November 22, 2005
by sjvn01
0 comments

Lies, Damned Lies, and the Internet

Some fellow journalists and I were talking the other day about how many people had gotten the answer for the SD Times trivia question, “What did the ‘F” stand for in Edgar F. Codd” stand for from Wikipedia.Codd, in case you don’t know, is usually seen as the founder of relational database theory.My smart-aleck comment to this was that this showed a level of trust seldom seem except in lemmings and concussed baby ducks.

Before all the Wikipedia fans rise up in arms, I’m not talking about just Wikipedia, I’m talking about trusting in anything you find on the Internet.

The real question is whether any information on the Internet can be trusted as a reliable source. My answer? No. Hell, no.

For more on that, may I direct you to Nicholas Carr’s masterful summing up of why Wikipedia is not the be-all and end-all of human knowledge.

You see, putting trust in any form of media is a choice, but the Internet is especially untrustworthy.

All too many people have mistaken the net’s speed and ease-of-use for truth and reliability.

There is nothing about the collective mind of online communities and wikis that must lead to wisdom.

Yes, crowds can be wise. Crowds can also burn witches, cause financial panics, and elect George W. Bush president.

Please, let us hear no more of the wisdom of crowds.

Personally, I subscribe to the theory that a crowd’s intelligence is the square root of its members’ average intelligence.

Still, it’s not just that the Web in filled with bad information. So are books, newspapers, magazines, etc., etc., etc.

But, in the dawning years of the 21st century, for some reason, again that speed and ease of use, we assume that the truth is only a Google search away. It just isn’t so.

In addition, Web-borne information goes to rot faster than it does on any other kind of media.

You don’t need to look for any big-issues to find such the proof of this.

A few years back, Mary Jo Foley, myself, and several other Sm@rt Partner (a deceased Ziff Davis online news site and magazine) and eWEEK writers did gavel-to-gavel online coverage of Microsoft vs. Department of Justice trial.

It was one of the first, huge stories that the online press was ready to tackle. We did, if I say so myself, a bang-up job of covering the story.

This is perfect source material for a history of the trial, right? This is exactly the kind of background you need when you look at Microsoft’s current legal problems in the European Union and South Korea, right? And, better still, it’s only a quick Google search and a click away, right?

Wrong.

90 percent of those stories are already gone.

The sites closed, the stories were removed from Web servers and there’s little left except for links leading nowhere.

Yes, there is the Wayback Machine. But, at best, the Internet archives give only a fossil of those stories.

The bulk of those tales were written from five to seven years ago. It might as well be five to seven hundred years ago.

Last, but not least, on the Web there is no such thing as a permanent record. If someone doesn’t like the record, they change it.

I’m not just talking about overt wiki vandalism and the like.

A number here, a comma there, is all that’s needed to change a prediction from being dead-wrong to right on the money.

Or, to borrow a line from my favorite television doctor, Gregory House, MD, “It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what.”

On the Web, lying is easier than ever. Remember that, the next time you go hunting for the truth on the Internet.

As it happens, I try very hard not to lie–as the saying goes it’s easier to tell the truth because then you don’t have to keep track of who you lied to about what. Indeed, one of the reasons I run Practical Technology, is that so I have a record of what I think of as some of my more significant stories. And, if you look at the site, you’ll see I’ve kept some stories where I was dead wrong.

Of course, you only have my word for it and I have only included stories that I thought were significant. Take my work with a grain of salt as well.

P.S.

The F.? According to Wikipedia, it stood for Frank. Or could it have been Franklin? He was born at a time when full names were the rule for formal names rather than the modern tendency to use nicknames.

Darned if know. Anyone look at his birth certificate? College diploma?

Ah, I thought not.

A version of this story appeared first in SD Times News in November 2005.

