I wish....
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| incinerator Oct 10, 2006 6:24 AM EDT |
this article wouldn't appear at lxer, but well it has. It is making me so angry that I wrote a reply to svjn, then threw it away because I realised I wasn't able to retort his article without staying polite. Well, anyway, here you have it, from sjvn fanboy #1 (watch out, sarcasm): In this article, sjvn plays the part of a clueless ****wit insulting Debian and every other serious hacker in the world, blaming them for problems they are not responsible for: 1. Contrary to sjvn's opinion, the trademark issue is not moot, at all. Look at RedHat vs. CentOS and other examples how trademark issues can indeed be used to try fencing off competition even when you're deploying Free Software. 2. Strangely enough, what's ok for CentOS is not ok for FSF/GNU and Debian? Wow that's so consistent I almost believed it. 3. Mozilla could remedy this issue very easily by relaxing the license for the firefox logo. But hey, a bunch of allegedly "elitist" hackers are much easier to blame, aren't they. 4. gnutella != gnuzilla, d'oh! gnutella has absolutely nothing to do with FSF nor with GNU, stupid. 5. Firefox the "single most important piece of open source software"? Sjvn, how can you make us read that and still expect us to be believe you actually have a clue? 6. Joking about "Freedom trumps common-sense", are we not sjvn? I hope you realise that many people (including me) actually believe in that. Bad. Insult. I. Am. Offended!!! 7. Insulting Debian and every other serious hacker in the world? You should prepare for your inbox to overflow, I guess I won't be the only one who'll be angry at you. 8. "Not my crew": Your Crew? Roflmao, I hope you realise you never WERE in the crew in the first place. You're just a stupid journalist who doesn't know what he writes about! Conclusion: I might repeat myself, but for me this piece by sjvn is the last straw that breaks by patience. By now, I would not be surprised if sjvn actually was an MS astroturfer. I seriously recommend putting up big warning signs saying "Please don't read that ****, it's bad for your brain!" everywhere in them internet tubes that are in the vicinity of any of sjvn's articles. This man is a fudder extraordinaire. yours angry, Dominik |
| jimf Oct 10, 2006 6:46 AM EDT |
> I would not be surprised if sjvn actually was an MS astroturfer You're not alone in that thought. Looking at the guy's writing history, one sees a very strange agenda. He's likely an MS plant, and an effective one. |
| incinerator Oct 10, 2006 6:54 AM EDT |
I agree, he must be very effective, indeed: According to http://ianmurdock.com/?p=363 even Ian Murdock (yes, that's the Ian in Debian) seems to believe it.... |
| jimf Oct 10, 2006 7:40 AM EDT |
I think it behoves us to out him :) |
| SamShazaam Oct 10, 2006 8:05 AM EDT |
I have been reading SJVN for quite some time now and he is one of the few columnists who actually understands what Open Source is all about. He has put out more articles in favor of Open Source and against MS than any one else I can think of. He is also not the only person who has a disagreement with the way the Debian project has been prceeding. This discussion is an example of one thing that is going wrong with this movement. There is a tendency to try to toss overboard anyone with whom we have disagreement. The personal insults are unnecessary to make your point and should be toned down a bit. |
| tuxchick2 Oct 10, 2006 8:11 AM EDT |
I don't particularly care for SJVN any more, and this alleged article is a great example of why. Contrast this uninformed, childish rant with the LWN article, "The return of Iceweasel" http://lwn.net/Articles/200301/
Anyone who wants to have an informed opinion on this issue needs to read this. SJVN thinks that because these are FOSS projects, legalities don't matter. He thinks it's just clashing egos and childishness. He is wrong, and should be ashamed of publishing such uninformed drivel. This article makes Dvorak look like the calm voice of facts and reason. |
| dcparris Oct 10, 2006 8:47 AM EDT |
Well, I'm sure my latest feature story will have more relevance than I first imagined. ;-) |
| tuxchick2 Oct 10, 2006 8:54 AM EDT |
Incinerator: Link? Your link goes to the front page of Iam Murdock's blog. Nothing there about SJVN. |
| jimf Oct 10, 2006 9:34 AM EDT |
> SJVN thinks that because these are FOSS projects, legalities don't matter. He thinks it's just clashing egos and childishness. He is wrong, and should be ashamed of publishing such uninformed drivel. I agree tuxchick, but that's the problem. He can't claim ignorance, and, if you go back through his articles the theme seems pretty pervasive. Perhaps what fools people is that some of his writing can be entirely technically accurate. At least he prefaced this one with "Opinion"... He starts the article with "I love free software. I use open-source programs and operating systems every day.", well, this guy is a user only in the 'free as beer' basest sense and certainly no advocate of FOSS. > Dvorak look like the calm voice of facts and reason ROFL... Now now, there you go again picking on poor old Dvorak... |
