Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Rare video of eWeek copycat Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste


Spotted in the wild! It’s former eWeek copycat hack Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (aka the King of All Freetard Hacks, aka the founder and self-appointed president of the Internet Press Guild) reporting live from a Linux trade show right before he got axed in a recent round of Ziff-Davis layoffs. You think Ricky Gervais created some excruciating moments in the British version of “The Office”? You ain’t seen nothing. Watch this poor frigtard really struggle when he’s caught live on camera and isn’t allowed to copy from a Red Hat press release. Though you have to admit, the camera really loves him. Note the really professional zoom-in-zoom-out technique of fellow freetard hack (and Slashdot boss and former limo driver) Robin “Roblimo” Miller. To see the original go here.


Tuesday, April 1, 2008

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 SAP® 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.


Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Holy mother of God. They’re trying to bring back OS/2.

Not all of it, just part of it. But still. Worse yet, the rumor is they want to combine it with Linux and create a new Frankenstein monster. It was bad enough to see IBM trying to resurrect Lotus Symphony as a freebie product. Now I guess they figure why not toss out some pieces of OS/2 while we’re at it. For more on the looming OS/2 nightmare see this story by Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-And-Paste from eWeek, who naturally thinks this is a wonderful idea because OS/2, as we all remember, was far and away the second-best operating system of the 1980s, and IBM is this huge Linux booster so anything they do is obviously wonderful in the eyes of the freetard hackery, unless it’s something like suing Amazon over patents, in which case the freetards simply pretend it didn’t happen.

Also: I know we’ve now mentioned two stories in a row by this illustrious hack, Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-And-Paste. If you’re wondering how this happened, here’s the story: The FSJ Spotlight Team is still monitoring this guy to see how long it takes for him to start reprinting press releases verbatim again. We’re pretty sure that sooner or later he’ll be back to his old habits. So far, however, he hasn’t slipped up. To be sure, he’s still writing mostly from press releases, and lifting huge chunks of them, but now he carefully puts these huge chunks inside quote marks. Which I guess qualifies as journalism. Sort of.

FWIW, the OS/2 story isn’t taken from a press release. It’s sourced this way: “I’m told by developers who should know …” In other words, IBM is feeding him stuff. So much easier than having to write it for him in the form of a press release.


Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Christmas card from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols


This just arrived in the mail — a Christmas card from Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste of eWeek. Message on back:

Dear Fake Steve:

Season’s greetings from North Carolina! Look what I got for Christmas. Can you say “distributed denial of service”? Ha! Watch your back, jackass. I’m free as in freedom, and you’re a dead man walking.

Luv,

SJVN


Tuesday, December 18, 2007

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.


Wednesday, December 12, 2007

We’ve prepared a tutorial for eWeek hacks


Recently our FSJ Spotlight Team has discovered that eWeek columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (show hard at work, right) has been plundering press releases and reprinting huge sections of them, verbatim, in stories under his byline. (Ironically these stories are then copyrighted by eWeek parent company Ziff-Davis, which means other hacks can’t copy them from eWeek. Outrageous!) The “Copygate” scandal ratcheted up a notch yesterday after Vaughan-Nichols published an indignant response to our investigation in which he admits to lifting press releases and putting his name on them but then says FSJ is a bastard for calling him on this — because, he says, all reporters do this.

But Katie insists that’s not the case. She says in all her years doing PR and communications, she’s never seen a case of a hack lifting entire chunks of press releases and publishing them verbatim under a byline.

Frankly we’re amazed that this renowned journalist, who is chairman of the Internet Press Guild, remains uninformed about this issue. In an effort to be helpful, our communications team has prepared some links which Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste and his editors at eWeek might find useful.

1. Fred Brown, who is vice chairman of the Ethics Committee at the Society of Professional Journalists and helped draft that organization’s Code of Ethics, responded to our email inquiry seeking his opinion about reporters copying press releases into bylined articles.

Fred’s emailed response: “SPJ’s code of ethics advises journalists to ‘never plagiarize’ — it’s the only absolute in the code — but it doesn’t explicitly define what that means. I’d say it means using someone else’s work without giving the author credit. Copying from a press release, without putting that copied material in quotes and saying where it comes from, is, at the very least, lazy and sloppy — and for that reason unethical. But it falls somewhat short of the more egregious forms of plagiarism. As you say, I’m sure the people who produced the press releases are happy to have their carefully parsed words repeated verbatim.”

(Worth noting: The Internet Press Guild, where Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste is chairman, claims it adheres to standards set by the Society of Professional Journalists. Ahem.)

2. Here’s an article from the American Press Institute titled “When does sloppy attribution become plagiarism?”

Money quote: “Substantial theft of whole passages of a press release is no different from substantial theft from another source. It doesn’t matter that the organization offered the press release for publication and welcomes your verbatim publication. The obligation to be original is an obligation to readers, not just sources. Consent of the source doesn’t override that obligation to readers. …Our credibility is precious and a sloppy journalist is hardly better than a crooked journalist.”

3. The Seattle Times provides this set of plagiarism guidelines in a Q&A format for its reporters. Money quote:

“Q. What about press releases? Can we lift information verbatim from a news release for background or boilerplate?
A. We discourage using verbatim language from news releases. Quotes from them should be attributed in the text, “…said in a news release,” or with similar language.”

Um, Ziff-Davis editors? Are you paying attention? Of course not. If you were, you’d have noticed this yourselves.


Monday, December 10, 2007

More incidents of copying by Vaughan-Nichols. We’re not kidding.


