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The Spotlight is a Harsh Mistress
If you didn't read (or don't feel like going to) the story linked to above about Bruce's little foot-in-mouth moment, I'll summarize it for you: After getting (IMO justifiably) frustrated over some terms in the license for Corel's new Debian-based Linux distribution and Corel's refusal to change them, Bruce posted a little note on the debian-legal discussion list that said, in part, "It's time for us to bring suit against Corel for this 'can't download unless you're 18' stuff. That's not in our license and they know it."
Almost immediately, a Slashdot reader submitted Bruce's comment to us, and Hemos ran it as a story as soon as he checked to make sure that yes, Bruce had really written that comment. The Slashdot story got over 300 remarks added to it within two hours of its initial appearance, many of which said that Bruce had over-reacted to Corel's licensing intransigence, and many more which lambasted Slashdot generally, and Hemos personally, for having posted a "private" message on Slashdot without getting Bruce's permission in advance.
Bruce was an active participant in the Slashdot discussion that followed Hemos's post and, in the end, backed down his original "we oughta sue" statement. Hemos apologized for the post. And the comments kept on coming, because that's the nature of Slashdot.
There was also some e-mail exchanged between Bruce, CmdrTaco, Hemos, and myself. It was not vituperative. We all like and respect each other. Bruce has my home phone number, and I have his (somewhere). But that e-mail exchange led to this article, because this entire incident, and the way it got blown out of proportion, is a prime example of changes in the nature of online discussion, Open Source development, and Slashdot's role in it all.
Coincidentally - it had been scheduled to run for over a week - yesterday we had an Ask Slashdot piece about the demise of old-fashioned, local dialup Bulletin Boards. There was a lot of nostalgia expressed for the days when your "online community" was 20 or 30 people who all lived near you, and you could all get together now and then for a soda or a beer or whatever. There were no Anonymous Cowards in that kind of environment. Sure, people used screen names like "BBBopper," but if you were a member of the community, you knew that BBBopper's real name was "Bernard," where he lived, and where he worked.
I miss those days, and I'm sure Bruce does too. You could say damn near anything on your freewheeling local BBS, and if you *really* put your foot in your mouth you could either delete your comment or ask your friendly sysop to delete it for you. But it didn't really matter. The chances of a vituperative neighbor or a reporter for the local newspaper reading your post were virtually nil, and even if they were reading, so what? Back then, hardly anyone paid attention to the few weirdos who spent their nights dialing into each others computers.
Fast-forward to now: there are days when Slashdot does well over one million pageviews. Reporters from The Wall Street Journal (Hi Lee!), CNN (Hi, Ian!) and even Al Gore campaign staffers (Hi, Ben!), read Slashdot regularly. Stories that break here are often picked up by general-interest media or serve as inspiration (we say politely) for their own reporting. And Slashdot readers obviously subscribe to discussions like debian-legal, so the distance between a hasty mailing list post and the front page of a national newspaper can be as little as two clicks.
Calling your favorite mailing list "private" or "obscure" does not make it so. If any idiot who has a valid e-mail address can subscribe to it, it is not private. As for obscurity, that depends on the poster. An offhand comment made by Al Average is unlikely to make it into either Slashdot or the Wall Street Journal no matter where it originally appears. A comment by Bruce Perens or Richard M. Stallman or Steve Ballmer or Linus Torvalds or Larry Ellison or anyone else perceived to have "weight" in software development matters is another story. These people are celebrities, at least to Slashdot readers, so their words are going to be taken seriously, analyzed, and quoted, requoted, and even possibly misquoted as heavily as news of Cher's latest love affair will be discussed in the movie gossip tabloids.
In this "celebrity" context, there are two main differences between Bruce Perens and Cher:
- 1 - At least one billion people have heard of Cher, while only a few million (at most) have ever heard of Bruce Perens.
- 2 - Bruce Perens is more important than Cher, especially to Slashdot readers.
A better comparison than Bruce:Cher is Bruce:Alan Greenspan. If Alan Greenspan goes out to eat and tips a waiter 20% and makes a lame (but overheard) joke about waiters demanding higher tips because of the booming economy, two dozen financial pundits will immediately try to figure out if Greenspan is planning to raise interest rates, and the stock market is sure to blip one way or another in response to the "news" of Greenspan's "statement."