November 15, 2005
by sjvn01
0 comments

An open letter to Forbes Magazine

November 15th, 2005
THE INTERNET PRESS GUILD
40 Sourwood Drive, Arden, NC 28704

Steve Forbes
Forbes Magazine
60 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
Phone (800) 295-0893

AN OPEN LETTER TO FORBES MAGAZINE

As members of the Internet Press Guild, an organization of approximately 80 writers and editors covering technology, founded in 1996, we view with some alarm the recent publication of a highly inaccurate article, “Attack of the Blogs” in your magazine.

We wish particularly to express concern over the sidebar article which lays out a road map for legal harassment and smear tactics to be used against bloggers who report critically on corporate activities. The dividing line between journalists and bloggers is a hazy one. We would think that Forbes would be the first to agree that the ability of journalists (online or print) to report on the behavior of companies without fear of reprisal is a cornerstone of the First Amendment.

There are perfectly adequate outlets for wronged parties to address negligent reporting, through libel law. This sidebar is a blueprint for corporations and private individuals to intimidate reporters and damage the investigative press that the American public depends on. While there may very well be a good story on blogging and how corporations should respond to negative blogging, this was not it.

In addition, in the article several statements are made in regards to Pamela Jones, a paralegal, journalist, and member of the IPG; her Web site Groklaw, a technology and legal news blog; and the actions of a journalist named Maureen O’Gara.

Some facts, which were publicly available, were omitted in the story or given a different connotation that misleads the readers. For example,

1) “Bloggers all but got O’Gara fired.” In point of fact, the parties lobbying most heavily for the termination of her contract were not bloggers, but the editors of Sys-Con’s own LinuxWorld Magazine. And the statement is doubly inaccurate, because bloggers couldn’t have gotten O’Gara “fired,” since she was not an employee of Sys-Con Media. She was a freelancer, and a blogger herself.

2) The story also omits such aspects of O’Gara’s reporting, which caused the editors to ask for her contract’s termination.

These included such stalking behavior as describing the interior of Jones’ alleged apartment, publishing photographs of the exterior of her and her mother’s alleged dwellings, casting aspersions on Jones’ religious beliefs and referring to Ms. Jones in inflammatory terms such as ‘a harridan’. Is it any wonder that the Sys-Con editors were concerned with being associated with this type of yellow journalism?

3) In addition, O’Gara, who is praised in this article, has a track record of poor reporting which had caused other Sys-Con editors to long complain about the caliber of O’Gara’s work. In fact, in the fall of 2004, the editors of LinuxWorld Magazine had taken the unusual step of publically distancing themselves from O’Gara in an open letter to the readership of the magazine.

4) The article also alleges that hackers took down the site, and cites a heavily inflated damage figure provided by the owner of Sys-Con Media as fact.

In reality, no hard evidence has ever been presented for an organized attack on the Sys-Con web sites. A much more plausible explanation is available: that the sites went down under the load of people seeking out the original article.

The story further implies that Jones either organized or condoned a denial of service attack. There is not a shred of evidence for these charges.

5) The story also implies that Pamela Jones thanked a group of hackers for forcing O’Gara out, In fact, in the example cited, she was thanking the LinuxWorld Magazine editors for standing up to O’Gara and showing appropriate journalistic ethics.

6) The story also fails to mention that in the opinion of the Society of Professional Journalists ethics committee, O’Gara had been guilty of numerous ethical breaches in her reporting.

According to Fred Brown, co-chair of the SPJ Ethics Committee, “That piece by O’Gara definitely is outside the norms of good journalism. It’s bullying, insulting and harassing, and I, for one, really don’t get the point of it.”

Far from O’Gara being an “intrepid reporter,” her willful invasion of privacy and persecutorial reporting style deserved condemnation rather than praise.

7) The article also inaccurately states that O’Gara got Ms. Jones’ phone number from the court in Nevada. According to Ms. O’Gara’s own writing, she got it from a journalist:

“See, even though Groklaw treats cell phones like they were Kleenex and changes its unpublished numbers regularly, one number it left with a journalist led to this flat and – wouldn’t you know it but – some calls from there had been placed to the courts in Utah and to the Canopy Group so obviously this just isn’t any Pamela Jones.”

