Strange Ideas About Freedom Of Speech

As many of you have undoubtedly noticed I do moderate comments on my blog. If you've read the comments you know that I almost always publish what people have to say even if they strongly disagree with me. On rare occasions I hold a comment to check something before publishing or to compose a thoughtful response. However, if someone is abusive or offensive I do reject comments. A person who wrote such a comment then accused me of having a "strange idea of free speech" and censorship. It's actually nothing of the sort.

If you write something is the New York Times obligated to publish it? Must the Washington Post run a sharply worded op-ed? Can I compel Fox News to give voice to my liberal opinions? The answer to all these questions is an unequivocal no. Private media is permitted editorial control of their content. Websites and blogs are no different. They are simply a newer, different form of private media.

O'Reilly Media editors have deleted comments to things I've written once in a while: comments I would have accepted. It's their website, they own it, so it's their choice. Thomas Holbrook II recently complained about the Terms of Service on LXer.com in a post on his The Nixed Report blog. He finds their prohibition on political discussion "ridiculous". I happen to disagree but I certainly recognize Mr. Holbrook's right to express his opinion on his website. He, too, discussed this prohibition in terms of "freedom of thought and expression" and it is no more a limitation on his freedom than a refusal from a local paper to publish something. The owners and editors of LXer.com have a right to manage their site as they see fit.

I'm not preventing anyone from voicing an opinion or expressing themselves. I am merely exercising my right to editorial control on my blog and websites. If someone wants to post something I won't publish they have every right to do so... on their own blog or website. Everyone has a right to setup their own proverbial soapbox and voice their opinion. Nobody has a right to take my soapbox and appropriate it for their own use. Those who argue otherwise are the ones who have strange ideas about freedom of speech.

Happy Thanksgiving

Too everyone who is reading this and is here in the United States... Have a very Happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Oh, and don´t go too crazy with black Friday shopping tomorrow.

Some People Don't Know When To Leave Well Enough Alone

I've had enough of the hatred spewed at me from the Puppy Linux forums and Puppy Linux users everywhere. I am hounded, week in and week out, including three comments on DistroWatch this week, about my "refusal" to run Puppy Linux and my "crazy review". It never stops, it continues in e-mail and on every Linux forum where I write. Why are the Puppy Linux community members so obsessed with me? Here is the only reason I can think of:

A couple of years back I wrote a very short piece for the old O'Reilly Linux DevCenter blogs stating that Puppy Linux 2.17 (the current version at the time) wouldn't boot on my systems except for one ancient desktop and that made it impossible for me to give it a fair review. The Puppy Linux community got all bent out of shape and it escalated from there, into intimidation and threats, including what many interpreted as a death threat in the comments section of DistroWatch Weekly. Puppy Linux community members also tried to get my writing pulled from O'Reilly. My editor at the time saw the post in question as threatening and backed me up.

I have no clue whether Puppy Linux is good, bad or in between nowadays. I won't look at the code because of the community which keeps after me incessantly. There are different parts of the Linux community which are everything from very good to truly awful. The Puppy community is the worst of the lot when it comes to absolute fanaticism. No dissent or criticism is tolerated.

Meanwhile truly nasty personal attacks on me continue unabated two years later. Heck, they've even got Notorik, a user who insists on DistroWatch that information security is "poppycock", telling everyone there I'm "unbalanced" because I believe security is important. (I wonder if people there still agree after the Puppy Linux website was defaced recently.) The threat, which many others saw exactly as I saw it, is a "demented fantasy". I can do no right and the Puppy Linux community is perfect. Sure, that's it.

I've received e-mail and seen comments from others who have had bad experiences and/or feel the same way. No, sorry, it's not just some delusion on my part.

Don't you people know when to leave well enough alone? I would NEVER, EVER mention Puppy Linux in any context if you'd just let well enough be. That's a message they can't seem to get in what I see as the deepest, darkest, nastiest corner of the Linux community.

