of a collection of e-mail messages...only this time, they don't even -claim- that they're providing an unbiased sample of messages. This page is even more worthless than the study which inspired it, and I have faith that everyone who saw how worthless the study was can see this for what it is as well.
--neil
On the Mindcraft site there is a mention that the open benchmark test will take place in the week of 14the June - last week. Has there been any mention of it anywhere? Anyone know anything?
I think that the Linux community should be glad of this whole shebang. It has highlighted the areas where work is needed, provided us with quite a bit of publicity. It's also illustrated that the spouting off at the mouth by a few immature kiddies does nothing for the reputation of the Linux community as a whole. These stupid, purile flames (just like the ones sent to that Bryar journalist) do absolutely no good.
I've been advocating Linux at my place of work for some time now, slowly chipping away at the prejudice. Recently in a discussion at work, talking to someone who I had finally convinced over several weeks to take Linux seriously, I found myself almost back to square one, because he associated me with these stupid little boys.
Think before you type!
Life sucks but death doesn't put out at all....
Is there any good way to call this discussion to the attention of the trade press? Anyone who has spent enough time on USENET is quite thoroughly used to the "degenerative" discussion. I used to spend a lot of time in alt.solar.photovoltaic (because of my strong interest in renewable energy). Almost every thread of discussion would eventually be taken over by the "no-nukes" and "more-nukes" camps. Hardly any discussion of photovoltaics at all. Luckily, through the miracle of the killfile, some of us had discussions. Good discussions.
I have seen childish Windows users write in exactly the same manner as the "Linux advocates" Mindcraft posted.
I tend to agree with Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. He was talking about fiction, but I think the rule can be generalized to just about everything people do; even to just about everything I personally do (you have no idea how it pains me to admit that! My ego is threatening to leave me!).
Given The Law, I reckon about the only thing we can do is:
1) Try to think before we type.
2) Try to imagine receiving this same message from some "brain dead twerp" (i.e., anyone who thinks differently than we do).
3) Speak out gently against uncivil conduct.
4) Rewrite. Often.
This marks the third time in the last week that a fair portion of a Slashdot posting's discussion thread has concerned itself with how we sound off. I am deeply heartened by seeing the goodwill of most of us displayed. I just wish there were some effective way to bring this attention of those who see us only as pack of wild animals.
Any suggestions?
As somebody pointed it, this is and OLD page, and only shows exactly how clueless about the net community Mindcraft is.
It is the prototypical first reaction of a newbie to a mailbox full of flame mail: "WAAAA I acted like a retard and look at all the flamage I got! Somebody do something! I didn't say anything wrong, because look at how content free those flames are!"
What's next? Going to go run to your mommies and cry?
The first rule of net communication is that of instant criticism, fair AND unfair. If you can't handle content-free flames, don't post flame bait. In fact, don't participate at all. Sooner or later you will get flamed. Deal with it.
Which leads me to the second rule of net communication: grow a thick skin. Its only words, right? Isn't that what you tell your twelve year old? "Sticks and stones... etc"?
Mindcraft: your posting of other peoples immature flames have only verified the obvious to me. You people are just as immature, AND net-newbies to boot.
Finally, for those of you flamers out there: don't stop. Sure, a well thought out critcism is better, and an outright mailbomb is a BAD IDEA(tm), but somewhere in between lies the happy, soul cleansing, first amendment protected, uncensored flame.
I have a 386 1Meg RAM running linux. But it's really really hard to get NT can run in this 386. Some NT guru here said the processor is way too old.
That page has been up since not too long after the first Mindcraft Samba benchmark.
After all, for years 90% of the PC/IT industry has praised MS and pooh-poohed everythng non-MS. Even to the extent where supposedly intelligent people will austracize another just because they don't like a certain MS product. And it is always rationalized by saying "If they can't see that MSProggyX is better, has more features and allows us to do our work better then they're obviously not modern, progressive and with-it enough to play on the team."
It's little wonder that some people who are really gung-ho over Linux (or any other alternative-to-MS product) act a little crazy when rediculous "scientific" claims are made using the holy word "fact." I don't like it, but it's a religious matter and such behaviour can be expected. Lets just hope the minority are so impolite. After all, it's been the FUDdites who have been name-calling for years, we should rise above that kind of childish behaviour.
If what I said is nonsense,
I'm making a point with it.
If what I said makes perfect sense,
you obviously missed the point.
Mom always said when I left to go play a Little League baseball game "Play hard and remember your not just representing yourself, your representing where you live as well." The Net has become that. Linux is a community and Little League Linuxers when the Ump doesnt make a correct call, even if one player on the field talks back to the Ump everyone hears it and sees it. One person can cast a bad view of where your from and the mumblings in the crowd and the conversations after the game affect you all. Even if the call didnt influence the outcome win or lose, you still project a bad view opf your town. Sound advice from Mom. Remember it, Live by it.
Agreed. By my lights, the following two principles apply:
1) Linux zealots are hardly unique about this kind of thing. Browse c.o.l.a. and you'll find a half dozen Microsoft evangelists camped there full time doing this kind of thing. And recently a Be advocate started in on it to. Singling out Linuxers as the Bad Boys of the Internet is the FUD of the finest water.
2) Mindcraft deserves any/all the sewage that anyone cares to dump on them. They're just trying to divert attention from their own socially unacceptable behavior by pointing out that other people misbehave as well. Well sorry, guys, it doesn't work that way.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I dont believe you people are giving the folks at mindcraft enough credit. When windows NT loses a benchmark you dont see thousands of windows users screaming FUD and foul play. I believe, whether intentional or not, posting the flame mails they get serves a two fold purpose.
Firstly it points out something of the maturity of the group whom you must turn to for help. The same people who flame mindcraft are the same kids who installed linux so they could teardrop people with their rootshell binary and are the same people who call other users stupid in ng's for perfectlly legit questions. If everyone that uses linux is preceived to be an asshole, how far along do you think it will get before IT people laugh it off.