Like it or not, if Alan Greenspan makes his remark in a public place it is fair media game. As long as he is quoted accurately, there is nothing he can do about the appearance of his offhand sentence in newspapers and as discussion fodder on talking-head TV shows. Bruce Perens is nowhere near as influential as Alan Greenspan, but within the confines of the Open Source/free software community, his words may have more impact on investment behavior and are, therefore, more important to Slashdot readers who hold shares in Red Hat and other companies that live and die by Open Source software.
I growled a little at Hemos for later adding a "Maybe I shouldn't have posted it" apology to his piece about Bruce's comment. It was an amicable growl; we work together as a tight team around here, and we all accept the fact that each Slashdot author and editor is an individual with his own point of view. But I don't (personally) believe we should ever apologize for running legitimate news, including speculations made in public forums by Open Source celebrities. And Bruce Perens is not only a legitimate public figure in the Open Source context, but is one largely because of his own actions. Bruce is not a reticent person. He has requested Slashdot coverage of his pet projects many times, and often as not he's gotten it. This time, he got coverage when he neither requested nor desired it, and was unhappy at the kind of attention focused on him.
I called this little essay "The Spotlight is a Harsh Mistress" because (RAH reference aside) this statement sums up my main point here: that once you open a press floodgate everything passes through it, not just what you want. And the piece I wrote earlier this week about Open Source and free software developers becoming more like stage performers than reclusive poets was as much of a cautionary tale as anything else. Yes, there are adoring Open Source fans out there, but those fans are as fickle -- and demanding -- as any other kind of fans, and when you have the combination of celebrities and devout fans, paparazzi lurking in the bushes are almost inevitable.
Slashdot is not exactly in the paparazzi category (I like to think) but we are certainly a prime source not only of Open Source and free software development news, but also of community gossip. What "we" post officially is far less than 10% of the site's total content. The rest is uncensored remarks by readers. While you can choose to only read posts other readers (moderators) decide are worthwhile, you always have the option of reading Slashdot in all of its fierce, chaotic glory simply by setting your threshold to -1. (Our boss, CmdrTaco, absolutely insists on this "no censorship ever" policy and we all back him up fiercely on this one!)
Even if you are not logged in as a registered member, you can set the moderation threshold on each individual article as you read it. My personal Slashdot reading preference is a setting of -1, with comments nested instead of threaded. And, believe it or not, I read almost every comment attached to almost every Slashdot article almost every day. There are suprising gems (and some great humor) buried in the mass if you take the trouble to look for them.
Is Slashdot going downhill? Probably, in some ways. It's not the cozy little Web site I discovered several years ago, when it was new and crude and 30 comments on an article was big-time. But by that same standard both the Internet and Usenet have been going downhill almost since day one. First the original Unix heavies grumbled about letting the non-CS (but still research) people in. Then all the researchers grumbled about letting the students in, and how they polluted discussion groups with trivial conversation and dirty jokes and filled up mail servers with stupid chain letters. Then the unwashed mass of Prodigy people hit, over one million strong, and irritated everyone who was already on the Internet, and then they complained about all the "clueless AOLers" who followed them.
But newbies don't stay newbies forever, either on the Internet in general or here on Slashdot. Two or three years from now, I assure you, some of the same AC kiddies who are now going "Whoo! First Post!" will become settled members of "the community" and will grumble about the next Slashdot newbie generation's silly games, whatever they turn out to be.
And two or three years from now Bruce Perens will be a dignified Elder Statesman of the burgeoning, ever-growing Open Source and free software community, and he will be aghast at some of the things that less media-worn people say in forums they considered private but really weren't, and the whole circle will continue to grow, with new, fresh faces always coming on board -- and some of the old ones departing for one reason or another.
Perhaps, too, we'll see the advent of more "members only" forums with strict privacy restrictions, somewhat like the old private BBS operations, and those will be where "online celebrities" hang out and let down their hair with one another, just as some film celebs only feel comfortable at private parties guarded by thuglike doormen who keep out anyone who isn't on a tightly-controlled guest list.
But I would personally rather see total openness, here on Slashdot and in as many other places as possible. Sure, mistakes will be made. You'll make some, Bruce Perens will make some, and I'm sure I'll make (more than) my fair share as well. To me, this is the point of Slashdot; to level the playing field and treat all comers exactly the same, on both their good days and their bad days; to provide a well-lit, well-known "space" where both silly and serious debates can take place, opinions can be aired and debunked, and even (once in a while) a mind or two can be changed.
Lame subject, I know, but ...
/., that works quite good (if you read them regularly for some time, you know how trustworthy they are).
... never mind). Still, I often get emails from people asking questions about that article, and obviously taking it as an expert's opinion on the topic (I even have a disclaimer at the top, but nobody seems to read it).