The Problem With The Linux Community

The following appears on the O'Reilly Community website. I don't usually crosspost between there and here but I will be writing a follow-up which will appear on this blog only. The reason: it will be decidedly controversial in a way which I don't want to bring to O'Reilly. So... in order for that post to make sense here is part 1:

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I wrote a less than stellar review of openSUSE 11.2 this week for DistroWatch. Why? Well.. because this particular release really has issues: the installer choosing the wrong driver causing it to hang, serious instability in KDE on my two month old netbook in a release that touted itself for netbooks, and numerous smaller issues. It's a shame because, in general, I've always liked openSUSE. It was never my true favorite, but that was because of some personal preferences, not because of faults in the distro.

First, I must compliment the openSUSE developers. I've had great correspondence from Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier and Will Thompson, a developer in the KDE team in Nuremberg, which were truly first rate. These are Linux professionals who clearly are much more interested in solving problems and putting out a quality product than anything else. I'll be filing bug reports by tomorrow to try and help them resolve the issues that I found.

While I'm very positive about the openSUSE team I must say that I am a lot less sanguine about some in their community. Some fans (or really fanatics) came out in force ready to attack the reviewer (me), to question my skills and even my sanity, to attack Ladislav Bodnar for posting the review, to blame the hardware, anything at all but the distro code which is, according to some, "the best release ever". Fine, whatever, I'm used to it. Writing honest reviews will never win friends or make me popular in the Linux community. Some folks (way too many) only want fawning fan reviews and distro commercials.

Here are three response comments that I found especially clueful and pretty much spot on:

There is too much fanaticism in the world, people getting all exited over nothing - over stuff which is meaningless. The really important and relevant stuff is ignored.

But the reason is clear - the real issues are ignored because what is most important to me? ME.

So, forget the real issues - you better watch what you say about MY distro (religion, team, car etc., etc.) because what you are saying, you say about ME.
Remember, this is MY distro (religion, team, car etc., etc. ) I have chosen it. Therefore, if it is less than perfect then I am less than perfect......and THAT I can't bear.

--Antony, DistroWatch comments section, post #291

I love Linux, but I sometimes hate the community. I think often the community is Linux's worst enemy. Let me clarify that: I do love the development community, where the focus is on collaboration and making things better and sharing those improvements for the benefit of all. But I can't stand the "user community", at least the vocal part that have nothing better to do that going around with "mine is better than yours" nonsense.

[...]

Why can't this positive development spirit be extended to the user community? Why do some in the user community need to "defend" their distro? Why do some, as Antony brought out, take criticism to "their" distro personally?

--Patrick, DistroWatch comments section, post #295

Patrick, I agree that in many cases the Linux community is its own worst enemy. I say that with myself being a big (Linux) free software open source community fan. Unfortunately in many of the comments, from both sides in discussing the reviews in this distrowatch weekly, there have been comments which are only part of the technical, and appear to have been posted either out of ignorance, or posted only designed to hurt.

--oldcpu, DistroWatch comments section, post #297

The three comments above illustrate, that this is not a problem with just the openSUSE community. It plagues large parts of the wider Linux community. I'll have more about perhaps the worst example of this I know, and some people who just can't leave well enough alone, in my next post.

U.S. House Pases Heath Care Bill; One Republican Votes "Yea"

I was watching live on CSPAN just a few minutes ago when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the heathcare reform bill, HR 3962. The Affordable Healthcare for America bill passed by a vote of 220-215. Only one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana was willing to put ordinary Americans ahead of the big insurance companies and their lobbyists. Rep. Cao is a freshman Comgressman and he is to be congratulated for standing up to his own party and voting his conscious. 39 Democrats voted against the bill.

The bill, as passed, is far from perfect but it is definitely a step in the right direction. It does not provide universal health insurance but does make insurance obtainable and/or more affordable for millions of Americans. It ends the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage for "preexisting conditions", which has been grossly abused up until now. It does have a public option but it is very weak in that it does not resemble Medicare but rather forces the government to negotiate rates with health providers. Still, it is a huge step forward.

