Sheesh, looks like someone else needs a laxative as well.
As for the linux advocacy FAQ, I read it a long time ago back when I was a regular on the advocacy newsgroup. It applied then as much as it applies now. There's no sense trying to appeal to someone's better nature when they don't have one, so might as well toss out some gladiatorial dramatics for the crowd's pleasure. At least some amongst them have a sense of humour.
Considering that Microsoft has no plans to implement GPLed code into its own products, nor does it plan on sharing its source code with the general public in the same wide and unrestricted (from the point of view of obtaining and viewing) manner as GPLed code, how can MS justify its recent information campaign clarifying its stance on the GPL? MS's opinion on the GPL is as irrelevent as Coke's opinion on orange juice.
Furthermore, the only parallel that MS products and GPLed applications have in common is from the point of view of end-use, NOT further development on the core product, and this does not involve the GPL at all. On the surface it appears that MS is using the GPL, which is a distinguishing feature of one of its major competitors, the Linux Operating System, as a focal point for criticism to gain an edge in the general public's eye, despite the fact that the general public will probably have no need to explore those areas of the competing product which will actually involve the GPL. Given this, once more, how is this information campaign relevent, and how is it ethical?
Open message to all those flaming John Katz: You make me sick.
All he's doing is giving us much-needed counter-arguments against Microsoft's marketing machine. Despite what any of us might think about whether or not MS deserves its success, Microsoft's competitive marketing tactics are TERRIBLE. First they're spreading fear about Linux's lack of support. Then they're spreading uncertainty about the total ownership cost of free software. Now they're spreading despair about the GPL. And they've just gotten started. And make no mistake, if the various BSDs start getting the mindshare that Linux has gotten, they'll be next.
If you really feel so strongly that some of Jon Katz's arguments are incomplete and unclear, then by all means speak up and question them and clarify them. But flaming him? What does that accomplish? Am I the only one who thinks we should be THANKFUL that a guy's willing to let it all hang out just for the sake of offering counter-arguments to the industry's biggest juggernaut? In a competitive marketplace, where points of view are bought and sold and consent is manufactured, it's positively VITAL for us to encourage dissenting opinions. Making a straw man out of one of our more eloquent advocates only serves to weaken our stance as a whole. Next thing you know MS will be saying that the Linux OS is unreliable because even the supporting community is fractured.
If Microsoft needs advocacy and legitimacy, let them do what they always do and buy it. Don't give it to them for free.
It's the perfect model: the users pay you *and* for the bandwidth to share the songs they already bought.
Not to mention a perfect model for the industry. If Napster is (as much of us believe it to be) a great promoter of music in general, and the users are the one footing the bill, the industry is basically having promotion of its commodity done FOR it, all expenses paid.
This is pretty much like going to the store and forking over 18$ for a Nike T-shirt, paying for a company to brand their logo on you. If they can pull this off, they're geniuses. Evil genuises, but genuises nonetheless...
...the slightly pro-Microsoft sentiment that seems to be happening with the moderation here?
Before you get crazy, I'm not suggesting that everyone who dropped a +1 Insightful is being paid to do so by Microsoft, and on the surface, the pro-MS, anti-paranoia arguments all make logical sense.
What I'm wondering is, if the general sentiment is just that, enough is enough, we've got Linux and *BSD as our alternatives, we've got our open standards that MS will never take away from us, let's drop this issue and move towards the future?
I can understand the frustration that comes when someone kicks a dead horse repeatedly for everyone else to see. But let's get real here -- if we're not going to act as a corporate watchdog on the geek level, who else is? The government? I wouldn't count on Dubya caring if your country's "thousands and hundreds of people" only have distributed access to MS. The industry? Microsoft IS the industry -- everything in the industry is either affected by their presence or noteworthy because of their absence. The average user? The average user cares if their hotmail is working and if they can get to e-bay and can play The Sims or whatever. They can do that out of the box with Microsoft -- don't expect them to care if we're only a year away from MSHTML.
Let's face it, we're on our own. For everybody out there who is saying "Hey, Microsoft isn't evil, Bill Gates is a pretty smart businessman", realize that you don't need to do this... the MS marketing machine is way ahead of you. What's scary isn't as much the initiatives of today -- it's what their initiatives of today will mean for their initiatives for tomorrow.
Let's make 359 images, nobody will notice and we'll be unaffected by the patent.
