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| Stallman vs. LeBlanc: Freedom or Pure Technology? |
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Friday, September 26 2003 @ 02:47 AM EDT
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Richard Stallman has answered Dee-Ann LeBlanc's cry from the heart about Linux losing its focus, on LinuxWorld. As usual, they both look beyond the immediate and speak about the big picture. First, LeBlanc, back on September 1 suggested that Linux was in danger of losing its focus:
"SCO, GNU, governments, megacorps, movements, distributions, projects, licenses ... Linux is no longer simply about building the best operating system and tools possible for the sheer joy of it. Our little operating system has grown up. . .but when the politics become more important than the work, will we have lost the heart and soul of what makes Linux great: a community that settles for nothing less than the best?
"I'm not saying that we shouldn't fight the good fight. But between circling the wagons against outer forces and fighting within the various inner factions, it's far too easy to lose focus. Yes, Linux is a movement. Open source is a movement. Let's just not forget that Linux is born of one part experimentation, one part innovation, and a whole lot of fascination with making a technology the very best that it can be."
Stallman now responds by pointing out, of course, that Linus didn't start the movement in 1991, but that because many think so, they don't realize that it began with what he describes as a political purpose. I think the word ethical is more accurate, but it's his purpose he is describing, so he gets to choose whatever word he thinks fits best:
"Some go so far as to say that technology should not be sullied by non-technical concerns - espousing an idea of 'pure technology' that explicitly rejects the lesson, so painfully learned from World War II, that engineers have a duty to consider how their work may affect society.
"But you cannot keep your freedom by making technical advance your only goal. In 1983, we computer users had lost our freedom to cooperate: the only way you could buy a modern computer and run it was to sign a nondisclosure agreement, promising not to share with your friends, you could not tell what the program really did, and you could change it only by patching the binary. Regaining this freedom required 20 years of persistent effort, but we can lose it again much more quickly if we fail to defend it."
What particularly grabbed my attention, as I'm sure you've guessed, was the description of computer use in 1983, the part about changing it only by patching the binary. Anything sound familiar to you in that phrase?
There is a modern effort to shove us all back to 1983, where you couldn't look at or modify a thing and were stuck in binary-only functionality. That is, to me, the subtext of the SCO story, including the FUD about indemnification.
There are forces that want to destroy the GPL and those freedoms, no doubt about it, either by tossing the GPL overboard legally if they can do it or by eroding its freedoms, bit by bit. The Marx Brothers' haircut scene comes to mind: a little snoop here, another snoop there and then, oops, all your freedoms are gone. I believe the push for indemnification is part of the plan. No "practical" considerations can be worth going back to 1983, and I see no reason to agree to anything that leads us that way. It's hard enough not to be forced there. Why volunteer?
If a company wishes to set some servers aside for the prison treatment in order to get indemnification, I can understand that, although I see no reason why they need it. If they needed it, HP wouldn't be offering it free of charge, in my opinion. But we must not undervalue the freedom of being able to look at the code and modify it by quickly being willing to give it up, not for money, not for safety from lawsuits, not for anything I can think of, even if we personally don't do either of those things. Being able to look at the source code, modify it, and share with others - those freedoms are the heart and soul of GNU/Linux, and they are why it is superior technically too, if you think it through to the end. No threats or fear or economic considerations or short-term self-interest should make us give up or give away away those hard-earned freedoms.
That is my opinion still. I got a lot of email and a lot of comments about this subject, and I thought I owed you an explanation. But having said that, is there any reason why we can't have both Stallman's freedom and LeBlanc's fabulous technology? Elegant and innovative technology written by ethical people for the good of all? Isn't that, if you think about it, what we actually do have and are fighting for? If we focus only on the tech and as a result end up back in 1983's bad old days, that's the end of LeBlanc's innovative technology, because no one will be allowed to modify and share. And if we ignore her cry from the heart, the operating system won't be the best it can be, and that is a large part of the enjoyment. If ever there was a time to unite and work together, this surely is it, no matter which side we come down on. There is room for all and a need to be alert to threats to the freedom GNU/Linux provides and to give room to the ideas and feelings of others. This, to me, is one area the community can beneficially address.
Let me explain: after the open letter came out, I was contacted by a number of reporters. One of them told me this story: he said that his impression of the Linux community was that they are weird, and he was trying to figure out how I could be so seemingly "normal". "Who are you?" he asked, only partly in jest. He meant how did a nice girl like you end up in a place like this? He was a pleasant guy, so I thought it was worthwhile to ask him what he meant and how he formed that opinion.
