Slashdot Mirror
ACM "Crossroads" E-Zine Does Special Linux Issue
amit_kr writes "ACM electronic magazine 'Crossroads' has an entire issue dedicated to Linux. Perhaps more interestingly, 'Crossroads' is sponsored in part by Microsoft. Do you think they asked Microsoft before running this issue? :-)" Actually, Amit, most reputable publications - even ones many Slashdot readers think are "bought" by Microsoft - are pretty strict about keeping a strong "wall" between the ad people and the editorial departments. But the irony here is still fun - and the articles are excellent, too, and well worth reading, no matter who sponsored them.
Well, I went to the link and had a quick look around, in particular in the network security section.
Let's just say the word "firewall" doesn't feature in it once.
While I was expecting a relatively waffly & vague & uncertain report on "security", it gets marginally better further down. I'd go as far as to say that someone with a brain wrote the original and then it got attacked by the editors...
And they *must* learn to write HTML properly, as I refuse to read the stuff that scrolls off the right of the screen.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I even went to the story....
nothing there I give a flying fsck about....
owned by M$ you say!
no wonder its so goddam boring....
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
A little off-topic, but it's nice to see the _Slashdot_ editorial staff inserting a reality check about the difference between sponsorship and influence....
God knows that _I_, at least, am sick of seeing AC's posting 'yes, but M$ bought them off' as 50% of the commentary on ZDNET stories, for instance.
--
I love that guy's name. Kevin Fu. Now tell me that's not appropos for a hacker? Eh? ;-) I picture the Lone Gunmen geeks from the X-Files at that computing conference episode, all clamoring "My Kevin Fu's the best!"
specifically annoying here:
Actually, Amit, most reputable publications - even ones many Slashdot readers think are "bought" by Microsoft - are pretty strict about keeping a strong "wall" between the ad people and the editorial departments.
That's some mighty unsubstantiated editorializing. I assume this matter-of-fact statement comes of course from those imaginary years you spent working at pcmag, right?
Real Person
However, my question is why Do the sponsors keep a wall between themselves and the publication? Here I always read the arguments that in order for the public to respect the publication as a legitimate source, there must be the "wall".
Let's face it though. Maybe I'm understimating the American people, but I don't think it matters. Often, I think that the sponsors would make a hell of lot more money if they did not keep themselves separated from the publication.
In reality, the majority of readers would not notice the omissions of the blurbs saying that "Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC news."
Eh, I'm tired. I know I didn't finish this thought, but hey, I guess you can probably tell where it was going.
14 digits of Pi are all we need.
The sad fact of the matter is that you'll almost never get a clean break between the ad sponsors and the editorial room, it's a simple fact when dealing with sponosored publications. If the opinions in an article upset sponsors, then you will lose sponsors, and their money.
The notion that you can get clean unbiased opinion from a sponsored publication is idealistic and naive.
Everything you read has spin, it's a fact of life and you should just accept it
Crossroads also comes in a print edition, and I got my "linux" edition a week or two ago. It's part of the ACM "Student package" deal. Pretty nice deal, btw: you get "crossroads", "communications" and a nifty @acm.org email adress.
Best part of it all is access to the ACM digital library, loaded with many of the most important papers in CS history.
And if you do as we managed, you convince your administration to sponsor the member fee :) - eivind (Norway)
Fair enough, at least they mention it, but to use Slackware as illustration is not representative of Linux as a whole. In particular, no other distribution I've come across still uses that nasty /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2 file. Since virtually all the other distributions use SysV style init scripts (and rightly so, IMNSHO), it would have been better to use that for illustrative purposes.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I am very unimpressed with 99.99% of these "Roblimo" inspired posts.
/. since the very beginning. One of the first thousand accounts, in fact.
He has aquired too much power too fast and it has reduced the viability of this once useful resource.
In particular this _entire_ issue is certainly not entirely devoted to Linux, and definitely NOT about current the install base of Linux.
In case anyone cares I have used Linux since 94 and have regularly read
I just painted the roof of my barn with a penguin and "Linux Rox". This should be a feature on slashdot as my barn is directly under both a north south and an east west flight corridor. meaning lots of people can see it while traveling.
The story:
Local Geek paints alternate OS advertiseing on barn.
