It came as no surprise that Sys-Con Media, the publishers of the dimly Linux-related scandal rag have decided to let their technology industry stalker Maureen O’Gara go; at least that is what they are saying publicly.
The evidence fails to support this statement. Those of us who have the patience to wait for a response from Sys-Con’s spavined web-servers show a site that remains full of the toxic belchings of “MoG”. In any case, the unexpected anti-popularity Maureen’s “Linux Business News” website is far more effective than any DDoS attack conceived by even the most sadistic hacker.
For all her outspoken bravado, the surge of visitors from Slashdot and Groklaw has all but wiped out Sys-Con’s ability to serve pages. This implies that even the small proportion of the Slashdot and Groklaw audience that cares about this issue is many times greater than the entire expected audience for the whole of Sys-Con.
This is hardly surprising, as Sys-Con are a third division publisher, with a reputation for journalistic integrity somewhat below that of “DC Thompson” (the Penny-pinching publisher of the Beano). A browse of Sys-Con’s wonky archives is about as stimulating as being clubbed repeatedly in the testicles whilst being made to stare at flashing Microsoft adverts.
Maureen is not the first baddie in the SCO vs IBM dispute to be brought low by an overwhelming public response; I note with some satisfaction that Rob Enderle has not been typing out anti-Linux tracts on his Ferrari Laptop. Rob has somewhat backed-off his bullish predictions of SCO winning billions at IBM’s expense. Perhaps he has better things to do since most of his readers now realize him to be a dull ranting troll who is still bitter about getting sacked by IBM.
The grandly-named “Alexis de Toqueville Institution”, have also decided to butt-out of this argument. AdTI’s director Kenneth Brown’s rose to fame by publishing an paper which claimed to prove that Linux was an unauthorized derivative of Minix.
The most remarkable thing about this paper was that it was debunked by it’s primary source before it was even published. Since then, the extent of AdTI’s contribution to this debate has been a half-arsed list of apparent contradictions and sarcastic remarks on their scraggy, sorry excuse for a web-site.
The difference between O’Gara and Enderle / Brown is that the latter two knew when to walk away. Maureen is made of braver stuff, and she has plummeted further and with less grace; Merely deleting her words from the LBN website by no means constitutes an apology. She has irked the Linux zealots who will be after her, for as long as she provides interesting sport.
But I don’t think Maureen will be one to give up so soon; I expect that like any good villain she will return. I look forwards to her next outlandish and sinister plot. Will she resort to murder or kidnap to up the stakes in this most personal conflict? Nah, she needs to make a bigger statement:
What would be the journalistic equivalent of launching a giant space-laser? Perhaps starting to write for “Pro-Sco”: Sco’s ill-concieved attempt to counter Groklaw. I hear that it is in desperate need of some editorial input right now and I know an editor who needs a new job.
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