He explained that every time he writes about SCO, he gets angry email, telling him in essence that he is an idiot. Journalists, unlike bloggers, he said, can't introduce their personal opinions into stories, but he felt readers don't understand his position, namely that if SCO folks put out a statement, he has to write what they said, because it's his job. And that's the case regardless of what he personally thinks.
He's right about that. Of course, I pointed out the flaws we see in the media's coverage so far. But, as another reporter told me when I said the same thing to her, journalists are generalists, not specialists. They have to be able to write about a lot of different areas, but that means they aren't necessarily experts on the subject at hand.
These are rational answers. I told the first reporter it isn't Grokkers writing to him. "It must be the Slashdot crowd," I said. (Joke. Joke. I do read Slashdot myself. But you do know what I mean.) We laughed, but the truth is, there is a problem identified here, and winning the battle may require us to make whatever changes are necessary to be more effective. It might feel good in the moment to vent, but we can be smarter and more committed than that. Deeper, what is the point of writing ethical software if we then mistreat our fellow humans verbally?
We have been given a second big clue. Reporters may not all understand the details of this story, but that doesn't mean they are all idiots or sellouts, not that some of them aren't both. But for most, they just don't understand the tech. I enjoyed talking with both of the ones I mention here and liked them as people quite genuinely. We can respectfully help them to understand the tech and the community where help is needed.
So, if by any chance anyone reading this has written such a letter, and I meant it when I told him I doubted it was anyone here, would it be good to write again and apologize, explaining your frustration, if you like, or at least from this day forward write only thoughtful, helpful, and respectful letters to the media? The world at large doesn't have the same sense of humor tech people do, so it's easy to be misunderstood when we are horsing around online. After these two conversations with the reporters, I believe it can make a tremendous difference in the anti-FUD fight to consider thoughtfully their impression of the community and how we can shape it more accurately by what we write in email, in comments, and on our websites. If we want to do something about SCO, that's something we can do, and, after these two conversations, I think it could make a real and significant contribution.
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| Authored by: ra on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 05:05 AM EDT |
This would be a great thread to practice and hone our letter-writing skills.
Especially in the New Groklaw with threaded comments and (seemingly) unlimited
comment lengths.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 05:22 AM EDT |
Ransom Love, Co-founder of Caldera and SCO Interview
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1300367,00.asp
United Linux Quietly marches on
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=550349299&fp=2&fpid=1
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jez_f on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 05:33 AM EDT |
Journalists, unlike bloggers, he said, can't introduce their personal
opinions into stories, but he felt readers don't understand his position, namely
that if SCO folks put out a statement, he has to write what they said, because
it's his job. And that's the case regardless of what he personally
thinks.
I am not sure if I agree with this outlook. It is part of
the problem nowadays that a lot of news stories are just regurgitated press
releases. Wouldn’t it be better for them to find out if the claims have any
validity before they report on them. This is not expressing an
opinion.
It would not hurt for a journalist to ask experts if a press
release makes any sense. It will make for much better news to have claim and
counter claim in the same story. I suppose the problem with OSS is that there is
no media relations department that reporters can phone for a comment.
The press are not used to dealing with such an entity so they don’t seem to
bother. I suppose a tirade of pissed of people mailing jornos every time they
report a SCO press release doesn’t make us seem any more approachable.
Unfortunately SCO does get the advantage with this because they know
just how to use the press and the press understand them. I am not sure how this
can be dealt with easily
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 05:51 AM EDT |
Several months ago the US Federal Trade Commission
[FTC} initiate a program of registering phone numbers in a
national NO CALL list. Tuesday of this week a federal
judge baned the list saying that congress did give the FTC
the required authorization for the FTC's actions.
Wednesday both houses of congress passed a bill in a
virtual unanimous vote explicitly giving the FTC the exact
power the federal judge said the FTC did not have. As one
congressional politicians said?50 million Americans can
NOT be wrong? referring to the number of people who had
registered not to be called. The politicians could see the
writing on the wall. Either they [the politicians] were going to
get with the program or they [the politicians] were going to
be replaced.
Mr. McBride 50+ countries representing 3 Billion [US
notation] people are not wrong. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: MathFox on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 06:01 AM EDT |
| In the early days of the Free Software movement most of the activity took place
in engineering circles. GNU tools became accepted because they were of a better
quality than the propriatary ones, but none of the Open Source tools made a real
dent in the profits of the commercial software developers. Those were the days
before 1995; programmers quietly engineering open source software, with little
public attention.