/. wait too long, everybody will be crying "that's not new! i read that two weeks ago at xyz.com".
Back in the olde days, when you read something in a newspaper or a book you could be sure that it had been read by a few people before it ever got printed. So different newspapers etc. had different "trust levels", depending on their overall quality. But when you read something in a paper you never had heard of before, you were inclined to believe the story anyway. After all, there had to be editors-in-chief, etc. that would do at least some sanity checks.
That is different of course with stuff on the web, so the best way to avoid mistakes would be to trust nobody. But that's a bit paranoid, so you will try to figure out who you trust. And with sites like
But what about stuff on deja, or the homepage of some guy you don't know? You will probably try to judge from the appearance (just like you would try to classify your unknown paper), from the wording, etc. But you can be wrong, of course.
I have a page on my website that deals with artificial intelligence. It's just a collection of thoughts I had a while back, and I am not a researcher in that field (I am kinda, but
So I would say: Don't be too paranoid, but if you want to use information for something important, better find out how credible it is by checking other sources (and the "surrounding" pages). And don't post an email on slashdot that just arrived from a mailing list. You don't know what will come of it. On the other hand, if the guys at
The main problem (I think, and I haven't followed that other story) was the first few words. "It seems that Corel has made one mistake too many." --- that sounded like BP was already suing them.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Bruce made a mistake and put his foot in his mouth not because Slashdot popularized the post, but because suggesting a lawsuit against Corel was simply rash at this point; it may come to pass that at some future time a lawsuit against Corel, Redhat, VALinux, Pacific Hi-Tech, or whoever, may in fact be appropriate. So just because Bruce threw out this suggestion a little too soon doesn't mean that defending the GPL with the force of law won't be necessary at some future point.
That said, Bruce made a mistake. God knows, I've put my foot in my mouth often enough -- and usually when I'm pissed off -- so I feel plenty of sympathy for Bruce here. It's impossible to regularly post over the years and NOT say something stupid once in a while. Hasn't Linus overreacted in linux-kernel before? Let's not forget Eric Raymond with his Jedi Knight uniform at the Windows Refund day... I'm sure that went over well with the mass media journalists. And how about Bill Gate's video deposition... talk about tasting foot fungus.
It's normal for anyone who's in the spotlight to make the occasional mistake. Bruce recognized his error and apologized in public. Which is more than I can say for most who back themselves into an indefensible verbal corner.
Call them what you will (lamers, scriptkiddies, and a host of other, more derogatory, names), the newcomers to any online community are always going to be irritating. Likewise, humans have a very weighty concern in their own self-esteem and, like it or not, have a tendency to forget their own faults.
Twenty years from now, when the greybeards won't have any hair at all, and the "newbies" are running everything, it's fairly obvious that there will be more "newbies" to irritate the former newbies. Why? Well, for one, when someone new joins a community, they aren't quite sure of their place. They either feel awkward, or superior. Either way, they're likely to annoy those already present.
I suppose that my point is that, hopefully, we can all remember when *we* were irritating people with names like "S00p3rK00L" or what-have-you, and be tolerant. Also, I'm slightly disturbed by the "private party" reference towards the end: it's my hope that many Open Source "celebrities" aren't caught up in their own image, and will remain active in the community, rather than retreating to a reclusive social pool. For surely, without guidance, the circle is broken.
Things like this happen every day in countless thousands of publications world-wide. Somebody does something insignificant, and it is blown up into "news" by some editor. If it is not news, the public soon perceives this and issues a collective yawn.
Invariably, soon thereafter will follow an "editorial" piece, describing the situation as one which involved a struggle between social propriety (morals) and duty to the high calling of journalism. And regardless of the polarity of the decision (reporting something which maybe should not be, or failing to report something that maybe should be), the whole point is enroll the reader in the idea that journalism is a perilous path fraught with difficult decisions whose directions have unescapable consequences, and aren't we happy we have such dedicated people to take care of it all for us?
Well, spare us the editorial please. Spare us the lecture about the spotlight being a harsh mistess. It is not news. It is self-serving in a really loathesome way. It is an example of attributing significance where there is none. You are not Woodward and Bernstein. You are not Cronkite. Get back to doing what you started out to do - run a great web site. Spare us the self-importance.
I thank you, and the people of MeepZorp thank you.
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
But all of that aside, none of Red Hat, Netscape, Apple, IBM, ATT, etc. felt the need for that restriction. Corel just has this way of pissing the developers of their own system off every chance they get. They need to work on that.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.