[gentoo-dev] Re: Misquoted in the GWN

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Henrik Brix Andersen posted <20051128094800.GA32340@dmz.brixandersen.dk>,
excerpted below,  on Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:01 +0100:

> So I fired up a web browser and there it was - first section in the GWN
> [1]. Seems the GWN authors have read my blog entry [2] and decided to
> bring their own version of it to the public.
> 
> * The GWN talks about WiFi Protected Access (WPA). My Blog talks about
>   IEEE 802.11/wired authentication in general.

Prefacing my comments with a big **IN** **MY** **OPINION** as a Gentoo
user and (now) reader of that blog entry and this thread, for whatever you
take such reader/user opinion to be worth (or not worth).

Your blog does indeed mention IEE 802.11/wired authentication.  However,
it parallels xsupplicant and wpa_supplicant, saying they do the same
thing, without making clear that (implied) wpa_supplicant does more than
wpa.

Thus, a reader not familiar with the technical details (such as myself,
and apparently the GWN folks) could very easily fail to account as
important the "general" reference, and equate WPA to the general case,
where you (above, but not in the blog) make clear there's some difference.

This certainly doesn't excuse their not running it by you, as they should
have done, to clear up exactly this sort of error, if any, but it's a very
reasonable error to make.  Reading the blog, I made exactly the same
error, and Grobian says he came to more or less the same conclusion.

Not running it by you is a serious mistake, but given you asked for
comments in the blog entry, you are now getting them, even if part of them
have to do with a misunderstanding /of/ that blog entry.

> * The GWN talks about "my plans" for deprecating xsupplicant. My blog
>   doesn't say anything about this.

Not in so many words, no, but the meaning is clear, <quote>

To justify having to maintain two packages (along with rcscripts) with the
exact same purpose,

</quote>.  Reading between the lines, as one in a newsweekly may
legitimately need to do in ordered to summarize a statement, what /other/
meaning could be taken from that, than that should such justification not
be forthcoming from the feedback/discussion, deprecation of the now
unjustified package would be the result?

Again, no excuse for not running it by you, certainly no excuse for not
linking the blog entry directly (that one I can't see at all, as sourcing
is /always/ a mark of reputable journalism, and it would have been /so/
easy, in this case), but it's certainly what your blog implies the
ultimate result will be, barring something legit coming up in the feedback
you are now requesting.

> * The GWN talks about removing xsupplicant from Gentoo Portage. My
>   blog certainly doesn't say anything about this.

Same as above, the  ultimate result of deprecation would be removal, altho
with open source, where one never knows what else is out there depending
on something, ultimate removal of deprecated items is normally something
done on a timeline of years, not months, so this could reasonably be
assumed to be well in the future.

> * The GWN doesn't even link to my blog entry, from which they must
>   have gotten the initial idea for this article, thus not allowing their
>   readers to see that the information provided is incorrect.

This, IMO, was the gravest error.  I believe they reproduced the gist of
the blog entry entirely faithfully (note that said gist of what's actually
there may differ DRASTICALLY from what was intended, the reason running
any official commentary by the original author is a VERY GOOD idea), but
there remains /no/ excuse for not linking it, however faithful their
summary may have been and regardless of whether it was run by you or not.
Again, quoting source is one of the marks of reputable journalism, so
failing to do so /also/ has strong implications on the reliability of the
journalism.

Failure to link the source is IMO inexcusable.  The take appears to be
entirely logical and reasonable, and what I got from reading it as well. 
However, that doesn't change a journalist's responsibility to at least
link the source, where possible (as it was here), and to run the article
by the subject in question where time and opportunity permits.

I'd say chalk it up to a learning experience.  GWN, as is customary with
such things, should print a correction and apology next issue, and one
would hope such a mistake isn't made again.

Again, the above is simply IN MY OPINION as a reader of all three
locations (this thread, the GWN entry, and the blog entry, in that order),
and a Gentoo user, simply trying to "read the tea leaves" <g> well enough
to get some sense of what's ahead for him on this journey that is Gentoo.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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