Comments on: Microsoft Spin Control http://www.richardcleaver.com/2007/01/24/microsoft-spin-control/ the journey Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:14:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: Pete Miller http://www.richardcleaver.com/2007/01/24/microsoft-spin-control/comment-page-1/#comment-17149 Pete Miller Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:05:27 +0000 http://www.richardcleaver.com/?p=1344#comment-17149 Bollocks! You don't want a level playing field, cause then you won't control things. Because your stuff is nowhere near the best. Pete Miller Bollocks!

You don’t want a level playing field, cause then you won’t control things. Because your stuff is nowhere near the best.

Pete Miller

]]> By: edwardk http://www.richardcleaver.com/2007/01/24/microsoft-spin-control/comment-page-1/#comment-16814 edwardk Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:15:47 +0000 http://www.richardcleaver.com/?p=1344#comment-16814 The fundamental question at stake here is one of facts vs. bias. Any organization wishing to build an encyclopedia service in good faith should be doing its utmost to represent the facts and free itself from any bias. What we are witnessing both in the reaction to Microsoft’s attempts to present the facts and in the overall tone of the comments in the blogosphere is the genuine bias that the open source community has toward Microsoft. Essentially what Wikipedia is saying that anyone in our “community” can contribute to the collective truth but anyone outside our “community” is excluded. That’s like getting your news in a communist country. Sure, the state-owned newspaper will deliver the truth as they see it, and there may even be some facts mixed in there, but does anyone believe them when they are inherently biased? Can you trust the facts when they are filtered by the state? What we’re witnessing is the fundamental bias of the opensource community and the institutions they hold so dear. There better be some fundamental changes in governance over this stuff or there cannot be any trust. Intellectual freedom necessarily means ideas cannot be suppressed, even when they come from sources (such as Microsoft) that the “community” doesn’t agree with. Until these “community” run institutions support other ideas and broader contributions, nobody will believe the “information” in Wikipedia. If that’s the case, one must then ask, what’s the point of its existence? The fundamental question at stake here is one of facts vs. bias. Any organization wishing to build an encyclopedia service in good faith should be doing its utmost to represent the facts and free itself from any bias. What we are witnessing both in the reaction to Microsoft’s attempts to present the facts and in the overall tone of the comments in the blogosphere is the genuine bias that the open source community has toward Microsoft. Essentially what Wikipedia is saying that anyone in our “community” can contribute to the collective truth but anyone outside our “community” is excluded. That’s like getting your news in a communist country. Sure, the state-owned newspaper will deliver the truth as they see it, and there may even be some facts mixed in there, but does anyone believe them when they are inherently biased? Can you trust the facts when they are filtered by the state?

What we’re witnessing is the fundamental bias of the opensource community and the institutions they hold so dear. There better be some fundamental changes in governance over this stuff or there cannot be any trust. Intellectual freedom necessarily means ideas cannot be suppressed, even when they come from sources (such as Microsoft) that the “community” doesn’t agree with.

Until these “community” run institutions support other ideas and broader contributions, nobody will believe the “information” in Wikipedia. If that’s the case, one must then ask, what’s the point of its existence?

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