Between 1995 and 2000 GNU/Linux became more visible; it
became viable to build small linux based servers and many companies began to
feel competition. You see the standard defensive practices against a technology
"threat" crop up. FUD: An automobile can explode when you're driving it. Legal
means: An automobile should be preceded by a man bearing a red flag. (Just some
examples from the past)
How long can you stop a superior technology? A single
country can outlaw it and damage its own development. China is clear in its
support for Open Source; India's actions show support too and in Europe there's
a hestitation to continue funding Microsoft.
Even Microsoft sees that
outlawing Linux is an impossibility, so they are resorting to other tricks.
Elbowing Linux out of procurement procedures, preventing interoperability (Need
i say Fritz chip?). And when legal tricks fail there allways is a possibility
for an extra discount (gratis Windows for selected schools) or a promotional
trip to Redmond.
The Open Source movement has to spend some energy to prevent
the negative effects of proposed legislation. Luckilly "the movement" is big
enough so that some people can spend their time on it. I congratulate the FFII
for their win on the EU patent directive. We'll have to keep our eyes open; but
we have shown that we can do some effective lobbying. ---
MathFox gets
rabid from SCO's actions.
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| Authored by: Steve Martin on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 06:29 AM EDT |
from eWeek...
Ransom Love speaks of Unix, GPL,
and the lawsuit
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| Authored by: amcguinn on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 06:51 AM EDT |
| I do entirely agree that we should all be polite and respectful, particularly
to
"neutral parties" like journalists. But, if you find yourself again
having
to make excuses for zealots, here are a few to be going on with
:-/
1. Youth. Free Software benefits enormously from the enthusiasm of the
young. An
ideal symbol of this is Marcelo Tostatti, who was appointed official
maintainer of
the stable Linux kernel while
18 years old. Given
that so many members of the community are so young, and are not expected to
see
that as limiting their contributions, a certain
amount of immature behaviour is
to be expected as an unwanted side-effect.
2. Unsocialisation. The Free
Software community has a wonderful variety of members of
all types and
backgrounds, united around sharing and good software, blah blah blah...
Very
true. It also has a very large number of young men who spent a great deal of
their
formative years sitting at keyboards in their bedrooms, and who would
benefit greatly
from getting out a bit and meeting some girls. Trust me, I've
been one. Dealing with
people is a skill, and it takes practice, and some of us
unfortunately lack that practice.
3. Transparency. Senior business people
behave very differently when in a meeting room
with their peers and colleagues
than when they are in a public forum. The modern Free
Software movement exists
almost entirely in public forums. A Free Software programmer
who has a
disagreement with a colleague sends a (possibly vituperative) email to a public
mailing list, and when he has a disagreement with a journalist he does the same
thing.
He isn't "triggered" to think "Hang on, this is a different type of
communication, different
standards apply".
4. Openness. The community of
developers and users is entirely open to anyone, cannot
exclude anyone, and is
of a size that would astonish most outsiders. The fact that Slashdot
can
overload any but the biggest sites on the internet just by linking to it is a
clue to
the enormous number of people who are concerned in these issues.
These aren't justifications, they're just an answer to the question "why are
your
lot such wierdos". Anti-social behaviour by a minority of the community is
something we have
all learned to endure, and we can attempt to explain it
without condoning it.
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| Authored by: Steve Martin on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 07:14 AM EDT |
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Schwartz "clarifies" his earlier remarks regarding Sun and
Linux.
Examples:
-
Original:
"Also, let me
really clear about our Linux strategy. We don't have one. We don't at all. We do
not believe that Linux plays a role on the server.
Period."
SCOspeak:
"Linux plays a strong role for us in
devices—we don't necessarily have a Linux strategy, per se, because that's at
too low a level, but we do want to see Linux
succeed."
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Original:
"We will also indemnify you
for Solaris...If you use Linux on the server, even if we sold the distribution
to you, you are on your own. If you buy our Java desktop solution [which
includes SuSe Inc. Linux] you are completely indemnified as long as you run it
as a desktop solution. And by the way, don't take our desktop product and put it
on the server... I have licenses to all those issues that SCO is suing IBM for.
If I didn't have them, I certainly wouldn't indemnify them
(customers)."
SCOspeak:
"Sun provides indemnity for all
its products...That Dell and IBM won't vouch for Linux strikes me as
hypocritical..."
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 07:53 AM EDT |
Regarding the journalist:
"He explained that every time he writes about SCO, he gets angry email,
telling him in essence that he is an idiot. Journalists, unlike bloggers, he
said, can't introduce their personal opinions into stories..."