But secondly and most importantly, and rather sly on the part of mindcraft if they intended it, is a giant screaming wake up to the linux community at large. In order to be viable as a movement this sort of action MUST BE DISCOURAGED. And of course the best way to do this is have all the mature, helpful respectful experianced intelligent users openly frown on this sort of thing. Sort of a call for the Guru's and mentors out there to speak out and show that this sort of thing is unacceptable.
Just because Linux doesnt win the benchmarks doesnt mean it is an inerior operating system. This has been stated over and over. And to write off a respected company as in the pocket of Microsoft because your favourite operating system didnt win is immature. They held a second test at their own expense to prove they are not biased. They are a company, with responsibilty and credit being their currency. Linux is a movement, if it loses creditbility it fades away, no real monetary loss, this is in sharp contrast to Mindcrafts situation. If they lose the trust of other companies, they are no longer a business. If Linux lets these k1ddies run wild and they do ruin Linux's viability as an operating system for business, I am sure Linus wont stop writing the kernel and Alan Cox wont stop patching, and linux lives, maybe not as publically as now, but lives on regardless of what people think. Keep in mind that there is a distinct and sharp contrast between a movement and a business. No more flame kids.
And as a final note, if you think Mindcraft was paid off, prove it. Show the kickbacks that were taken. I am sure a well written letter to a lawyer somewhere could start some sort of official action with some kind of result. As opposed to all the innuendo that is circulating. And I doubt microsoft would start buying test results in the middle of an anti trust suit. Seems rather silly. My $0.02 CDN
-- Daniel Harvey
It's probably horribly dated (I haven't looked in years) but the old de facto standard was the Emily Postnews post, seen regularly in news.announce.newusers.
-- Kate
Another thing,
You ever notice how normal, intelligent human beings writing style turns to mush when they get angry? Lots of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors can really ruin your credibility and make you look like a dope.
--
InstantCool
I did a little browsing at Mindcraft's web page and found the three rebuttals they have posted to articles appearing on abc.com, Salon, and Linux Today.
Each of the above was an article that in one way or another questioned the accuracy of the Mindcraft benchmark tests.
The tone of their rebuttals actually approaches the inflammatory nature of the flames that they posted!
In these rebuttals they DEMAND that the sites in question (ABC, Salon, Linux Today) post retractions to their reviews, or at least add a link to Mindcraft's rebuttal to the text of their reviews!
What crybabies!
Mindcraft, me thinks thou dosest abide in a glass house!
I don't agree with the way in which others have voiced their opinions on the subject. However, I would have to agree the Mindcraft are FUD writers who probably benefit very nicely from M$ for doing so. I'll never touch that company with a barge pole. :-)
http://www.jonmasters.org/
Damn that's ugly. Makes anybody using linux look like a poiled kid who just got his ice cream taken away. Jeez.
But, that's probably the response they were looking for. I know there were some clear, well thought out, clean repsonses. Funny I don't see those posted there. Really this looks like Mondcraft saying 'Wahhhh we got flamed and don't like it.' Mind you I think the letters they got were pretty stupid and generally useless. They won't change anyones mind.
-cpd
The thing that struck me about these emails is that if you delete the "bad words" they no are no different than what Alan Cox and others have been saying about the Mindcraft test in more public forums: the methods are poor and the test was unfair. I've never understood why certain words are arbitrarily labelled unsuitable for polite conversation. Why is "this test is shit!" an unacceptable way of saying "I disapprove of your methods and don't trust your results"? Most of these messages used the word "whore". As I understand it, Mindcraft's contract with Microsoft included a clause that prohibited them from releasing their results if they were unfavorable to Microsoft. This seems pretty close to the modern usage of the word "whore"! The "fuck you" message summed up in two words what most of us felt when we learned that Mindcraft was funded by Microsoft. These messages aren't obscene, they're just effective communication.
The reason the Amiga died a slow and unnecessary death was the indifference of Commodore. I don't know what the suits in charge thought they were doing - selling action figures at Kmart?
Oh well, now we have Linux, so things are better again.
I think that the majority of people here are jumping to conclusions. Mindcraft's behavior can be explained without them being a puppet of MS.
I'm guessing that the guys at Mindcraft aren't real hardcore Linux hackers, and so when the time came for a head-to-head, they setup Linux as best they could, setup NT, and did some tests. The Linux community, such as it is, felt their OS was being dissed, and wah lah, holy war.
Thanks to the great reaction of the Linux community, the mainstream media began looking at the study with honest-to-god skepticism instead of reporting "LUsers Hate Mindcraft".
Now Mindcraft more than likely feels like they're under attack, which they are. If you put out a study saying NT is better than Linux, prepare to deal with a lot of criticism.
Mindcraft's money comes from people wanting to hire them as independent testers. If no one trusts them, they lose big time. Right now they're trying to get trust in their company back up by making another test which is much more open.
MS doesn't have to figure into any of this, and I think if you all run around looking under your beds for the Evil Empire of MS, you'll just look silly.
This does not mean that I think the study's results are valid, nor do I think that NT is better than Linux, nor do I work for MS or Mindcraft. IANAL, YMMV, and all the related disclaimers.
Just remember... if someone accused *you* of cheating, lying, and incompetence, wouldn't you try and refute those claims?
Something to think about.
-- I can't think of anything witty to put here. Sorry.
That's funny as hell. I want to see more of these.
--
"Fuck you" - me
Have you been cruel to it over the course of its working life? My A1200 works like a charm. My Amstrad/Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A, circa 1987, also works fine :-)
.
Honestly, I skimmed over those messages, and apart from the "strong" language, I think the majority of them are to the point. I'm not a linux zealot. In fact, I'm just barely a linux enthusiast. But, reading those messages produced a more negative feeling towards MindCraft than towards the linux folks.
Also, I think posting emails in public (especially with addresses and all) is pretty lame, and shows the mindset of MindCraft.
I could be wrong, but isn't it considered to be a pretty heinous 'net crime to publicly post a private email without the author's permmission?
Those emails certainly are an embarrassment to the Linux community, but what is Mindcraft trying to prove by posting them prominently? What does that crap have to do with Mindcraft's stated mission: software, system and network testing?
Freedom's just another word for nothing left Zulus
I have seen alot of advocates of Linux more rabid and spiteful towards people who like to use Windows than I have seen of any other OS. Including Mac users...if you can believe that.
