Lessons in Bad Journalism: How to Write a Boycott Novell Article
Many of you out there in Free Software land wonder: how is Roy Schestowitz such a rock star in the FOSS community? Is it his persistence in keeping the public informed of the evil doings of Microsoft and Novell? Is it his positive encouragement of supporting the various venerable Free Software technologies?
No, I believe it is something more than that. The man is a literary craftsman, and weaves the completely true, terrifying world of illegal monopolies. Also, he's a brilliant web designer to boot. He pulled back the veil against Mono, Microsoft's evil sabotage technology for the Linux desktop. With his watching eyes and calming demeanor, Mr. Schestowitz is keeping the Free world Free.
But now you, a mere nooblet in the world of Free Software, want to write like the Shakespeare of our time. So, as a common service to humanity, I shall demonstrate how to construct a Boycott Novell-calibre article with utmost precision. Let's look at the example below to gleam a better idea of how to do this.
icrosoft MVP Miguel de Icaza is promoting Silverlight once again by stating that his patent-encumbered project might enable access to Olympic content. The real solution is for the Olympics to use standards instead of serving Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. What de Icaza is doing here is simple; he keeps regulators away from Microsoft*. We wrote about this before, particularly when Microsoft came under fire for Silverlight and US regulators stepped up. The Novell/Microsoft patent deal had similar ramifications in Europe (harming Samba’s case). Needless to say, Novell is behind de Icaza, so it is not just his personal infatuation with Microsoft. Novell’s tactless PR Director [1, 2] is endorsing de Icaza’s message:
The first thing to acknowledge is the sources. Roy Schestowitz uses the best sources in the world to compose information for the Free Software world at large...himself. Who better to trust than this revolutionary that has shaped online journalism into an artform. So, let's replicate this in an example below.
Today, Microsoft found itself in hot water [1, 2, 3, 4] because of the overwhelming evidence linking it to the murder of Joe Bluff, a well-known Vala programmer and Free Software evangelist. [1, 2] The evidence? A blog post from a familiar face. Microsoft TechNet employee Darrel Jarvis, .NET Proponent and Microsoft Shill, announced on his blog today that .NET would have "a killer feature"[1] and would "slay Vala" [1]
As you can see, the links are only hypothetical, there's no real reason to panic. But look at what I did. Assuming that most of the links are different, I pointed to other articles in which I reported on, for reference. This neatly gets new Free Software initiates up to speed on the goings on of the enemy, thus saving them from accidentally installing Microsoft-encumbered technologies on their hard drives. Information is our only weapon against the FUD those corrupt corporations pump out.
The second important aspect is to pick your information wisely. For example, the following statement
Novell has contributed 25% of all Linux kernel code, and heavily funds Free Software desktop environments with usability fixes and field studies.
Can easily be corrected to state the following:
Ever since the Microsoft-Novell Deal back in 2004, Novell has polluted the Linux kernel with numerous lines of patent-encumbered code, even allowing Microsoft to port a driver to it. Furthermore, their Mono contributions have forever ruined Free Software desktops.
These kinds of statements make Roy's articles the go-to for the complete truth on what really happens in the Linux community.
Finally, realize that no BN Article is complete without a work of political art attached. Realize that these conform to all copyright laws, and don't violate a single policy. It's the best way to accentuate points.
There, that ought to keep the M$-Shills away. I can't program or develop anything to save my life, but I CAN CONTRIBUTE.
Free Software: 3 Major Projects That Haven’t Happened Yet.
The following things do not yet exist, but I can't help but wonder why. I think if they did exist, perhaps Free Software users would have a little more pull online.
This list might expand a bit when I think of other software.
1. A Free Software Search Engine
Peek, the Free Software Search Engine
After the recent hullabullo about Ubuntu switching from Google to Yahoo/Bing as the default search provider, this lead me to wonder: What if someone were to just create a FOSS search engine that indexed Free Software/Open Source-friendly websites, as well as free content licensed under the various Creative Commons licenses? Suppose it also indexed OGG Theora videos using a bit of HTML5 code? I tell you, the benefits are endless, as it would nicely tie together all the major FOSS communities together.
By the way, that's just a mockup because I was bored.
2. OGG Theora-Based YouTube-like video sharing site
It's no secret that a lot of people are upset at YouTube for various reasons. Whether it's the poor implementation of the DMCA takedown notice procedure which is severely misused, or the fact that complete freedom of speech is blocked from YouTube, or the fact that the supported HTML5 codec is only h.264. Whatever your reason, YouTube currently is flawed when it comes to Free Speech, Free Software, or Creative Commons content. So why not just start from scratch and make something new?
3. FOSS Social Network
This idea in particular intrigues me. We already have identi.ca, and quite a lot of work has been put into OpenSocial. However, there is no FOSS centric community that has a functionality similar to Facebook. Granted, social networking platforms DO exist, and with some tweaking could even plug into identi.ca in a similar way that Twitter plugs into Facebook. Mugshot used to be a FOSS network by Red Hat, but it's not around anymore.