James Turner has announced the resignation of the entire editorial staff of LinuxWorld, a Sys-Con Media property, which is the second editorial staff to resign as a group over ethical violations by the media company.

Sys-Con runs and owns JDJ, formerly "Java Developer's Journal," which also had a large portion of its staff resign in June 2004 (including your Humble Author).

From Mr. Turner:

We regret that Sys-Con Media has been unable to apply a standard of journalistic ethics that we can comfortably operate under. We feel that recent articles published with the consent of Sys-Con Media fail to meet minimum generally accepted journalistic codes, and because the management of Sys-Con Media has failed to acknowledge that the articles are by all informed judgment ethically unsupportable, we have decided we must find other avenues for our work.

While Mr. Turner didn't say, specifically, a series of events might have contributed: Maureen O'Gara's articles on Pamela Jones (author of Groklaw), which resulted in Ms. O'Gara being forbidden use of Sys-Con as an outlet, and the publisher's interview with Free Software Magazine.

What does this mean for Sys-Con? What print magazines do you read, and what benefit do you get from them? If you were going to create a print magazine for Java, what would it look like?

If you were going to create a print magazine for Java, what would it look like?

It would have a snazzy blue to silver gradient across the top, with little red stars. Possibly use Comic Sans or Times New Roman for the title which would have the word "Java" in it. Oh, and I would have a picture of myself on the cover.

Joking aside, it's commendable what the editorial staff did. Even looking out for themselves, being tied to unethical practices can damage a career in the long run.

If you were going to create a print magazine for Java, what would it look like?

It would have a snazzy blue to silver gradient across the top, with little red stars. Possibly use Comic Sans or Times New Roman for the title which would have the word "Java" in it. Oh, and I would have a picture of myself on the cover.

Making notes... blue to silver... comic sans... and picture of Jacob.

Joking aside, it's commendable what the editorial staff did. Even looking out for themselves, being tied to unethical practices can damage a career in the long run.

Indeed. I resigned over the same kind of thing.

Sys-con pushing the line between crass page hits and advertizers
theserverside.com promising to really return from maintenance in 1 hour
Rolf and ruby on rails thinking they are relevant

I rest my case

Why not call it by the right name?

Large scale DoS attacks, anonymous emails, contacting and threatening Sys-Con customers.

Is that the way you want it?

It is a nice world we live in.

Why not call it by the right name? Large scale DoS attacks, anonymous emails, contacting and threatening Sys-Con customers.Is that the way you want it?It is a nice world we live in.

Did you read the article ?
Sys-Con solicited Pamela Jones home, read her mails, published her home address, her phone number, pictures of her home, her mailbox, her mother.
Published phone numbers she have been calling from her home phone.

Do you call it technicat IT article ?
Do you call it ethical journalist standarts ?

Who is bandit here ? Who is threatening who ?

Re: Large scale DoS attacks

Just because the publisher says it happened doesn't mean it happened. He went on record that he published the unethical Maureen O'Gara article because he thought it were factually true, and that he removed it because he was subjected to DoS attacks. The next day, he printed a note that he agreed with those who said the articles were unethical. His word doesn't carry much credibility, so you're going to have to find some solid proof that it wasn't the Slashdot effect.

Re: Anonymous e-mails

Like this is somehow representative of open source?

Re: Contacting and threatening Sys-Con customers

Contacting is not the issue. Threatening is. Every community has its trolls (in the literal sense). The responsible ones contacted the advertisers, pointed them to the Maureen O'Gara article, and asked them if that's the kind of article with which they want to be associated. As long as the question is phrased that way, there is no problem with it (the advertiser always has the option to say yes, it is the kind of article they want to be associated with).

"Excel in power of comprehending inferring and thinking in orderly rational ways"

hi hi

(i pronounced like in imbecile)

i read the page that someone linked to but am still a bit unclear. thanks in advance.

But here is the article from Google's cache that show what its all about.

I would like it to be a totally free magazine which has content for the project stakeholders/managers, architects, developers and novices.

I would like it to be like wikipedia style news service monitored by the subscribers themselves, may be by voulenteer editors and with no "middleware" magazine publishing company (may be by a not-for-profit org)!

I would like the print version also to be free ( and with no postage/mailing costs) and available *internationally* with custom advertizements based on the locale. If anyone pays the money, then it has to be the advertizers! not the readers!!

And, finally I would like the readers to be able to customize what kind of content they want to read and I would like to be able to have an UNSUBSCRIBE feature that really works (Note to SYS-CON: Why do you still spam me? I have clicked on amost every unsubscribe link you ever had in your email whitepaper crap!)