So history will once again repeat itself and the Linux we love will once again fall into this category and be considered the "beatnik" OS.
Be careful what you ask for...
...film at 11. :)
Doesn't the "geek" stereotype includes religious devotion to one's favorite editor, language, and OS?
I hate to imply that this immaturity is OK, but what did Mindcraft expect? If you go into the business of "proving" that one operating system is better than another, you'd better budget for a really good mailserver. A Windows vs. Mac comparison would have generated similar responses.
What good does posting these emails on their website do? It strikes me as a PR move to say, "See how immature Linux advocates are?" As another poster said, where are the emails which systematically point out where the study was flawed? If anything, this makes me think Mindcraft is choosing sides. A real testing and benchmarking company should be above saying, "See what jerks their users are?"
What if slashdot set up a page that includes nothing but the "Linux sucks. NT rulez" comments that show up here? Would the immaturity and foul language of those posts make certain NT advocates look like brats?
Having said all that, those responses were pretty childish. I'm afraid that their real harm lies in the fact that Linux is not a single company, therefore Linux advocates ARE its marketing department. I don't think those responses were very good marketing.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
The real question is how to pass the clue onto the people who are causing the problem.
--lysander
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
What purpose does this serve Mindcraft? Does it just let them blow a little steam? Does it make them feel bigger to stoop to this level? I have to agree with Rob on this one but say it a little different. Mindcraft is able to use this as ammunition to make Linux look BAD. If they really are being paid to spread FUD this just gave them some fertilizer. Much like the high school kids were ostracized in the wake of Columbine, true Linux professionals will lose respect in the minds of CO's if this goes too far.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
While I wouldn't use that word per se, prostitution is a good description of Mindcraft's activities of late. As a benchmarking company, they live or die by their credibility. By their actions on this test (adequately documented on this site; one of my earlier posts has the link to ESR's stuff), they have sold out their credibility. IMHO, this is indeed worse than selling out one's body.
--The basis of all love is respect
My statement was that Microsoft benefits from each foulmouthed public message in support of Linux, and it appears to me that Microsoft would not be above making a little of their own particularly nasty messages if they thought it might do them some good.
Oh, come on! The first message was from Joe Barr - of Dweebspeak Primer and Linux World article fame.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
To keep in style we *could* make a webpage containing reasonable, friendly, constructive comments people of the linux-community sent to Mindcraft...
;-)
I'm pretty sure they received those as well!
I hope so, because else the sad truth is we are a pathetic bunch of foulmouth lusers!
... which we are not!
Well... I'm not anyway... and no doubt more of you aren't either.
Oh and forget that webpage... it's not worth the effort.
Gotta love it: Joe Barr alienates a world of OS/2 users, and now he's in the Linux camp.
This guy will really make Linux seem professional, courteous, and his net presence will reenforce the notion that the best Linux support is online.
(Find some new friends guys, this nut won't go away)
I don't think it's illegal to post someone's mail unless they have *specifically* noted that the message is copyright. While it is usually seen as a breach of netiquette to do so, the 'flaming of wretches' is also a breach of netiquette in itself.
Quite frankly, if someone sent mail like that to me, I'd almost feel obliged to make a special page for them on my website to show the world their communication skills.
Just how many people, on receipt of email like this, will say: "Gosh! I do suck after all! And yes, that *is* true about my mother! (hey, maybe *I* should try multiple exclamation points too!! Goodness, what a rUsH!!!) My word, I must write back and ask this gentleman where I can get one of these 'life' things he recommends."
dAvE "iSn'T tHiS sTuDlYcApS tHiNg CoNdUcIvE tO cLeArEr CoMmUnIcAtIoN?!?1!" o
How long before our conspiracy minded friends say that the astroturfers out there posted all those nasty things to hurt us?
Nothing at all... but since the linux zealots beat you to it, there's little point.
They couldn't post the reasonable E-mail. How bad would they look if they put up 500 variations of "Excuse me but Linux would have worked much better if you set it up this way ....." Mindcraft is trying to regain thier credibility. Posting the reasonable responses would have destroyed it. The crap was all that was left.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Wish she had cited her reasons for choosing fBSD for the server... I mean what does "because FreeBSD handles twice the Web traffic." mean ??? Please someone explain to me how a kernel handles web traffic??? I wish people only 1/10^1000 of what they think they know... sheesh...
Is the number of spelling and grammatical errors in many of the messages - there is no better way to make us all look bad than to illuminate the poor literacy of such fanatics.
On the up-side however, Mindcraft may think twice before loading the dice again...
:-)
I'll let you in on a little secret dude, if you don't want to look like a fool, quite frequently the wisest course of action is to keep your mouth shut, and when you open it, whether vocally or literally, it is exceptionally good form to at least get the language you have chosen to use right, lest you open yourself up to critique!
And by the way I have a number of friends who are of Non-AngloSaxon descent whose command of the English Language far exceeds many of the illiterate dolts who decided to share their pearls of wisdom with Mindcraft, so I am afraid your argument is moot.
Dear MindCraft,
Thank you for publishing some of the correspondence you have recieved from
some vocal linux users. What I find interesting that all of the email you have
displayed have been offensive and immature. While any reasonable person will
admit that in any mass of people there are extremes in any direction, the same
reasonable people would not infer the behaviour of the group form the actions
of a minority.
Your inital tests raised several issues (and found some bugs, now fixed -
thanks!) about the imbalance between the setup for NT and Linux, details of
which can be found on any reputable news source, so I shouldn't need to
reiterate them here. The general conclusion you attempted to dervive from that
specific setup (NT is x times faster than Linux) was at best flawed, at worst
contrived. I could not fairly compare a mini falling over a cliff, and a
ferrai towing a trailer up a steep road, and infer that "a mini has better
acceleration than a ferrai" (even if it would have correct for that one case)
What I find most interesting is the similariaties between the emails you chose
to post, and your initial benchmark "results". In the benchmarking you drew a
general conclusion from one specific setup. In posting only the offensive email
you have recieved, I would infer that you are trying to create a general
impression that the only email you had recieved was offensive, which I find
hard to believe. Drawing a general conclusion from a minority of bad cases, is
one of the main problems many people had with your inital test.