Actually, if you're designing wraparounds for a game or something, people might notice the slight jump in detail (these are the same people who swear they can tell the difference between 65 and 68 fps, after all). Better to make a 361 degree image, and then offer a patented 1 degree crop tool.
"The potential impact here is scary.... And how far will those changes penetrate throughout the industry? This can't be good for the consumer."
That's probably besides the point. One of the big criticisms that everyone has about the music industry is that they're always behind the times on catching up to new technology. Seems to me to be a fairly good approach on their part, if you ask me. They can cut manufacturing costs like nuts and put out a low-cost alternative to buying CDs and a higher-quality (and not to mention legal) alternative to downloading amateur rips.
Plus, it opens up the door for providing an even better service than what Napster has. They can set up a fast, dedicated network to serve the files instead of having to rely on shaky internet downloads, they can make the process of finding a song quicker by providing their own directories, they can even order CDs en masse (like, tens of thousands at a time) and reduce the per-unit expense for themselves and (potentially) the consumer... It seems like a smart all around play, if you ask me.
The only real question will be if they (a) can implement it properly, and (b) can resist the temptation to once again become the megalithic expensive dinosaur that charged too much and encouraged the average music-lover to piracy in the first place.
Go to the local bookstore and spend an afternoon in the Java section. Choosing to learn Java could have an immense impact on your career as a programmer, so you might as well take it seriously.
There is no single book that is going to do it for everyone, and not all people learn the same way. You might as well spend the time reading over the first few chapters of several books, and figure out which writers you retain information with, which ones present ideas in ways that you can understand them, and which ones were put out by companies looking to expand their booklists. Also, you might as well get used to the idea that you'll probably want two books (at least), one which is a beginner's book and a second which will probably act as a complete reference. Their roles will be different -- one's purpose will be to get your feet wet and the other's will be for speedy knowledge lookup once you know what you're doing. Chances are, depending on what type of programming you want to get into, you might need a third Java reference specifically for that topic (ie: servlets, database aps, etc.).
Stay away from For Dummies books. I picked up one that had typos in the code listings that no "Dummy" would have been able to figure out (like, forgetting to pass an argument by its address -- that's C++ related but you get my drift, hopefully).
I'm personally very wary of books that attempt to be both beginner's books AND complete references (Deitel and Deitel in particular put me on edge -- they try to do both and come up short in both, they tend to be too involved for beginner's level and too jumbled and disorganized to be decent reference books, imo).
I think multiple texts with multiple points of view are really good for putting a language into perspective. Besides, you'll also get exposed to different coding styles and techniques, which will be useful in the long run. For this reason, don't discount online references. They probably aren't the greatest primary material, but the more examples you're exposed to, the better.
Privacy... [is] not something to worry about with works that were destined for the public view, anyway.
You're assuming that the works were destined for public view in the form that they currently exist in. Once again, if this was a work under revision, then there are quite possibly things within it that D.A. never wanted to make it out to the public. It's possible that certain subject matter might be in an early state that he'd rather not have leaked out, or he might have been in the middle of an experiment in style just to see if something would work -- and experiments of a stylistic nature OFTEN fail. As Douglas Adams didn't build his reputation as an experimental writer, any such private experiments should not be let out as they may alter the way the public believes the work is to be read, and to a writer, mastery over reader response is often critical to the success of a given work.
Similarly, for instance, if he was being overly ironical or satirical about a contemporary issue, poor execution of the joke might potentially offend a large body of people. On a less melodramatic level, execution of a particular joke that was working in his head but not necessarily on the page might make it out before he wanted it. Comedy relies on clarity, and this is where the revision process is once again critical. The kernel of the joke may be present in its current state, however, it may not have all the scaffolding removed to show it clearly. If nothing else, an unfinished work may lead an audience to believe him to be an unfunny guy, and that would be a major tragedy.
I know if I were to die tomorrow, my code wouldn't be locked away in my coffin -- it would be exploited by the other programs, fixed, tweaked, replaced and otherwise trampled.
Unfortunately, the functionality involved in computer code is drastically different than literature. A writer of DA's stature would have no doubt wanted the substance AND style to be perfect -- with computer code, there's a certain nebulous quality to it that invites editing even after the first receipt. There is no "Service Pack" for a novel. Unfortunately, any such mistakes that make it out into the public may have a negative impact upon his legacy as a writer.
A work like this -- which has apparently been close to release on several occasions -- is a rather different matter than truly personal documents.