Managing my RSS feeds is getting to complex. I would rather have 100 Eric Thauvin's suggesting me what to read than me going thru 10000 RSS feeds. Best of all if I can get audio or print version, I can read it on the bus/train or listen to it while I drive!

I would rather have 100 Eric Thauvin's suggesting me what to read than me going thru 10000 RSS feeds. Best of all if I can get audio or print version, I can read it on the bus/train or listen to it while I drive!

That sounds surprisingly similiar to the theserverside.com :) If only TSS would find time to add podcasts (http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php) for, at least, its news section (techtalks to come next) - your dream (and mine) of the audio version ould come true, too :)

So now the anonymous voice of "Pamela Jones", can go on with slander and lies as before.

Paid by IBM, no doubt

So now the anonymous voice of "Pamela Jones", can go on with slander and lies as before.Paid by IBM, no doubt

Says the anonymous "Rolf Tollerud" which, rearranged is "ROFL trolled u".

*golfclap*

Now, as to the news itself, three cheers to the editorial staff for putting ethics first.

Says the anonymous "Rolf Tollerud" which, rearranged is "ROFL trolled u".*golfclap*

A golfclap to you sir for picking that up. Impressive.

I always thought it meant:

FUD ROLE TROLL

In any case he's not fooling anyone.. He gets $$ to FUD.

So now the anonymous voice of "Pamela Jones", can go on with slander and lies as before.Paid by IBM, no doubt

Says the anonymous "Rolf Tollerud" which, rearranged is "ROFL trolled u".*golfclap*Now, as to the news itself, three cheers to the editorial staff for putting ethics first.

So now the anonymous voice of "Pamela Jones", can go on with slander and lies as before.Paid by IBM, no doubt

So now the anonymous voice of "Rolf Tollerud", can go on with slander and lies as before.
Paid by Microsoft, no doubt

I too am happy the editorial staff did what they did.

Every Sys-Con publication has sucked for years, especially JDJ. I can't remember the last decent article I read in it.

Maybe that's why they keep bundling "archives" of the old JDJ collection...because the 5 year old issues are better than the current ones.

The last one I bought was 58 pages of which 50% was advertising. That's insane for a $10.00 magazine.

I paid $5.00 for advertisements!

Sys-Con runs and owns JDJ, formerly "Java Developer's Journal," which also had a large portion of its staff resign in June 2004 (including your Humble Author).

So, when you were Editor of JDJ, did Sys-con... pay you? You know, like a salary?

Sys-Con runs and owns JDJ, formerly "Java Developer's Journal," which also had a large portion of its staff resign in June 2004 (including your Humble Author).

So, when you were Editor of JDJ, did Sys-con... pay you? You know, like a salary?

Not full-time, no. I negotiated a small fee per-issue, and tried to negotiate the same for all of the editors, with, um, not a lot of success. I also volunteered to drop MY fee if they'd pay the authors of articles, also denied.

I was employed full-time by a consulting firm while also working with JDJ, which I imagine is the case for all Sys-Con editors.

I haven't been following this until the eruption last week. Can someone point me to links that fill in the backstory? The press release is a little, umm, sketchy, about the events leading up to this remarkable act.

Can someone point me to links that fill in the backstory? The press release is a little, umm, sketchy, about the events leading up to this remarkable act.

Here's Groklaw's article on the subject.


--
Igor Zavialov, Factoreal Corp.
Factoreal Web Service API for Financial Data

I did too. So I did a google search. Found the link to the syscon article then. Then I gooled that and read google's cache. :)

A good journal would be one that is less than 5% advertisements.

I don't even think most ACM and IEEE journals meet that criteria any more.

Just go on-line, most things are free. On-line journal databases are generally devoid of advertisements.

A good journal would be one that is less than 5% advertisements. I don't even think most ACM and IEEE journals meet that criteria any more. Just go on-line, most things are free. On-line journal databases are generally devoid of advertisements.

I think like all things it's a question of balance. Some of the magazines have continued to pile on the advertisers without spending effort to improve or even maintain the quality of the content. In a world in which most people don't work for free, commercial support is very hard to do without .. but if you want to work for free, send me your resume. ;-)

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Cluster your POJOs!

A good journal would be one that is less than 5% advertisements.

Which probably mean it's a dead journal as well (or a very expensive one).

I'm fine with advertisement, I just wish I had AdBlock for paper (at least, they can't put animated pictures on paper... yet).

