Zonker's (Novell) Disdain for the FSF and IDG's Conflict of Interests

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2010-02-02 15:06:49 UTC
Modified: 2010-02-02 15:06:49 UTC

Summary: As Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier leaves Novell, his positions regarding freedom (and the FSF in particular) are analysed a little further, sometimes by his colleagues

Zonker, the iPad/DRM apologist (his colleagues from Novell, Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman, are pretty much the same) is being shown for his bias against the Free Software Foundation (FSF) over at The Source:

I was mildly interested to see if Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier would continue to spread his special brand of so-close-to-a-lie-why-not-just-call-it-that distortions once he left Novell. Well, now we have an answer:

Yes.

And – brace yourself for a shock here – he is targeting the FSF. Again. This time around, though we are treated to simple poor reason instead of the previous gross misrepresentations of Monsieurs Stallman and Moglen.

Let's not forget that Moglen incident. Anyway, Novell is looking for someone to replace Zonker and this is now being advertised at IDG, for which Zonker is also doing audiocasts (mostly with colleagues from Novell):

Brockmeier has done a pretty good job while at Novell, coordinating the community and marketing efforts around the popular openSUSE distro. It goes without saying that getting him on board lent a lot of legitimacy to Novell's business deal with Microsoft in 2006. Brockmeier has a lot of respect in the community, so when he calmly explained why Novell hadn't made a deal with the devil, people listened.

No, he told lies and he was told off for it. The bias above is telling and Zonker works for this publication, which creates a conflict of interests. He recently started writing for Ars Technica, which is a fan of Mono and Moonlight. On it goes:

I personally did not like Novell's decision to partner with Microsoft--in particular the patent protection agreement that prompted a knee-jerk response from the free software community to change GPL v3 during its draft phase. At the time, I voiced the opinion that if Microsoft wanted to have integration so badly, it could do it without patent cooperation agreements.

[...]

It will be interesting to see who lands in the now-open Community Manager spot at Novell. Those are going to be some big shoes to fill.

This is actually true (the latter part). ⬆

Comments

Needs Sunlight

2010-02-02 17:10:18

Ars Technica didn't used to suck. A quick look at the mono problems there might turn out to be a recent addition to the staff.

Once people go south, can they be turned around? In other words, what's wrong with Brockmeiers and can he straighten out?

your_friend

2010-02-03 05:07:16

He can turn around, but would you trust someone who sold out like that? The tragedy of selling out is that it limits your ability to do anything decent later. The most that can be hoped from a person who's sold out is that they cease to do further harm.

your_friend

2010-02-03 05:25:10

I do not agree with any of the the ITWorld article. GPL 3 was not "knee jerk." It was the result of a year and a half of careful planning and community input. No one should believe that Microsoft is working towards "integration", what ever that is. Their goal is ownership and taxation and this is what the Novell deal clearly showed. If Microsoft were interested in cooperation with anyone, they could GPL their code or donate all of their patents to an impartial watchdog or industry consortium until US and international laws were made rational. Finally, talk is cheap so it won't be too hard to find someone to plug the Microsoft party line at Novell. The Microsoft press will continue to parrot this as if it made sense and the community will continue to ridicule and ignore it.

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Zonker's (Novell) Disdain for the FSF and IDG's Conflict of Interests

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