You will probably find that most writers of fiction consider their work personal documents, at least until they're ready to share them. DA knew when stuff was ready before, and he submitted it then. At this stage, he hadn't yet submitted it, but there is an assumption that it's ready now anyway. This is a judgement call that is being made on behalf of the writer by the publisher, and that's unfortunate.
Dr. John Conway (author of the famous "Game of Life") has a wonderful algorithm for finding the day of the week for any year in history that you can do in your head.
Maybe, but only if one of the steps included in my head is telling myself "Remember where you put the printout to that page, dumbass."
Douglas' work, even if released for financial reasons, will indeed have positive literary value because it is not generated in response to this financial drive.
Considering the speed with which this announcement comes on the heels of his death, I can only assume that it was a publisher's decision to go forward with the project based on its merits as a business move -- even possibly because the recent death might have its own headline value and increase sales. If they'd waited a few years for the Adams fans to get restless and start clamoring for his hidden work, maybe then I'd agree that this might benefit literature. However, the way they've chosen to treat his private writings is less than respectful, and makes me wonder if publishers view their writers as commodities more than people. The fact that Adams is dead shouldn't mean that it's open season on his work. This sort of thing has repercussions on writers who are still living, too -- it damages the perceived value of the revision process to disregard it as a necessary factor. The speed with which this decision was made makes it obvious that financial demand outweighs the revision process, whereas with posthumous work the only thing that should spur a publication is overwhelming public demand. I don't think enough time has passed to say that the demand is overwhelming -- it's currently only being assumed.
As for dignity, we must choose are battles.
Well, I'm choosing this one.
But to say that taking his notes and bringing them into the eye of his fans is robbing him of his dignity is anticipating that he was hiding them delibrately. If he was, trust me, we never would have found them -- Adams was an ace with a computer and would have locked them down like a new bicycle.
Or perhaps he was assuming that people, including his publisher, would have the good graces to leave his work alone and trust his judgement on the fact that, if something was ready, people would know about it. In any case, nobody can know for sure what Adams would have wanted for his unfinished work in the event of an untimely death. The article made no mention of a last will and testament regarding the work, so I can only assume that it was a decision made by the publisher. It's disheartening that of all the assumptions of the appropriateness of such an action are being made, no assumptions about a possible right to privacy are being considered.
Okay, I know nothing about hardware programming, but as impressed with the proposed architecture that I am, I can't help but wonder if it'll take a while before DirectX will be able to work with this, especially considering they're changing the way the processors manage graphics and audio. Does anybody know whether or not this thing will handle DirectX right away or with minor tweaks?
If not, then I brought up that question to ask this one... maybe it'll give us Linux/BSD users a chance to NOT have to play catch-up to Microsoft on a new architecture?
The dead have no claim to our world, because they are totally uneffected by it. If some of us would like a chance to see Adams' final works published -- and I do, if even as a tribute to the editrial process Adams undertook -- then by all means we should be allowed to.
I'm so glad that the personal effects of a dead man have to be dishonoured in order to satisfy your curiosity. Why not argue on behalf of the dignity of the guy? Probably because of selfishness.
In the other cases, with many other works being published posthumously like the Aeneid and the Silmarillion, it wasn't done in the era of endless Harry Potter sequels and unauthorized Princess Diana biographies. The motivations for publishing this work are financial, first and foremost. It's a bleeding shame that the personal property of a guy is allowed to be ravaged so as to satisfy a publisher.
I understand that Douglas Adams was a popular author but to publish work without his consent, even though he's dead, is incredibly disrespectful to his memory. No author that I've ever known (and having done a creative writing degree and worked in print journalism, I've rubbed elbows with a couple) would be happy if their work was shown to others before it was ready.
There are some instances, like Kafka, for instance, who would have never shown anybody anything if his friend hadn't had done it for him, but in this matter it isn't a case of simple neurosis. Adams was a pro, he'd been published and widely read before, surely if he thought that his unfinished work was ready for publication, it wouldn't have been unfinished.
As for this:
"He added that there was no question of any other writer completing the book."
I can assure you that of equal nightmarish possibility is the chance that an EDITOR will attempt to complete his book without him knowing about it. I know the literary industry is hurting, but to resort to this sort of thing is abominable.
I know it just got released, but how long before the packaged distributions will have this, do you think? I was already thinking of waiting a little longer for RedHat 7.2 anyway... Anyone got any good insight about the turnaround time for important software releases and when they make it into the commercial distros?
