Well, I've just posted non-anonymously, so we'll soon see if you're bullshitting. I rather suspect that you are. In the meantime, I suggest the following course of action:
1) Look at this thread
2) Note the number of responses dated *after* your "Troll Warning"
I think that I can categorically say that no-one has died in the Operating System Wars
check the newswires. ESR just suffered a heart attack at the Merrill Lynch technology convention. I've submitted the story, but it's on (a href=http://www.reuters.com>Reuters right now.
Look, as I have fucking explained to you until I was blue in the face, nobody has ever been paid money for trolling. What you call the "Uber-Troll" clan are just a group of friends (mostly located in the Andover, Mass. area, but by no means exclusively), who occasionally enjoy teasing a few other friends, who work for andover.net, by pointing out to them the abysmally low standards of intelligence of the audience of their number one media holding. Some of us have been paid money by andover.net, but for completely unrelated reasons.
Slashbots, we let this fool (he usually posts logged in, under the name "Roundeye"; it's the trolling identity of "Enoch Root") onto our "punishment-for-slashbots" mailing list, basically because he kept pestering Jon Erikson. He got a little bit excited, and didn't really fit in, so (after a few stupid flamewars), we unsubbed him. Ever since, he's had a chip on his shoulder, and has been trying to take revenge (I think he's "Penis Bird Guy", and he may have been working with Warren "opensourceman" on the lawsuit hoax; osm is a sort of semi-detached member of the list).
He also helpfully suggested when people were looking for a word for what happens to you in an electric chair, that "westinghoused" had more of a ring to it than "electrocuted"
It is still inconvenient for you and ruins your trolls, though.
Check out Jon Erikson's troll in this thread to see how much effect "ANTI TROLL" fuckers like you have on the slashbots. Slim just rode out of town, mate. Since you have no effect on the number of slashbots replying, the only effect you have is to boost our troll scores by a factor of 1 (or more if we can get a good flamewar going with you, like this one).
By the way, I have a life, and a small percent of it is dedicated to troll fighting.
It's a life, Jim, but not as we know it:-)
Sue me.
I do believe you are trying to fuck wit' me, sir. Are you trying to fuck wit me, sir?
-streetlawyer, a rusty nail and your balls. What a combination
Slashdot is the most obvious example of "Open Media" (at least Katz mentions is in this article; he didn't seem to in the previous one)
Slashdot is owned by andover.net, which in turn is owned by VA Linux.
Neither Slashdot, andover.net, nor VA Linux currently make a profit (still less, a positive operating cashflow).
Therefore, the corporate future of the publisher of this article is dependent for the time being on its ability to raise capital from the market.
Since it is highly unlikely that a bank or bond house would finance a small firm with such strongly negative cashflow, "the capital market" in this context, means the equity market and the venture capital market.
The equity market, and the VC market, when looking at Internet/technology plays, are attempting to find the "Next Big Thing" to invest in.
Therefore, anything that helps to convince people that Slashdot might be the "future of media" directly helps the company to raise funds and to survive as a corporate entity.
That's what these Jon Katz articles are about. Maybe I'm cynical, but on the other hand, would it not be surprising if nobody "called the attention" of potential investors in VA Linux to this piece of analysis.
Of course, if the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal or Newsweek magazine, or Slate were to publish an article directly relevant to its own commercial position, or the position of its parent company, they might publish a disclosure statement, drawing attention to that fact and allowing readers to mentally take the potential conflict of interest into account. But I suppose that's an old-fashioned "closed media" way of doing things, and the new way is to "form a community and allow them to decide what they need to know".
The clue is in the intro: "they'll hook consumers up to the information they want and need and find new ways to make money" Not disclosing conflicts of interest isn't exactly a "new way to make money", but it's been held in low regard for a while and might be due for a revival.
Make sure you remember to buy lots of VA Linux shares, kids.
--streetlawyer, older and wiser than you are
disclaimer: I have no material interest in slashdot, andover.net or VA Linux. I have always been a fan of Jon's journalism, but not of editorial policy on slashdot. I think the problems of conflict of interest are likely to severely affect all of the "open Media", if, indeed, Open Media is a valid concept
Closed Media sites -- Salon, Slate, Inside.com -- struggle with the idea that evolutionary forms of media aren't about delivering opinions, commentary, pre-selected and reported stories involving chosen agendas. Quite the opposite; they're about permitting individuals -- using the most interactive aspects of new technology -- to shape their own information needs and values.
