[100834] in RedHat Linux List
Re: the effects of FUD on the mind (editorial,long)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Jinks)
Mon Nov 23 13:38:01 1998
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 18:32:02 +0000
From: Michael Jinks <michael@twopoint.com>
To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com
Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com
bsc@klondike.ml.org wrote:
>
> I read the Halloween document with some interest. It brought back
> memories of thinking myself foolish for feeling paranoid. Surely a
> company would not resort to FUD tactics as a business practice.
!?
> Press
> releases are one thing, infiltrating a newsgroup, mailing list or Fido
> echo another.
Mostly because infiltration in this case was easier, cheaper, and likely
to get at the correct people. Brilliant, really.
> I don't know about anyone else in this mailing list but I've been looking
> over my shoulder a bit more than usual.
Personally, I've actually been looking _less_. I don't think that ESR
could have fabricated anything better than the Halloween document, and
here it went and appeared on its own, at a marvelous time, in a place
where it was sure to draw attention. It's like a great big color-coded
punch line to a long, drawn out, and very bad joke. While I don't think
that its appearance can assure us that M$, found out, will cease and
desist its dirty tricks and infowarping -- daily press from Redmond
demonstrates to the contrary -- I have nonetheless been thinking of the
Halloween document in a very positive sense lately. The Right People
Know, and they can "know publicly," they don't have to keep their mouths
shut about it.
> I've been reading posts that
> slyly indicate there might be something subversively wrong with the OSS
> movement, perhaps there is something wrong with the way Linux is
> developing. I hate the feeling, the paranoia is back, but once burnt,
> twice shy.
Be of good cheer. This buzz has always been with us, and no matter how
good your signal-to-noise ratio, the one thing guaranteed is that as you
increase amplitude, so do you increase noise, in absolute terms if not
(as is also likely) relative. Successful FUD is successful because it
plays on credible doubt, and there are, guaranteed, instances of FUD
working in specific cases and keeping specific shops from looking at
Linux. But I don't think they can kill the main body or even reasonably
poison it, at least not now.
> What I am asking is, how should a person be reacting to what
> has come to light in the last three weeks, particularly in regard to
> Microsoft's competition tactics?
Their competition tactics were always one of the best known secrets in
the IT industry. That they are now found out shouldn't come as a
suprise to anyone. There is no reason to suppose that those tactics
were not in effect against OSS long before the Hdocument came to light,
and we've been fine so far.
> Should we be wondering who we can trust?
> Should we question the motive of every poster?
Trust everyone. Take all posts at face value and respond to those which
interest you, each according to your whim. All others will read
according to their whim. There is no point worrying about it.
> You could look at this message and deduce that I'm just another MS shill
> trying to stir up the pot.
Let 'em stir! Trees get stronger when the wind blows houses down.
> I wondered if I should even write this letter at all, it all sounds so
> terribly maudlin. Conspiracies and their ilk have a way of making people
> on the fringe look positively looney.
Um. . . well, _I'm_ certainly looney. . . is that so wrong? 8)
> Certainly not the best light to
> have yourself taken seriously in.
Maybe not, but thankfully we don't have to be. In those cases where OSS
succeeds, it should and will succeed first on its merits. If any
particular user finds the content of any single OSS support resource to
be inadequate, shrieky, nutso, or boring, they can turn to other
channels, or learn better filtering, or (best of all) solve the support
problem themselves in a better way than anything anybody else has
thought of.
> The only way to battle a hidden agenda is to bring it into the light.
Done. All the way to "U. S. News".
> Expose it for what it is.
Done, and by its own fumbling hand.
Those still wakeful might be interested in an even longer article
(thankfully not by me) linked from www.opensource.org. It's a pretty
thoughtful forecast of the IT industry in a few years from now. The
link itself can be a bit tempermental, but it was good when last I
checked: http://future.sri.com/bip/am.html
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