TECHRIGHTS, with the exception of the daily links, does not cover GNU/Linux matters all that often. Not anymore. There's a reason for this and it's not just the growing role of software patents in the destruction/elimination of software freedom.
"A lot of the abuse I received from the Mono crowd over the years (unimaginable abuse, comparing me even to a criminal) is ever more fascinating now that those very same people are Microsoft employees."I recently encountered or was the eyewitness of truly shameful attacks on Phoronix, both from developers and from sites like Reddit, which effectively blacklisted Phoronix, calling it "blogspam". Reddit is full of censorship for those who don't know it yet (our daily links have many articles about its political censorship too), but it's rather unbelievable if not cynical when they block the whole of Phoronix (recently the subject of renewed debate over there and maybe a reversal/overturning of the ban, for the first time in a very long time).
The point I am trying to get across here is that it's not easy to cover GNU/Linux news because there's always someone, somewhere who isn't happy. Thick skin is required. I hardly cover GNU/Linux matters (compared to past years), though it's not because I'm offended or put off by personal attacks; it's because I don't always feel appreciated for the investigative work which I do. I generally snub any PR person or company spokesperson. I don't trust them. I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse.
I am not alone in this. Not many people are willing to speak out about it, perhaps fearing backlash. Consider Canonical with their disgusting blacklists of journalists who are not sucking up to Canonical and swallowing every ounce of Kool-Aid from Canonical, as pointed out not just by yours truly but also other bloggers/journalists (both privately and publicly, with those who do so privately fearing that these blacklists would treat them even more maliciously if they dared to rant).
"I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse."Red Hat is not much better by the way. The giant Linux firm is alienating people who often/always write out of passion, not for profit (financial gain) or for glory. Red Hat has a massive PR operation now (publicly and behind the scenes) and it's not something which is pleasant to see because it reminds me of how Microsoft games the media, often bordering the unethical. When companies hire patent lawyers they tend to bring a lot of their (the latter's) self-serving anti-etiquette and the same thing happens when companies hire PR people. Mass-mailing people is just one of their professional 'skills' and -- at risk of saying something politically-incorrect -- these tend to be women, preferably attractive women (this gives more impact to their work, along various different aspects beyond the scope of this post).
The other day I noticed a certain flamewar brewing between Red Hat and Canonical. They try to keep it on 'low fire', but it's impossible to ignore the bigger picture.
openSUSE's Twitter account, for example, wrote: "Of course kudos also go to http://flatpak.org . But canonical at least trying to behave and collaborate deserves respect" (that's a polite way of saying that Fedora/Red Hat does not collaborate or does not deserve respect). Prior to that openSUSE mentioned Swapnil Bhartiya and said: "Kudos to @Canonical for working with other distributions on a new method of packaging applications #linux #respect https://twitter.com/swapnilbhartiya/status/743555291535519744"
"I soon learned of Fedora employees bashing the media wherever they could because some sites wrote about Canonical's Snap initiative being an actual competitor to their Flatpak universal binary package."OpenSUSE is trying not to take sides. They first retweeted Swapnil's tweet saying "Kudos to Canonical for working with other distributions." And then they say "Also kudos to http://flatpak.org" (as if someone from Fedora got in touch). In another tweet or a bunch of them we see what indicates that there is strong rivalry between Canonical and Red Hat. It makes us bloggers/journalists feel like collateral damage (or 'tools'), and unlike these people who push us around, we don't receive huge salaries for our work. For me, reporting is a purely voluntary activity with no financial gain. I decided to ask around and find out what the heck was going on, having seen how Red Hat strong-armed some distributions into embracing the "Red Hat way" -- to the point where Canonical had to abandon some of their own projects.
I soon learned of Fedora employees bashing the media wherever they could because some sites wrote about Canonical's Snap initiative being an actual competitor to their Flatpak universal binary package.
As a reminder for those who are not paying close enough attention, Flatpak is loosely connected to Systemd, probably Red Hat's most controversial 'lock-in' at the moment. On the other hand, Canonical is trying to push its own 'standards', which it can probably do given its dominant position on the desktop (and almost on the server as well).
"Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters."One interesting fact I have learned is that several days ago Canonical basically spoon-fed some sites a so-called 'scoop', in order to 'generate' some coverage for Snaps. Not so atypical or unexpected from Canonical, but there we go...
Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters. That employee was James Hogarth. He baselessly started accusing Softpedia on the fedora-devel mailing list, claiming that Softpedia said, to quote, "Canonical state that they have been working with Fedora developers..." (this was not said at all). There's this reply from Michael Catanzaro of the GNOME Project. At that time, he took James Hogarth's words for granted, assuming that Softpedia claimed something it didn't. Here is a later response from him:
Just for the record... the Softpedia article doesn't actually say "Canonical state that they have been working with Fedora developers to make this the universal packaging format." It does say they've been "working for some time with developers from various major GNU/Linux distributions" and that "the Snap package format is working natively on popular GNU/Linux operating systems like [...] Fedora [...]," so it's clear why there was confusion, but it doesn't say that they've been working with Fedora specifically.
"But either way, accusing publications of saying something they did not say is unfair, and it reflects badly on the community as a whole."Michael Hall from Canonical said on Reddit that they talked with some Fedora people at some point (Michael Hall's statement here is equally informative). But either way, accusing publications of saying something they did not say is unfair, and it reflects badly on the community as a whole.
I have a personal grudge with Canonical over how they treat media, having witnessed online friends becoming victims of theirs, but I didn't think Red Hat would stoop down to this level as well. What we are basically witnessing here is a bunch of Red Hat ('Fedora') employees attacking the media over Snap/Flatpak war. They want the media to take sides and get upset that the media isn't telling the story the way they want it to.
This isn't some kind of epic rant from me, just an observation of something that I noticed in the past. If Softpedia folks and Phoronix (Michael Larabel) can be treated like enemies because they attempt to amicably -- without controversy -- cover GNU/Linux news, then what hope is there for more outspoken bloggers like myself? It's sad as it's not just one case; the above is symptomatic of something that has been going on for years and that's why I don't cover Linux issues such as Systemd. It's almost suicidal. It's nothing but trouble. Self-censorship ensues.
"They'll need to learn to respect the media or earn no respect in return."Why do journalists need to be abused for attempting to cover the news, even when they cover it correctly? There's also this on LWN (Jimbob0i0 is James Hogarth) where, again, it's said that Softpedia claimed something it didn't.
Red Hat needs to respect people's views, even when these views are not correct (in this particular case these views are correct). They'll need to learn to respect the media or earn no respect in return. They need to work better with the media or have no media at all, except that which they pay for, e.g. their opensource.com propaganda rag (it spends much of its time just peddling a book that helps pretend Red Hat is "open", based on the CEO's words).
The above scenario is corrosive and harmful to the relationship between Free software developers and media. Why are they all still wondering why the GNU/Linux ecosystem is not united? Why the fragmentation? Why some many hundreds of distros? That's why. ⬆
Comments
Canta
2016-06-17 15:54:45
I feel somehow interpellated by this blog entry of yours, in several ways. But there's two points i would like to give you my opinion about, because you certainly deserve some feedback. Please know i speak spanish, so it's kinda difficult for me to find some accurate words in english.
The first point i would like to make: this is politics. As i can see it, it isn't any other way, anywhere in the world, and with any topic you could think about: it can only get worst. There are orders of magnitude of this if you wish, but it's exactly the same mechanics all around every single issue i've ever saw discussed regarding politics: when it scales, it scales this way. People who defend X position will start telling everyone everywhere that all those who defend NOT-X are some kind of sick and corrupted and stupid people that doesn't see the obvious glory of X; and that's without the big corporate interests in the mix, just by how common sense works and a little bit of passion. And... well... journalists are somehow the vanguard there: they'll be the first taking rocks and punches from the other side. I'm a free software developer because of my politic stance. I believe in human rights, and my TL;DR version of that stance is that i'm convinced that FLOSS is the correct way of dealing with human rights in software. And so, i go installing GNU/Linux everywhere and teaching people how to use it, how can they do this and that, what are the differences with what they already know, and so on. And that sounds like a pretty happy experience. But it is not. Every single time i talk with my peers from that stance, they usually feel like i'm some kind of brainwashed alien, which is enough to make them feel very unconfortable; and that's just when they're not on another different stance. I've been recurrently bashed for talking shit about Microsoft and Windows, even from people who doesn't know anything from any aspect of IT, and i've found myself so many times in the painful position of having to defend myself from the backslash of my dearest friends, that a lot of times i felt like it was a lost cause. "Fuck it, it's not just me who doesn't gain anything from this, NOBODY gains shit from this, corporate PR always wins". When you mix it with the day by day basics, that side of politics is extremely tiresome and unhealty. So, as years goes by, i frankly speak less and do more of other stuff. Now i just install dual-boot everywhere i go and have the chance, i put a free software licence everywhere i work and people doesn't care about licences, and stuff like that. Just sand grains. So far, it's a much happier experience, for me and everyone else around me: i'm seeing them switching to GNU when they can't do the most basic stuff on windows and i tell them "you already have that installed on your linux", and they see me doing stuff in seconds with a few clicks and/or a few console commands. They really like it, and without arguments. Then they find out how that came to be.
