Daniel Lyons (Forbes) vendetta against Richard Stallman

23Oct/065

Daniel Lyons (Forbes) vendetta against Richard Stallman

I just read this article in Frobes.com, the article intentionally tries to portray Richard Stallman and te FSF, in a negative light. This became clear to me in the first few paragraphs when the author refers to Stallman and the FSF as "He and a band of anarchist acolytes". At another point it says:

"He hasn't hacked much new code in a decade or more. Instead he travels the world to give speeches and pull publicity stunts, donning robes and a halo to appear as a character he calls "St. IGNUcius" and offer blessings to his followers."
The article not only features rancorous diatribe against the FSF and Stallman, but its ridden with factual inaccuracies, showing the authors limited knowledge about F/OSS.

The article primarily attacks GPL v3, at one point the author says:

"At worst it(GPL3) could split the Linux movement in two--one set of suppliers and customers deploying an older Linux version under the easier rules and a second world using a newer version governed by the new restrictions. That would threaten billions of dollars in Linux investment by customers and vendors alike."
First of all, as any open source guy would know. GPL v3 is just a license, and it is upto the developers to use it or not, even if the FSF rolls out the GPL v3 today, its not compulsory on anyone to use it. The Linux kernel developers have clearly said that they are against the GPL3. So I dont understand how it could be that the older kernel uses gpl v2 and the newer one gpl v3?? The Kernel is going to remain under v2 for some time to come, as many kernel developers are employed by companies such as IBM and Redhat, and if they have reservations about GPL v3, the kernel will not adopt it.

And at another point in the article:

"Stallman and his allies hacked away for nearly a decade but couldn't get GNU to work. In 1991 Torvalds, then an unknown college kid in Finland, produced in six months what Stallman's team had failed to build in years--a working "kernel" for an operating system."

The above quote tries to show that Stallman and his "henchmen" were poor hackers, and tried years and couldn't get GNU to work!! A college kid from finland achieved it within 6 months! First of all this is pure Bullshit!! True the GNU didnt produce a working kernel when Linus Torvalds came with one, but the kernel was not the only focus of the GNU project, they were working on many things over all the years, like Compilers (GCC, which is one of the finest compiles around), Debuggers (GDB, another fine tool), Emacs etc.. The GNU project created a plethora of tools which mimicked Unix, and the relevant development tools, which actually launched the Open Source movement, as nearly all F/OSS software uses the GNU's development tools.

Yet at another point the article states:

"In recent years Stallman and the FSF have been cracking down on big Linux users, enforcing terms of the existing license (GPLv2, for version 2) and demanding that the big tech outfits crack open their proprietary code whenever they inserted lines from Linux. Cisco and TiVo have been targets; Cisco caved in to Stallman's demands rather than endure months of abuse from his noisy worldwide cult of online jihadists."

This quote refers to the GPL violations some companies have done from time to time. Where GPL'ed code, which was produced collaboratively by programmers around the World, was unethically ripped by companies and included into proprietary products from which the community didnt benefit. What Stallman and his "worldwide cult of online jihadists" did was right as the companies in question were not "Big Linux Users" as claimed in the article, but "Big Linux Exploiters". Who exploited open source code for their selfish benefits.

I dont think I need to state any more quotes from the article to prove that the articles sole purpose was to denigrate Richard Stallman, and the FSF, and mostly is not based on factual arguments to prove that GPL3 indeed does pose a threat to the Open Source revolution. It's just sad to see that Forbes, a major publication has a anti-FOSS troll in their payroll!

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Tío Rubo
October 24th, 2006 - 09:25

You’re completely right, and I know it’s very difficult to battle ignorance nowadays. Many people believe that kind of bullshit that some corporativist “journalists” spit on their newspapers and magazines.
Stallman is one of the remaining freedom defenders and if they don’t support him, at least don’t throw FUD on the Free Software Movement.
That gets me angry. It’s just like M$!
aussiebear
October 24th, 2006 - 10:11

What do you expect from articles written by Daniel Lyons?

He is a well known FUD’der against open-source for a number of years now. Don’t believe me? Just check his past articles.

Open-source is only mentioned on Forbes because it threatens the old corporate ways of making money. The way they (Forbes folks) see it, anything and everything that threatens you making HUGE amounts of money should be considered hostile and be publically smeared.

In Forbes folks view:
Microsoft and others = Makes lots of money => Good.
Open-source = Threat to you making lots of money => Bad.

Daniel Lyons is like that lackey from ZDNet…What’s his name? Oh, here it is: George Ou. (This one is clearly biased against open source with his IE vs Firefox and MS Office vs OpenOffice articles)…If anything is wrong with MS products, he will blindly defend them.

He, like many others are paid lackeys to publically demote open-source. That’s a fact. In the terms of the Star Wars analogy, you can say they are the “Defenders of the Empire”.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter what people say or do against open-source. Simply because of this quote.

“The most important thing the hacker community does is write better code. Our deeds are the best propaganda we have. Most of us, most of the time, shouldn’t be distracted by worrying about beating Microsoft’s PR or countering their political moves, because writing good code is in the long run a far more potent weapon than flackery.”
-Eric S. Raymond

They can smear us, they can lie about us, but they know its inevitable that we’ll win.

It really doesn’t matter what they say, as long as we get the word out about Linux and open-source. Because as more people hear of it, they will get curious. The more they get curious, the more likely they’ll get a LiveCD just to see what its about. They will try it out. It doesn’t matter if it ends in failure or not, as long as they are aware of it. This is because they will store this “alternative option” in the back of their minds. Once Linux distros reach the same level as Windows on the desktop (App compatibility and such), I don’t doubt they’ll hesitate in dumping Windows.

Ignorance and lies can be overcome with truth and honesty. Isn’t that the result of being open?

You can’t lie or hide things…It keeps us honest. (Just think about that the next time Microsoft needs to trick people into thinking a “Windows Genuine Advantage” related updated is a security update!)

Just ignore people like Daniel Lyons.
irfanhab
October 24th, 2006 - 12:56

WOA!!! nice comment aussibear
Peter Rock
October 25th, 2006 - 11:54

The Lyons article wasn’t just just filled with misinformation, it was slanderous. It makes me wonder how anyone with a conscience can write such such tripe and be happy inside.
rachel
January 2nd, 2007 - 20:44

cell bands are dead