Therefore, we are very concerned with this extremely one-sided and misleading portrayal of events. This is not the level of journalism we have grown to expect from Forbes.

We hope Forbes Magazine will take actions to improve editorial oversight of its product to prevent such poor articles from appearing in the future. Articles such as this one can only harm the image of Forbes in particular and the entire journalistic community in general, and are certainly not representative of the high standards we all strive for in our work.

Signed,

Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier (jzb@zonker.net): Editorial Director, Linux.com.

Daniel P. Dern (dern@pair.com): freelance technology writer

Dennis Fowler (dennisf6@localnet.com): Founding member IPG; Department Editor, NetNews, netWorker magazine, ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery.

Scott M. Fulton, III: Senior Partner, Ingenus editorial services

Sean Gallagher: Executive Editor, Enterprise/Vertical sites, Ziff-Davis Internet

Rishab Aiyer Ghosh: International Editor, First Monday

Angela Gunn (herself@agunn.com): Co-host, PC World’s Digital Duo

Nettie Hartsock (nettie.hartsock@gmail.com): Writer

Dee-Ann LeBlanc: Award-winning technical journalist; Linux Games Editor, Linux Journal; Desktop Editor, LinuxPlanet.com.

Lisa Nadile: Writer

Lawrence Nyveen: Editor, Netsurfer Digest

Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller: Editor in Chief, Open Source Technology Group
Jason Perlow: Sr. Contributing Editor, Linux Magazine

Brian Proffitt (bproffitt@jupitermedia.com): Managing Editor, Linux Today/LinuxPlanet

Oliver Rist: Senior Contributing Editor, InfoWorld

Dan Rosenbaum: Editor, fireEMS; former editor, NetGuide

Laurie Rowell: Writer

Karen G. Schneider: Contributing author, ALA Techsource; Blogger, Free Range Librarian

James M. Turner (turner@blackbear.com): Products Editor, Linux Journal; Senior Contributing Editor, Linux Planet

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (Steven_Vaughan-Nichols@ziffdavis.com): Senior Editor, Ziff Davis Internet; board member, LinuxWorld Advisory Board; and chairman, Internet Press Guild.

November 10, 2005
by sjvn01
0 comments

Companies Join Up to Share Patents for Linux

IBM, Sony Corp., Philips N.V. and Linux distributors Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc. announced Thursday that the companies would be forming a new company—Open Invention Network—to share Linux patents without charging for royalties.

OIN’s (Open Invention Network) plan will be to acquire Linux-related patents and share them royalty-free to any organization that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux or its applications.

These companies are doing this because “impediments to collaboration on the Linux operating system seriously jeopardize innovation,” said Jerry Rosenthal, the newly appointed OIN CEO.

Before taking on this challenge, Rosenthal had been the vice president of IBM’s intellectual property and licensing business. He has graduate degrees in both electrical engineering and law.

Earlier this year, IBMs chief Linux strategist, Adam Jollins, had hinted that IBM was considering helping to create an organization like OIN.

“We are interested in innovation, not just in companies and silos, but through collaboration with other partners. Our goal now is to find a way to encourage collaborative connections, beyond specific products, and to determine how the process of innovation works,” said Jollins.

So this move came as no surprise to Stacey Quandt, research director for Aberdeen Group Inc.

“This initiative dovetails with IBMs leadership to create an open-source storage management solution.”

Its not just good for Linux, though. “A patent commons allows IT industry to add value above the operating system,” said Quandt.

Although its not part of the OIN, Hewlett-Packard Co. favors its goals.

“HP is pleased that another organization has joined it to improve legal protection for those developing and deploying open-source and Linux-based technologies,” said Brandy Baxter, an HP spokesperson.

As Baxter pointed out, OIN isnt the first open-source organization to address patent issues.