This takes me to my second point: we need each other. All of us. Politics is corrosive. Is hard. Is costly. We NEED to know there's somebody else out there also fighting this fight, and we need to share whatever we can. I've come here a few times in the last years to tell you nice things about your work. Truth is, i didn't did it many, many more times, because is very embarrasing. I read your work every single day, several times a day, from at least... idk... 2010 i guess. Your work is an inspiration. I'm frankly amazed to see the amount of energy you put in this. TechRights is my homepage, the first thing i read in the morning, in the lunch break, and in the night after work and college. How many other people has made a work like this out there, in the entire internet? No, really: please tell me who has a database of microsoft crimes and lies like you do, who else is covering the EPO and patents in the way you do, who compiles every single day so many information about the free software world and still find the time and energy to write about how things are going right now on different fronts. Man... my wife and i get worried when something bad happens to TechRights, like the DDoS attacks you experienced, the intimidation letters you received (or stuff like that time when somebody told shit about you to your boss or something like that, i don't remember it clearly), or even the many times the blog was unreachable. It's like a part of our life right now. But my point was not to say nice things about your work. Not entirely at least. My point is that i also NEED your work. For the same reasons you say in your entry about journalists: we, the people who fights in any way for FLOSS, are few and have scarce resources compared to our enemies. I find TechRights absolutely invaluable. And not because it's some kind of bible, BTW: it isn't rare seeing myself not agreeing with positions you state, usually because you have strong positions on stuff i believe can be tolerated for a greater good. I even wrote to you once about a strong disagreement. This isn't about blindly following words like some kind of propaganda, it's about having a place where some words can be said and shared without fear of having to deal with a war for it. We have our forums, IRC channels, mailing lists... but journalism is a different animal, and i found journalism like yours to be very rare. I read your work where i don't read my own country's newspapers. Your work fills that empty space that i'm sure many people share with me, and it's not that easy to replace, snapping the fingers, just like that. So, that said, i wanted to say after reading your entry that you not writting about GNU/Linux would be felt as a loss here. It felt somehow that way when you put your energies away from Microsoft. It will surelly feel that way then the EPO/Patents time passed too, and it will be ok. GNU/Linux has much more coverage right now, and there are a bunch of good sites with opinions on GNU matters, so that particular front will be covered somehow. But i believe you need to know that, even when you have to face lots of harsh criticism and/or different ways of bullying (i've saw myself comments on random social platforms making fun of you or calling FUD your work), your opinion is also very valuated from your readers, and we appreciate a lot what you do.
PS: it would also be also very insteresting to read about details on being a FLOSS journalist from time to time. I bet it's an interesting topic for any TechRights reader.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2016-06-17 17:18:12
Yes, a lot of the topics covered here are (semi-)political by nature and they're inevitably going to make someone unhappy.
"Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone."
--Richard Stallman
Regarding the word journalism, I suppose when I was being paid to write articles about a decade ago I counted as a "journalist", but nowadays it's just a byword for "paid writer" (usually salaried by some corporation with a decent budget from various sources, which, in my personal experience, impacts overall agenda as they want something in return).
I currently cover EPO matters and software patents because the impact on people's lives there is more profound and not many people have enough knowledge (of past events) to cover it. Sure, patent lawyers know a lot of this stuff, but they won't badmouth and say the truth about their predatory (with some exceptions) occupation. As for EPO workers, they're too terrified to speak out and they need a voice. This impacts Europe as a whole; to a lesser degree -- other continents too.
Remember the site used to focus on Novell. Priorities change over time. GNU/Linux news is somewhat 'old school' because reporters now focus on another level in the stack, devices, server rooms etc. (Android, OpenStack and Ubuntu are just three examples) and new buzzwords are being introduced, e.g. DevOp, Cloud, and IoT (nonsensical rebrands for something which is barely new).
If you want to follow Linux news, here are some alternative feeds of mine.