So in other words, Old Closed Media used to be able to make you think, and bring you face to face with new opinions, while New Open Media allow you to avoid anything that might disturb you and remain as ignorant and bigoted as ever you were. For example; slashdot, a great forum for zealots to slap one another on the back, with all dissidents moderated down. Curious use of the term "open", but there you go.
Victory!!! Face it, you are ^moa, and YHL. I have looked into my heart to decide whether I look stupid, and I did not see the heart of an "Anti-troll" who singlehandedly sustained a troll thread.
Better crop averages, so that we might feed the starving?
If bigger grain surpluses could feed the starving, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union would have done so long ago. It's already been proved to most people's satisfaction that famines are an economic disaster, not an ecological one.
% of replies in this subthread written by "The Anti-Troll" -- 15%.
Looks like a biter to me.
"No matter what you say, if you reply to a troll, you are a mark. Even if you say 'I'm sure this is a troll, but....'. Even if you say 'Please don't reply to this troll'. If you bite, you fscking bite, and you can't pretend you didn't. No, you don't look ironic and cool. YHL."
Fifteen per cent. You're a gold mine, you are, mate. But the difference is that JE is contributing original content, and you're spamming.
Oh yeh, and talking about "The Inch Fan" isn't making you look 31337. the link is ?sid=k23220inchfan, for anyone who gives a fuck. And it's a v. v. old sid, now only used for OSM conspiracy theories.
. If it was, the internet would work as well as a Microsoft application
What, you mean that all the parts of the internet would work well with each other, and there would be no constant problems with incompatible standards? Sounds like "hurray for suits" to me!
At least with me, being forced to do something, regardless what, destroys my productivity.
I'm assuming that you have a normal job; apologies if you are, in fact, a professional Quake player. You may be surprised to know that the touchy-feely gurus of personnel are wrong, and that common sense is right. Recent articles in the Harvard Business Review have shown pretty conclusively, that fear is a better motivator than love, and that forcing employees to toe the line is better than allowing them to slack off. Even so-called "creatives" are employed to create to order; if they want to be creative when the muse strikes them, they ought to give up work and follow their dream. Being nasty to employees is what works. Suits work. I thought geeks were meant to be in favour of "what works"?
Nonsense and rot -- this is almost tantamount to liberalism! Need I remind you that God created man in his own image? Which part of "in his own image" do you not understand? We were put on this earth, not to imitate the animals, but to live a godly life in modest, civilised dress.
Which is to say: a suit (dark grey, navy blue, or pinstripe), a shirt (white, windsor collar, or button-down for Yanks) and a tie (regimental, polkadot, or City silver). Black brogues and socks.
Pop quiz; where is the greatest concentration of suits and ties? Japan, that's where. The reconstruction of Japanese society after the war can be directly traced to their adoption of Christian dress codes. Meanwhile, the decline and fall of America, Britain and practically everywhere else into a moral cesspool of drugs, casual sex, guns, and liberalism can be traced to the 1960s decision to shun the tie.
I think of the open collar as a "gateway drug", leading on to harder substitutes. From the open collar, it is but a small step to being jacketless; thence to the round neck; then the (shudder) short sleeves and than (I can scarcely bring myself to say it) "Genoese cut trousers of Serge de Nimes"
You will note that your own Mr. Hitler, while often seen in competent (if ugly) German tailoring, could never get a really good four-in-hand not to stay in his tie (often resorting to vile swastika tie-pins). Indeed, at the first chance they got, the whole mouldy bunch of them trooped off to the Black Forest, collars flapping open like so many deaths' head flags! Lederhosen! And the Tyrolean hats were hardly bowlers. You were quite right to hate them on sartorial grounds alone.
Remember, (if I may be permitted to avoid the invocation of Godwin's Law as well), that history has shown us that those who begin by burning foundation garments will later burn people. And the necktie is a foundation garment. It is the foundation of honesty, morality and decency.
On a more practical note, a well-cut suit conceals a multitude of sins, from a too-much-Chinese-food-and-Mountain-Dew belly to a pair of too-much-Quake-and-not-enough-rowing sloping shoulders. Geeks and coders are precisely those who are most in need of them.
the fact that the posting is a troll nonewithstanding, since it is actually an interesting point
thank you; I try to achieve this effect
Geeks hate suits not for the way they dress, but for the way they think.
thank you once more for clearing that up. Of course, hating people for the way they think is a far more reasonable and tolerant attitude than hating people for the way they dress.
I see you have no actual arguments, so you decide to just shout "troll". Well, I'm sure that this will help slashdot to keep its good name as a source of unbiased information.
Thirteen-year-old zealots like you make the vast majority of thinking slashdot readers like myself sick.