The OSDL (Open Source Development Labs), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux, earlier this year set up a “patent commons project.”

Unlike OIN, though, the OSDL plan isnt to acquire patents.

Instead, its plan is to create a library and database that aggregates open-source-friendly patent pledges made by companies.

This library will also collect other potential IP (intellectual property) legal defenses, such as the indemnification programs offered by open-source friendly vendors.

In addition, the forthcoming GNU GPL (General Public License) 3 will include provisions dealing with patents.

Microsoft, however, is dismissing the OIN as old news.

“Although the OSS element is interesting, I think you will note these IP-based alliances are increasingly common. In some ways this agreement looks a lot like some of the patent funds put together by Intellectual Ventures CEO—and former Microsoft employee—Nathan Myhrvold,” said Katherine Clouse, a spokesperson for Microsoft.

Microsoft may be missing the point, though, according to Allonn E. Levy, a commercial litigator with the San Jose, Calif.-based Hopkins & Carley law firm.

“The idea of cross-licensing certainly isnt new. What is interesting in this project is that through OIN, some very major players appear to be offering an automatic license to any developer that agrees to abide by OINs rules and refrain from enforcing the developers patents against other OIN licensees,” said Levy.

“The approach offered by OIN represents another reduction of the perceived liability risk of utilizing Linux faced by developers and customers,” Levy said.

Looking at the broader picture, “it may also be a signal by three major players in the software and peripherals markets that the promulgation of software patents has reached such a high level that innovation and development of new advanced systems will be hampered if companies do not begin to relax some of their valuable patent rights,” said Levy.

Dan Kusnetzky, IDCs vice president for system software, thinks that if the OIN is successful, the results should be good for Linux.

“Concerns about intellectual property, copyrights and software licensing have shown up for several years as a major inhibitor to the expansion of use of open-source technology in IDCs demand-side research,” said Kusnetzky.

Levy agreed and believes that the OIN might contribute greatly to Linuxs continued growth.

“If properly implemented, and with sufficiently broad participation by patent-holders, this approach may streamline the implementation of Linux in a broad range of applications. The result should be a dramatic increase in development and acceptance of Linux-based applications which could eventually pose a greater threat to industry behemoth Microsoft,” said Levy.

Gordon Haff, senior analyst for Illuminata Inc., pointed out, “This isnt even really an open-source issue, although its received a lot of publicity in that context.”

“Software patents are a mess,” Haff said. “Even if you dont believe in abolishing them entirely, there have been far too many examples of patents being granted even in light of overwhelming evidence of prior art and of dusty old patents on their third owner suddenly being used for a form of blackmail.”

“The open-source community has long been concerned by the threat patents pose to the widespread adoption of free and open-source software,” said Stephen M. Fronk, an IP attorney with the San Francisco-based law firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin.

“The problem is particularly acute, in the eyes of many in the open-source community, in light of a perception that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is asleep at the wheel—i.e., that it frequently wrongly issues patents,” Fronk said.

“There has been much discussion in the open-source community about how best to destroy, or at a minimum diffuse, this threat, and some members have already taken affirmative steps.”

“This action taken by [the companies] is the latest, and certainly strongest, indication that the open-source community will not sit on the sidelines and let use or abuse of patent law undermine the goal of worldwide development and use of Linux,” said Fronk.

“Moreover, it sends a clear signal to opponents of that goal that well-funded technology heavyweights, and not a disorganized band of radical evangelists, will stand in their way. What remains to be seen, of course, is how effective OIN will be at acquiring all the patents necessary to achieve its goal of unfettered use of Linux,” he said.

A version of Companies Join Up to Share Patents for Linux first appeared in eWEEK.

October 28, 2005
by sjvn01
0 comments

Teenagers, sex, and the Linux desktop

“The (Linux) desktop is like teenage sex. Everybody’s talking about it, but nobody’s doing it.”

Is it? Is it really now?

Putting aside that, while I don’t know what Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik’s teenage years were like, mine certainly included some “doing” — the Linux desktop is alive and well.