Jimbob0i0
2016-06-17 21:22:50
One of my colleagues at Red Hat pointed this out to me and I felt compelled to respond to your accusations and misrepresentations.
The first, of course, is that they are not my colleagues. I do not and have never worked at Red Hat in a Fedora capacity or otherwise.
Do note that since you were so willing to track my internet presence this should have been trivial for you to find given my LinkedIn has my employment history and I don't disguise my presence online.
Now skipping all the Red Hat attacks which for some reason found their way here and focusing on the issue at hand:
Quoting the Softpedia article in question:
____________________________ Today, June 14, 2016, Canonical informed us that they've been working for some time with developers from various major GNU/Linux distributions to make the Snap package format universal for all OSes.
"Developers from multiple Linux distributions and companies today announced collaboration on the “snap” universal Linux package format, enabling a single binary package to work perfectly and securely on any Linux desktop, server, cloud or device," said Canonical. "This community is working at snapcraft.io to provide a single publication mechanism for any software in any Linux environment."
Snaps already work natively on Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu At the moment, we're being informed that the Snap package format is working natively on popular GNU/Linux operating systems like Arch Linux, Fedora, Debian GNU/Linux, OpenWrt, as well as Ubuntu and its official flavors, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, and Lubuntu. ---------------------------------------------------
Now it is true that it does not specifically say "Fedora developers" or "Arch developers" however I'm sure you are able to follow the implication there.
You'll note I hope that I publically apologised to him:
https://twitter.com/hogarthj/status/743095502862966784
I, however, will note it's two days later and no such correction or clarification mentioned on twitter is forthcoming.
Moving on from that then .... if you have been following the story and read Adam's article I would hope that a significant number of technical publications were actively reporting it as the "one true format" finally being agreed by the distributions and collaborating. There has yet to be a *single* response to the request for any of these so called developers collaborating.
Over on the Suse side a the openSuse chairman confirmed that Canonical had contacted him asking how to package for Suse. He directed to their standard process and the Suse Open Build System (where I will point out Canonical have not managed to complete a build). However this is hardly working with and collaboration as there was no further communication that he had seen and it's the same response *anyone* would get.
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/4o2pdj/universal_snap_packages_launch_on_multiple_linux/d49ae89
On the Fedora side Adam, who is *not* my colleague, confirmed that Canonical had contacted him asking about building for Fedora and he was directed to the standard packaging documentation on the Fedora wiki along with advice on using COPR to build test packages.
So far there has been no developers from other distributions collaborating on Snappy, and the response is the same anyone woudl get asking about any package they were interested in packaging.
The closest we get to possible cross distro collboration is an Arch *user* not developer who helped zyga get his PKGBUILD working in AUS.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4ocwft/a_third_of_a_libreoffice_snap_lo_snap_size/d4bma34
I will point out here that the Canonical PR statement says:
Developers from multiple Linux distributions and companies today announced collaboration on the “snap” universal Linux package format,
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/06/14/universal-snap-packages-launch-on-multiple-linux-distros/
Just one actual *developer* from another distribution actively collaborating on Snappy ... that's all I asked to see.
Now if you'll permit me to link to a comments I made making my position very clear:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4ocwft/a_third_of_a_libreoffice_snap_lo_snap_size/d4caz2w
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/4ocsu8/new_libreoffice_snap_without_debug_symbols_287mb/d4big3g
I would *love* to see some of the cool tech from Canonical in a true community engagement. They refuse to do that.
Please stop for a while and think about the nature of a mass blasted embargoed PR alert declaring the "one true format" which immediately gets parroted by the technical journalists we usually expect to do a modicum of fact checking on rather than swallowing whole. Factor in to this that *this particular technology* though it touts security as the primary concern disables the confinement on everything but Ubuntu and that the only server side thing that can provide updates (I'm sure we agree that things like upgrades are important for security of browsers and so on) is the Ubuntu Store which is hard coded into the snapd daemon and no reference specs or code is published for internal or other custom repos.
Please just stop a moment and think this through to the conclusion - especially in the light of the Ubuntu Phone, the announcement the Ubuntu Store would be Snap only as of the end of the month and the need for apps which this would then provide. Surely a little scepticism is in order with a little bit of research.
Okay moving past this ...
Can you honestly say it's unfairly attacking an entity to point out their PR statements are shallow at best and at worse actively misleading?
I will note here a clear disclaimer that I *am* a Fedora Packager/Maintainer but that is the same for many hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals who make up the community.... that still doesn't make me an employee and I will happily call out Red Hat on things I think are BS as well when they occur... however that is a far rarer occasion when it seems required to do so.