You are thinking about this altogether too late. You've written the code, and done the documentation, so the product's complete, right? Wrong. A software product contains three equally important elements; code, documentation and license. The license is arguably the most important part, because it drives the profitability and economics of the whole shebang. But of course, code-monkeys always forget this because in their minds, they're back in Podunk U. CS grad school, and they don't want to deal with "suits" (strange isn't it how the whole "don't judge us on the way we look" geek crowd identify themselves by hating people for the way they dress).
Now this is important, so I'm gonna repeat it twice, with increasing emphasis:
If the legal work is not finished, the project is not finished
If the legal work is not finished, the project is not finished
If the legal work is not finished, the project is not finished
You screwed up badly by your own admission, by not getting good legal staff incorporated into the development plan. Now you're trying to rescue the whole deal. All I can reccommend is, hire a lawyer. And don't try to cut corners, because you've clearly developed the whole thin in this lop-sided fashion.
What benefit do you hope to get from opening it up?
Do you want it to be debugged by the (purely hypothetical) "millions of eyes" of open source coders out there? No, you've already said that if it doesn't work first time, it's fucked.
Do you want the open sourcies to be involved in developing it going forward, and extending the program? If so, then consider a restrictive licence which puts it in the public domain, but with limited rights. Anyone who really wants to be involved in extending your product will still want to be involved (if it's good); as for the rest, fuck 'em.
Or do you want the deep satisfying feeling of being "part of the free software community", and "knowing that you Get It About Open Source"? Then go ahead, open it all up. But realise that this will probably be a costly luxury.
Or indeed, have you not thought about this in any very great depth yet? In which case, now might be a good time to start.
Oh yeh, and whatever you choose, software patents are almost certainly not going to help.
Heh, heh, heh. I remember accessing slashdot from the Harvard Law School library, on a system that was in those days known as "MIT". They ran the thing from a box of five Hewlett Packard "Financial Analyst" calculators, networked together in an Ivanhoe cluster. Storage came from a tape recorder or "Walkman" as we called them in those days. Boy, that sucker could be down for days at a time....
I remember some fantastic trolls from those days... you could always get people going by starting a flamewar between Texas Instruments and Hewlett Packard fans. There was this guy called opensourceman, who used to be obsessed with Gloria Gaynor... wonder what the hell happened to him
Look, nobody's saying that anyone's suing anyone. I'm giving osm a bit of help on this matter, and I really think it would be most constructive if we didn't use this sort of hysterical language.
So, we have the people responsible for actually testing and launching this thing, versus "a guy I met at a conference two years ago".
Perhaps, just perhaps, just maybe, it's a wild possibility but we owe it to ourselves to consider that there may be some small chance, that your interlocutor was talking shit.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I've just posted non-anonymously, so we'll soon see if you're bullshitting. I rather suspect that you are. In the meantime, I suggest the following course of action:
1) Look at this thread
2) Note the number of responses dated *after* your "Troll Warning"
3) Feel worthless.
check the newswires. ESR just suffered a heart attack at the Merrill Lynch technology convention. I've submitted the story, but it's on (a href=http://www.reuters.com>Reuters right now.
Slashbots, we let this fool (he usually posts logged in, under the name "Roundeye"; it's the trolling identity of "Enoch Root") onto our "punishment-for-slashbots" mailing list, basically because he kept pestering Jon Erikson. He got a little bit excited, and didn't really fit in, so (after a few stupid flamewars), we unsubbed him. Ever since, he's had a chip on his shoulder, and has been trying to take revenge (I think he's "Penis Bird Guy", and he may have been working with Warren "opensourceman" on the lawsuit hoax; osm is a sort of semi-detached member of the list).
Nothing to see here, move on please, people.
He also helpfully suggested when people were looking for a word for what happens to you in an electric chair, that "westinghoused" had more of a ring to it than "electrocuted"
Check out Jon Erikson's troll in this thread to see how much effect "ANTI TROLL" fuckers like you have on the slashbots. Slim just rode out of town, mate. Since you have no effect on the number of slashbots replying, the only effect you have is to boost our troll scores by a factor of 1 (or more if we can get a good flamewar going with you, like this one).
By the way, I have a life, and a small percent of it is dedicated to troll fighting.
It's a life, Jim, but not as we know it :-)
Sue me.
I do believe you are trying to fuck wit' me, sir. Are you trying to fuck wit me, sir?