Firstly, if you attend some journalism classes in college, you will learn that
journalists cannot help but introduce their personal opinions into stories.
What should be strived for is balanced reporting.
Secondly, I do believe alot of "tech people" need to learn some
social skills. I can truly believe that journalists receive hate mail calling
them idiots, because I have seen how alot of the tech crowd responds when anyone
tells them they are wrong. I have had to work with programmers who you
couldn't have a decent conversation with, and who hadn't had dates in over a
year because they had no social skills. And I can tell you from experience
that- if you respond in a civilized fashion to most journalists, and make your
points lucidly and without flames, that they will respond in similar fashion and
might even change their opinions.
You can bet Darl McBride interacts with reporters in a pleasant, civilized
fashion. Now, if you are a reporter who has just read 10 or 20 e-mails from
"tech people" telling you that you are an idiot, and then you get a
phone call from a well-mannered, polite Mr. CEO Darl, who are you going to
listen to? And what are you going to report?
A final thought on this binary only deal- if HP were indeed FORCING users top
accept binaries only, and do no modifications, there would be a problem. They
are not forcing anyone to do anything, which is the salient point here. Here is
an analogy- you buy a Ford truck, and Ford says the motor will run for 60K miles
without problems, if it is not modified. Well, hey- is this taking away your
"rights?" I mean- should you be able to bolt a supercharger onto
that motor, or install a nitrous injection kit, or bore the cylinders and change
pistons and expect that guarantee to still apply? Of course not......[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: fb on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 08:08 AM EDT |
A well-known scientist once told me, "You tend to believe what you read in
the papers, until you read what some journalist has written about you or about
something or someone you know very well."
What's at issue here are simple *facts*. The distortions that show up in
journalism are not benign, and press coverage of the SCO matter is a case in
point. Call it generalism, call it superficial understanding or lack of
information, call it whatever you like. These are all evasive justifications for
acquiescing in a blurred version of the truth. It's all the more glaring when
the facts are there to be had, out in the open, as this website demonstrates so
clearly.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 08:35 AM EDT |
People ask me why do I run GNU/Linux on all my machines? How can I live without
all of the stuff that Windows and other proprietary software offers and is not
in GNU/Linux for whatever reason?
My answer to them is that even if all OSes were 10 times better then GNU/Linux,
I would still choose it over those OSes. Sounds extraordinary stupid, but it is
actually rather practical. In my more naive days, I used to muck around a lot
with Windows, all flavours. Being a sysadmin and a developer, I would always end
up with the same problem: obtain more proprietary software to achieve goal XYZ.
It was a never ending story and I was never in control.
With free software, I choose what and how I want it. Not a single piece of
software is beyond repair (at least theoretically). Not a single piece of
software forces me to upgrade when I don't want to or obtain something I can't
control entirely.
So, RMS is right, of course. It is about freedom.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jquirk on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 08:51 AM EDT |
I have been around awhile I was writing code as a hobby when Stallman first
floated the idea of GNU. I wrote my first piece of code in 1972 using punch
cards - I'm not as old this makes me sound. I remember the problems of having
created something useful but what to do put in the Public Domain and have some
one else use it and not give anything back or lock it away and let it never see
the light of day. Their was community but it was confined to academia. Minix
came along as a response to the locking up of source code but failed in many
ways because it had a restrictive license. Stallman in the mean time had created
the the GNU tools and the GPL. The Internet started come of age a student in
Finland posted a freely down loadable Kernel that used the GNU tools and Linux
was born. Without the GPL Linux may have ended like Minix a nice plaything but
not really useful. Because the GPL and the Internet encouraged people to
contribute and build on work done by others.
In short without Stallman's vision Linux may never have happened. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 09:06 AM EDT |
"It would not hurt for a journalist to ask experts if a press release
makes any sense. It will make for much better news to have claim and counter
claim in the same story."
I agree with sentence #2, but who are the "experts" a journalist
should make inquiries of. Laura DiDiot or someone else firmly entrenched in the
MS camp? Or an OS "penguinista?" I think it is the responsibility
of journalists to query different sources of information, become knowledgeable
about a subject, and then use some discrimination when writing the story. It
takes work, and alot of research and reading, but it is what distinguishes the
hacks from the real journalists....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bob on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 09:23 AM EDT |
He explained that every time he writes about SCO, he gets angry email,
telling him in essence that he is an idiot. [not serious]
OK, so
the stimuli are being delivered, soon perhaps the conditioned response will set
in he'll learn not to write about SCO
[/not serious]
Journalists,
unlike bloggers, he said, can't introduce their personal opinions into stories,
but he felt readers don't understand his position, namely that if SCO folks put
out a statement, he has to write what they said, because it's his job. And
that's the case regardless of what he personally thinks.
