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Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste is at it again


A while back the FSJ Spotlight Team revealed that noted freetard hack Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols — a writer for eWeek, author of the Linux Watch website, and founder/president of the Internet Press Guild — was lifting chunks of press releases and putting them into his stories, verbatim, under his byline. We found about a dozen examples (see the “Copygate” label below to follow the whole sad tale, or just click here.)

Well, for a while Mr. Cut-and-Paste cleaned up his act. Sort of. He still kept lifting big chunks of releases, but he at least took the time to put these entire paragraphs into quote marks, though in one case he was sloppy enough to carry over the lifted material with typo intact. Ahem.

Well, I just got an update from Iulia and Natasha in Krasnodar, who say: “Guess what, Dear Leader? That fucker at eWeek is at it again.”

Check out this press release from Red Hat and this article about Red Hat’s earnings which carried the byline of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. You might notice a few similarities:

Red Hat
At year end, the company’s total deferred revenue balance was $472.9 million, an increase of 40% on a year-over-year basis and 12% sequentially. Total cash, cash equivalents and investments as of February 29, 2008 were $1.3 billion.

Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste

At year end, the company’s total deferred revenue balance was $472.9 million, an increase of 40% on a year-over-year basis and 12% sequentially. Total cash, cash equivalents and investments as of February 29, 2008 were $1.3 billion.

Or check this out:

Red Hat

Non-GAAP operating cash flow, as detailed in the tables below, totaled $71.6 million or approximately 50% of revenue for the quarter and $264.3 million for the full year.

Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste
The 2008 fiscal year’s non-GAAP operating cash flow totaled $71.6 million, or approximately 50 percent of revenue for the quarter and $264.3 million for the full year.

Also see this March 18 press release from Novell and this article by Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste.

Novell:
In addition, the companies plan to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP’s data center infrastructure requirements, further promote SAPĀ® Business All-in-One solutions based on SUSE Linux Enterprise and collaborate within the SAP Enterprise Services Community program to help strengthen customers related to the SAP governance, risk and compliance (GRC) practices.

Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste:
According to the press release, Novell and SAP will optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP’s data center applications, further promote SAP’s SUSE Linux-based Business All-in-One solutions and work within the SAP Enterprise Services Community program on behalf of customers in ways related to SAP’s GRC (governance, risk and compliance) practices.

Or see this March 11 press release and this March 11 article by Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste.

LinMin
LBMP can remotely provision (natively install and configure Linux and customer-specified applications) as well as image (snapshot and rollback entire systems for disaster recovery and clone systems for mass deployment) servers, blades, PCs, appliances and virtual machines. LBMP enables systems to be rapidly deployed, repurposed and recovered.

Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste:
According to the company, LBMP can be used to remotely provision-that is, natively install and configure Linux and customer-specified applications-and image systems. These images can then be used for rollbacks or to clone servers, PCs, appliances and virtual machines for mass deployment.

LinMin
An annual subscription to LBMP costs $100 for 10 client systems, $400 for 100 client systems and $750 for 250 clients systems. Perpetual licenses are also available.

Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste
An annual subscription to LBMP costs $100 for 10 client systems, $400 for 100 client systems and $750 for 250 client systems. Perpetual licenses are also available.

Katie says she’s never seen anything like it. She says someone at eWeek needs to sit down and give this guy some kind of tutorial or something.


News flash: Linux developer has sex, doesn’t have to pay.


The freetard community is in a tizzy over this one. I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later as Linux became more mainstream. See the full story here. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is already cutting and pasting this story into something that will appear under his own byline.


Copygate update: eWeek freetard hack spanked by Ziff-Davis colleague


Not for being a lazy copycat who lifts press releases word for word, — a fact first revealed by the FSJ Spotlight Team last week — but simply for being a biased, unreliable freetard. See this piece by Microsoft fanboy Joe Wilcox where he tears Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste a new one for intentionally misreporting the results of a Linux Foundation survey to make it seem like Linux is taking over the world when in fact, um, it’s not.

But the real bonus here is that SJVN is still up to his copycat ways, though he’s making a little more effort to cover his tracks. Like, now when he lifts entire paragraphs he puts quote marks around them. For example in his latest story he lifts a paragraph from a Linux Foundation guy’s blog and puts it in quotes to make it look like he interviewed the guy. Giveaway is that the Linux Foundation guy made a dumb mistake — he used the word “import” on his blog when he meant to say “important” — and the goof survives, intact, in Steven J.’s article.

Does this guy even bother to read the stuff when he’s stealing it? Hilarious! Check it out:

From Linux Foundation blog:

These responses definitely came from an “enterprise deployment” perspective. When IT decision makers and system administrators listed the issues with deploying pre-installed Linux offerings, they indicated that freedom trumps convenience. When deploying corporate desktop systems, the administrators want the freedom in defining settings and configuration options. The choice of Linux distribution is import [boldface mine, ed.] as well. IT organizations do not want to be locked into the Linux distribution vendor that is pre-installed on the hardware they have selected.

From the version published by Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste:

Cherry added, “These responses definitely came from an ‘enterprise deployment’ perspective. When IT decision makers and system administrators listed the issues with deploying preinstalled Linux offerings, they indicated that freedom trumps convenience. When deploying corporate desktop systems, the administrators want the freedom in defining settings and configuration options. The choice of Linux distribution is import [doh! ed.] as well. IT organizations do not want to be locked into the Linux distribution vendor that is preinstalled on the hardware they have selected.”

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is the chairman of the Internet Press Guild, a journalism watchdog group. I am not making this up. Much love to dear reader Tim for alerting us to this latest outrage. And to Jason for the artwork. And to the brave editors and management of eWeek and Ziff-Davis for leaving this guy in his job and providing this ongoing stream of achingly funny entertainment. Great work, eWeek editors. Your high standards and commitment to integrity are an inspiration to us all.