--
Cedric

they can't put animated pictures on paper... yet).-- Cedric

You've not seen harry potter (the last movie)? :)

Many of SysCon's publications have been irrelevant for years. Don't believe me? Check out JDJ's Vol 10, Issue 3 with the banner "10 Years of Java Technology":

http://jdj.sys-con.com/read/issue/581.htm

What is the leading article? "Log4J vs. java.util.logging"

We've had 10 years of JDJ and that is the best they could come up with? I imagine that this series of resignations and the recent issues, as well as SysCon's irrelevancy, all point to poor leadership.

Bravo to the editorial staff, and the steps of many others in recent months, for boldly taking a stand and leaving in the face of unemployment and potential paycuts!

There isn't an editor in chief at all. Although at times I have proposed a title, like that example, the rest of the free writers can do their own thing. My editorials aren't necessarily the best things I've ever written but as Joe explains I do it for free.

What is the leading article? "Log4J vs. java.util.logging"We've had 10 years of JDJ and that is the best they could come up with?

Hmmm. The latest TSS newsletter references a one year old article from the FSF and three year old and woefully outdated article on appserver class loading. Stale or what?

James, this is Rodney from Lucent. I have lost your contact info. Please reply to rodney at knowledgelinkltd dot com
Thanks, Rodney

http://turner.linuxworld.com/read/1262099.htm The good news is, the right thing happened in the end. Sys-con Media listened to what I and my fellow editors, their advertisers and the readership was saying, and made the correct decision. Maureen O'Gara's bylined material will no longer appear anywhere in the Sys-con universe of sites or publications.

Sure, sure. Now the bad guys are out, the good guys are in. Don't let my sneakers laugh. Even if O'Gara was that evil, she did not publish the article in the magazine by herself. She is a journalist, not a publisher. There are editors, proofreaders, PR people, a whole bunch of overseeing.

O'Gara-free zone

Is he seventeen? Or it is a beginning of a sanctioned witchhunt? Every conspiracy theorist would tell you, that O'Gara was chosen to do what she did, then she was sacrificed like a pawn.

And rewriting the history (in this case by removing all her previous articles) is so passe. Someone still lives in 1984. Yawn.

John C. Dvorak, pcmag.com,
 

"I can tell you this much: Normal people do not like being associated with fanatics and lunatics. Once Linux gets the image as the OS for the criminally insane, it's a dead duck. Unless the community gets a handle on this, grows up, and rebukes the extremists, the trash heap of history is where this is all headed"

the Linux community is slowly evolving into a state of mob rule

John C. Dvorak, pcmag.com, 

"I can tell you this much: Normal people do not like being associated with fanatics and lunatics. Once Linux gets the image as the OS for the criminally insane, it's a dead duck.

Blah. AK-47 is the preferred weapon of fanatics and lunatics, at least according to Hollywood movies. Does this fact make it any worse a weapon? Fanatics prefer simple and working solutions. Businesses prefer the same if they want to survive.

There is no such thing as a Linux fanatic. The ordinary Linux user is fanatic enough, so there just isn't room for more.

And after the most extravagant hype in human history, with billions and billions from IBM they at last have an OS that can perform up to 1/3 of a Windowsbox. Great work! (wonder how it would have looked like if only "volunteers" had worked on it..)

Windows Server 2003 with IIS 6.0 delivered 300 percent better peak performance

Regards
Rolf Tollerud
(nowadays Linux servers are the main culprit in security too)

Interesting comment from Rick Ross:

During the past 10 days or so there has been a huge amount of public indignation over articles written by Maureen O'Gara about Groklaw's elusive Pamela Jones. I can accept that some may not like Maureen's style or approve of her investigative approach, but the responses have been ridiculously over the top. Apparently an angry mob has lost sight of the fact that those who regularly speak in public on issues of significance can expect to have their motives and viewpoints questioned. "Freedom of the press" and "right to privacy" are completely different things, and nobody who operates a site as visible as Groklaw should have any expectation of anonymity or even significant privacy. Let's get serious here, this is the post-Watergate world, and we not only have a right to information about who is speaking in the media, we have a need for it. Further, I have known Maureen for years, and I wouldn't trade her hunches and commitment to journalistic integrity for everything the whole besotted lot of former LinuxWorld editors could come up with between them. If she thinks there's a worthwhile story there, then there probably is. Her rabid denouncers all pretend to have high morals and ethics, but shopping at Whole Foods doesn't make them good people, and they aren't saving the world by trying to lynch Maureen O'Gara or illegally attacking SYS-CON's web site.

Does he have a valid point?

Peace.