I know what he meant though. Getting people to buy into Linux desktops hasn’t easy.

I’m not sure why, though.

I, for one, use Linux desktops every day.

I don’t use a Linux desktop because I like Linux. I use a Linux desktop because I like good desktops.

Period.

In my home office, every day, I use SUSE 10, Xandros 3.0, and SimplyMEPIS 3.3.1. I use several Linux distributions because part of what I do for a living is kick the tires of operating systems. As I find good desktop operating systems, the best of them move over from test systems to my production boxes.

Today, those are my personal best of breed Linux desktops.

But, even if testing operating systems wasn’t part of my day-in and day-out work, I’d still be using a Linux desktop.

Why?

Because they’re stable, they’re powerful, and they run all the desktop programs I care about.

For example, SUSE 10 is currently my top-dog Linux and I’m running it on both my main workstation — a Gateway 503GR with a 3GHz Pentium IV, a gigabyte of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive — and on a Toshiba laptop.

Both machines have been up for weeks, and I’ve patched them with dozen of small improvements. Unlike Windows, where security failures abound and which may, or may not, be patched in a timely fashion, SUSE is constantly pushing forward its operating system forward.

The upgrades are transparent, don’t impact the systems or running applications at all, and do nothing except what they’re supposed to: make the system better. Windows? Microsoft took three shots before getting one recent critical Windows 2000 security fix right, which had been breaking applications.

I also run all the desktop software I need on Linux. I run OpenOffice 2.0, Firefox 1.07, Evolution 2.4 for email, GAIM 1.5 for IM, Internet Explorer 6, and Quicken 2003.

“Internet Explorer and Quicken?” you ask.

Of course. Quicken is still the hands-down best personal finance management program on the planet, and I use one Web-based application that throws fits if you try to use it with anything besides IE.

But, I don’t need Windows to run either one. Instead, I use CodeWeavers’s CrossOver Office. If I want, I could also run Office 2003 on my SUSE Linux systems, since the new version supports it.

Of course, unlike Windows, I’m not subject to all the various worms, viruses, and so on that comes with running Windows applications on Windows.

You know, your desktop operating system isn’t like death and taxes. You get a choice.

So let me see now. The Linux desktop is more stable than Windows. The SUSE Linux desktop, for one, has better support than Windows. The Linux desktop runs all my work programs. And, it’s a lot more secure than Windows.

While I certainly hope that my teenager doesn’t get involved in sex too early, I do have her happily running a Linux desktop. Maybe it’s time we all have our teenagers running Linux. And, while we’re at it, maybe all the rest of us should start using it too.

October 26, 2005
by sjvn01
0 comments

Google Opens Up About Open Source

The rumors never stop.

Google Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. will release a Web-based StarOffice desktop suite. Google will soon announce a new operating system.

The truth isnt anything as dramatic, but it does show a company that not only supports open source, but relies on it every day to keep the best-known search engine and allied businesses running.

In a Ziff Davis Internet interview, Chris DiBona, Googles open source program manager, said that while he cant “talk about any future products,” he also added that, to the best of his knowledge “Google has no plans to release an operating system or an office suite.”

“I like the ideas of thin-client office programs, but I cant address products,” he added.

That said, though, DiBona added, “We do support and use open-source programs. For example, we hired people to help make OpenOffice.org better.”

For instance, Google employees, DiBona said, helped make OpenOffice.org 2.0, load faster.

Still, while Google has no plans to release end-user open-source programs, it actually already releases open-source code and programs that developers find useful.

DiBona cited Googles release of its AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)-based AJAXSLT as an example.

“It may not be interesting to most people, but AJAX is mellow for developers. It lets them code more flexible user interfaces for Web browsers. Were trying to release more of this kind of code.”

Looking ahead, DiBona sees Google releasing “more development tools. We like showing people some of the cool things we do. We want to share more code, but programming tools like our Core Dumper or CPU profiler dont get the hype.”

