08.10.07
An Anti-Linux Dan Lyons Mind Replaced by Another Forbes Magazine Writer That Slams Novell
“I’ve Got the World [and Mainstream Press] on a String”
As many of you probably know by now, “Fake Steve Jobs” turned out to be a long-time anti-Linux shill called Dan Lyons. He lobbied for SCO and Microsoft in Forbes Magazine. He is possibly responsible for the shutdown of Show Us the Code campaign. Along with the controversial Maureen O’Ghara, he is also responsible for Groklaw smear campaigns and he mentioned BoycottNovell in Forbes a couple of months ago. Shane and I have our party hats (made out of tinfoil) ready. 
Lyons has more recently published some memorable articles such as “Microsoft Linux” (upon the Novell deal on November 2nd) and something along the lines of “The Man Who Will Kill Linux”, referring to Richard Stallman. The infamous man never escaped controversy and he might now even be sued, having been exposed after blogging anonymously. Can he keep his job at Forbes? We are probably not qualified to speculate here. WANAL.
Forbes happens to have more extensive army of shills with corporate agendae. The following new article about Novell’s health (or lack thereof) comes from one of them. Here is how it begins.
Poor Novell. First it got beat up by Microsoft. Then it got in a turf war with Red Hat over open-source software. The new strategy: Make some friends, fast.
We don’t usually defend Novell, but Novell coverage in Forbes is dripping with bias, which is why we urge you never to trust the press on these matters. The press is not shallow, it is just self serving. Journalists are motivated by advertisers and hidden motives.
Having watched articles from Brian Caulfield for a while, this one was not too bad. This time he did not characterise Richard Stallman as a weird guy with a beard or open source software as something that comes from “geeks”. He did this before. He has clearly not yet descended to Dan’s level, yet (anonymous blogging, SCO shilling, anti-Stallman slurs in Forbes Magazine, and extensive use of words like “freetards” in his blog).
Forbes is virtually under Microsoft’s control. It is something for you to be aware of. Remember “Microsoft Takes on the Free World”? That was the article that officially opened the attack on Linux and Free software in May 2007. Where was it published? In Forbes. On a Sunday. Experts said it was written very carefully in order to intensity the dramatic effect.
In reference to the content of the latest article, Brian must be referring to bonding with AMD, Dell, and some other smaller companies, but there’s also the IBM collaboration (mentioned on Wednesday). Ron Hovsepian came from IBM, so he probably still have some special friends there.
gpl1 said,
August 10, 2007 at 2:18 am
Just one correction, I don’t think that the MS takes on the free world was in Forbes. It was in Fortune Magazine/CNN Money.
I agree that most MSM is purchased, BTW, whether directly (Daniel Lyons) or indirectly (companies withdraw/threaten to withdraw ads if a negative story runs). There was an article on, I think, Linuxworld from a former employee of a magzine about these problems.
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 10, 2007 at 2:29 am
gpl1, you’re probably right. I tend to confuse Fortune and Forbes because the names are (at least visually) similar.
One of the links in this post ( http://boycottnovell.com/2007/05/17/why-you-should-never-trust-novellmicrosoft-assessments-in-the-press/ ) is a reference to a batch which probably contains the news you speak about. Advertisers control content, but sometimes it’s a hush-hush consensus (more of a ‘cold war’, without explicit threats). For examples, as an author, you would not push a pro-Linux article to the editor of MSNBC, would you?
The editor I work for elsewhere is (quite sadly) accepting ‘articles’ from Rob Enderle.
Steve Ballmer said,
October 29, 2007 at 11:03 pm
You guys need to stop this, you are totally wasting your time!
Our plans are set and nothing can alter them!