I'll have more on healthcare later, particularly as the Senate debate moves forward.

An Amazing Coincidence or Something More Sinister?

Yesterday, as anyone involved in computing knows, Windows 7 was released by Microsoft with much marketing hype and fanfare. Apple responded with some new clever commercials basically saying that Windows 7 comes with all the security problems and other issues that previous Windows versions have had. Maybe so.

Canonical chose the day to announce the release candidate of their upcoming Ubuntu Linux 9.10 (Karmic Koala), scheduled for final release next week. I'm running Karmic on the HP Mini 110 in a dual boot configuration with HP Mi, a customized Ubuntu 8.04 LTS for netbooks. So far this release is extremely promising and may be their best since Edgy Eft. I certainly haven't found any show stopping bugs.


Hewlett-Packard also did something yesterday, albeit very quietly. HP removed Linux entirely from the part of their website where they sell netbooks. The day Windows 7 became available the HP Mi interface appears to have died a quiet death. A visit to the HP Mini pages reveals that HP is only offering "genuine" Windows 7 and "genuine" Windows XP. I also noticed that the HP Mini 110 also sports a new, higher starting price, a full US $25 more than when I ordered mine earlier this month. I have to assume the Windows license is part of the higher price.

The timing of the apparent death of Mi may be an amazing coincidence. I have no inside knowledge of the decision making process at HP. However, there is substantial history of Microsoft playing hardball with hardware vendors. There is also significant evidence of increased interest and demand for Linux, with Acer unveiling a new Linux (Android) netbook offering after having previously dropped from the Open Source operating system.

The Asus story is particularly striking example of how Microsoft is widely believed to have forced a hardware vendor out of the Linux market. The company which started the netbook revolution with their EeePC running Linux in 2007 launched an "It's better with Windows" campaign early this year which drew the ire of many in the Linux community. Then in June at Computex in Taiwan Asus proudly displayed an EeePC with a Qualcomm Snapdragon (ARM) processor running Android. The following day Asus' chairman Jonney Shih found himself sharing a stage with Microsoft corporate VP, OEM Division, Steven Guggenheimer. Shih apologized for showing the Android EeePC, a move which resulted in many angry columns about Microsoft strong-arm tactics.

Around the same time Asus executives were doing all they could to throw Linux under the proverbial bus. Asus Australia consumer market product manager Gordon Kerr stated in late May that Linux was likely to be completely phased out by Asus on netbooks. At the time he said:

"People bought the original seven- and eight-inch Eee PCs for a computer to give to the kids. If you want the full functionality of a notebook you are going to go with Windows.”

Never mind that the relatively poor performance of Windows on netbooks when compared to Linux didn't exactly help create satisfied customers as I reported back in June. The response from many previously satisfied Asus EeePC owners was typified by blogger James Sparenberg in a post titled "We don't need you either Asus."

As I reported in my survery of Linux netbooks currently on the market published just yesterday it turns out Asus never did fully leave the Linux market. Toys 'R' Us still sells Linux based EeePC, albeit older models, both online and in its stores. Asus also continues to offer Linux on their Eee Box nettop PCs. However, when Betanews questioned Josh Norem, a senior technical marketing specialist at Asus, about the possibility of a new Linux offering last month he replied "Not at this time." This from a company that had touted its Linux offerings and high Linux sales early this year.

Some may also remember testimony by Garry Norris of IBM when the U.S. Department of Justice went after Microsoft a decade ago. He detailed how Microsoft effectively killed OS/2, IBM's technically superior operating system, and how Microsoft effectively controlled IBM's PC business at the time.


There is little doubt that Hewlett-Packard devoted considerable development effort to the Mi interface. I'm not one who believes much in conspiracy theories but in light of Microsoft's historical dealings with it's vendors it sure would be one amazing coincidence if HP decided to kill Mi on precisely the day Windows 7 launched without any undue influence from Redmond.