All of Googles current open-source projects can be found at Google Code, the companys software site.

In the future, existing Google programs, like the Google Toolbar, Google Talk and Google Desktop may be made open source.

But, for now, “Google is focusing on releasing underlying technologies and concentrating on lower-level functionality programs,” said DiBona.

Still, he said that Google has “a long list of software to open source and weve got to start somewhere.”

When? “We have no timelines,” replied DiBona.

Within the company itself, “most Google developers use Linux desktops.” Its not just the technical staff that is Linux and open-source users and supporters. It comes from the top.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Googles founders, are both “passionate about open source” according to DiBona.

Googles open-source staff itself is very small. There are only four or five employees tasked to the office according to DiBona. But, that doesnt tell the whole story.

“We leverage our engineers. With so many engineers at Google who are involved in open-source and Linux, many of them use part of their time to work on open-source projects.”

A recent example of Google hiring open-source friendly developers is its recent hire of Sean Egan, lead developer for the popular open-source GAIM IM client, to work on Google Talk.

DiBona also expects the open-source staff to grow.

“Were tasked to make more open-source code,” said DiBona, who has been with Google since August 2004.

“We like to do this open-source stuff for both our industry and for our users. It makes a level playing field for everyone.”

That even includes proprietary programs. For instance, “once Firefox started really competing, Microsoft was forced to make Internet Explorer better for its users,” said DiBona.

“Before Firefox, IE was stagnant. Now that Microsoft has competition, theyve started to improve it. This kind of competition is good for all of us.”

And this kind of improvement by competition doesnt happen just on the PC side, according to DiBona.

“If you look at rise of Apache web server to dominance, you can see how Microsoft has had to make IIS (Internet Information Server) better. You can see why other Web servers have disappeared.”

According to NetCrafts September 2005 statistics, Apache has almost 50 million Web servers operating on the Internet, while IIS, a distant number two, has about 14.5 million servers.

Google has also been supporting open source by encouraging students to develop it. The most prominent example of that was its $2 million “Summer of Code.”

“It was my thought that through a program like this we could infuse new blood into some long-established projects,” said DiBona.

So Google gave more than 400 young programmers a chance to work on open-source projects over the summer of 2005. More than 40 open-source groups received help from the new programmers.

The Apache Software Foundation led the way with 38 projects, followed by KDE with 24 and FreeBSD with 20.

The results were “remarkable and blew pass anything I was expecting. We saw a 93 to 94 percent success rate. They did some amazing work.”

To read about Google merging map and local sites, click here.

At this time, there are no hard plans for a summer of code 2006, but DiBona wants to do one. “Were still evaluating everything but I want to do another one with new students.”

Indeed, “we had thought about doing a winter of code, but the students are busy with classes.”

In the meantime, though, Google has donated $350,000 to a joint open-source technology initiative at Oregon State University and Portland State University.

“Supporting the projects and institutions advancing open-source software and hardware helps ensure the continued success and advancement of open-source technologies.

“The teams at Oregon State and Portland State have done great open-source work in the past and were excited to back their joint efforts,” said DiBona.

“This partnership between Google and important research universities is yet another indicator of the continued evolution and maturity of the Linux and open-source markets,” said Dan Kusnetzky, IDCs VP of system software research in a statement.

In addition to fostering open-source developers efforts and releasing code, Googles open-source office, which is under Google engineering department, is “making sure people are using open-source software properly in their code. We also have a training mission to make sure they understand what you can, and cant do, legally with the code according to its license.”

So it is that Google, while not producing the kind of headlines that some people wish that it were with its open-source efforts, is nonetheless strongly supporting, producing and using open-source.

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

October 20, 2005
by sjvn01
0 comments

When is Debian not Debian?

There are times when I just want to crack some open-source heads together.

Take, please take, for example, the current fit in Debian circles over whether the DCC Alliance can use the Debian name or trademark.

