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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>
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").
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!
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."
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
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.
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
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
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."
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
--
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.
Do you have any notion, any concept of how stupid you look when you use terms like M$, MicroShaft, MicroSuck, Mickeysoft, Bill Gate$ and so on? It's one thing when we see the term once, but you look like a god damned warez puppy when you use them over and over. Not an ounce of logical thought shows through ... and isn't that what geeks prize? Aren't geeks always bashing people who don't use their brains?
Really, the only one I've seen lately that was at all clever was "Micros~1" (shouldn't it be MICROS~1.OFT?) Even that one will get old when it gets beat into the ground, then some more, and again, and some more, and beaten again, and then some more for whatever passes for good measure.
It's amazing how many people's minds you can actually CHANGE when you sound like you treat business problems and solutions a little more seriously than a Quake deathmatch.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
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.
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
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 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
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.
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?
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?
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.
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
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!
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.
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 :-)
...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.
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
Some wrote off Mindcraft because it showed that NT outperformed Linux. I agree; this behavior is wrong and counterproductive.
Other people smelled a rat, and found one (or several). These people didn't complain because NT won, but because the test was entirely rigged. This response is entirely appropriate to the situation.
Eric Raymond collected the evidence and presents it here.
To summarize what you will find at the link:
The test was paid for by Microsoft (a fact not originally stated by Mindcraft). Was Mindcraft paid off by Microsoft? That depends on your definition; they were indisputably paid by Microsoft. But I trust no benchmark where the ones funding it have a vested interest in the results.
The hardware was optimal for NT, and pessimal for Linux.
The test used dissimilar Web servers. Apache was used on Linux, while something else (IIS?) was used on NT.
The test problem was specifically something that the Apache Web server was bad at; other Linux Web servers are better suited to this problem. While this is somewhat underhanded for an Apache test, the fact that this was supposedly not an Apache test shows the rigging.
The NT machine was well-tuned by NT professionals. The Linux machine was poorly tuned.
Mindcraft criticised both Red Hat support and USENET support. Later reports showed that they attempted to get tuning information from Red Hat's installation support line (which doesn't answer such questions; you have to pay for that level of service). They also showed that they made exactly one USENET post, which didn't contain enough information for a proper solution. USENET requests for more information were not replied to. In short, Mindcraft made no more than token attempts to get support.
Mindcraft's "attempts" at tuning Linux actually made it slower than normal.
While there is some mindless rage concerning this issue, there is a lot of well-documented righteous indignation.
--The basis of all love is respect
A lot of the "rants" I read on the Mindcraft page were zero-content. Effectively, they were all variations on "Windows Sux, D00DZ!". This is zero intelligence and sheer rage. If this is a war of Windows versus Linux, our goal is to get Bill Gates running around, screaming "Linux Sux, D00DZ!". Imagine what that would do for NT market share. Doing it ourselves doesn't help a bit.
One need not strike a balance between truth and diplomacy, because you can maximize both. My favorite way of winning arguments is being calm, collected, rational, and right. If I can achieve this, I can drive my opponent stark raving mad; anyone who is keeping score can see who the winner is. We can do that here.
Slashdot has been following the Mindcraft saga well. While there were some simple rants from both the Linux and Microsoft camps here, a lot of Slashdotters came up with some damning facts that made Mindcraft cringe. The best ones did so calmly and collectively, along the lines of "Hey...did anyone notice that they picked out RAID hardware with a bogus Linux driver?" or "Hmmm... Usenet only sees one post to the Linux boards as a help request," and "If they're pitting Linux versus NT, why are they only using Apache on Linux? For this sort of work, I'd choose another Linux HTTP server". Of course, we finished up with "Thanks, Mindcraft, you gave us some ideas on how to speed up Linux. See you next rev!"
That's why Mindcraft has been dragging it out, redoing the test, asking for Linus himself. They likely expected us to pointlessly rant (which some of us did). I don't think that they expected us to pick their test to pieces in an open forum. They were completely knocked off their game, and found themselves playing ours
At one point, Microsoft had a rant on their page calling the Linux community 'chicken' (not in so many words) for not taking Mindcraft on the offer of a retest. They seemed rather peeved at being denied the satisfaction of a rematch, even after they understood our reasons for avoiding it. You don't cut a deal with a dragon, and you don't trust Microsoft further than you can throw them.
The truth shall set us free. Even if the majority of people don't believe us because they listen to Microsoft, a few will become Linux shops. When they report their IT budgets, their NT-using competition will take notice. If they cannot see the truth, they can read the writing on their bank accounts. And if they can't even do that, then corporate Darwinism takes over--the company that can do the same job with fewer IT dollars is likely to take over the one spending more IT dollars.
--The basis of all love is respect
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
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#
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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