Today, 26th August 2007, OSNews has turned exactly ten years old. For a decade now, OSNews has been giving you the latest news on operating systems, its major applications, and a whole lot of other technology related things. We covered the demise of Be, Inc. we have seen 10 different years of Linux-on-the-desktop, we reported the release of Windows XP, and so much more. Thank you for reading, commenting, and complaining on OSNews for ten years now – we could not have done it without you.
OSNews wouldn’t be that spicy without the contribution of our notorious trolls such as Moulinneuf, Windows vs. Linux wars, KDE vs. Gnome flamebaits and other zealots.
Despite all the trolls, as you put it, it has been thoroughly enjoyable arguing.. debating, the merits of our preferred operating systems and associated software.
Overall this site, to me, is a great resource and one of the first three sites I visit daily.
Happy birthday.
You forgot to mention Thom Herbal, sucking up as moderator
“Thom Herbal”? Is this related to the fact that Thom is from the Netherlands where herb is allowed?
Back to topic. These “Get the facts” FUD ads from MICROS~1 on OSNews have been pissing me off.
Herbal is for whatever you wanna take for.
the real fact is:
Or thom smokes pot a lot
Or he’s a dumbass
And my bets are on the second one. Anyone can see the first message thom gave me -500 just to feel like a MAN. I tought that the modetation should be used FOR and BY the osnews community, not for jerks (heard that thom? give -500 here too).
The FUNNIEST thing is, after he gave me -500, a couple of people voted up.
I read your first three posts and I have to say, your wording leaves allot to be desired.
Sure, you feel like the man is beating on you, but guess what? I get voted up/down for derogatory and/or off topic comments all the time but you don’t hear me bitching about it.
Just because you can act like an ass, doesn’t mean you should! 😉
I just voted you up, no heartfeelings “brodah”
I might be acting like an ass, but what to do here then?
1. They claim to be a OS “NEWS” site. Hell, even /. and digg sometimes have an old “news”, what to say about here? But that’s fine, they grab from real news site.
2. Abusive moderation. So better close user’s moderation and leave it to half-assed thom to do that. Do not claim that the users moderate the comments, and thom, you vote -500, and you know what? you don’t worth 500, maybe (1/500).
3. /. + Digg -> 500xOSNEWS. The things that we have here and they don’t, well, it’s not worth anyway.
So, OSNEWS was once a great site. Now it’s just a grey-lemon half-assed moderation news site. Move along, can vote me down, curse, whatever
Make my day!
Then go to Slashdot & Digg and don’t come to OSNews. This is fairly simple. The only people who don’t follow this logic are trolls.
QED.
Holwerda? Herbal? What’s the difference? They both start with an ‘H’, and have an ‘e’, ‘r’, ‘l’, and an ‘a’. And hey, ‘b’ looks a lot like ‘d’. And who needs w’s and o’s anyway? 😉
Trolls like yourself…
“notorious trolls such as Moulinneuf”
Saying that everything BSD is not working and why , inside a BSD thread is not Trolling , it’s called reality. Sorry.
There are no Zealot on OsNews , no one as killed someone else over a disagreement here , but the site as very good diversity of people from many walk of life with the different experience and a lot of people from many camp , witch make it for an interesting read for the people who like me are not interested in the “everything is perfect” party line from the ( insert insult here ) like you.
Hopefully in the next day , week , month , 10 years you will go away and the site will be left with people who can agree to disagree on the content.
—–
Back on the 10 years subject hopefully we will get a more diverse view on the subject and news being discussed here so that people with a mind of there own ( like me ) can learn the different views in the subject of the week. I will probably keep disagreeing with most of the comment being made , I am just becoming very good at not replying to every nonsense being written by some people , there are also a lot of people who are now replying to these same ( insane ) people , that write in a better english and are more understandable then I am.
Keep up the good work for the mods , Thanks for the fish for thoughts 😉
But I wouldn’t call OSNews, a news site. As much as I enjoy this site, news are produced by real journalists doing research and investigative reporting. This is more of an aggregated blog with headlines and discussion.
I am aware that there is the occasional review and interview, but even the quality of those tend to be quite amateurish.
WHICH IS OK, since this site claims to be run by hobbyists on their spare time.
Edited 2007-08-26 22:43
I agree! Most of the time the so called “news” is copy-paste from other news sites (slashdot many times), ruled by advertisers.
Sorry, about that!
Off-topic, but I don’t really see why this comment was modded down…
Perhaps the maintainers should revise their editorial policy, their goals and such. Do they want to keep on being seen as mini-Slashdot or do they want to be something better?
