Earlier today we reported that eWeek columnist and renowned freetard Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (aka King of the Freetards) was copying material from press releases and shamelessly passing it off as his own. See that story here. Well, there’s more. Turns out this guy rips off more material than Microsoft. And that’s saying something. An FSJ Spotlight Team investigation has turned up other examples of shameless plundering by Vaughan-Nichols, who is also founder and editor of Linux-Watch and chairman of the Internet Press Guild, a journalism watchdog group that has in the past accused fellow hacks of unethical behavior. No word yet on what action if any Ziff-Davis intends to take here. Iulia and Natasha are digging through mountains of evidence and so far have turned up the following.

Example #1. Please compare this Vaughan-Nichols article about Red Hat and this Red Hat press release.

Press release:
These capabilities provide customers with a practical means of using their total compute capacity with maximum efficiency and flexibility, while improving the speed and availability of any application. Additionally, Red Hat and the University of Wisconsin have signed a strategic agreement to make Condor’s source code available under an OSI-approved license and jointly fund ongoing co-development at the University of Wisconsin.

Vaughan-Nichols article:
Red Hat claims that these capabilities provide customers with a practical means of using their total compute capacity with maximum efficiency and flexibility, while improving the speed and availability of any application. Additionally, Red Hat and the University of Wisconsin have signed a strategic agreement to make Condor’s source code available under several OSI-approved licenses and jointly fund ongoing co-development at the University of Wisconsin.

Example #2. Please compare this Vaughan-Nichols article about Eaton Corp. and this press release by Eaton Corp.

Eaton Corp. press release:
Compatible with Ubuntu releases from 6.06 to 7.10, the software will allow UPSintegration by default to assure communication, monitoring and graceful shutdown during prolonged power disturbances for the popular Linux-based operating system. The Personal Solution Pac (PSP) software is targeted at desktop and SOHOusers while the Network Shutdown Module (NSM) offers a range of advanced functionality for network installations and enterprise applications.

Vaughan-Nichols article:
This program is compatible with Ubuntu releases from 6.06 to 7.10. It enables Ubuntu systems to smoothly integrate with Easton UPS systems and assures communication, monitoring and graceful shutdown during prolonged power disturbances. The PSP (Personal Solution Pac) software is targeted at desktop and SOHO users while the NSM (Network Shutdown Module) offers a range of advanced functionality for network installations and enterprise applications.

Example #3. Please compare this article by Vaughan-Nichols about a CIO Insight poll with this article by CIO Insight announcing the results of the poll.

CIO Insight article:
This is the fifth year CIO Insight has polled IT executives on how well their major vendors deliver business value, reliability and quality.

Vaughan-Nichols article:
For the fifth year, CIO Insight polled IT executives on how well their major vendors deliver business value, reliability and quality.

Example #4. Please compare this Vaughan-Nichols article about Novell and this press release from Novell.

First sentence of Novell press release:
Novell today announced a new initiative to increase revenue and profitability for solution providers and consulting partners who specialize in selling Novell® technologies.

First paragraph of Vaughan-Nichols article:
Novell’s channel partners have not been happy lately. Novell knows that, and on Nov. 19, the Linux power announced a new initiative to increase revenue and profitability for solution providers and consulting partners that specialize in selling Novell technologies.

Next sentences from Novell press release:
Among other benefits, Novell will offer enhanced partner education, joint marketing opportunities, and free technical support for those partners demonstrating expertise in selling and supporting Novell software. Novell is also creating a new partner executive sales team which will be dedicated to, and compensated on, partner success. Working with Novell now gives partners even more compelling options for delivering IT value to their customers.

Next sentences from Vaughan-Nichols article:
Among other benefits, Novell will offer enhanced partner education, joint marketing opportunities and free technical support for those partners demonstrating expertise in selling and supporting Novell software. Novell is also creating a new partner executive sales team that will be dedicated to partner success. Working with Novell now gives partners even more compelling options for delivering IT value to their customers, the company said.

Example #5. Please compare this Vaughan-Nichols article about the GNU Affero license and this Free Software Foundation press release about that license.

FSF press release:
“The GNU GPL allows people to modify the software they receive, and share those modified versions with others, as long as they make source available to the recipients when they do so. However, a user can modify the software and run the modified version on a network server without releasing it. Since use of the server does not imply that people can download a copy of the program, this means the modifications may never be released. Many programmers choose to use the GNU GPL to cultivate community development; if many of the modifications developed by the programs’ users are never released, this can be discouraging for them. The GNU AGPL addresses their concerns. The FSF recommends that people consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network.”

Vaughan-Nichols article:
“By itself, the GPLv3 allows people to modify the software they receive and share those modified versions with others, as long as they make the source code available to the recipients when they do so. However, a user can modify the software and run the modified version on a network server without releasing it. Since use of the server does not imply that people can download a copy of the program, this means the modifications may never be released. Many programmers choose to use the GPL to cultivate community development, but if many of the modifications developed by the programs users are never released, this defeats the community-building aspect of the GPL.

As the AGPL addresses these concerns, the FSF recommends that people consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network.”