American Brand Name, Chinese Computer

10 days ago I wrote an article for O'Reilly about the premature failure of my Sylvania netbook. I ended up deciding to buy an HP Mini 110 Mi Edition (more on my choices soon) and ordered it custom built to my specs directly from Hewlett-Packard. It was competitively priced (and slightly less expensive than what's on HP's website now) and I was promised that the netbook would ship within six days. The turnaround time was much better than what Dell offered. I've read mainly positive reviews of this particular netbook, including one by Ladislav Bodnar on DistroWatch Weekly. As many of you probably know I write fairly regularly for Ladislav and I definitely to respect the man and his opinions. The netbook did, in fact, ship on the sixth day: from Shangai, China.

I knew that most if not all the netbooks, laptops, and notebooks sold today are built in a handful of factories located either in mainland China or Taiwan. I was under no illusion that buying an American brand name meant an American product. What surprised me is that HP apparantly doesn't even have stock of this netbook in the U.S. and doesn't even do simple customizations here.

In recent weeks Dell announced it was closing a Winston-Salem, North Carolina manufacturing plant and giving the work to "third parties" in Mexico and other countries. Despite President Obama's campaign rehtoric about keeping American manufacturing jobs in the United States companies keep outsourcing the work offshore or moving their own facilities to other countries with less expensive labor costs, poor or no environmental regulations, and little or no protections for workers. Meanwhile unemployment in the United States continues to rise. Here in North Carolina our unemployment rate is well above the national average.

I see this continuing loss of American manufacturing capacity, which is already a small fraction of what it once was, as a long term disaster for this country. Anyone who knows their history knows that when the U.S. entered World War II it rapidly converted the then unmatched manufacturing facilities to wartime production very quickly. If a major world conflict started today or in the near future I fear that we have no ability to do the same thing again. A pretty smart guy named Albert Einstein, who was a pacifist prior to the Second World War, held much more pragmatic views after the rise of Nazism. He famously said, "So long as there are men there will be wars." Sadly I believe he was right. That makes it the height of foolishness to leave the United States in a position where it cannot be ready for war quicky no matter how much we value peace.

I've come to believe a little protectionism would go a long way, particularly when it comes to industries vital to our economy, our defense, or both. I am mindful of history and the last thing I'd want Congress and the President to do is pass something like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act during a deep recession or what, I believe in retrospect, we will call a depression. The last thing I want to do is severely curtail international trade. Having said all of that I am no longer the believer in free trade that I once was. I do feel trade will need to be a little less free and a bit more regulated to insure both American jobs and American defense capability.

The kind of severely under-regulated free trade we now have has meant lower prices for consumers. The fact that my new computer is made in China is one of the reasons it is so inexpensive. I would gladly pay more for one made in the United States. I can remember when this country was the leading manufacturer of personal computers. Today, to even recapture a small share of PC manufactuing in the U.S. would require government intervention.

Every President we've had since Ronald Reagan, Republicans and Democrats alike, have repeated the mantra of free trade over and over again. I wonder how Republicans who claim to be so concerned about national defense can justify promoting the wholesale export of manufacturing which has happened over the past 30 years. Similarly, I wonder how Democrats who claim to be so deeply concerned about the environment and workers' rights can do precisely the same when many of the countries which have succesfully imported manufacturing capacity and jobs have no such concerns. Any claim of concern about human rights by either party, by liberals or conservatives, rings hollow when we export our jobs and manufacturing capacity to countries that have abominable human rights records. It seems corporate profits and corporate lobbyists trump any and all other concerns. Greed remains the real G-d of early 21st century America.

It's way past time we examine the real costs of "free trade" instead of just parroting well worn lines about the benefits. I think if we do an honest cost-benefit analysis of free trade we will find that it is anything but free and, indeed, may do more harm than good as it is structured today.