Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC slander

[P.L.Hayes]

Thanks for all the info and links MJ, I did indeed complain to the editor and 
got this response (as did everybody else):

Dear Sir 

Thanks for your e-mail.

I have noted the points you made - as well as the vigorous debate on
Slashdot.org about this article.

Well, Stephen Evan's weekly "stateside" column is not a news story, but
an analytical look at major events and business trends in the United
States.

It is, of course, debatable whether MyDoom/Novarg/Shimgapi was written
just to bring down the SCO website, or whether the installation of
spamming tools on numerous computers was an additional - or even the
main - motive.

That was not the point of Stephen's article.

In his piece he wanted to draw the attention of BBC News Online's
audience - many of whom are unlikely to know the ins and outs of the
Open Source debate - to the rapid spread of Linux as a commercial
application, SCO's attempts to cash in on this fact, and the deep anger
that SCO has caused within the Linux community through its legal
actions.

Stephen is not the first to draw the link between MyDoom and SCO's
actions over Linux - plenty of others have done that before, including
virus experts.

Regards,


Tim Weber 
Business Editor 
BBC News Interactive - www.bbc.co.uk/businessnews

I replied to this nonsense of course and so did a lot of others but there has 
been no further response. Just now I've looked at the ofcom site but they 
don't actually make it clear whether they'll handle this sort of thing or not 
so I've contacted them to ask if they do. I'll try the PCU first, as you 
suggest. I'm going to make time to do something about this as part of a more 
general 'attack' on the BBC for various other reasons. I'm not engaged in any 
software development at the moment like most of you people are - I just do a 
little work for GNU at the moment as far as free software is concerned. 
Mostly I just use the stuff! :)

Cheers,

Paul.