You advertise as an independent testing/benchmarking company, and since you
are doing these tests at your own expense, I assume you are trying to retain
that image of giving fair and accurate results. If you are indeed interested
in giving a balanced view, I would encourage you to post a representive
sample of all the email you have recieved about these tests.
If, however, you are releasing the hate mail solely as an attempt at PR, I
would remind you of a saying of Salvor Hardin (see Foundation) "An atom
blaster can point both ways". By attempting to discredit the people who
pointed out the flaws in your benchmark, and failing, the flaws become more
and more apparent. The initial benchmark was unbalanced. The release of only
selected emails was unbalanced. Is "unbalanced" the image an "impartial"
testing company should be trying to have?
As a side point, IANAL, posting selected, offensive content, to try and
give the impression that all linux user are immature/offensive, and to provoke
a reaction from the less controled reader, could be categorised as "Flamebait",
but there may be a risk that it could be also described as incitment to
hatred. I assume you had different reasons for just posting the offensive
emails.
There are two sides to every story, and if you wish for people to
think you are a balanced company, you should give balanced views, and that
includes showing a fair sample of the emails you have recieved. (And sent as a
response, also, as we have no idea if these were a inital email, or as a
response to something you said to them)
In short, may the FUD you spread be Fair, Unbiased, Data
Yours, etc.
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Aside from the fact of how unprofessional it is for a company like Mindcraft to post these kind of emails on their website, it also creates another problem.
/. ". I think Rob should think about that before putting another news item of this type.
Anyone who is familiar with dealing with this kind of negativity knows rule #1 when dealing with lamers: Do not acknowledge their efforts, because it only keeps them going.
By posting these emails, Mindcraft is encouraging
people of this type to continue to assault Mindcraft with hate-mail in the hopes of getting their mail posted on their site. This in turn creates more negative publicity for Linux. In a way you almost have to wonder just a little bit whether that was the point.
Regardless, acknowledging this kind of childish behavior does no good. Posting it to slashdot makes it far worse. While Rob's "SERMON" may enlighten a small few, this posting will more likely encourage more linux fanatics (the type that cause these types of bad press) to continue to assault Mindcraft , Microsoft, etc in this manner, because, "Hey, if I bash them enuff, mebbe I can geet mentioned on
These letters should not have been sent, and the letters should not have been posted like this either. But they have. What can "we" learn from this, like "we" learnt from their test.
The test was probably hand-picked by microsoft to show nt at its best and linux at its worst. It did, however, point out a weakness in linux, and made sure it could be corrected.
This time mindcraft makes public a weakness in the way "we" respond to less than glowing view of linux. The letters have certainly been hand-picked. Make sure that this also is corrected!
This kind of attitude also goes for the /. itself. Moderating down well written articles that are critical of some aspect of linux, flaming, and moderating up flames are all things that put "us" in a bad light.
Let us use this then as an education. Tell those who flames that it will hurt the side they support as much as the other side. Try to moderate in a way that makes a debate better, even if it means increasing the score of someone you disagrees with.
Just as these flames comes back to "us" to haunt "us", posting them like this may come back to haunt mindcraft. Let them worry about that. Let "us" use this as a way to make an improvement.
If that happens, mindcraft may happen to do linux another favour - in the long run.
Lemme get this straight. You call him immature, and then you call him a lamer. Buddy, you're a hypochrite. Luckily, you're anonymous.
Windows NT is compiled to run on the Intel 80386 instruction set, just like Linux x86. It will run on it, but it needs sufficent RAM. 1MB won't cut it. I think that NT needs at least 16MB of RAM.
Running NT on a 386 would be an exercise in futility and somewhat akin to the Chineese Water Torchure. Heck, NT on my 233 Pentium MMX when it had 64MB wasn't very pleasant. 128MB...Ahh, much better. Linux, on the other hand, on my 66MHz PowerPC and on my 200MHz AMD-K6 and even on a 25MHz 486 was/is quite pleasant.
Here's what I had to say to Mindcraft. I think that this s#!t is getting out of hand:
To whom it may concern,
I was reading your Net Rage article after reading about it on Slash Dot. I must say that I am offended that you would reprint such garbage on your web site. Some Linux advocates are teenagers and don't even know what they are talking about and are usually expressing some sort of angst...posting these e-mails will probably give you more flack than the original study that you did.
On the benchmarks, I never give much credit to any--especially across platforms. My 66MHz Mac continuously outperformed my 233MHz Windows NT box when the NT box had only 64MB of RAM and the Mac had 72MB of RAM from the standpoint of the user interface, such menu reaction time and application launch time. This is completely irrelevant to anything else, because the NT box is really faster at doing more things in the same amount of time (I would hope).
It seems pointless to argue that Linux or NT is better based on one set of benchmarks on one machine. I seriously doubt that NT would outperform Linux on a 16MHz i386 with 16MB of RAM! For fairness sake, why don't you benchmark Linux and NT on a full spectrum of computer hardware from a 386 to the fastest multi-processor NT machine. And not just Linux, why not Solaris, SCO Unix, Rhapsody, and FreeBSD? Your tests make it seem that you are biased, and people will respond accordingly, though not appropriately. MacWorld benchmarks show that NT+IIS is very fast--much faster than Solaris and MacOS X! Posting a full set of benchmarks will give you more credibility kudos than posting offensive e-mail.
Sincerely,
#MY REAL NAME#
Folks when I began linux, about 6 months ago. I had been useing MS since 82, I learned the os inside and out, it was my own world back then and (for some unkown reason) can do an MS win9X install in under 30 mins and have it on the net. It got boring. what a geek to do when he's mastered an os to the point he can build/repair/fix a windows pc in his sleep.