On one side, you have the DCC Alliance members: Credativ GmbH, Knoppix, LinEx, Linspire, MEPIS LLC, Progeny Linux Systems Inc., Sun Wah Linux Ltd., UserLinux, and Xandros Inc.

What do they have in common? Ding! Ding! Ding!

That’s right, they all build Linux distributions around Debian. They all employ Debian developers. They’re all about — say it with me — Debian!

Who is the DCC Alliance’s fearless leader?

Why none other than Ian Murdock! You know? The guy who founded Debian.

The DCC Alliance’s goal? To create an LSB (Linux Standard Base) 3.0-compliant, Debian 3.1 (“Sarge”)-based core distribution. This, in turn, is designed to serve as the basis for DCCA members’ custom Linux distributions. The code is also being released back to the Debian community.

The problem?

Some Debian developers are very, very upset that people are getting confused about the difference between the DCC Alliance and Debian. They’re afraid that they’ll lose their trademark.

Now, keep in mind that “they” also includes both people who are for the DCC Alliance and those who are against it.

In short, what we have here is an internal fight over who controls the Debian trademark and logo.

So, the DCC Alliance — and now you know why I haven’t been spelling it out — decided to make peace and just drop “Debian” from their original name, the Debian Common Core Alliance.

As for the Debian logo, well the DCC Alliance (DCCA) is still using that because they can. The logo’s license reads: “This logo or a modified version may be used by anyone to refer to the Debian project, but does not indicate endorsement by the project.” That seems to cover it, to me.

So, that’s it, right?

I wish!

Now, some Debian figures have decided to take the mess public under the guise of reporting. David ‘cdlu’ Graham, a member and officer of the board of directors of Software in the Public Interest Inc., the Debian Project’s legal side, reported on this tempest in a tea cup in NewsForge.

Graham then followed up with a short interview with Murdock, in which Murdock explained why the DCC Alliance hadn’t made a big deal about the name change.

“We haven’t refused to issue a press release; we just felt it wasn’t the appropriate venue for such an announcement. I posted a message to my blog because I know members of the press who have appropriate context follow it, and if they thought their readers would consider the announcement news they would write about it,” said Murdock.

Now, as it happens, I’m one of those members of the press who follow Debian, the DCC Alliance, and many of its member companies, and I agree with Murdock. This isn’t news.

What may become news though, if these cranky anti-DCC Alliance people can’t get their act together, is a pointless Debian civil war.

To quote one anonymous NewsForge letter-writer, “If the Debian developers spent as much time worrying about the details of their release as they do about this nonsense with the DCCA, we’d have a better, more frequently released Debian.”

Exactly.

It’s more than that, though. A lot more.

It’s these kinds of petty fights that ensure that Bill Gates and Microsoft rule the software world.

Even now, some people are still refusing to let the issue go. One declared that Murdock’s blog announcement of the name change “is some kind of insulting joke.”

Let me spell it out for you. Anyone who knows enough about Debian to care about the trademark knows enough to know that the DCC Alliance does not equal Debian.

Kissing cousins, yes. Identical twins, no.

And as for everyone else, if they don’t know, they certainly don’t care!

What do the vast majority of Linux users, never mind computer users at large, see? They see a petty, power struggle.

They see all the things that Microsoft sales people say about Linux and its developers — “they’re immature, and they don’t know how to run a business” — in action.

Thanks folks. We needed that the same way we needed the OSF (Open Software Foundation) versus UI (Unix International) fights.

Don’t remember them? Of course not, they’re what killed off any chance Unix had of beating Windows to the punch back in the late 80s and 90s.

If you’re involved in this mess and you really want to help Debian, first, handle your disputes privately and quietly. Second, realize that there is nothing about this conflict that really matters to 99.9999% of most people, and it really shouldn’t matter that much to you. Finally, as that same anonymous reader I quoted above, put it so succinctly: “Shut up and code!”

A version of this story first appeared in Linux-Watch.