Well, that's
fine for the stuff he puts in the quote marks, my problem is with the stuff that
he (or they) put outside the quotes. Here's a quote from a
Re
uters Article:
Many users and developers of Linux -- which is called
open source because it can be copied and modified freely, unlike proprietary
software such as Unix and Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O Windows -- have rejected
SCO's claims, saying SCO has yet to provide proof that their intellectual
property is used in Linux.
SCO, which owns the right to Unix, the
networking software program upon which Linux is based, sued IBM IBM.N for
billions earlier this year for introducing Unix code into Linux. SCO is also
demanding that companies pay to use Linux or face litigation.
An IBM
spokeswoman said on Wednesday that its position that SCO's claims are baseless
was unchanged.
So here they are presenting the opposing viewpoint,
but for some reason have to state SCO's unproven claim -- that (a) SCO owns the
rights to Unix, and that (b) Linux is based on this property of SCO's -- as an
accepted fact. Nothing about how this is a claim of SCO's. Beyond this, the
quote is technical wrong (networking program?) and inconsistent (Linux is based
on Unix in the first place but IBM is being sued for inserting Unix code into
Linux?). How can we not be offended by this? How would they feel if we started
writing about the journalism industry in such uninformed terms... oh, wait,
that's kind of what he's complaining about, isn't it?
But beyond this,
there's a bigger problem in their credential-centric selection of news sources.
Every time McBride or Stowell runs at the mouth, it's considered a reportable
event because they're officials of a company, be as it may a puny little
litigious, failing company. Then they get a thousand people whining at them that
they (a) confused facts with specious claims and (b) even got the real facts
wrong, and all they do is whine about how the community beats them up for doing
their job. Excuse me, but this comes painfully close to confirming what I've
suspected for years -- that a journalist's job is to get things wrong. Why do
they not feel obligated to come back the next day and write a story about all
the things that were wrong about the article? Seems to me that maintaining the
appearance of being right is an imperative of a higher order than that
of getting it right in the first place.
Whatever, I think that if these
mainstream papers want to report on the technology industry, they need to start
learning about the technology industry, or at least develop a variety of sources
that they can talk to to confirm the validity of what they've written. Certainly
they must have people working for them who understand this stuff, or they
wouldn't have computer networks to write these stories on. They could, for
example, just run down to their IT shop and have a couple of sysadmins read
their story and tell them if they got it right or not. This may seem like an odd
idea, but in my job as an IT planner in my organization, I've been called on
multiple times to comment on technology questions raised by our chairman. This
is not at all part of my job description, and it jumps across multiple
organizational boundaries, but I believe it makes a difference and shows that
the chairman cares above all about getting things right, and that my
organization tolerates senior people who are not afraid to admit when they don't
know something. I see no reason why it should work any different in
journalism. ---
It's not a problem until something bad happens. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 09:35 AM EDT |
I have drafted an FAQ on the SCO/Linux controversy. See:
http://home.swbell.net/mck9/sco/sco.html
This document is intended for purposes of education and advocacy at the SCO City
to City meetings in October, but may be useful for other purposes as well.
It focuses mostly on the legal issues, especially those affecting end users. I
have deliberately skirted a lot of side issues such as the alleged DOS attacks
and the possible involvement of Microsoft. I have also tried to avoid
inflammatory rhetoric of the sort that PJ decries.
I have tried to be accurate, but I am not a lawyer, nor do I know everything. I
welcome corrections of fact or of law. Or, for that matter, of grammar or
spelling.
Scott McKellar[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: chrism on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 10:07 AM EDT |
PJ seems to be painting a picture of reporters/journalists as genuinely confused
but good hearted people.
I can't shake the feeling the the press's main job these days is to start
fights between groups of people so they can cover the ensuing brawl, which sells
more papers and web page hits.
I think you could explain linux till you were blue in the face to them and it
wouldn't stop the style of the reporting we are seeing.
I do believe, however, that rudeness is almost never called for, and being
helpful and polite is the only way to live a meaningful and fullfilling life.
So we should be respectful and polite to journalists because they are people,
not because they are genuinely confused about the issues we care about.