Well the hack of all hacks, eWeek’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka “King of the Freetards,” turns out to be the gift that keeps on giving. Our FSJ Spotlight Team has turned up even more examples of reverse engineered stories, and we’re only back to October. Good grief.

See this story about KDE which appeared with the byline of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on DesktopLinux.com, and this press release from the developers who make KDE.

Or compare this article about a KACE survey under the byline of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols with this press release by a company called KACE. Complete sentences, lifted in whole.

Or compare this article about Red Hat published under the byline of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols to this press release from Red Hat. Complete sentences lifted, word for word.

Or compare this story about an Everex computer under the byline of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and this story about the same computer but under the byline of Ben Hall on a website called The Green Lounge. Entire sentences, identical. Who knows which came first? To be sure, it may be that the other guy copied Vaughan-Nichols. Or maybe they both copied the same press release.

Or see this article about Ubuntu under a Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols byline, and this press release by Canonical. Whole sentences lifted.

Or compare this story about Novell’s new version of SuSE Linux which bears a Vaughan-Nichols byline and this press release from Novell. Entire sentences lifted, word for word.

Namaste, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. I honor the place where the language of corporate press releases and the content of your articles become one. And as your wonderful online bio points out, it does appear that after all these years of writing about technology you just may have learned something along the way. Much love.

UPDATE: Readers, for a real howl, check out this piece where Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste offers a little insight into how much he loves himself. Honestly, it’s priceless.


More shameless copying by eWeek’s freetard hack


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.”


Shame on you, Steven J. Vaughan Nichols. Shame!


Well the freetards are back at it again, stealing material and disregarding copyrights. Check out this article from Linux-Watch about Novell delaying its earnings reports because the SEC is probing its accounting. The article carries the byline of renowned freetard hack Steven J. Vaughan Nichols (shown here with his life partner). But the article bears some eerie resemblances to this press release from Novell. Note the following bits of reverse engineering:

Novell press release:
Novell delivered a response letter to the SEC on Sept. 20, 2007. On Oct. 18, 2007, Novell received a second comment letter from the SEC indicating that the SEC had reviewed Novell’s response to the Aug. 7, 2007 letter. The second comment letter was limited to certain accounting matters. Novell responded to the SEC’s second comment letter on Nov. 7, 2007 and is awaiting a response.

Vaughan Nichols article:
Novell delivered a response letter to the SEC on Sept. 20, 2007. On Oct. 18, Novell received a second comment letter from the SEC indicating that the SEC had reviewed Novell’s response to the Aug. 7, 2007 letter. The second comment letter was limited to certain accounting matters. Novell responded to the SEC’s second comment letter on Nov. 7, 2007 and is still awaiting an SEC response.

Novell press release:
“We are confident of our accounting and are working diligently with the SEC to respond to their inquiries,” said Dana C. Russell, chief financial officer of Novell. “In an abundance of caution, we have chosen to postpone our earnings release. We look forward to completing our dialogue with the SEC.”

Vaughan Nichols article:

With these issues still in the balance, Novell has elected to not issue its fourth quarter and year-end reports. “We are confident of our accounting and are working diligently with the SEC to respond to their inquiries,” said Dana C. Russell, Novell’s chief financial officer. “In an abundance of caution, we have chosen to postpone our earnings release. We look forward to completing our dialogue with the SEC.”

Novell press release:
Novell intends to release its fourth quarter and full-year 2007 earnings upon the completion of the SEC’s review. Novell is unable to estimate when the process will be completed, but currently expects to file its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2007 on or before its due date of Dec. 31, 2007.

Vaughan Nichols article:
Novell intends to release its fourth quarter and full year 2007 earnings upon the completion of the SEC’s review. Novell is unable to estimate when the process will be completed, but currently expects to file its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2007 on or before its due date of Dec. 31, 2007.

To be sure, Vaughan Nichols didn’t just cut-and-paste Novell’s press release and call it his own story. He also added a couple of original paragraphs — a big positive quote from a Novell-loving analyst saying how great things are going at Novell these days. Just to make sure everything is fair and balanced.

The whole thing is especially disappointing considering that Steven J. Vaughan Nichols is the leader of a group called the Internet Press Guild which acts as a self-appointed watchdog agency keeping an eye on other filthy hacks. The group has in the past filed complaints accusing other filthy hacks of being unethical.

Over the weekend Katie reported this transgression to Society of Professional Journalists and asked that the group revoke the hack license of Steven J. Vaughan Nichols or at least suspend his license pending an investigation. In response, the Vaughan Nichols-led Internet Press Guild has issued an open letter stating that SJVN did not copy any lines verbatim and the whole thing is a Microsoft-funded conspiracy (with Apple acting as Microsoft’s proxy) and where’s the proof and unless someone can show the exact lines that were stolen then everyone should just shut up.

On a side note, How come when Apple gets some heat from the SEC we get our sphincters probed for weeks on end by every filthy hack in the business, but when Novell gets busted the hacks either ignore the story or, if they really really have to write something, they just parrot back Novell’s bullshit and sprinkle in a little more pro-Novell bullshit of their own?

Simple explanation, Katie says. Novell distributes Linux, which by definition means they could never do anything bad. Plus Novell is the company that saved Linux from legal attacks by the SCO Group. So when Novell gets in trouble they can count on all these little freetard hacks turning into part-time flacks for the company and helping out with damage control.

Shame on you, Steven J. Vaughan Nichols. Shame.

(Photo of Pamela Jones by Eric Raymond.)