I've been using similiar technology to train CowboyNeal to get me coffee/cookies/girls and so far it hasn't been successful, but this appears to be much more practical.
Yeah, well, maybe not for the coffee and cookies, but it'd sure give you a good comeback for when the girls say to CowboyNeal, "Follow you? I'd rather be electrocuted!"
This sort of thing is done to make sure that the possible bias of an article is made public. You'll see this sort of thing all the time in mainstream news when a story is made on a station's parent company.
I want to know who's judging. Particularly, I want to know which impossible-to-please woman is going to be on the panel this time.
"Yes, this seven course crab meal delicately prepared with rare seasonings from the heart of France using everything from the brains for a mousse to the claws as the cutlery is just too salty. I don't like it."
Slashdot Mirror
As for the linux advocacy FAQ, I read it a long time ago back when I was a regular on the advocacy newsgroup. It applied then as much as it applies now. There's no sense trying to appeal to someone's better nature when they don't have one, so might as well toss out some gladiatorial dramatics for the crowd's pleasure. At least some amongst them have a sense of humour.
Unless coca-cola owns that as well...
Goddamn it.
Good lord.
COM, COM+, DCOM, OLE, VB, CORBA, ORB, JVM, CLR, XML...?
On top of everything else, it appears .Net is an excellent conversation starter to drop acronyms with...
Furthermore, the only parallel that MS products and GPLed applications have in common is from the point of view of end-use, NOT further development on the core product, and this does not involve the GPL at all. On the surface it appears that MS is using the GPL, which is a distinguishing feature of one of its major competitors, the Linux Operating System, as a focal point for criticism to gain an edge in the general public's eye, despite the fact that the general public will probably have no need to explore those areas of the competing product which will actually involve the GPL. Given this, once more, how is this information campaign relevent, and how is it ethical?
Yes! I'm going to send this information to everyone I know!!
All he's doing is giving us much-needed counter-arguments against Microsoft's marketing machine. Despite what any of us might think about whether or not MS deserves its success, Microsoft's competitive marketing tactics are TERRIBLE. First they're spreading fear about Linux's lack of support. Then they're spreading uncertainty about the total ownership cost of free software. Now they're spreading despair about the GPL. And they've just gotten started. And make no mistake, if the various BSDs start getting the mindshare that Linux has gotten, they'll be next.
If you really feel so strongly that some of Jon Katz's arguments are incomplete and unclear, then by all means speak up and question them and clarify them. But flaming him? What does that accomplish? Am I the only one who thinks we should be THANKFUL that a guy's willing to let it all hang out just for the sake of offering counter-arguments to the industry's biggest juggernaut? In a competitive marketplace, where points of view are bought and sold and consent is manufactured, it's positively VITAL for us to encourage dissenting opinions. Making a straw man out of one of our more eloquent advocates only serves to weaken our stance as a whole. Next thing you know MS will be saying that the Linux OS is unreliable because even the supporting community is fractured.
If Microsoft needs advocacy and legitimacy, let them do what they always do and buy it. Don't give it to them for free.
Not to mention a perfect model for the industry. If Napster is (as much of us believe it to be) a great promoter of music in general, and the users are the one footing the bill, the industry is basically having promotion of its commodity done FOR it, all expenses paid.
This is pretty much like going to the store and forking over 18$ for a Nike T-shirt, paying for a company to brand their logo on you. If they can pull this off, they're geniuses. Evil genuises, but genuises nonetheless...
Before you get crazy, I'm not suggesting that everyone who dropped a +1 Insightful is being paid to do so by Microsoft, and on the surface, the pro-MS, anti-paranoia arguments all make logical sense.
What I'm wondering is, if the general sentiment is just that, enough is enough, we've got Linux and *BSD as our alternatives, we've got our open standards that MS will never take away from us, let's drop this issue and move towards the future?
I can understand the frustration that comes when someone kicks a dead horse repeatedly for everyone else to see. But let's get real here -- if we're not going to act as a corporate watchdog on the geek level, who else is? The government? I wouldn't count on Dubya caring if your country's "thousands and hundreds of people" only have distributed access to MS. The industry? Microsoft IS the industry -- everything in the industry is either affected by their presence or noteworthy because of their absence. The average user? The average user cares if their hotmail is working and if they can get to e-bay and can play The Sims or whatever. They can do that out of the box with Microsoft -- don't expect them to care if we're only a year away from MSHTML.