The older I get, the more I see that the vast majority of the stupidity in the
world is self-serving and not genuine. We all play dumb in our own ways so we
can claim to be innocent.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 10:34 AM EDT |
If it really was a choice between freedom or technology, I'd have to go with
the freedom every time. As PJ put it bluntly: "It's the
Freedom,Stupid!" Fortunately you can have both. Technology provides the
means both to create and preserve freedom, and the means to limit or destroy it.
The PC and the internet comprise one of the great disruptive technologies of all
time. And whenever a disruptive technology emerges, there are big winners, and
big losers. The big losers are usually wealthy groups and individuals who's
position relied on the way things were. They will inevitably apply their wealth(
i.e. power) in any way possible to cripple, subvert, or co-opt the new
technology. Which inevitably makes the technology a political issue.
My introduction to Gnu/Linux came about while taking an adult education course
on Microsoft Networking. In the back of the lab was a stack of miscellaneous
CD's from who knows where, which included a Red Hat 4.x CD, which I took home
and started browsing. The thing that hooked me was the documentation. It was
scattered all over, text files, man pages, info pages, html howto's, but it was
there. And it was honest! "This s*cks, this may fail for no apparent
reason, this may or may not work.." Utterly different from the glowing but
useless crap from M$. Within 2 days I was running Apache and Samba in the lab.
Now this class had one legal copy each of Windows 3.1, 95, and 98. NT was on a
CD-R, draw your own conclusions. So among 20 computers, I was the only one
runnning a legal file server, and the only one with a web server. We had each
spent about $200 on text books, and I had more useful information on that CD
than in those books. Never did get my MCSE, and no regrets.
Tuition $350, textbooks $200, discarded out of date Red Hat CD, priceless.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: stanmuffin on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 10:37 AM EDT |
It's true that nobody is being forced to accept HP's indemnification...yet.
But it's the first step toward what SCO calls the monetization of Linux. The
indemnified Linux you buy from HP is neither free as in speech nor free as in
beer. If the industry as a whole moves in this direction, Linux degrades from a
movement to a mere product. And when corporations are loath to contribute to
open source, instead preferring their warm fuzzy indemnification, even Linux the
product will suffer.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 10:46 AM EDT |
PJ:
I think your analysis (and LeBlanc's) is too U.S. focused. The rest of the
world isn't going to allow Linux to be killed, and certainly isn't going to
recognize any of SCO's spurious claims.
This leads to irony.
The U.S. was formerly known as the world's beacon of freedom, liberating
oppressed people everywhere.
This is now reversed. The rest of the world wants to take U.S. freedoms
seriously, even if corporate-sponsored U.S. politicians don't.
(P.S.: I am an American.)
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| Authored by: mdchaney on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 11:38 AM EDT |
Journalists, unlike bloggers, he said, can't introduce their personal
opinions into stories, but he felt readers don't understand his position, namely
that if SCO folks put out a statement, he has to write what they said, because
it's his job.
There's a problem here, and it's one of limits. Mahy
of the press releases that SCO has put out are demonstrably false. I'm not
asking for the journalist's opinion, but I am asking that he take 5 minutes to
do a quick fact check.
I always test statements such as his with a
simple test: the extremity test. His statement is that he has to write what SCO
says, that's his job. Okay, let's get extreme. SCO puts out a press release
claiming that he (the journalist) is dead. Does he still have to "write what
they said" without "introducing his personal opinion"? Duh.
Such a
press release would be roundly ridiculed in the press. Yet many of SCO's claims
are as easily proven false, even by someone who isn't terribly technically
literate.
Another point of frustration is that when claims are proven
false, we instead see that "Bruce Perens claims this is false", with the reader
being left with the feeling that Bruce's credibility is on par with Chris
Sontag's. Bruce (and others in our community) have not made claims that weren't
backed up with easy-to-verify, indisputable facts.
A good example is
SCO's source code fiasco (the BPF and malloc code). According to every article
that I read, the malloc code may or may not have been from ancient Unix. Bruce
Perens claims that it is. Holy crap, reporters, take 1 single minute to do a
Google search and verify that Bruce is telling you the truth.
I know
this is possible. I am often impressed at stories on cnn.com where the reporter
took the minute to verify or prove false a particular claim, often saying
something such as "a quick check showed this claim to be false."
So,
tell your reporter friend that the majority of us would be happy if 1) they took
the extra minute to do fact checking and 2) they report facts as facts, and
opinions as opinions. Don't know which is which? See #1. We're not asking for
much, this is something they should be doing, anyway.
