Open Source in Tuttle, OK

[firecat]

A follow-up story:

http://www.tuttletimes.com/siteSearch/apstorysection/local_story_088201244.html

The city manager is quoted thus:

[CentOS is] a free operating system that this guy gives away, which tells you how much time he's got on his hands.

Comments

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

“I was just frustrated,” he said. “I’ve got a strange website coming up, and I don’t know who caused it.” Taylor said that he also did not regret threatening Hughes with FBI action, since he believes that was what prompted Hughes to start treating him seriously.

Helpful translation:
"I don't regret being an asshole; that's what prompted an innocent person who was helpful and kind in spite of my unwarranted aggression to do what I wanted."

Gads, but I wish I could do something to express my contempt.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Everytime I read more about this story, I can't understand how this guy has lived has long as he has without someone shoving a bowling ball down his throat.

And the Mayor seems to be clue resistant, if not actully clue-repellent.......

Halfway to hell

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

I think the thing to do is send him a postcard saying he's not being a good Christian.

Of course, for all we know Jesus wasn't very good at admitting his own mistakes either.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else see the usual note "The Tuttle Times attempted to contact Johnny Hughes for comment but he declined"? I didn't.

Might've been nice, that when the leadership of your fine burgh is slandering (or libeling, I always get them mixed up) the person who helped your sorry ass out, you try to get both sides of the story.

[kshandra]

Print is libel; voice is slander. (In short. $DEITY knows it gets more complicated than that.)

[firecat]

My translation agrees with yours.

[firecat]

There's a lot of people I wonder that about...

Re: Halfway to hell

[firecat]

Not a good Christian? But hey, he didn't use profanity. Don't you know that's all that matters?

[firecat]

That's your problem, RJ, you're such an idealist.

Re: Halfway to hell

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

I bet he was using profanity in his heart.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know: expecting people to do all of their job not just regurgitating a press release and calling it "reporting."

[brooksmoses]

Right, but if he's telling the reporter something that he expects to get printed...?

Re: Halfway to hell

[brooksmoses]

*falls over, applauds*

[patgund.livejournal.com]

(Chuckle) Well granted. Still, it makes me wonder when pig-ignorance and stupidity became something to be celebrated and supported. It's not so much that their city has become an international laughing stock, and that they libeled a company in the process, it's that they seem *proud* of this fact.

[firecat]

Our wonderings seem frequently to track along the same lines.

[firecat]

PS: Great icon!

[kmd.livejournal.com]

Um.

I wonder whether this will increase the number of folks likely to be willing to run CentOS on their system, or decrease that number.

My sense is decrease.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

"But Mr. Jamison, that's slander!"

"IT IS NOT!" (beat) "Slander is spoken. This is libel."

(One of my all-time favorite movie lines. It was so perfect.)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Thirded. This is a person whose first response to anything he doesn't understand is to become threatening and abusive; I sure hope he doesn't have any kids.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Many of them seem to reside in Oklahoma and Indiana.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I'd vote the other direction, as most people at the gummint user level will never, ever see CentOS.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

True enough. But the users don't choose the OS. Geeks will still choose CentOS after seeing this; they're the constant. No increase there. The folks who are, I believe, less likely to choose it after seeing this are IT managers or COOs who are not geeks. "CentOS? Isn't that the one that somebody in Texas or somewhere used and ended up getting abused by the programmer because he didn't understand something and then it was in all of the newspapers?"

Unless I'm mistaken, the incidence of MBA-types (i.e. non-geeks) making managerial decisions for IT is pretty high. Those are the folks who are going to be a whole lot less likely to choose CentOS if they read about this. IMA&EESHO.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I think there will be an uptick in geeks using CentOS simply because the news has made it moe visible and they might give it a look. No matter how geeky, everyone suffers from Too Much Stuff Not Enough Time. I don't think geeks will pick because of the dustup, just that more of them will become aware of it.

The MBA types in IT management ususally don't worry about the nuts and bolts decisions; they have a lower-level geek put stuff together. As long as the price is good (and you don't get better pricing than "free"), the MBA types will go on about the rest of their day. IMO.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

Except of course the actual price is not free or else everyone would be using it right now. Training, staff hours to do the switch, limitations on other software to use, etc.

MBA-types do indeed have lower-level geeks put stuff together. Proposals. Then they review them. If they associate CentOS with this story in any way, they're going to run screaming.

Thought experiment. Imagine you are not a geek. Imagine that you work with geeks, and manage them. Imagine you read this story, or worse, you read the original email exchange. Who are you going to identify with?

Hint: not Johnny Hughes

[garviegirl.livejournal.com]

Sorry to just crash in, but I really wanted to comment.

You're right; I should have tried to contact Johnny. I did try, but not really hard. I looked for an e-mail for him, and when I didn't find it quickly, I didn't press it. The main gist of the story was supposed to be how this thing affected the local community, and what it meant to local people, and that's what I went for. I didn't want to get too technical because it needed to be something that my 80 year old subscribers who don't even have a computer could have a chance at understanding. The subscribers were the audience I was aiming for, even though I knew this story would have a larger following.

Another roadblock is the fact that the news team at the Times is just me, and we had several other stories break that week that also needed close attention.

Johnny contacted me after the story ran, and I put his letter in the April 6 issue of the paper. I was glad to have his second viewpoint in the paper, plus it took the issue a little deeper for those readers who wanted to know more.

I know some people online are saying I was biased for the city manager, but to be honest, I thought I was being hard on Jerry by putting his quotes in the article. I think he did too; the link from the city website to the paper has been removed and I haven't heard from him since the interview. Such is life.

[firecat]

Thanks for your comments. It's interesting to see the inner workings and all the decisions you had to make!

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

As an ex-journalist, I attest that this sounds exactly like the way things can work out, especially on a smaller paper with a smaller staff.

All you needed to do to be "hard" on the city manager was to state the facts of the case, including quoting him directly, as you say. He doesn't sound like he backs down from grudges very easily, so good luck with future newsgathering.