If the latter, they should exercise more care in choosing their stories. In particular, they should resist the impulse to pick up every other piece of sensationalism they see. I know it makes the hen-house happy (ie. members) but it cheapens the experience.
There are plenty of stories to pick from, and yet they pick a strange mix that is neither here nor there. The comparison to Digg must’ve hurt, yet it’s strangely accurate, because there’s no apparent sense of purpose, just some vague guidelines for picking stories.
But I wouldn’t call OSNews, a news site
Uh… I can’t believe I have to explain thi, but that’s what news is, dude. CNN and FOX and ABC don’t MAKE news, they report it. That what OSNews does.
news are produced by real journalists doing research and investigative reporting
No, that is precisely not what news is, or rather, should be. News is not “produced”… it is reported.
Nice cherry-picking of my words to dodge the real issue that was being raised.
You are a blog, not a news organization. A news organization sends people daily into the field, conducts interviews, and checks mulitple sources when reporting a story. A news organization conducts thorough and serious testing of products. Look at anandtech if you need a reference on how a review should be done.
Look, I like it here, that’s why I visit. But you should own up to what “OSNews” actually is and does.
Don’t be ridiculous, no one is dodging the issue. I just think your expectations are a little unrealistic. It is *not* a pre-requisite of news that it must be deep-cover investigative journalism to be news reporting. If that’s what you want, go for it, there are plenty of sites that do just that. I am looking at the webpage of my local CBS news… I guess it’s a blog, none of the stories appear to be something where the journalist affected the story. BBC too… a blog.
We report news. If you want to call us a blog, go ahead… it’s semantics. Call us whatever you want.
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday, dear OSNews,
Happy Birthday, to you!
You can’t wish for the return of Be, the Amiga or Next when you blow out the candles, though.
You can’t wish for the return of Be, the Amiga or Next when you blow out the candles, though.
Watch out the forthcoming return of CherryOS. CherryOS 2, the revenge of Eben Moglen.
Wow, just like GNOME.
Good projects born in pairs.
10 years, can’t believe it’s been that long. How about a BeNews resurrection – just for the sake of good old days?
A lot of “news sites” use this principle of linking to other websites. If a good article happened to be posted on osnews (original writing, not linking), then it might be linked by other sites as well.
This way, all news sites contribute with potential articles for other sites. Not such a bad system if you ask me
Great site, happy birthday.
I was a regular on OSNews but their comment system is really bad. It suppresses the voice of minority. So i rarely visit this site. Now i mostly hang out on Digg. Even though digg has similar commenting system but viewing modded down comments is far easier and the community is less GPL fanatic.
Yeah Digg, less free and more advertising.
I don’t like any recent development of OSNews, but it’s last not least my favorite newssite for such news since 98/99 :o)
Congratulations!
First of all congratulations! OSNews is one of the best news sites for OS and software related topics, especially if you are interested in free software.
However, I do think that OSNews isn’t as good as it used to be. This is not the fault of the comment system or OSNews site, but of the OSNews users. The problem is that some people can’t follow the moderation guidlines.
They vote things down because they don’t agree with the contents, not because it is offensive or off topic but because they disagree as the guidlines suggests.
The start of this thread is a good example of this. It contained no offensive language and saying the comment was off topic was a bit of a stretch. Still it currently is rated -4.
So please, if you come across comments that you don’t agree with, don’t vote them down. Instead tell us why you don’t agree. Who knows, sometimes you might even convince the other person and others that he is wrong. Just voting it down makes the voting system useless for selecting comments worth to read.
We are actually adressing this. Adam has come up with a new moderation system, which will hopefully go live together with v4.
The basic premise of it is that seeing users mod based on (dis)agreement anyway, we might as well be upfront about it. So, the new mod system will have an “agree”, “disagree”, and “report” button. Comments will not be hidden on the number of “disagree” mods, but based on the number of “reports”.
It’s quite elegant, actually.
>Just voting it down makes the voting system useless for selecting comments worth to read.
Sometimes votes are better than words
The community ?
I don’t think there is a single community at OSn – several IMO .
IMO the topics are broad enough to attract several types of folk .
If there was one community then we’d all participate equally in the different topics posted .
Those commenting on programming languages won’t neccessarilty be interested at all in the latest OSX beta build – for example .
IMO the different groups are good & bad – good mix but also sometimes mindless flamewars .
There’s two communities, but if it was a Venn diagram, it would overlap in the middle, as plenty of Windows users think they know about Macs, but don’t; and the Mac users do know about Windows, but won’t shutup about it :3 There’s your flamewars right there!
Keep On Geeking Osnews.Congratulations.
Awesome!
Congrats and well done, everyone. I’m glad I found this site and it’s obvious a lot of hard work goes into it.
Thanks, and make it at least 10 more.
