I would be curious to know what is your position on Microsoft, eg, on issues such as ethics, unfair or illegal actions towards competitors, the degree to which they are threatened by gentoo or sabayon should these gain marketshare, etc.

Jose_X,

I will be more than happy to answer your questions here. No problem. In fact, I don’t have a blog, but I can sign up for one on Blogger and post my positions, thoughts and feelings on all these issues.

I will do that immediately after Roy satisfactorily answers all the questions posed here, including yours re: Jimmi Hugh. I commend you for asking them, and I hope that wasn’t resolved privately with instructions for you to drop it or something like that.

Fair? Let me know.

Well, we can find a basis for agreement after all!

You’re right.

I’m off the day after tomorrow to the Netherlands (for meetings relating to the use of open source on cell phones) and then to Gran Canaria (for the joint GUADECAkademy “Global Desktop Summit”). There’s packing to do and horror movies to watch while I’m doing it. We’re clearly not going to agree on much else, and I sense that pursuing this further is a less worthwhile use of my time…

What I implied (it was not clear perhaps) was that a battle to catch Microsoft red handed in any particular case is generally teeny weeny. That is a major battle waged by boycottnovell: to call out Microsoft wrong-doing. The Jimmi article was presumably an example of Microsoft being caught red handed.

I already stated that I don’t think it was shown that Jimmi was guilty of anything serious.

I also state that the Jimmi blog piece had/has many correct statements and that Jimmi exercised judgment that happens to have fallen in Bill Gates’ favor.

>> Um, because Roy was being inaccurate, shall we say, about what was going on and refused to correct those inaccuracies…? Just guessing.

This is getting silly.

Look, Gordy went the extra mile IMO so that it would be clear that Roy’s article had inaccuracies. He went the extra mile, presumably because to simply repeat what he had said before on the thread or to link to the thread would not have been as convincing. I agree the thread was messy. I think, as I explained a little earlier, that it was not clear Jimmi was “just” following wikipedia best practices if you don’t know what those best practices are. Without knowing wikipedia policy, what Roy’s blog posting said is correct in the sense that Jimmi did in fact participate along with someone else in removing the references to the Gates memo. Further, I think (I’d have to check again) Jimmi did remove the actual reference himself in one case but did so with a justification that was possible because of the changes FreeRangeFrog made and by invoking the wikipedia policy.

I may be off some. Please correct if you know the correction and what is wrong. I am not double-checking everything I state but I did provide the links so that others can correct where my memory fails.

Deciding that people’s lives are “tiny”, “teeny weeny”, in the face of the all-important quest to stop Microsoft and Novell from destroying Free Software is what makes this site contrary to actual community.

Attention all — I don’t think it would be a good idea or very morally correct to attack that person or their privacy on account of mere suspicions. These are tiny battles anyway. Tiny. Teeny weeny.

Um, because Roy was being inaccurate, shall we say, about what was going on and refused to correct those inaccuracies…? Just guessing.

As I’ve pointed out, the article is still inaccurate, for all intents and purposes.

Jose, perhaps social customs differ remarkably in your specific locale than in any place I’ve ever been in my life (and I’ve been to quite a few), but in the places I have frequented in my travels, when someone begins their conversation with you by saying that you are “a shameless character” with “a particularly infamous reputation”, both politeness and the presumption of an innocent mistake have pretty much gone out the window.

Believe it or not, sometimes that is the approach people take when they want to avoid lying or answering difficult questions.

Believe it or not, sometimes that is the approach people take when they’ve been publicly defamed.

Quite possibly, but I can’t imagine it is so hard to quote what so that I can see it for myself and learn.

>> Secondly, you’re incorrect in saying that an “intentional smear” was not committed

At the time Gordy made those comments, his analysis had not been made known. I personally was able to leverage his analysis to figure out what happened. No I was not going to go through all past edits of the ACPI article in order to participate in the discussion.

So, why did Gordy write up that clear analysis if it is so obvious what is going on? And, of course, if things weren’t that obvious, as I already tried to explain, then it almost goes without saying that it is not clear at all that Roy or anyone had been participating (upto that point in time) in an intentional smear.

