Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC slander

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Friday 06 February 2004 9:56 am, P.L.Hayes wrote:
> _Lots_ of people complained to the BBC and we all received a brush-off
> response from the editor. The offending article is still there in both the
> technology and business sections. I know some of the people that post in
> here run businesses based on free software/open source/GNU/Linux and I
> wonder if you are as outraged as many others have been? Has the BBC gone
> too far this time? Does anyone know how to make some kind of formal
> complaint? - someone on /. mentioned the Press Complaints Commission but
> apparently they are only for newspapers and magazines.

This is surprisingly naff, but certainly up to the standards of recent BBC 
"journalism".  The Broadcasting Standards Commission is now part of Ofcom at 
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/.  Could you perhaps draft a balanced note to them, 
and air it here first, before despatch?  You might include such points as:
- there is absolutely no evidence that this attack has been orchestrated by 
Linux users;
- leading members of the free/open-source community have specifically 
condemned this attack (eg http://www.perens.com/SCO/DOS/);
- it is increasingly accepted by commentators that the SCO case is ulikely to 
succeed, and therefore there would be no sense in Linux users undertaking 
such an attack, especially since the case has been ongoing for almost a year 
now;
- the journalist appears to have only a very superficial understanding of the 
issues involved, and yet he has been content to cast a slur on all users of 
Linux, among them many companies and government units, including the BBC;
- the virus progagates due to basic shortcomings in Windows, yet there is no 
criticism of either this operating system or its users.

-- 

Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.kyfieithu.co.uk - Meddalwedd Rhydd yn Gymraeg