-streetlawyer, a rusty nail and your balls. What a combination
Slashdot is the most obvious example of "Open Media" (at least Katz mentions is in this article; he didn't seem to in the previous one)
Slashdot is owned by andover.net, which in turn is owned by VA Linux.
Neither Slashdot, andover.net, nor VA Linux currently make a profit (still less, a positive operating cashflow).
Therefore, the corporate future of the publisher of this article is dependent for the time being on its ability to raise capital from the market.
Since it is highly unlikely that a bank or bond house would finance a small firm with such strongly negative cashflow, "the capital market" in this context, means the equity market and the venture capital market.
The equity market, and the VC market, when looking at Internet/technology plays, are attempting to find the "Next Big Thing" to invest in.
Therefore, anything that helps to convince people that Slashdot might be the "future of media" directly helps the company to raise funds and to survive as a corporate entity.
That's what these Jon Katz articles are about. Maybe I'm cynical, but on the other hand, would it not be surprising if nobody "called the attention" of potential investors in VA Linux to this piece of analysis.
Of course, if the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal or Newsweek magazine, or Slate were to publish an article directly relevant to its own commercial position, or the position of its parent company, they might publish a disclosure statement, drawing attention to that fact and allowing readers to mentally take the potential conflict of interest into account. But I suppose that's an old-fashioned "closed media" way of doing things, and the new way is to "form a community and allow them to decide what they need to know".
The clue is in the intro: "they'll hook consumers up to the information they want and need and find new ways to make money" Not disclosing conflicts of interest isn't exactly a "new way to make money", but it's been held in low regard for a while and might be due for a revival.
Make sure you remember to buy lots of VA Linux shares, kids.
--streetlawyer, older and wiser than you are
disclaimer: I have no material interest in slashdot, andover.net or VA Linux. I have always been a fan of Jon's journalism, but not of editorial policy on slashdot. I think the problems of conflict of interest are likely to severely affect all of the "open Media", if, indeed, Open Media is a valid concept
So in other words, Old Closed Media used to be able to make you think, and bring you face to face with new opinions, while New Open Media allow you to avoid anything that might disturb you and remain as ignorant and bigoted as ever you were. For example; slashdot, a great forum for zealots to slap one another on the back, with all dissidents moderated down. Curious use of the term "open", but there you go.
Victory!!! Face it, you are ^moa, and YHL. I have looked into my heart to decide whether I look stupid, and I did not see the heart of an "Anti-troll" who singlehandedly sustained a troll thread.
I also declare victory once more, without feeling it necessary to give any very obvious reason why.
IHW
YHL
FOAD
jsm
Well, to boost Jon's troll-score, obviously.
So why bother counting this thread to tell me i have 15% of the replies?
I didn't. I pulled that number out of my ass, in the hope of drawing you in ....
FYI, neither do i, but i have nothing better to do.
I, on the other hand, have a demanding and fulfilling job, but I take time out to do this. For the love.
Do you think i'm sat here in a rage, or upset by your posts?
As I've said, I don't give a fuck how you feel. You can be mildy sexually stimulated for all I care, as long as you keep on typing responses.
So, declare "victory" all you want. Who cares?
The answer to the question "Who cares?" is always "Who cares enough to post a reply?"
Also interesting to note that you've sudenly become the Grammer Nazi too. No it isn't.
--From the Slashdot troll FAQjoin the dots .... --streetlawyer
PS "I can move to a new thread" -- please do. You're quite a promising newcomer troll. Keep it up and we might tell you the new 1337 address .....
You're assuming I give a fuck. Quoting from your own quote:
Well, you appear to have made a fool of yourself. I declare victory.--montoya, it rhymes wit' lawya
oh yeh, btw, I used "irony" correctly, you used it wrongly.
If bigger grain surpluses could feed the starving, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union would have done so long ago. It's already been proved to most people's satisfaction that famines are an economic disaster, not an ecological one.
Looks like a biter to me.
--from the Slashdot Troll FaqFifteen per cent. You're a gold mine, you are, mate. But the difference is that JE is contributing original content, and you're spamming.
Oh yeh, and talking about "The Inch Fan" isn't making you look 31337. the link is ?sid=k23220inchfan, for anyone who gives a fuck. And it's a v. v. old sid, now only used for OSM conspiracy theories.
--da lawyer is in da house.
that we need slashdot (of all sites) to be giving us sarky comments about grammer!
What, you mean that all the parts of the internet would work well with each other, and there would be no constant problems with incompatible standards? Sounds like "hurray for suits" to me!
At least with me, being forced to do something, regardless what, destroys my productivity.