/. folks groumble, chances are the people who wrote that don't bother reading the wonderful news bullitans here at /. (adjust his /. cap (thanks copy left)
:) (being honest now)
I turned to this little OS, that I could teak to my hearts content, binaries are virtually non-existant. So if i want to build a pc to say, be nothing but a mail server, I can do that easily instead of loading 250megs for the os and another 250 megs incase i have to change the networking (its an annoying little habbit they have picked up)
I thanked my friend (thanks Paul M. you know who you are) and have been playing to my hearts content. I was interdused to a linux users group in my area and met some great guys, "hey this guy knows his stuff, and man I want my pc to do that too" was what I was thinking.
So of all this time in the linux comunity I have learned alot about respect, (according to my friends I missed the class on spelling)When someone shows spam like this and points it at us he's won so let them scream we have no move left to make.
Why they already won (mindcraft):
1) If nt still comes out by a hair, they can say "say i told ya we where impartial, an see how you slandard us "points to his posts on the www page.
2) If we start touting that there not fair for putting the e-mails up, they can point saying "see the kiddy linux users, I can just imagine there OS, if they cant be responsibe for there own users..." well you know the rest of it.
3) Even when/if linux does beat nt, then they can just point to the flame and say "do you want you os to be written by "these" guys?"
Only way to rise above it,
To give what ever aid to our linux hero's who defend our work. And jus plain injore the garbage, we are better than that. I may not have written the kernal but, I like to think that spreading the word amongst some of my friends there may be down the line a new great program will be written by an action I set forth today.
We can shout at each other all we want and quote Neticate till we are blue in the face, but the only thing it does is keep fellow
Fact is some of the kiddies got ticked at the unfairness of the benchmark, and want to defend there favorite penguin, can't blame them, so Mindcraft, who already got paid, used the kiddie posts to put the final kick at us (probbly cause the kiddies dropped there e-mail server)And use us as a shield incase PC Weeks benchmark show linux the winner. (ie these Linux lovers are hard to work with)
On the lighter side, us real system admins uasully injore the benchmarks, we know why, cause you can't have a truly 100% objective benchmark of two different operating systems. You write the benchmark for one os now you have to port it to the other, and who's to say you ported it right. Just too many things can go wrong
Me, I choose the OS and equipment baised on
1) can i easily install it
2) how fast can i make it
3) how much it costs me
4) and how much will $$, get me in speed
5) i want to hit it with a brick and see if it falls, if it does how fast can i put it together
6) can i play with it when i'm board
Now if the kiddies want to have a flame war with a compainy's paid "benchmark" let them play the PR war. and we tune them out till they come to there sences. (geez don't I sound old (snaps his supenders))
To be honest I dont care if we beat nt. I know the network I administer over, won't have nt as a server on it. and just in a few years, be running linux servers instead of sco. I chose linux cause it was felexabe, and I could help with its developement in a small way and feel like I belong to a sort of computer family (with the occasional blacksheep). I still run Win9X at home but only for the Real Audio Encoder, other than that the network would be 100% linux mostly just so I can play with it some more. I'll be honest I am no programmer. I'm lucky to make a database in fox/Recital for work, and the odd script. I enjoy being around other linux folks. I Enjoy playing with the os. And learning about happings in the linux world. I mean lets face 99% of us are responsible folks of good character, and that 1% the moderatiors keep out.
So as far as the flame wars go.. is it going to change the ending? no. Is it going to make each and everyone of us format our hd's and pull the microsoft software out of the bubble pack, left over from when we origionally baught our pc's and now show it off like a trophy before installing it, no.
Then let the kiddies flame fly, i'll be in the play room... er computer lab. All this communication is makeing my head hurt.
Cormac
Just another Techno-geek lost in cyberspace.
Bah.. you obviously havn't been introduced to perl yet... it's all 'bout the one liners.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
1. edit hosts.deny and sendmail cfg files to
block email and connections from the hosts that
belong to these fools.
2. start an automailer to send them a taste of
their own medicine.
So you trust MS & MC that this information is
accurate?
Reds: Let's invent some fake hate mail from the
blues...
In all issues surrounding email abuse it
is standard to provide full header
information.
These examples dosn't show the full headers,
there is a strange Sent: header line,
which isn't in the standard Date: format.
Also the From: lines look suspcious.
This page smells of rats...
As stands there is little reason for beliving
that any of the items were ever real emails.
Linux people have been having this problem of being overly zealous and defnsive as the community has grown and invited all kinds of "wanna-be" techno-elitists... They often don't understand truly the techological part and only care about being able to say "I run linux, so I am elite!" I think MindCraft was unprofessional by posting this, and the same would have happened for trashing windows probably, but this does seem to be a problem. Reminds me of an incident in #linux on efnet.
I was in and some person commented that linux sucked, I responded that "sure, all operating systems suck, linux just sucks less than most everything else out there.." and I was kick-banned because they decided I was a microsoft-loving troll... Even while making a statement that DEFENDs linux, some people that don't think before acting give linux a bad name. For intelligent comments in a channel meant to be helpful to linux users, people are kick-banned too quickly... Oh well, this is probably more my gripe at being a linux advocate banned from a channel about linux, but I truly think it shows a sort of decline in the average intelligence of linux users, sadly.. The kernel is better than it ever has been, just wish the user base was as good as the OS..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Ignore Mindcraft, concentrate on the customer.
-- Real free software sites don't use GIFs.
Why is it so hard to admit that Windows NT outperformed Linux? I dislike Windows as much as most of you do, but I don't find it hard to admit NT can out-do Linux. NT is developed by highly paid programmers that stay up all hours, being treated like semi-royalty... Linux is developed by engineers from all over the globe who have a job outside of programming stuff for Linux. It shouldn't be suprising that NT can outperform Linux. Now, I know you can point out little flaws with the testing, but so what? If Porsche 911 was WinNT, and a Ford Taurus was Linux, no matter how much you hated Porsche, without customizations to your car, the Ford will lose to the Porsche. Linux is, in the eyes of most computer users, becoming main-stream. People are going to support Porsche until Ford is able to catch up to Porsche, which can only be accomplished by time and hard work.
This is similar to the issue of harassment. And the way that has been handled is for companies to have clear statements of policy and respond appropriately to complaints.
In this case, the Linux community's statement of policy is the "Linux Advocacy HOWTO".
The response is probably not what Mindcraft would like, but then how many objects of harassment are happy with the result? The consensus seems to be that we wish everyone could refrain from using gutter language, but to a certain extent, Mindcraft brought this on themselves.
