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List:       linux-ha-dev
Subject:    [Linux-ha-dev] clustering press coverage
From:       wanger () redhat ! com
Date:       2000-01-31 16:10:36
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Hi all.

This effort is starting to generate a lot of interest in the general 
press community.  The press are always looking for a story with a new 
cutting edge, they also want to be the first to release a story.  
Sometimes diligence gets lost when that happens.  Press also _love_ 
conflict and tension.  It makes for more stories. :(

The press also do not understand the Open Source development community 
very well either.  They need name recognition to make a story seem 
credible.  A story about a bunch of folks slinging code doesn't make a 
terribly interesting story for the main stream press world.  Because of 
that, and because Red Hat is involved with helping the clustering 
effort, our name is going to get brought up in *lot* of articles 
related to clustering.  The more respectable journalists will contact 
people in the story to verify facts, less reputable journalists will 
simply write a story with limited fact checking.

Whenever I'm contacted by press, I decide right away if I have my 
community hat on or my Red Hat hat on.  If the article is about a 
product or a partnership that we have, then my Red Hat hat goes on and 
I talk from the company point of view.  I *always* make it very clear 
that we are deriving our software from the community, of which, we are 
a part.

If I am going to talk about the community, like with the recent ZDNet 
article, then I make sure to speak as just a player in the community 
and I work hard to make sure all the community players are mentioned.  
Red Hat is a community member and as such, I'll do my very best to make 
sure that we are equal to every other player out there, small or large. 
If any of you feel that I'm somehow handling this very badly, please 
contact me and tell me.  Also, if you feel things come out in press 
sounding badly, please contact me before you start screaming about 
forks and Red Hat == evil, etc.

One final thing to mention, journalists like stories that are readable, 
they will trim and modify things to be more interesting.  A good 
journalist does that while keeping everything factually correct, a 
poor journalist will fail here.  Also, after the journalist is done 
with his/her story, then there are copy editors and final editors that 
trim and "adjust" stories even more.  So, the moral of the story is, 
press articles are supposed to be interesting, many times at the 
expense of factual truth and completeness.

Mike

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Wangsmo                                               Red Hat, Inc 

"I've seen this before in Montana!  Its snowing, nobody lick a flag
pole" -- Peggy Hill



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