Let's face it, we're on our own. For everybody out there who is saying "Hey, Microsoft isn't evil, Bill Gates is a pretty smart businessman", realize that you don't need to do this... the MS marketing machine is way ahead of you. What's scary isn't as much the initiatives of today -- it's what their initiatives of today will mean for their initiatives for tomorrow.
Actually, if you're designing wraparounds for a game or something, people might notice the slight jump in detail (these are the same people who swear they can tell the difference between 65 and 68 fps, after all). Better to make a 361 degree image, and then offer a patented 1 degree crop tool.
Ooooh. Good one.
That's probably besides the point. One of the big criticisms that everyone has about the music industry is that they're always behind the times on catching up to new technology. Seems to me to be a fairly good approach on their part, if you ask me. They can cut manufacturing costs like nuts and put out a low-cost alternative to buying CDs and a higher-quality (and not to mention legal) alternative to downloading amateur rips.
Plus, it opens up the door for providing an even better service than what Napster has. They can set up a fast, dedicated network to serve the files instead of having to rely on shaky internet downloads, they can make the process of finding a song quicker by providing their own directories, they can even order CDs en masse (like, tens of thousands at a time) and reduce the per-unit expense for themselves and (potentially) the consumer... It seems like a smart all around play, if you ask me.
The only real question will be if they (a) can implement it properly, and (b) can resist the temptation to once again become the megalithic expensive dinosaur that charged too much and encouraged the average music-lover to piracy in the first place.
There is no single book that is going to do it for everyone, and not all people learn the same way. You might as well spend the time reading over the first few chapters of several books, and figure out which writers you retain information with, which ones present ideas in ways that you can understand them, and which ones were put out by companies looking to expand their booklists. Also, you might as well get used to the idea that you'll probably want two books (at least), one which is a beginner's book and a second which will probably act as a complete reference. Their roles will be different -- one's purpose will be to get your feet wet and the other's will be for speedy knowledge lookup once you know what you're doing. Chances are, depending on what type of programming you want to get into, you might need a third Java reference specifically for that topic (ie: servlets, database aps, etc.).
Stay away from For Dummies books. I picked up one that had typos in the code listings that no "Dummy" would have been able to figure out (like, forgetting to pass an argument by its address -- that's C++ related but you get my drift, hopefully).
I'm personally very wary of books that attempt to be both beginner's books AND complete references (Deitel and Deitel in particular put me on edge -- they try to do both and come up short in both, they tend to be too involved for beginner's level and too jumbled and disorganized to be decent reference books, imo).
I think multiple texts with multiple points of view are really good for putting a language into perspective. Besides, you'll also get exposed to different coding styles and techniques, which will be useful in the long run. For this reason, don't discount online references. They probably aren't the greatest primary material, but the more examples you're exposed to, the better.
Awwwwwwwwwwww... Group hug, everyone!
You forgot about the Chargers.
Privacy ... [is] not something to worry about with works that were destined for the public view, anyway.
You're assuming that the works were destined for public view in the form that they currently exist in. Once again, if this was a work under revision, then there are quite possibly things within it that D.A. never wanted to make it out to the public. It's possible that certain subject matter might be in an early state that he'd rather not have leaked out, or he might have been in the middle of an experiment in style just to see if something would work -- and experiments of a stylistic nature OFTEN fail. As Douglas Adams didn't build his reputation as an experimental writer, any such private experiments should not be let out as they may alter the way the public believes the work is to be read, and to a writer, mastery over reader response is often critical to the success of a given work.
Similarly, for instance, if he was being overly ironical or satirical about a contemporary issue, poor execution of the joke might potentially offend a large body of people. On a less melodramatic level, execution of a particular joke that was working in his head but not necessarily on the page might make it out before he wanted it. Comedy relies on clarity, and this is where the revision process is once again critical. The kernel of the joke may be present in its current state, however, it may not have all the scaffolding removed to show it clearly. If nothing else, an unfinished work may lead an audience to believe him to be an unfunny guy, and that would be a major tragedy.
I know if I were to die tomorrow, my code wouldn't be locked away in my coffin -- it would be exploited by the other programs, fixed, tweaked, replaced and otherwise trampled.