I will point out here that I clearly directed mhall119 to the specific tasks Canonical will need to carry out to get the package in Fedora:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4o0t6e/libreoffice_520_beta2_as_a_snap_package/d498q6l
I will also point out that seeing as they are not totally familiar with selinux and I do have more experience there I did help direct them to the reason Fedora 24 ends up with an selinux denial on the snapd socket:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4o2f8f/universal_snap_packages_launch_on_multiple_linux/d4cwijz
It deeply troubles me when a huge amount of the Open Source community is willing to just accept a PR piece without looking at the entire story with no research into the situation at all.
I would ask not why I was calling out various tech sites and Canonical themselves for the articles but rather why very few voices were willing to stand up and ask in the first place ... why was it just me that questioned things?
Please do take an honest look at the entire situation and think to the community as a whole. I would appreciate if you correct the comments you made as to my character and employment.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2016-06-17 22:53:24
Jimbob0i0
2016-06-17 23:14:57
__________ Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters. That employee was James Hogarth. -------------------
That's what it says ... and that is 100% inaccurate... I'm shocked that you leave that in after what I just wrote.
And you you know what? I'm saddened as well. Saddened that you ignored everything I laid out above and just carried out the strike through of Red Hat whilst not *actually* correcting the article.
This is even more intriguing in light of you writing:
"The point I am trying to get across here is that it’s not easy to cover GNU/Linux news because there’s always someone, somewhere who isn’t happy. Thick skin is required. I hardly cover GNU/Linux matters (compared to past years), though it’s not because I’m offended or put off by personal attacks; it’s because I don’t always feel appreciated for the investigative work which I do. I generally snub any PR person or company spokesperson. I don’t trust them. I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse.
I am not alone in this. Not many people are willing to speak out about it, perhaps fearing backlash. Consider Canonical with their disgusting blacklists of journalists who are not sucking up to Canonical and swallowing every ounce of Kool-Aid from Canonical, as pointed out not just by yours truly but also other bloggers/journalists (both privately and publicly, with those who do so privately fearing that these blacklists would treat them even more maliciously if they dared to rant)."
and this as well:
"I have a personal grudge with Canonical over how they treat media, having witnessed online friends becoming victims of theirs, but I didn’t think Red Hat would stoop down to this level as well. What we are basically witnessing here is a bunch of Red Hat (‘Fedora’) employees attacking the media over Snap/Flatpak war. They want the media to take sides and get upset that the media isn’t telling the story the way they want it to."
Yes I indeed read your entire post, even if you didn't feel the need to read my response in full and take on board the comments I made.
There were a whole bunch of publications that did *exactly* what you are speaking out against there. Whether through fear of Canonical backlash or just wanting to run the story for the hits without questioning the PR statements. And yet when I question this action you malign my position, motives, interests and make falsehoods.
For the absolute record I will state clearly again - I am not and have never been a Red Hat employee under any branch of theirs - Fedora or otherwise.
I'm just someone who loves the Open Source Community and does his best to contribute where possible, and who wasn't afraid to question Canonical's interests in this matter publicly only to be attacked afterwards as a result.
Please do re-read what you yourself wrote in full in your posting in light of the above. Allow your point of view to shift away from accepting the Canonical PR wholeheartedly and try to understand my sentiments right now.
finalzone
2016-06-19 00:59:42
It is not the first time Canonical did similar trick in the past yet got little remark for their action. This kind of article show what is wrong with the current media and sadly, techrights fell into that path by adding Red Hat into the mix.
It appears real journalism has become a rare pearl.
168033988749894
2016-06-18 18:01:40
Icoughdrywalldust
2016-06-18 20:12:08
An initiative that would be essentially a pool of 'sock puppets' shared by the entire tech journalism industry. It would have to be a pool shared amongst multiple publications to obscure the original writing sources. The 'sock puppets' get an opportunity to work closely with and learn from tech journalists from many publications (maybe find funding for a small stipend too?) while reporting on hostile tech companies/subjects. Works would be published under one of the the 'sock puppets' names, the final draft would be in their writing style of course, and they would be credited as the non-anonymous part of a team.
I can't see how this would be especially damaging to the 'sock puppets' future career if they intend to go into a field of journalism outside of tech.
For established tech journalists, it's certainly a better protection measure than they appear to have now...which seems to be to just not publish.