BTW: I only write
to correct reporters when they repeat Microsoft claims about the GPL, i.e. if
you extend any GPL'd code in your company then you must make your changes freely
available to anybody.
Michael [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: shaun on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 11:41 AM EDT |
PJ I already stated this basic idea in a sub thread here but I wanted it to be
on the top.
The challenge: Make a Press Kit Resource Package
The conditions: Using the same approach as we did when we wrote the open letter
to SCO we should build a Press Kit based on facts. Links to historical, legal
and other pertainent data to verify the information as needed.
Purpose and Justification: Since SCO has better use of the press, especially
manistream, there needs to be a resource available to help reporters find the
facts vs the SCO hype.
--Shaun[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 11:57 AM EDT |
IBM Files New Claims Against SCO in Linux Case
http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030926/1148000629_1.html[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: stanmuffin on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 11:57 AM EDT |
| IBM has charged SCO with copyright infringement. Story here.
IBM
sales manager Robert Samson seems to agree with PJ's sentiments on
indemnification:
IBM said that: "Most indemnities are narrowly drawn and
are often invalidated by customer activities, such as making modifications or
combining the indemnified product with other code, which are central to the
vitality of open source."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ZeusLegion on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 12:52 PM EDT |
Weighing in my own thoughts on journalists and Crazed Linux Fanatics, I've
noticed that journalists seem to have an off-switch when it comes to their
humanity.
When they're on the job, a male reporter with a wife and 3 children at home
might ask the survivor of a car crash the equivalent of "Sir, your wife
and children have just been dismembered in a car crash. Having died fiery,
painful and gruesome deaths and being lost to you forever, how does that make
you feel?".
The reporter is then shocked when the survivor lunges for the reporter's
throat, screaming obscenities and the next story you see is "Lunatic Crash
Survivor Attacks Reporter".
In many cases, journalists only report one side of an argument without bothering
to check the facts or offering a counterpoint from the other party or parties
involved.
Often, these other parties feel like they're treading through molasses trying
to get their views out and eventually lose their tempers when journalists print
galling and untrue statements as fact.
If I ask your reporter friend when he stopped molesting chickens and he starts
to respond that he's never molested chickens but I cut him off and send out a
headline like "Chicken Molesting Reporter Denies Charges", he's
going to eventually get ticked off and blow his top if I keep doing that,
especially if he can't get his side of the story out. His side may be the truth
but truth doesn't seem to matter to some journalists.
This one-sidedness and uncompassionate inhumanity seems to be common practice in
journalism and while it may sell papers or get ratings, its very unfortunate.
So the next time a reporter wonders why a crazed group of fanatics is ticked off
at him and ready to clean his clock, he needs to remember the story of the poor
Chicken Molesting Reporter and pick himself up a loaf of Compassion and a gallon
of Fairplay.
---
Z[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: skidrash on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 01:04 PM EDT |
For a great many people Linux may be the one purely altruistic thing that
directly touches their lives daily.
They see a world of mostly money chasing cynicysm, political noise and folly.
I can understand how some people would be angered by attacks on that one thing
that stands above. It doesn't excuse what they do, of course. I knew what the
future would be in the Bill Machrone incident (ca. 1996????)
Remember that the Linux fringe has outlived all the others for the most part .
The Mac fringe is mostly tame these days, the Amiga and os/2 fringes are mostly
gone except for some diehards.
And none of those ever inspired the sheer intensity of the Linux group, and
definitely none of those groups kept the intensity as long as Linux has.
(I AM NOT denigrating the other groups. I was a quiet member of several.)
Perhaps none of these reporters can understand because nothing occupies the same
space in their lives as Linux does in the Linux fringe.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: skidrash on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 01:07 PM EDT |
There was a journalist a while back who ran a one person campaign a little while
ago, pushing to establish a linux central corporate group to oversee Linux
development.
I think it was around the time the 2.4 kernel came out.
She interviewed Linus and several others asking leading questions about
deficiencies in the process, pointing to some difficulties with a few of the
developers.
I've forgotten her name. Was that LeBlanc?
(just curious, and I want to find those articles again and see in hindsight if
there was any substance to them)
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| Authored by: J.F. on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 02:48 PM EDT |
In 1983, we computer users had lost our freedom to cooperate: the only way
you could buy a modern computer and run it was to sign a nondisclosure
agreement, promising not to share with your friends, you could not tell what the
program really did, and you could change it only by patching the
binary.