It would be really slick if one of the Linux portals either gathered comments that are more representative of the whole community or invited a well known representative of the community to post an article. That would hopefully make it to some of the mainstream press and demonstrate that the community does have its act together, in spite of a relative few who can't control their tongues.
I used to celebrate every day NT didn't crash. Now life is incredibly boring because we switched to Linux and it hasn't crashed... except once because of the experimental smp support in the old kernel, that was almost a year ago now...
The power went out for an extended period of time once and we had a few servers go down because of it, that was exciting!
Seriously, Linux is far more stable than NT. I'm not saying NT is worthless, I'm sure it's good for some things.
The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient... - High Road to China
Looks pretty immature to me.
Funny thing is that most of them are displayed with e-maiil address and all. It seems the writers have little experience with the fact that e-mail, especially a strongly worded one, can just go off and start living a life of its own.
And then all over sudden things look a lot different. For instance, would you do business with Pekka.Honkonen@tieto.com at www.tietotech.fi?
I just read your net rage page very funny. I think however you may be doing yourself a disservice by publishing these comments. I'll try to explain.
1) Getting flamed on the internet is just business as usual for anybody who does business on the inernet. As a person who runs a few web sites I get irrational flames occasionally but I don't take them personally. Publishing flame mail pretty much puts you at their level makes you look small and petty.
2) You are (supposed to be) an independent testing firm, by publishing flame from only one camp you make it seem like you are taking sides. I am sure you got at least one flame mail from a Microsoft fan which was similar in tone and content. Although I would expect that you got much more email from the linux camp nevertheless it stains your neutrality claim to provide only one side of the equation.
3) I am sure some people are going to claim that you are doing this as a publicity stunt or to get lots of hits from slashdot. This is going to make you look like a small time operation desperate for publicity and resorting to stunts.
4) "Never argue with an idiot people may not be able to tell the difference". Pointless argument and name calling gets us nowhere.
5) These tests whatever the outcome are already obsolete. W2K is around the corner, Linux has already released a couple of kernel upgrades, drivers have been rewritten, 500mz chips are out, etc. I don't know that these tests are going to help anybody make an informed decision anyway. This all feels like crying over spilt milk. Just clean up and go on. Success is the best revenge and only time will tell who will emerge from this with their reputations intact.
War is necrophilia.
Nor did bad advocacy "kill" OS/2. The efficacy of advocacy - good or bad - should not be over-estimated. Money is an entirely more powerful motivator.
Besides, I question whether either OS/2 or Amiga can be categorised as "dead" when there are still a non-trivial number of installations for each.
Long after the Linux we know has had its day in the sun, is denounced as "dead" and mostly everyone has move to pushing the Next Big Thing, there will still be critical systems using the "dead" OS on a daily basis.
I'm sure there is a beautiful word which means "no longer mainstream" but it escapes me.
As an NT advocate (word always reminds me of those mage things in the lower levels of Diablo), I've posted quite a few anti-Linux, anti-Mac and anti-OS/2 rants on Slashdot, newsgroups and other forums. I have always tried to be reasonable about the posts and try to be as accurate as possible. I find it important also to admit defeat on points where you'd have to lie to do anything else.
The most offending replies I recieved where from accusing other advocates of lying. Interestingly enough although some of their facts were wrong and the statements they had made were inherently false (IMO), they were no more lying than someone who stated that the earth was flat. It was simply reporting their 'opinion' as they saw it.
I have *never* received email of the sort received by Mindcraft and have always been pleasantly surprised that Linux users have in general been the most receptive audiences for my points of view.
It really makes so much of a difference when you go to the trouble to explain what you believe and why you believe it. Name calling never works and is more of an indictment on the caller than the callee. To resort to name calling is to admit defeat.
There is a cultural difference here between the general open source community and the business community. Each put things in their different ways and my feelings from reading about the different attitudes from Slashdot, Salon articles, Microsoft articles and the Mindcraft reports themselves is that the cultural gap is still too wide for good communication to flow through.
If Linux wants to make major inroads to businesses (currently NT/Novell) then this gap must be narrowed - concessions must be made and culture must change. Business tends to focus more on non-technical aspects of systems than the actual technical data which is something the Linux community haven't grasped yet (and Microsoft have known since 1975).
If Mindcraft wants the respect of the Linux community then they also need to try to cross that gap as well to avoid the rampant flames that resulted from their report. These companies that want to benchmark Linux, Apache, Samba and others have to understand the technical correctness demanded for the respect of the Linux community. If the benchmark had been technically accurate then it wouldn't have mattered if Microsoft sponsered it - I'm sure the Linux community would have accepted it and moved on to the next revision.
John Wiltshire
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Look on the bright side -- this sort of mail is evidence that Linux has become so user-friendly that even Beavis and Butt-head can use it.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I wonder if those e-mails are as represantative of all the mail they got about that test as the test itself was about the performance of NT and Linux?
They wouldn't go as far as picking just those which suit their purpose, or would they?
bla
As well, I couldn't believe how many times the word "whore" was used. Damn, just when I thought I had busted that glass ceiling.
One of the anti OS/2 tools Microsoft promoters used well was to make sure the public believed that TEAMOS2 was a bunch of fanatics, and no respectable businessman would associate with them, including IBM. Now that the anti linux campaign has officially been started by Micorsoft, expect to see a lot more of these type of postings from every linux fanatic they can find - it's just part of the complete anti-linux campaign
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
It's one thing to attempt to derail the Linux movement by posting the silly comments of a few ineloquent morons. But to disclose the email addresses of these people is an open invitation to similarly small-minded folk on the MS side of the advocacy spectrum to retaliate in kind.
Sure, the "Pekka.Honkonen"s of the world deserve to suffer some form of humiliation, but a campaign orchestrated by a "respectable" company seems horribly immature.
Something I personnally get tired of is
perpetually being reminded by well-thinking
e-editors to "be polite, not to flame, it only
hurts OpenSource, etc..."
You are not my mother, dammit!