In fact, I don’t even know when Roy was convinced of what happened; however, some time after Gordy’s analysis, the strike throughs were carried out.

This is why I said that if Jimmi has a problem with this, I think he would have returned or would have been fetched again. His comments from before were bitter and a bit sarcastic. He apparently believes this site is a joke site and no one takes what is said here seriously. If Jimmi doesn’t care, why do so many other people care?

He made sweeping statements of this site and assumed the worst without any desire to be polite and assume an innocent mistake was made. Believe it or not, sometimes that is the approach people take when they want to avoid lying or answering difficult questions.

I also would not be surprised if Jimmi is aware of this conversation taking place right now.

Anyway, I don’t know who Jimmi is and I think the blog piece should make it clear that Jimmi could easily have been an innocent bystander, if perhaps one willing to make what I will call a “judgment call” in favor of Bill Gates.

Secondly, you’re incorrect in saying that an “intentional smear” was not committed, at least in my view. The smear remains, fully indexed and searchable, many, many months subsequent to Roy’s having it pointed out to him that he was wrong. That strongly suggests to me that the attempt to damage Mr. Hugh’s reputation is intentional. If Roy were sincere in his desire to correct the entry, why does the identification of Mr. Hugh as the “censor” (as well as the various character assassinations) remain in place? Why no admission of error, or retraction from Roy? That shows bad faith to me.

If you think it’s justified to continue to defame Jimmi on the basis that “if you don’t look at the wikipedia rules and follow the steps carefully (and I only followed them partially, but I think enough), you can certainly think that Jimmi is working purposely…” then that’s nonsense. On WIkipedia, you go by the Wikipedia rules. Are you suggesting that something you might think, and you don’t sound anywhere close to “reasonable certainty”, is true is a basis for defaming someone…? That’s a heck of a limb you’re going out onto there.

But feel free to justify Roy’s continuing disregard for the truth on this flimsy basis, if you like, Jose. I suppose there are cogent reasons for continuing to accuse to tech writers of accepting bribes from Microsoft, too…? (And lest we forget, Mr. Maritz et al. and their putative “criminal behavior”…?)

You will have to be specific. You confuse me because what I disagreed with was that an intentional smear was definitely committed.

Yet, you then ask that I show how Gordy’s timeline was incorrect. Well, I never said I disagreed with the timeline.

So what did I say that you think is incorrect? and why?

Want to clarify this. Jimmi did remove a link to the Gates memo. And in aggregate with FreeRangeFrog, these two did remove what the article was saying was censored.

If you go through to sort out all the details of the history AND are aware of the wikipedia technical rules and guidelines, then you might realize that Jimmi didn’t do anything wrong that can be shown. What can be shown is that he participated in removing a reference to the Bill Gates memo. He probably knew enough of the history of that article to have fixed things so that the link to the Gates memo would have remained. He did not do that. It’s certainly at least debateable whether that link belongs in there.

Anyway, I wanted to explain this a little bit because if you don’t look at the wikipedia rules and follow the steps carefully (and I only followed them partially, but I think enough), you can certainly think that Jimmi is working purposely to keep out of the ACPI article a memo that makes Bill Gates look ugly in order to protect Bill Gates. [I certainly think that link is relevant but it would have to be worded properly.]

Remember that Jimmi chose to drop that subject (he could have instead tried to keep it in there or just not made any edits) and to err on the side of keeping an important criticism out of the article while invoking as a justification for this a wikipedia best practice that says that criticism sections should be avoided.

Wikipedia does not say that criticism sections should not exist. In particular, when you incorporate the contents of that section into the article, you should not drop anything important.

If you or Roy feel that Gordy’s analysis is incorrect, then it’s incumbent on you to produce the evidence to support that claim. Which of the “numerous revisions” are you talking about, and what do you find when you “go through them”. Please be specific: I’ve checked Gordy’s timeline here, and it’s right in line with what I see in the history.