I'm assuming that you have a normal job; apologies if you are, in fact, a professional Quake player. You may be surprised to know that the touchy-feely gurus of personnel are wrong, and that common sense is right. Recent articles in the Harvard Business Review have shown pretty conclusively, that fear is a better motivator than love, and that forcing employees to toe the line is better than allowing them to slack off. Even so-called "creatives" are employed to create to order; if they want to be creative when the muse strikes them, they ought to give up work and follow their dream. Being nasty to employees is what works. Suits work. I thought geeks were meant to be in favour of "what works"?
Which is to say: a suit (dark grey, navy blue, or pinstripe), a shirt (white, windsor collar, or button-down for Yanks) and a tie (regimental, polkadot, or City silver). Black brogues and socks.
Pop quiz; where is the greatest concentration of suits and ties? Japan, that's where. The reconstruction of Japanese society after the war can be directly traced to their adoption of Christian dress codes. Meanwhile, the decline and fall of America, Britain and practically everywhere else into a moral cesspool of drugs, casual sex, guns, and liberalism can be traced to the 1960s decision to shun the tie.
I think of the open collar as a "gateway drug", leading on to harder substitutes. From the open collar, it is but a small step to being jacketless; thence to the round neck; then the (shudder) short sleeves and than (I can scarcely bring myself to say it) "Genoese cut trousers of Serge de Nimes"
You will note that your own Mr. Hitler, while often seen in competent (if ugly) German tailoring, could never get a really good four-in-hand not to stay in his tie (often resorting to vile swastika tie-pins). Indeed, at the first chance they got, the whole mouldy bunch of them trooped off to the Black Forest, collars flapping open like so many deaths' head flags! Lederhosen! And the Tyrolean hats were hardly bowlers. You were quite right to hate them on sartorial grounds alone.
Remember, (if I may be permitted to avoid the invocation of Godwin's Law as well), that history has shown us that those who begin by burning foundation garments will later burn people. And the necktie is a foundation garment. It is the foundation of honesty, morality and decency.
On a more practical note, a well-cut suit conceals a multitude of sins, from a too-much-Chinese-food-and-Mountain-Dew belly to a pair of too-much-Quake-and-not-enough-rowing sloping shoulders. Geeks and coders are precisely those who are most in need of them.
thank you.
try "the way they act".
thank you; I try to achieve this effect
Geeks hate suits not for the way they dress, but for the way they think.
thank you once more for clearing that up. Of course, hating people for the way they think is a far more reasonable and tolerant attitude than hating people for the way they dress.
Thirteen-year-old zealots like you make the vast majority of thinking slashdot readers like myself sick.
Now this is important, so I'm gonna repeat it twice, with increasing emphasis:
If the legal work is not finished, the project is not finished
If the legal work is not finished, the project is not finished
If the legal work is not finished, the project is not finished
You screwed up badly by your own admission, by not getting good legal staff incorporated into the development plan. Now you're trying to rescue the whole deal. All I can reccommend is, hire a lawyer. And don't try to cut corners, because you've clearly developed the whole thin in this lop-sided fashion.
What benefit do you hope to get from opening it up?
Do you want it to be debugged by the (purely hypothetical) "millions of eyes" of open source coders out there? No, you've already said that if it doesn't work first time, it's fucked.
Do you want the open sourcies to be involved in developing it going forward, and extending the program? If so, then consider a restrictive licence which puts it in the public domain, but with limited rights. Anyone who really wants to be involved in extending your product will still want to be involved (if it's good); as for the rest, fuck 'em.
Or do you want the deep satisfying feeling of being "part of the free software community", and "knowing that you Get It About Open Source"? Then go ahead, open it all up. But realise that this will probably be a costly luxury.
Or indeed, have you not thought about this in any very great depth yet? In which case, now might be a good time to start.
Oh yeh, and whatever you choose, software patents are almost certainly not going to help.
I remember some fantastic trolls from those days ... you could always get people going by starting a flamewar between Texas Instruments and Hewlett Packard fans. There was this guy called opensourceman, who used to be obsessed with Gloria Gaynor ... wonder what the hell happened to him
Oh fer chrissake, trying to get laid on Slashdot? Why not go to a nightclub already?
Look, nobody's saying that anyone's suing anyone. I'm giving osm a bit of help on this matter, and I really think it would be most constructive if we didn't use this sort of hysterical language.
So, we have the people responsible for actually testing and launching this thing, versus "a guy I met at a conference two years ago".
Perhaps, just perhaps, just maybe, it's a wild possibility but we owe it to ourselves to consider that there may be some small chance, that your interlocutor was talking shit.