Congrats to 10years to OSn !
Been following you for the last 7 years .
The greater amount of more opinion based & less technical news items I find a bit “sad” .
– but other sites with big topic ranges will have less solid & simpler opinion pieces as well with more & more being glued to the net & generally more discovering open-source & the whole syndication social sites & these Blogs .
With the rise of OSX & Linux , the fanboys & girls have unfortunatly also increased .
But – Happy Birthday & thx to all for maintaining OSn .
Still one of my favorite- must-check-daily sites after over 6 years.
I lurked on this site for many years after mandatory registration was required for posting comments. Before hand, anybody could say what they like, no consequences. Even then, I always like this site. But since the registration pre-requisite, the quality of this site has increased one hundred fold.
Today, OSNews is one of, if not the first site I visit and although we still have out trolls, they are nowhere near as disruptive as before*.
Thanks to Eugena, Thom, Adam and anyone I (may) have forgotten for all your hard work making this site one of my favorite stops on the net. I certainly appreciate it. 🙂
*(I know I’m the last person to bitch about trolls as I tend to feed ’em. Well, at least one well known one. But what can I say, I just really like baiting the guy 😉
has it been 10 years already? man i feel old
Congrats to all the hard-working folks who keep this boat afloat
year 1997
South Park debuts on Comedy Central
People still used MSDOS with Windows 95
The United Kingdom hands sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China
most people used modems to get internet
Edited 2007-08-27 00:23
Nintendo 64 released
“Dolly the sheep” cloned
Deep Blue beats Gary Kasparov
MS buy $150m share in Apple
WorldCom merges with MCI (now part of Verizon)
The term “Weblog” is invented
Toyota Prius first sold
Thank you wikipedia.
The users of OSNews are so pathetic! You use your votes to mod down if you don’t agree with the comments (get a live trolls!!!).
P.S.
Please remove my account, I don’t want to be with this people!!!!
BYE
“I don’t want to be with this people!!!!”
Neither do I – but I still like what is left when you ignore the crap – comments or item .
& I don’t like generalisation – with “pathetic users” , you just mean the ones that enoy you .
Hmmm. I just gave you a +1 on that comment earlier in the thread that you are likely upset about. Not because I thought it was a great comment. But because I don’t think it deserved to be modded down so. Sure, OSNews is a news amalgamation site. But that and the comments are fine with me.
I used to be critical of the mod system. And I guess I still am. But one really good thing about it is that it gives me a really good way to practice diplomacy while getting good feedback on how I’m doing.
If you’d like to try it, do this:
Make up your mind ahead of time that you are going to say what you mean and not just say stuff that you know will get modded up. Write it out and read it back. Soften some words where they need to be softened. Remove the charged words and replace them with accurate words that don’t have emotional connotations. Make sure to acknowledge agreement on points on which you *do* happen to agree. Don’t just gloss over any common ground.
At the same time, make your argument regarding the points on which you do *not* agree. Don’t overstate it. Don’t understate it. Avoid name calling. Show respect to others, even if you don’t happen to think they deserve it; it helps your credibility.
Use emoticons. A smiley or a winky in the appropriate place, or a little joke included in your post can make all the difference in how people perceive it.
But for now, sit down, play some nice music, have a cup of tea or cocoa, and relax. And *don’t* let the mod system or anything else here upset you. If it does, you are taking things *way* too seriously for your own good. You’re supposed to enjoy your time here.
Edited 2007-08-27 02:07
But one really good thing about it is that it gives me a really good way to practice diplomacy while getting good feedback on how I’m doing.
That is something I also really enjoy about OSNews also. I write very little prose for a living, and I know my skill in expressing myself is less than I would like.
But this site is alive with opportunities to practice a little on topics that can incite strong emotions in one direction if I’m careless and in the other if I accurately capture a popular view. And the feedback system here helps me assess how I’ve done.
csousa, your wish has been granted. I disabled your account.
Welcome to the internet!
Edited 2007-08-27 02:11 UTC
Why tell us ?
Just don’t let the door hit you on the way out….
at mods:
Congrats on 10 years so far.
Is there a way to tell how long I have been here under this username, which I used before registration was needed ?
Urm, if you wanted to leave, you could at any time. Having to post about it and try and go out in a bang (more like a whimper) is about the most pathetic thing I can think of. OSNews is a great site with a good community. There are arguments and trolling, but that’s mainly a clash of personalities. We’re not talking unchecked raving idiocy like YouTube or Digg here.
Happy Birthday OSNews!
Your site is the first place I search for the news I am interested to read about. Congratulations Thom, Eugenia and all your staff! Keep doing the good work!
To al who volunteer their time for this site.
happy bday!!!!