Micro$oft claims this is proof that there truly is competition in the OS market.
The owner of the barn refused to answer questions regarding the misuse of live penguins for OS research or Questions about decapitated chickens.
Feathers and blood were observed in the mans yard.
It would make as much sense as most of the posts from the limo d00d.
So there it is, go ahead and moderate it down.
Da
#941
Damn right. Mr Murdoch (or is it Sir Rupert) makes Bill look like the girl scout winner of the Wet Blanket of the Millennium Award. Here is a man who decides national elections, by dictating editorial policy to his (many) media outlets. Bill really can't measure up.
Rupert Murdoch is the kind of person you might expect to find stroking a white cat and saying "So, Mr Bond, you have discovered my little nuclear weapons cache....". ... "with hilarious consequences"! (As they used to say in the TV Times)
Bill Gates would be in Whitehall, handing out the ordinary-looking briefcase containing a tuna sandwich and a copy of Penthouse, but which explodes when you enter the combination "MSFT", only it turns out that it will actually work if you enter any combination of four letters
David
Ok, lets presume there is a wall between the marketing and editorial side of the fence. The editorial side is still providing a service to its readers. As are the advertisers who subsidise each issue. Assume the advertisers of Microsoft-based software don't mind the Linux issue. The editors are still people who need to eat. They need to keep the magazine churning out copies, and getting them in the hands of the consumers. If their consumer base dwindles, they starve. Therefore, by positioning themselves as a windows magazine, they *need* to continue with the windows coverage as their primary focus. The Linux issue is a wonderful way to say, "hey, all you windows folks who keep wondering what this linux stuff is, here you go". And that is a service to their readership. Turning into an all-linux magazine overnight is not.
There is a *remarkable* trend in Windows magazines to praise everything coming out of Redmond. Why? Count how many pages of advertising in the magazine are for Microsoft products. Compare that to every other advertiser in the magazine. Do the math.
Remember when Windows95 first came out? Not one magazine gave the Windows 95 beta releases a glowing review, even allowing for the "not officially released" factor. They panned the dramatic shift in the user interface. They railed against the instability (but keep in mind, it's still not the real thing). They hated the huge increase in disk usage just for the base OS. And for no noticeable performance game. When Win95 was officially released, however, *every* magazine praised the glorious new interface, its relative stability inncrease over Win3.x (not saying much, i know). They shrugged off the disk usage factor by listing all the cool "features" it provided. There was a dramatic change in general opinion around the time it was officially released, as every magazine realized that there magazines future for the next few years was tied into how many people would be running Windows 95, and software written for it, and used products that the advertisers made for Windows 95.
The change physically sickened me, and I haven't bought a "Windows only" computer magazine since.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
But is killing discord the answer?
AC
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
I wanna see pictures of this!
I agree whole-heartedly. My faculty advisor where I go to college is a frequent contributor to ACM publications. Accusing him of being a Microsoft mouthpiece would be about as ridiculous as making that accusation of Richard Stallman.
Boring?
Remember that not all of us use Linux simply for perusing Slashdot and playing Quake.
I found the DSP Shell article really interesting. I sent a link to a machine vision company I used to work for.
a little bit of M$ everywhere worked into every crack
Programmers and administrators will never be allowed to live in a completely non-M$ world. Because there are only so many capable people at a given time, M$ only needs to get a backdoor into some aspect of their lives for influence. M$ can get money from anybody, but the people who are really involved in M$ percieved threats won't be just ignored. M$ will label many people malicious hackers if they do not convert.
There's absolutely zero connection between the sponsorship and the articles that are selected and published. In fact, when I edited (and I assume it's still the case today), I didn't even know who our current sponsors were. People submitted ads and those ads went to our layout people, but I had no idea who they were. There are certainly some Microsoft journals out there, but xrds isn't one of them.
By the way--if you're complaining about the quality of the articles, there's a simple solution: write some! They're always hurting for articles, especially ones that aren't whitewashed versions of masters theses. This is one place you can certainly change things.
...and my comment about Microsoft was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek...
of course! there is a "wall"!! i was just pointing out the irony....
didn't like the fact that i was made out to look like an idiot... which i probably am anyways *grin*
amit