Unfortunately, the functionality involved in computer code is drastically different than literature. A writer of DA's stature would have no doubt wanted the substance AND style to be perfect -- with computer code, there's a certain nebulous quality to it that invites editing even after the first receipt. There is no "Service Pack" for a novel. Unfortunately, any such mistakes that make it out into the public may have a negative impact upon his legacy as a writer.
A work like this -- which has apparently been close to release on several occasions -- is a rather different matter than truly personal documents.
You will probably find that most writers of fiction consider their work personal documents, at least until they're ready to share them. DA knew when stuff was ready before, and he submitted it then. At this stage, he hadn't yet submitted it, but there is an assumption that it's ready now anyway. This is a judgement call that is being made on behalf of the writer by the publisher, and that's unfortunate.
Maybe, but only if one of the steps included in my head is telling myself "Remember where you put the printout to that page, dumbass."
Considering the speed with which this announcement comes on the heels of his death, I can only assume that it was a publisher's decision to go forward with the project based on its merits as a business move -- even possibly because the recent death might have its own headline value and increase sales. If they'd waited a few years for the Adams fans to get restless and start clamoring for his hidden work, maybe then I'd agree that this might benefit literature. However, the way they've chosen to treat his private writings is less than respectful, and makes me wonder if publishers view their writers as commodities more than people. The fact that Adams is dead shouldn't mean that it's open season on his work. This sort of thing has repercussions on writers who are still living, too -- it damages the perceived value of the revision process to disregard it as a necessary factor. The speed with which this decision was made makes it obvious that financial demand outweighs the revision process, whereas with posthumous work the only thing that should spur a publication is overwhelming public demand. I don't think enough time has passed to say that the demand is overwhelming -- it's currently only being assumed.
As for dignity, we must choose are battles.
Well, I'm choosing this one.
But to say that taking his notes and bringing them into the eye of his fans is robbing him of his dignity is anticipating that he was hiding them delibrately. If he was, trust me, we never would have found them -- Adams was an ace with a computer and would have locked them down like a new bicycle.
Or perhaps he was assuming that people, including his publisher, would have the good graces to leave his work alone and trust his judgement on the fact that, if something was ready, people would know about it. In any case, nobody can know for sure what Adams would have wanted for his unfinished work in the event of an untimely death. The article made no mention of a last will and testament regarding the work, so I can only assume that it was a decision made by the publisher. It's disheartening that of all the assumptions of the appropriateness of such an action are being made, no assumptions about a possible right to privacy are being considered.
The specs seem to point primarily to a multimedia-based architecture, including sound. At least, that's the gist I got from reading the article.
If not, then I brought up that question to ask this one... maybe it'll give us Linux/BSD users a chance to NOT have to play catch-up to Microsoft on a new architecture?
I'm so glad that the personal effects of a dead man have to be dishonoured in order to satisfy your curiosity. Why not argue on behalf of the dignity of the guy? Probably because of selfishness.
In the other cases, with many other works being published posthumously like the Aeneid and the Silmarillion, it wasn't done in the era of endless Harry Potter sequels and unauthorized Princess Diana biographies. The motivations for publishing this work are financial, first and foremost. It's a bleeding shame that the personal property of a guy is allowed to be ravaged so as to satisfy a publisher.
There are some instances, like Kafka, for instance, who would have never shown anybody anything if his friend hadn't had done it for him, but in this matter it isn't a case of simple neurosis. Adams was a pro, he'd been published and widely read before, surely if he thought that his unfinished work was ready for publication, it wouldn't have been unfinished.
As for this:
"He added that there was no question of any other writer completing the book."
I can assure you that of equal nightmarish possibility is the chance that an EDITOR will attempt to complete his book without him knowing about it. I know the literary industry is hurting, but to resort to this sort of thing is abominable.
I know it just got released, but how long before the packaged distributions will have this, do you think? I was already thinking of waiting a little longer for RedHat 7.2 anyway... Anyone got any good insight about the turnaround time for important software releases and when they make it into the commercial distros?
Yeah, well, maybe not for the coffee and cookies, but it'd sure give you a good comeback for when the girls say to CowboyNeal, "Follow you? I'd rather be electrocuted!"
This sort of thing is done to make sure that the possible bias of an article is made public. You'll see this sort of thing all the time in mainstream news when a story is made on a station's parent company.
"Yes, this seven course crab meal delicately prepared with rare seasonings from the heart of France using everything from the brains for a mousse to the claws as the cutlery is just too salty. I don't like it."