| tuxchick2 Oct 10, 2006 9:46 AM EDT |
jimf, SJVN doesn't even have to be a FOSS advocate. I would settle for him being a facts advocate. Dvorak is OK. He's been trapped in the curmudgeon schtick for years now, poor guy. No schtick, no paycheck. At least he doesn't pretend to be a Purveyor of Truth. |
| incinerator Oct 10, 2006 9:47 AM EDT |
tuxchick: I've fixed the link. Thanks for the hint. SamShazaam: You might be right, normally sjvn writes in favour of Free Software. However, his on-going ignorance about the more subtle political and technical details leave very much to be desired. Anti-FOSS FUD can be very subtle. I can imagine I'm not the only one who criticises him that strongly. Nevertheless, he continues to write articles full of errors, without any signs of improvement. He's been in the business for years, by now he ought to know better, at least if he really gave a damn. However, he still doesn't, and that makes one suspect things. And just byraway, the companies whose website sjvn usually publishes his articles on aren't really known for being strong Free Software advocates, either. But that's just me suspecting things.... |
| SFN Oct 10, 2006 11:10 AM EDT |
What I find odd is that he chose to get all up in arms about the Debian/Mozilla clash when he had the whole Dunc-Tank fiasco to rant and rave about. Let's face it, whichever way you come down on the Dunc-Tank issue it's pretty easy to get in a lather about. The Mozilla thing is really just a factual matter. That is to say, Mozilla allows X to be done with their trademark so Debian must do Y to deal with that. |
| crusadingknight Oct 10, 2006 4:11 PM EDT |
I have to agree on the lack of technical knowledge on the author's part - he apparently mistakes the name change in the tree (which is what mozilla insisted on) for a fork. Perhaps he doesn't know about downstream maintainers, patchsets, etc. All in all, this article blows the actual change far out of proportion with the change itself. |
| hkwint Oct 11, 2006 4:17 AM EDT |
Tuxchick: Thanks for the LWN link. It altered my opinion, since I first thought SJVN was 'a bit right'. Having read this stuff, and never having been the biggest FF fan, I wonder what to do now. Mozilla turned into a corporation with freakin' lawyers! (At least to me, that is the way it looks). And I even read, they don't care about Linux anymore... Makes some sense to me. They didn't care about Windows when it still was Phoenix, right? BTW, they had issues with their name themselves I read on WP, Phoenix, then Firebird, then Mozilla Firebird, then Mozilla Firefox. So they probably now what they are doing. Maybe I should switch back to Opera, because with Opera, at least you know for sure what you get; it's nor Open Source nor Free Software, doesn't claim so and works well (for me). The biggest problem is, I'm being a bit 'locked in' to Firefox, which means switching would cause me some efforts. Hmm, maybe forking is not a bad decision after all. For X(org), it was the right way to go I believe. And I might as well write a review of Opera 9... (start your flamers) |
| devnet Oct 11, 2006 6:38 AM EDT |
Don't forget that not long ago, he hopped onto the political side of MEPIS complying with the GPL and he gave them a platform to be heard whining about the GPL requirements...he was picked apart in the talkback forums and just stopped responding. The worst part isn't that he is mistaken about things or that he screws certain things up. The worst part is that when he does make mistakes, he doesn't correct them. That's the worst kind of 'journalist' |
| jdixon Oct 11, 2006 8:27 AM EDT |
> Contrast this uninformed, childish rant with the LWN article, "The return of Iceweasel" [HYPERLINK@lwn.net] Well, that's sort of like comparing apples and oranges. LWN is in a class with only LX'er. They're the two best Linux publications out there. SJVN isn't writing for either, and a number of his articles usually appear at places like eWeek (in this case, DesktopLinux.com). Now, his points about newbie confusion and user friendliness are correct, but who gives Debian to newbies? Ubuntu can take whatever steps they want to keep running the current Firefox if they want to. Ditto for Linspire, Freespire, Xandros, et. al. I fail to see that this is the major problem he thinks it is. Debian is not a newbie distribution, and it has never intended to be one. So, take SJVN for what he is, a journalist writing for the mass market side of the technical market, and judge him accordingly. Then take the article for what it is, a misinformed rant with almost no useful content. |
| 1c3d0g Oct 11, 2006 1:54 PM EDT |
Devnet: well said. That's exactly how he is. |
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