I don't know what he's talking about. The 80's was the
hay-day of open source programming. Everyone had an Apple II/III, TRS-80 Model
xx, Atari 400/800, or Commodore 64. All were driven by open source programs done
by the same (kinds of) people who now do GPL programs. The Atari was especially
nice since full source code to the OS and hardware specs were published by Atari
and available to anyone who wanted them. No NDA's there! The early to mid 80's
gave way in the late 80's to the Macintosh, the Amiga, and the Atari ST. All
three were also driven by open source programs. The Amiga was the best out of
the batch; it had full hardware specs published along with a full spec of the
OS. Libraries and devices were easy to create and replace and Amiga encouraged
people to do so. The Amiga was the very height of open source and the birth of
multimedia. It was the first modern OS: when Mac was still a dinky B&W screen
with the ability to run only one thing at a time and PCs were toys, the Amiga
had a full color GUI, digital stereo sound, and a pre-emptive multitasking OS
that was a decade ahead of anyone else's OS. It wasn't until Windows 95 that
anyone else caught up to the Amiga OS.
I think Stallman would do well to
go back and do a little more study on the history of computing.
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| Authored by: RoQ on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 04:32 PM EDT |
PJ, you raise a good point.
There are an overwhelmingly rational bunch
of people that support GROKLAW and OSS/FSF in general, but that don't take the
time to respond to reports and stories that we disagree with or wish to comment
on (at least I haven't, and I'm assuming I'm not alone on this one)
For
myself, I would never send a letter to someone stating, "D00d, U R L@m3Rz!!1!1"
or similarly idiotic phrasing, at least not unless they knew I was
joking. But I can only shake my head at people that attack reporters as if they
are espousing their opinion on whatever subject they are. If they were opinions,
it wouldn't be a story; it'd be an editorial.
I think in my case, I just
need to kick myself in the pants and become a bit more of an activist for Linux,
instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching events transpire in front of
me.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking post.
RoQ [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Yury on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 05:56 PM EDT |
PJ, you yourself quote Stallman:
"Some go so far as to say that
technology should not be sullied by non-technical concerns - espousing an idea
of 'pure technology' that explicitly rejects the lesson, so painfully learned
from World War II, that engineers have a duty to consider how their work may
affect society.
But you cannot keep your freedom by making technical advance
your only goal."
Well, jurnalists, MUCH MORE then engineers have the
duty to consider how their work may affect society. Therefore, unless one
introduces his own opinion, he is a lier*. And lie can be worse the all the
weapons in the world put together.
Why jurnalists came to conclusion that
not introducing own opinion is preferable in the first place? Because they
recognized their own incompetence! What are they learning in universities then,
beg your pardon? I guess, the science of making money on ignorence and with
ignorence.
Someone here mentioned that you believe newspapers untill you
read there about yourself. Unfortunately, many of us fail to recognize the
newspapaer is about us, when it is. I am not surprised. How many of you would
believe Darl actually talkes about the same Linux we do, if we didn't know it
for a fact, simply because Linus holds the copyright for the
name?
Unfortunately, our society is penetrated by lies in all
directions. And reporters, by simply trafficing information into the air, are
play the key role in this. Today they are gently called "moral relativists". But
what they are is nothing but immoral.
I suggest people take a fresh look
at "Surviving the Unabomber" by David Gelernter, a computer scientist by the
way.
*(I doubt that "accidental truth" is much different from lie)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Clay on Friday, September 26 2003 @ 06:21 PM EDT |
PJ,
In your final two or three paragraphs you did a world of good explaining why we
should be be compassionate, and respectful of everyone we run across, even if
they may not believe the same things as us.
You're "normal" interactions with the reporter helps me both
understand why we can be misunderstood, and why we also have alot of work to do
on how we come across to the world at large.
SCO and other analysts have commonly pointed to OSS as a "fringe
cult" or "subculture" as if it were a bad thing, the issue
isn't the depth of the OSS community its the bredth.
Lets try to remember this, and treat everyone we meet with respect, compassion,
and make an honest effort to open "safe" discourse.
Clay
---
---------------------------
newObjectivity, Inc. supports the destruction
of all software patents.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 28 2003 @ 09:45 AM EDT |
By acknowledging 'zealotry' at all, you are simply playing into the hands of
those who seek to discredit you. Who is to say that anonymous flamers aren't
working for the other side? Remember the SCO employees who joined the protest in
front of their office with their own signs? Open your eyes, people.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cyberdrek on Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 08:55 AM EDT |
You're pointing out that we should stop the small battles between different
factions of the Open Source movement but yet, you go out and openly attack
slashdotters... What a good way to show the example...[ Reply to This | # ]
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