* On Oct 9, user FreeRangeFrog removes the paragraph in the Criticisms section that references the Bill Gates email. He then posts this message on the talk page explaining what and why he did. There is no subsequent challenge by other editors to this change.
* Between Oct 25 and Oct 28, Jimmi Hugh makes 12 edits, including removing what is left of the criticisms section and working the “salvageable points” into the rest of the article. This is in line with Wikipedia policy. Remember, by this time the Gates reference did not even exist in the article, as it was removed previously by FreeRangeFrog. Hugh then makes additional edits to the article. The sequence can be seen better by looking at the whole revision page.
* On December 16, an anonymous user (identified on Wikipedia only by an IP address) restores the entire Criticisms section claiming “censorship”, placing the Bill Gates claim back but also in effect duplicating information that had already been worked into the article by Jimmi Hugh.
* The next edit is made by user Slatedorg, which does not even have a Wikipedia user page. He helpfully “corrects” the Bill Gates reference. I assume Slatedorg is this person, who is a well-known collaborator of BycottNovell. It’s important to remember that the paragraph in contention here pointed to his blog. Surprise!
* On December 17, FreeRangeFrog reverts the Bill Gates reference only, leaving the rest of the (now duplicate) Criticisms section, mentioning his post on the talk page. This is wrong in that the correct action he should have taken is to revert the entire change by the anonymous user.
* That same day, Jimmi Hugh reverts (again, and correctly) the entire Criticisms section.

So, it’s clear that:

* Schestowitz and his friend do not care about the criticisms section per se, especially the technical ones. They’re just worried about the removal of the Bill Gates reference.
* FreeRangeFrog removed said reference, not Jimmi Hugh. Jimmi Hugh removed what was left of that section by working it into the rest of the article, as per WP policy.
* FreeRangeFrog went about removing the reference as per WP policy as well, posting a message on the Talk page and inviting people to comment on his action.
…

This is clearly a smear job, and if anything, it should have been directed at the FreeRangeFrog user, assuming it was done in bad faith, which doesn’t look to be the case.
*****

I disagree with some of the comments there such as that this was a smear job done with full knowledge of what happened. You have to look at things carefully (go through numerous revisions) to sort out what happened if you didn’t know.

[I used the term "grasshopper" earlier. The intended name was "FreeRangeFrog"]

Do a Google search on “Jimmi Hugh”. Among the first page results–in fact, the second result when I just did this–is a republication of Roy’s incorrect story. Since he never actually retracted it, you won’t find that via a search.

What I said: flagrant disregard.

Jimmi Hugh appears in two places.
in the title: “Microsoft and Jimmi Hugh: Wikipedia Censorship or Just Vandalism? (Corrected)”

and in this section:
>> There are two people responsible for this censorship and the details appear in the comments.

>> The person responsible for this censorship is a man by the name of Jimmi Hugh, whom I believe has a particularly infamous reputation on Wikipedia. One source describes him as “a shameless character with some kind of pro-Microsoft agenda.”

His name is crossed out in the title. And the second of the two paragraphs is entirely crossed out as well.

My point, in case we’ve lost track of it somehow, is different: my point is that Roy’s statement

Notice who is being told that the “bad app” was being built? Paul Maritz, the current CEO of VMware. What is shown above is criminal bevaviour, but none of those involved is behind bars.

which certainly implies that Pauk Maritz and others have a) engaged in “criminal behavior” and b) have not been punished for it, is completely incorrect–since Roy can identify no statute under which such an act is a crime–and, since Roy knows that he can’t find such a statute, or he’d have produced it long ago, is also in flagrant disregard of the facts of the matter.

Plain and simple: Roy knows his statement is contrary to fact, yet he persists in publishing it. Which, oddly enough, is exactly the same behavior I see on the Jimmi Hugh article. And the two separate articles on two separate technology writers whom Roy accuses of having been bribed by Microsoft. That’s not the behavior of a journalist. It’s not even the behavior of a good public relations person.

These things seem like simple facts to me; they’re easily verified on this site. Do you dispute them? What sort of person behaves this way, Jose?