I would not be so stupid as to do this kind of
thing, but on the other hand I feel really
insulted when reminded not to do it, especially
that often.
"News for nerds", or "Advice for cretins" ?
The Net-Rage page is mild stuff. I read worse in comp.* every day. Let alone alt.*
Mindcraft should get a life! and learn some netiquette.
Some email was posted merely because it contained the word "whore". AFAIK, this is the correct term in academic circles for someone who sells out their impartial reputation for money. This is a legitimate accusation against Mindcraft.
I may not agree with the emailer's style, but I _will_ defend (unto death) their right to say it. Should we really shut up just because we might hurt someone's feelings? Always turn the other cheek? Does passion and strong language _never_ have a place?
As to harming the Linux "cause" [if there is one], I don't know. Taunting cheats has some merit in reforming them. Sure, the flamage gives an excuse to those who don't like Linux. But they would find others. Put it this way: Have the Windows zealots hurt their cause in any appreciable way?
if (thing == mine) {
print "This is fantastic\n";
}
else {
print "Horseshit. Total horseshit. And yo mama is a who' \n";
}
Ask any eight year-old, they'll tell you.
I actually sent them a reasonable email, as I wanted to know about their Apache setup (I think maximum client connections or something like that). Didn't get a reply I'm afraid...
-A
It has been well known that people are fond of Linux. It has been well known that people fond of Linux are not always fond of criticism of Linux. It has been well known that people fond of anything can post inflammatory rhetoric out of reaction. Therefore, it is redundant that Mindcraft posted these e-mails.
Part of what brought Mindcraft's integrity into the public eye was Slashdot posts. Even on Mindcraft's site, they mentioned long ago that they were flamed by Linux zealots. However, Internet authorities agree flaming is unprofessional and happens. That was mentioned here on Slashdot. To post them is redundant, unprofessional, and proves Mindcraft has credibility issues.
-Clump
It's quite easy to see that a minority are not able to conduct themselves when presented with information that they do not agree with. The anger and lack of thought are obvious from this. I think that we ought to use the hacker ethic to solve this problem as well.
If this were a kernel bug, everyone would band together and work on producing a fix. It may not be good to have bugs in code, but we deal with them. We use a coding format, so that the high quality of code remains no matter how many people work on it.
In responding to unfavorable response, we can do the same thing. We have some form of organised forum/organisation (press office?) which lays down the facts based on the situation, so that people are aware of the full situation. Perhaps also give links to rebuttle evidence and so that we will get 'an official line' of response that anyone from newbie to wizard can understand and follow.
Then encourage people to write a ordered response incorporating the facts. Keep it objective, and add personal feeling without resorting to name calling and slander. It gives our enemies more ammunition. Ask for the person/organisation to respond; They may have been mistaken after all, and will offer an apology.
This way, the responses are from different individuals, but give the same positive criticism. It's difficult for someone bent on destroying our reputation using several hundred or thousand Emails that have no flame value. Chances are, that they will not be able to get anything to use and hopefully give up, or even come back saying that we did a good job, which adds to our reputation.
If it turns out that the Linux position is weak, and the comment is justifiable, then rather than complaining about it, we add it to the tasklist and fix so it so it does not happen again. Don't forget to thank the person for pointing it out, if it was not already known. There is nothing wrong in being wrong if you fix it, and tell people you have. We can earn respect in the same way from bug fixes - why not any other aspects of Linux use/development?
If we can indicate (organise) the response we want, then we can be sure the minority are not representative and we can't be hurt from episodes like this again.
In the Linux bazaar we inhabit, we need to win new minds outside of our area over to the benefits of free software and information to grow bigger. We need everyone - users, developers, schools, businesses, governments. We need to be showing everyone that we look after those who follow us, and welcome those who want to join in. If we respond with hatred, we drive people away who may be potential users, and play into the hands of people who want to stop Linux at any cost. We can't afford to miss our chance. It may not come again.
"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." ~Ch
I decided that I would go to Mindcraft's page
and see what all of the hub-bub was about.
I found the abusive emails but I also found the
"Open Benchmark" test. Though I don't know a
lot about the particular tests, it does sound
like Mindcraft is willing to give everyone a
fair shot.
I can't wait to see the numbers!
I'm a bit troubled by the idea that these kind of email messages are necessarily bad.
First of all, flames can be FUN--they can be fun to write, and, yes, they can be fun to read. They can also be inteligent. From the way Slashdoters have been speaking lately, you'd think intelligent opinion precludes slapstick, informality, improvisation, or obscenity. But this just isn't the case.
The Open Source movement isn't a movement to get Linux et al. accepted by the business world on business-world terms. Or at least it isn't ONLY that. We are pushing our goods because of their quality and because of their CULTURAL significance. Part of that cultural significance is this tremendous freedom that is changing what we think of as appropriate. I think the responses to Mindcraft were, in their context, appropriate. Those writers were not trying to sell Linux to the business world. They were expressing to the business world that much of their marketing, their arguments, and their style is WORTHLESS to the new corporate-savy crowd. For once, we can really TALK BACK to the stupidity we are constantly fed and until recently locked into.
Mindcraft published those emails to show businesses that the Linux crowd is VERY unbusiness-like. And I'm sure they've succeeded in that in many ways. But Mindcraft also shows me again and again that they are a real cultural disaster, and a worthless cog in a worthless, inhuman business machine.
Yes, these are run-of-the-mill flamage. Yes, the posters are dufi. Yes, Mindcraft violated netiquette by posting private email.
And yes, this all might have a significant negative impact on the perception of Linux, particularly among IT managers.
Microsoft has gotten off the dime with regard to the threat it perceives from free software. Linux had half as many server shipments as NT last year according to one source, and its share is growing faster than NT's. The Empire of Redmondium will pull out all the stops to convince IT managers that Linux is a sloppy, unbusiness-like series of hacks perpetrated by wheat-germ eating comsymps, pimply faced pre-teenagers and dangerous, cranky, unix-crazed hackers with antisocial attitudes and day jobs as crack salesmen.
