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Don't feed the trollDon't feed the trollPosted Feb 16, 2008 22:40 UTC (Sat) by stevenj (guest, #421)In reply to: Don't feed the troll by sbergman27 Parent article: SCO to continue the fight?
As there is plausible evidence that MS has been involved in funding SCO in the past, it is a reasonable question for PJ to pose as to whether they are involved this time. And she pointed out that, indeed, the present funder has had multibillion-dollar business partnerships with Gates in the past. What conclusion to draw from this she left to the reader; reasonable people can disagree about the relevance of the funder's financial and personal relationship with Gates. If you had simply disagreed with her like a reasonable person, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Instead, you started by grossly distorting her evidence about the connection with Gates and calling her "psychotic," and things went downhill from there. That made your post(s) trollish. Thank you for switching to a more reasonable tone in your last post. (As for the Asus PC vs. XO, I don't think your or Nigel's characterization of her opinions on the subject are entirely accurate, but I have no interest in fighting over an offtopic thread. Nor do I always agree with PJ's judgements, but I don't think this makes her "psychotic.") PS. Speaking of unsubstantiated claims, "Steven" is the 18th most common first name in the US, and two surnames beginning with "J" are in the top five. It's sometimes annoying to have a common name.
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Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 16, 2008 23:10 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] Tell me about it. My first name is Steven, too. I absolutely agree about there being a lot of cirumstantial evidence regarding MS participation in the SCO investments. The Baystar thing even had some evidence which was not of the circumstantial variety. But her "Where's Waldo" game is just childish. And if you think being branded with a common name is a pain... believe me, being an enthusiastic, and long time member of a community "represented" by the likes of PJ and Eric Raymond is far worse. (I've been advocating Unix since 1988, and Linux since 1996.) PJ needs to wait until she has the facts before making accusations. That woman has done so much *good*! Why can't she be happy and stop there? Perhaps I should cut her some slack. It is reasonable to think that The SCO Group might have been behind that nasty expose' that Maureen O'Gara did back in early 2005. And I can't help but wonder how I would feel about a corrupt company which I was trying to expose, which then tried, rather unsuccessfully, to expose me back. But it does not change the fact that PJ, while providing a valuable service which helps the community, regularly goes off the edge and hurts it.
Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 16, 2008 23:37 UTC (Sat) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] PJ needs to wait until she has the facts before making accusations. What accusation did she make? Did she say that Gates was the actual source of the money? No. Did she say that Gates had suggested the funding? No. She simply reported a fact, that the new funder had a multibillion-dollar one-on-one business relationship with Bill Gates, and left the conclusion to the reader. Obviously, she thinks the relationship is potentially relevant; others may disagree, but nothing justifies your hyperbole. If you go back and read your description of what she said and what her evidence was, and compare it to your characterizations thereof, I would have hoped that it would inspire some admission that you were wrong in the way you attacked her (and dragged down the level of discussion).
Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 16, 2008 23:58 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] """ What accusation did she make? Did she say that Gates was the actual source of the money? No. """ And as long as the OSS community thinks that kind of innuendo is enough to achieve victory Microsoft has nothing to worry about. If we are going to try to fight the battle on that front... we are going to need to do a lot better than that. And honestly, how satisfying would it be to win that way, in any case? Better to provide superior functionality and value. MS used to define us as a cancer. But now they talk about value. People, in the final analysis, don't really care about what is right or wrong. They care about what they can get and how much, or little, it will cost them. Microsoft figured that out, and the sooner we do, the better. "Where's Waldo" is irrelevant, ineffectual, and counterproductive.
Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 17, 2008 1:07 UTC (Sun) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] And as long as the OSS community thinks that kind of innuendo is enough to achieve victory Microsoft has nothing to worry about. There you go again, attacking a straw (wo)man. Along with your ad hominem attacks, this is a time-honored way to score points in debates, but is not so effective at generating truly informative discussion (for those of us who are interested in that). PJ pointed out that the new funder of SCO is a personal business partner of Bill Gates. It's certainly a point of interest to anyone following the SCO saga, if nothing else, and is potentially relevant to understanding the situation and hence reasonable to report. No one has said or implied that the fact of this relationship is "enough to achieve victory," or anything even close to that. As for attacking what people supposedly "think" (rather than what they say), I shouldn't have to point out how contrived that is.
Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 18, 2008 10:09 UTC (Mon) by danielhedblom (guest, #47307) [Link] "And as long as the OSS community thinks that kind of innuendo is enough to achieve victory Microsoft has nothing to worry about." Most of us base our predictions based on history and past experiences. The only thing Microsoft worries about is Linux surviving and possibly forcing more standards through. The minute they loose their grip on the market both Microsoft will be in for a real ride when people can start producing things that compete with them. You know the market is broken when its hard to compete even if you give your product away for free. "If we are going to try to fight the battle on that front... we are going to need to do a lot better than that." The "battle" is utterly one-sided and consists to 100% of Microsoft trying to keep Linux away from the market by any means possible. The community is not in any way in battle with anyone, just defending itself. "And honestly, how satisfying would it be to win that way, in any case?" Win what? There is no war, just MS trying to make that pesky Linux go away. "Better to provide superior functionality and value. MS used to define us as a cancer. But now they talk about value. People, in the final analysis, don't really care about what is right or wrong. They care about what they can get and how much, or little, it will cost them." Superior functionality and value means nothing and vendor lockin everything. Thats why most of the effort lies in getting open standards more used. Something that would benefit the whole market and not just Linux. Linux could be five hundred times better and still not making it in some places where all the bets are placed in locked in technology. "Microsoft figured that out, and the sooner we do, the better." There is nothing from Microsoft that Linux needs. Why would one want to mimic them instead of just buying their products if that is what you want? ""Where's Waldo" is irrelevant, ineffectual, and counterproductive." Its a game albeit one with a serious undertone. If someone manages to identify a smoking gun it would seriously put a real stop to Microsofts work on getting linux go away by various proxies who do the dirty work. This is not about the Linux community trying to kill MS by courts, its about stopping Microsoft from gaming the system in their effort of keeping the free market anything but free.
Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 18, 2008 15:49 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] You know the market is broken when its hard to compete even if you give your product away for free.Stores sell bottled water, even when the tap is there (almost) for free. Would you say the market for water is broken? It would be nice if we stopped lamenting ourselves and started thinking about why Windows is keeping its own against free alternatives. IMHO all we have to do is to convince people that Linux is not only for geeks. The rest will come on its own (as long as Linux continues to get better all the time).
Don't feed the troll Posted Feb 18, 2008 18:49 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] """ It would be nice if we stopped lamenting ourselves and started thinking about why Windows is keeping its own against free alternatives. """ It would be more than nice. It would be *constructive*. Spreading innuendo regarding Microsoft does not improve our credibility. It is an indicator that we do not have confidence in our own product. Monopolies which are not natural monopolies have a natural life-cycle. Oh, the time scales can be excruciatingly glacial in nature. But nature takes its course, eventually. Like any corporation, they feel a need to expand their revenues. And yet they already have most of the market. So they have no choice but to try to extract more money from their existing client base. Microsoft will bring its own downfall upon itself. IMO, we worry way too much about hastening that event. Might as well push on a glacier. What we want to be is the greenery which strings up and takes over once the glacier has retreated. We would do best to improve ourselves, rather than wasting effort trying to push the glacier. Not the best analogy, perhaps. But I think it might help get my point across. We need to be worrying about our own business, not someone else's. And the rest will follow. Unless we want to go through all of this only to have Microsoft replaced by another proprietary, closed source player.
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