[ILUG] The response to yesterday's mail to Mr. Campbell

[Irish Linux Users Group Committee]

The following is the response from Mr. Campbell regarding our mail
from yesterday.  We have decided that Mr. Campbell is not interested
in pursuing an amicable discussion on this topic.  We will issue a
press release later explaining that we are done discussing this with
Mr. Campbell, that we appreciate RTE's clarification and that we consider
the matter closed.

Thanks,

The Committee

----------

Hi Thomas

Two problems. One, legally, you can't libel a group (see
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg0064 7.h
tml), so I'm not sure who your 'legal people' are. That said, I have no
intention of offending anyone or any group.

Secondly, it is easy to pull selective quotes from a spoken context and
re-interpret the meaning. It is clear from the interview that I was not
suggesting that the entire group of people were responsible for the
virus, and I don't believe that.

What I said (inarticulately) is that I suspected that the creator was a
supporter of open source. Clearly many open source people think so, when
they urge other open source supporters "not to cheer" the virus - why
would they say that otherwise?

Other people have suggested other explanations, and people can make
their own mind up.

If you believe I have libelled someone (who?) they have a remedy in law.

I'm not interested in the opinions of your contributors, who can post
what they like; however you may not publish libellous comments on your
website, regardless of their source.

Not a single post could refute what I actually said, so they made up
quotes instead. The posts that I object to contain psuedo-quotes
attributed to me which are totally inaccurate, and draw inferences from
them that I am less than professional. Publishing such falsehoods is
libellous. For example:

*********

Not only did it show William Campbell to be horrifically

>>>ill-informed, but what he did say was downright slanderous of OSS,

>>>Linux and OpenOffice.org.

*************
 
Perhaps it's a corollary to the old saw that
 
Those who can, do, those who can't, teach.
 
. . . .  and those who are completely clueless run training companies.

***********************

"SCO was attacked, ergo it was done by Linux users, ergo Linux is evil."
Spot the fallacy.
 
but also,
"Someone who sells a Windows related service made some rather foundless
claim pointing the finger at open-source, therefore all windows users
wouldn't know a clue if it bit them on the A-"NO CARRIER
 

*************

He implies that there was some organised effort in the open source
community to create MyDoom, but doesn't present any evidence for
this. I personally won't believe it until I see the project on
sourceforge :)

*************

Lastly, I note that the 'do not release' message went straight onto your
website.

:-)

William