Happy birthday to OSnews, and thank you to all the operators/contributers of this site for thier hours of hard work to keep this site going through the years. It is appreciated, and hope to be there for another 10.
I don’t know how long I’ve been hanging out here. At least 8 years.
It’s managed to stay one of my top visited sites even as my interests drift and wane.
I have no opinion about the moderation system, the editorial content, story selection, or whatever.
Whatever it is you’re doing seems to still work and keep me coming back.
Congrats! And no archive.org link? =| http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://osnews.com
random pick: http://web.archive.org/web/20020520101524/www.osnews.com/comment.ph…
not so random pick: http://web.archive.org/web/19980625180609/www.osnews.com/oped/09.97…
Edited 2007-08-27 02:45
in the last 6 years or so.
But that is a good thing! Congrats!
Thanks for you effort. Readers from many parts of the world, not only English-speaking countries, have read OSNews everyday. I’m from Bangkok and know someone in Beijing who is fan as well.
The content of the site has been very interesting over the years, and I usually enjoy the site.
The only thing thng which continues to bother me is the constant change w.r.t. browser support. Both Minimo and Opera on the Nokia 770 work fine on the site when the browser ID is hacked, but the OSNews site still seems to consider them second-class citzens, and I see tonight that the Opera version I use on the 770 can no longer post. It could a few days ago, and it has no issues on /. or a dozen other sites.
It’s ironic that a site which is supposedly about alternative OSes is the only one I use which seems to have these issues.
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux armv5tejl; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061130 Minimo/0.016
Happy Birthday OSNews, OSNews give us all a platform to voice our opinions on various topics. Personally I get to keep in touch with what’s going around in the TechWorld without any effort on my part. Thanks and Congratulations to the OSNews team for their hard work (most of which is volunteer work).
I remember them well, we were all in awe of an alternative OS that blazed a trail on our PC’s that couldn’t be touched by Windows or Mac OS. My, how times have changed and not for the better in some instances.
Still, hardware has improved to give the 2 mainstream commercial OS’s the impression of being fast. LOL
Already been ten times we heard “This is the year of Desktop Linux”?
😉
Yeah, but it’s really the Year of Desktop Linux this time!
Every day or so I cannot resist checking the blogs at http://www.teslamotors.com. Likewise I once installed BeOS on an ancient 333-mhz Pentium-II, and it was remarkably zippy in performance, a clue as to “what could be”.
So I AGREE with your assessment of the fundamentality of BeOS failure, as has been remarked arguably due to Microsoft-business-strategy rather than lack of merit. Something-like-or-beyond-BeOS is a Big Shoe Waiting to Drop, somewhere in some secret lab, by analogy to teslamotors vs GM’s EV1.
OSNews is +10 now.
Can I cut the cake? I’ll give you an extra large slice Thom. 😀
/me Grabs the ice cream container.
Edited 2007-08-27 06:49
Congratulations for those 10 years of great articles !
Let’s continue for at least 10 more years 🙂
The only site that feels like home.
Reading through some of the archives, there was a lot of names there, names that are no longer on the site.
How many of these once very verbal people are no longer around ?
They might have settled with an OS and did not feel the need to discuss others, or they might not actually be around this life anymore.
So pause for a moment and remember those long forgotten people we once argued with.
Where is “Linux is Poo” ?
OSnews just wouldn’t be the same without the flamewars … 🙂
Speaking of trolls, would it be a good idea to have the following in the list of reasons to mod down a comment?
“Yes, this comment is made by a troll”
OSNews was born on my birthday! I will remember that from now on (at least until senility sets in!).
I turned 48 this August 26th, btw.
I didn’t know it was 10 yrs old…keep up the good work!
Congratulations and keep up the good work. OSnews may not be perfect (what is?) but it has become one of the few web sites I visit almost daily.
Your site is one of few permanent sites to visit for me. Continue this way for next 10 and more years!
Wow, congratulations and thanks for all of you dedication and hard work!
Joyeux anniversaire
Joyeux anniversaire lalala
Joyeux anniversaire
Bob
Happy birthday OSNews!
Always love news/articles here
Your site has distarcted me from work like no other, and for that I thank you! 🙂
OSNews is one of a small, select group of tech news sites I keep coming back to again and again, because it gets the mix just right: the site is pleasing in both practical and aesthetic terms, the news is interesting and (for the most part) relevant, and the comments are generally informative.
Many happy returns to OSNews staff, and OSNews users – current and former alike – that have kept me coming back for the past five or so years, on this, your tenth birthday.
…you probably could have done it without me.
In fact, you did.
🙂
I want to participate in the next decade too! This is one of my favorite sites!