IBM Germany has refuted a Groklaw report that the division has decided to migrate Windows desktops to Linux rather than upgrade them to Vista. Groklaw's story was based on statements reportedly made by an IBM sales executive in a presentation at LinuxForum 2006. This morning, Hans Rehm, of IBM Germany's Press Relations department, emailed DesktopLinux.com the following, somewhat ambiguous, statement.
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Member since:2005-11-11
//I know this is probably going to come as a shock but ... just because you and a bunch of your friends disagree with an article, that has no bearing on its objectivity. Groklaw is indeed utterly biased in favor of OSS. You might be able to prove otherwise if you could provide evidence of Groklaw articles whose primary thesis is opposition to OSS. But you're not going to find that; hence, the taint of bias.//
One avoids alleagtions of bias by sticking to facts and not omitting any relevant facts. This is largely what the Groklaw site does. Check it out by going to a site that actually dislikes Groklaw and also posts the facts - scofacts.org or (to some extent) the SCOX board on Yahoo. You will find plenty of angst over Groklaw but it is nearly all related to Groklaws comments policy ... there is no valid accusation that Groklaw does not stick to facts or that Groklaw hides facts.
For the topic which Groklaw covers, which clearly was a striaght-out scam extortion attempt by SCO to diddle every Linux installation of $699 for no reason at all, there are no facts which support SCO. No evidence of their allegations whatsoever. The judge has even said as much.
Sorry, but one does not "avoid the taint of bias" by making up stuff that supports the fraudulent SCO side of the story.
Similarly, the article about the names of applications in Linux and the ease via which a newbie could find the program they were after ... that article completely avoided the relevant facts. It avoided any mention of the menu context ... even though that context was shown in the screenshot of the original article. It also avoided any mention of the peculiar way in which Windows menus are grouped by default - grouped under the name of the software product vendor - which is hardly a clue to make it easier for newbies to find a paint application as opposed to their DVD player application.
Stick to the plain facts, and you avoid any valid criticism of bias.
Make up facts (such as "Linux names are harder", or "this detail really supports SCO") does nothing to avoid any valid criticism of bias, and in fact it just makes a lie out of your article.
Edited 2006-03-13 00:34
Member since:
2006-01-06
The Linux menus are clearly far easier for any newbie to find the right application. I know this is probably going to come as a shock but ... just because you and a bunch of your friends disagree with an article, that has no bearing on its objectivity. Groklaw is indeed utterly biased in favor of OSS. You might be able to prove otherwise if you could provide evidence of Groklaw articles whose primary thesis is opposition to OSS. But you're not going to find that; hence, the taint of bias.