I toned down my own criticism of Lyons for that reason. At the same time, FSJ can’t write wrong information in Forbes without getting fact checked. Using his FSJ blog to court the attention of Mac users, and then bashing them with sloppy, one-sided coverage–using the information his FSJ audience forwarded him–is particularly bad form.

As for my own writing, I appreciate being called out when I’m wrong (because I don’t like being wrong, and am happy to correct things as soon as I can), but I don’t like being taken to task for being a one-sided fanatic who says anything to make Apple look good.

That is a common characterization, but it is not true. I do not follow any “party line” and am frequently ostracized by more commercial flacks for tilting against populist opinion. I have frequently called out Apple over things I think need to be fixed or changed, even challenging Steve Jobs in public over .Mac, the open iPhone, and Mac OS X licensing.

Calling me a talking points repeater is inane.

At the same time, I also recognize that a lot of what Apple is being criticized over is either in my opinion wrong, or is just manufactured outrage.

so by some convoluted ultimate nuclear mobius strip pretzel logic, “fake steve,” a.k.a., dan, is actually surreptitiously promoting a closed system, all microsoft agenda?

what are you suggesting next? that mother teresa was secretly a calcutta “sweeney todd,” and actually slitted the throats of the poor and then baked them into pies to sell to support her nunnery and lavish lifestyle???

dan loves apple technology and how the whole (melo-) drama of silicon valley life, news, events, and markets play out. that is his *job,* man, as a reporter for a business magazine on a tech beat. yes, he’s been critical of stallman, the FSF and other things where the linux and open source community try and get all self-righteous and political about their OS. say what you will about apple, but their forays into making their OS political have been gracefully few and far between (besides what we don’t know about who pays off who on K street in DC, but that’s another kettle of fish to fry). and you know what? dan is right in what he points out are the indefensible wastes of time the FSF and their legal arm try and subsume over existing copyright law, such as the current debacle of the GPL v.3 which many are not even adopting because it is so ridiculously arbitrary in its restrictiveness (see ——>> http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070925/20070925006182.html?.v=1).

here’s a little story you and no one else i’ve seen not even say word “boo” about in the way of news stories or blogging in the tech community. FSF and their legal arm are all about securing the rights of GPL v.3 as if that is the big story this year. yet you, daniel and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE trumpet about the REAL elephant in the living room — ballmer and microsoft making claims of linux stealing MS code in their source, and yet FSF, their legal arm, the open source community, etc., have done ABSOLUTELY SQUAT about challenging this threatening legal claim (no matter how bogus it may actually be, and yes, both “fake steve” and i think it probably very bogus) to the linux and open source communities.

yes, i am aware, because as i said, i do mostly like your column and its content, that you have contested this claim yourself. but the story you and others are utterly **missing** is why FSF and the open source community have done *nothing,* zero, zilch, nichts, nada, null – the empty set, big goose egg about challenging microsoft and ballmer head on about this ridiculous claim. novell/suse caved, other major linux distro’s are cow-towing to signing their souls to the redmond devil, but FSF and the open source community have remained shockingly mute, seeing how they are so prickly about people doing anything to offend their software anarchistic political aspirations otherwise. why, daniel? why has FSF done nothing to say to microsquish/ballmer/redmond — “put up or shut up! show us the code in question or go home!”? why?

it’s the job of people like “fsj”/dan to report on stuff like this and speak truth to both the powerful and the self-righteous software anarchist. as far as i see, he does both very well and with a lot of a savvy, hilarious wit. i’ve chatted quite a bit with “fsj”/dan on e-mail as a long-time, unabashed fan of his blog, both before and after he was “outted” by the new york times. he is quite accessible (when not very busy, as he is, essentially, holding down both his editor position at forbes, writing this blog, and was finishing up the “options” fsj satire book for his publishing house) and friendly on e-mail. as to the situation about OSF, FSF & SCO, i’ve chatted with him on e-mail about this and he takes a very journalistic stance about how now it will be very interesting to see how this all plays out. i do not find this disingenuous nor facile, i find it the correct, non-involved stance for a true journalist to take as regards a continuing story. yes, he has his opinions and preferences. yes, he *is* an apple fan and has said he finds the “character” of steve jobs, and how he’s painted in the media (and yes, even by you, daniel) amazing. he’s culled a zeitgeist of these various and often conflicting views of jobs’ history and personality to create one of the most hilarious and full characterizations ever achieved in a blog or, i feel, elsewhere for that matter. and has done so with a lot of wit and style. he also is, believe it or not, an occasional linux user and thinks that OS and some of the basic tenants of open source are great. just not the self-righteous stuff that hinders rather than connects more. and what is so wrong about pointing out? is the open source/linux community just another version of self-righteous anarchists/liberals whose goals are so pure and lofty that they cannot be in the least bit criticized, even if the purpose is to urge them on to be better?

which brings me to another point — dan lyons/”fsj,” as i said, is *very* accessible. his e-mail at forbes is published on-line at the forbes site, and everyone can write him at “fakestevejobs at gmail dot com.” did *you,* daniel, take the time to really do due diligence and let dan/fsj know what you were about to plop out here in the blog and give him a chance to respond or counter your claims, or give his own take on how he has been unjustly shouted down for his analysis criticisms by the “freetards,” *before* you hit the “send” button on this blog? i think for someone who claims to want to counter media & microsquish FUD about apple, you yourself should at least try not to spread too much FUD about a fellow apple fan/blogger who is quite obviously trying to encourage the platform, albeit satirically, based on a lot of FSF grumbling about him without much research back-up.

in short, fsj/dan, i feel, is doing more to really promote and show a more jocular, friendly and accessible side of apple/mac/ipod fandom than anyone else out there. if anything, you should be lauding and supporting someone like him who bring more fans into the apple fold from out there in the cold with hearty laughter and humor about both what’s can be wrong but also what’s so right about the apple way than anyone else. you do it through rather layered product manifest directions, legal and technical analysis. he does it with a light touch of that, but mostly the irony and humor, and a willingness to open up and say, yeah, apple’s off the mark on this point here but are a far better choice than anything else going out there still. yes, he does point out when FSF, linux or apple miss the mark. guess what? — that’s the credo of a truly responsible journalist, not merely to snark them for what they get wrong, but to point out where they really should be going to get it right. that, for me, bring far more folks into the fold than apple bloggers taking ridiculously unfounded pot-shots at each other. go look at the comments section of the “fsj” blog, you’ll find 90% of folks there, like me, are die-hard apple fans, who, at the same time, can readily and realistically admit the mis-steps by apple in order to point them out and hope apple gets it better next time around. that *is* what the dialogue should be about, not falsely accusing a fellow blogger of being an SCO or microsquish shill.

what is sad here is the missed opportunity where you two could really be harmonic trumpets to rally the apple/mac/ipod/iphone fan base into a really unstoppable force — him being the more jocular and business acumen side, you being the more technical history side. but instead, you’ve kind of really thrown this down the toilet with this post, and called a lot of your previously well-researched and well-written work into question. the logic by which you twist dan/”fsj” into an SCO and microsquish shill is so utterly ridiculous that even wing-nut conspiracy theorists who think the u.s. gov’t. themselves crashed the jet-liners during 9/11 and are still hiding the passengers & crew of one them, would read what you wrote here and go, “oh man, that just doesn’t fly!”

bad form, daniel eran dilger, bad form indeed. and again, way, way, way, way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaay off the mark.

did i mention it was off the mark? it really is. way off. way.