If I were a conspiricy theorist, I'd worry that posting the more revolting, rage-filled tirades of the inevitable double handful of know-nothing Linux bigots was a deliberate and pre-planned strategic move on the part of MS and its hench-firms. Alas, they didn't need to bother with scheming over this one. Those tirades were inevitable once Bill decided to take Linux on.
It's not that MS doesn't do underhanded things that make even fairly level-headed and well-informed Linux bigots mad. It's just that the predictable responses of some plays right into the hands of Mr Gates' efforts to portray the free software community as an enemy of free enterprise and a bad bet for your server farm.
Microsoft is engaged in a no-holds-barred propaganda war for the hearts and minds of Information Technology managers . They will use real facts, psychology, rigged and unrigged benchmarks, lies told by others and deniable lies told by themselves to create FUD, FUD and more FUD. They will hammer and pry on real and perceived weaknesses of the Linux community to drive home the point that Linux is not a good choice for the back office.
All Linux has going for it is immortality. You guys don't have to win this war. You don't even have to fight it . Just keep writing free software. Your best efforts will live forever. Or fight the battles, but don't lose the ultimate goal of writing useful software for its own sake. It would be truly sad and ironic if Linux won a significant place in the server racks of corporate planet Earth, but lost the grand vision that has driven it and other free software to a position within striking distance of huge success.
Well, there's always FreeBSD. 8)
Peace,
Howard
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
Amen.
.) Still, I find that talking to members of the Linux community -- even reading /. -- is slightly less fun when there's hysteria and ranting afoot. It makes me want to spend less time following Linux developments and, say, more time bitching about Amazon or the Sci****logists or eBay or whatever else won't scare off the non-geeks in the audience.
I'm also a journalist. I've worked at about a dozen tech books over the years; at the moment I'm the tech columnist for a consumer weekly. I remember the bad old MacEvangelist days, and how the editors (the ones that weren't getting mailbombed, that is) sneered at what we perceived as Apple unleashing a pack of particularly rabid hounds.
The deluge o' flamery was rarely about unfair or inaccurate coverage; it usually concerned what the list perceived to be insufficient adulation. (It may, though, be inaccurate to say "the list perceived" -- it was all too clear from most of the messages that the writers hadn't read the article they were beefing about. We used to laugh at how many letters were obviously cut-and-paste jobbies from a single template.)
Fast forward. The MacEvangelist list is dead, and fortunately most journalists were able to laugh off the nutburgers and focus on the products. Seems to me, though, that certain members of the Linux crowd have stepped into the nutburger breach.
In the past week I've seen an alarming increase in weird Linux-related ranting -- not from people with specific issues about things I've written, but from folks who simply cannot tolerate less-than-reverent mentions of OS Most Holy. Unfortunately for them I use a somewhat flip, sardonic tone for my column persona, and nutburgers by definition have little to no sense of humor; much of my mail appears to be derived from the same unwillingness to READ THE FINE ARTICLE that we saw with my old buds on the MacEvangelist prayer tree.
In a sense, fine by me; columnists exist in part to keep the Letters To The Editor page well-stocked. And most of the non-crayon-using members of the readership surmise, correctly, that I am extremely open-source-friendly. (I swear it's not just an extreme anti-MS bias. Honest
An ally who wants to keep the users at arm's length?
Is that really what flamers want?
Does that really help fight the Good Fight?
Forgive my cluelessness. How does this violate netiquette? [sigh] I wasn't even aware it was a netiquette issue not to post emails...anybody care to point me to a good FAQ, then? I've read up on netiquette, but nobody has mentioned this until now :-( (Boy do I feel dumb)
ufdraco
[cough] I'm not sure if you realize it, but that was part of the point...they (flamers) can't (or don't) spell.
ufdraco
I remember reading on USENET about somebody who posted to both the Linux and NT advocacy forums a question about the merits of the 2 OS's handling of multitasking. He said that he got flames from both the NT and Linux sides on the matter--but far more Linux flames. Furthermore, he got more substance out of the NT people. For saying that, he got far more flamage concerning how he shouldn't have posted to advocacy forums if he didn't want flames (?!?) and that he was lying because he wouldn't show them the offending emails. You can't win against this sort of thing!! And that is going to turn people off about Linux faster than anything else!
People who say that we don't need to care and that flaming is ok as long as it's pro-Linux are sadly mistaken, I'd say. In business, it's PR and not merit that often wins the day because people don't have much patience to sit down and learn all the merits of one system over another. It is terrifying to think that there are people out there that are looking for valueable information in a non-confrontational way and get flamed to death for not being born with the knowledge! That, plain and simple, is unacceptable, IMHO.
I don't pretend to have solutions, but one idea I've seen floating around that I really like is that we take responsibility for this--like the adults we are. We should form some sort of advocacy group, very public, that won't flame and give us all a bad image. Anytime we need a statement to be made, they will make it in a professional well-thought manner. And what they say should be recognised as basically the final word--no need for flames, etc (we might hope). I fear that there may be a lot of people that could represent Linux well, but don't choose too. We need more people taking an active role that would also be a positive influence.
If this gets marked down, so be it--it'll only prove my point. Please! Prove me wrong.
ufdraco
Well, if these posts are what people get when they are negative to Linux then its easy to agree.
Seriously, you just have to look in the Linux newsgroups to see that most users have something more between the ears than those posters. But, one bad apple can the whole basket look unedible.
Ringlord
interestingly enough, my webtv plus box (no flames please) powered off on every attempt I made to visit the page mindcraft had on their server containing the offensive messages:
http://www.mindcraft.com/linux-net-rage.htm l
there are no filters that I implemented on my account which would prevent me from visiting this page. do you think M$ is hindering their customers from reading hate mail associated with the software monster? If you have a webtv box, see if you can reproduce this same response...
*my 2 cents*
-hajmola
Again I have to express my feelings the Linux community.
The Linux community is far too hostile. You scare off users and windows programmers (there are millions of us, and most of us are as talented as you).
It's not about acting professional(you prolly hate that word), it's about acting mature and having tollerance.
Flames come from both sides of the turret. But usually the Linux side is left on even during the night.
I honestly think Mindcraft are just pissing themselves!
Man, that was a seriously screwed collection of bullshit.
I think the Mindcraft benchmarks were misguided not malign