I’ve been reading Linux Journal since I started using Linux, back in ‘98. It was a good magazine, but there was this annoying writer, Marcel Gagmé, who insisted on writing his articles as if they were conversations with his, uh, waiter (wink, wink), François. The typical article starts like this:

Think you can’t run a real on-line community in about 64k? Try a bulletin board system.

That’s right, it’s completely nongraphical, but there is color, mon ami. Why? Well, François, I suppose I’m feeling a bit nostalgic. When I read that this issue’s theme would be intranets, it started me thinking about the whole idea of an intranet, literally an internal network-a private little universe, if you will, for a specific set of users. <snip>

Quoi? The text-only screen? That’s easy. The original intranet existed long before we all started getting on the Internet, mon ami, and communication was nongraphical. Mon Dieu, why are we still talking? Our guests are already here. Welcome, mes amis, make yourselves comfortable while François brings you your wine. To the wine cellar, François. Please bring back the 2003 Coastal Sauvignon Blanc. Vite!

I was just telling François about the original intranets, mes amis.

That shit got old, fast. People would write and complain, and Marcel would tone it down a little, but it has persisted for the better part of a decade. Things only got worse when Nick Petreley, the KDE troll, became editor-in-chief. He not only loves Marcel, but he hates GNOME, too.

The February issue just arrived, and the letters to the Editor contain this little gem:

In the November 2006 Letters section, Marcel Gagné writes, “With a very few exceptions (such as Mr DeSouza), I get nothing but praise for my articles.”

Let me cause another exception for Mr Gagné and add my voice to those who think the style of Mr Gagnés articles are extremely annoying. Usually I just scan the article looking for the actual content, as the fluff is too cheesy and bothersome to wade through. Asking around my department (there are many avid readers of Linux Journal here), no one else even bothers to read the article because of the style.

–
Chris Russell

And here is Petreley’s typically insipid response:

With apologies to Marcel for inadequately borrowing his style, Francois serves a sweet white wine to some and a rich full-bodied red to others. Most of our readers love Marcel’s column. Your exception is respected and noted. — Ed.

Unfortunately, François serves piss-vinegar to everyone else. But you know what? He’s right. Most of his readers probably do love Marcel’s column - because everyone else let their subscription lapse years ago. We run our entire business on Linux, and not a single person here, from programmers to admins, subscribes to Linux Journal. Many of them used to, before it changed, but that’s been a long time ago.

Petreley’s sycophantic myopia isn’t limited to Marcel, however. He’s also an unabashed KDE lover; he takes fervent glee in slamming GNOME whenever and wherever possible, and frequently slants the content of issues towards KDE, all the while posing as an “unbiased editor”.

He really brings his myopia to the forefront with this closing letter to the editor:

I found it a little bit ironic that you chose Ubuntu as the 2006 Editors’ Choice Linux distribution, but that you chose KDE as your Editors’ Choice desktop environment. It seems to me that if you were going to pick Ubuntu, you’d choose GNOME, and if you were going to choose KDE, you would choose Kubuntu. Are there reasons you picked Ubuntu over Kubuntu, or did you simply mean (K)ubuntu in general for your Editors’ Choice distribution?

PS. Long live KDE!

–
Geoff

As we said in our write-up, we also find it a puzzler as to why Ubuntu seems to be a favorite, yet research data shows people prefer KDE over GNOME by a significant margin. Perhaps people refer to all variants of Ubuntu as Ubuntu, even if what they’re really using is Kubuntu. Or, maybe others do like some of us at Linux Journal do. Some of us at Linux Journal install Ubuntu and then install and use KDE (thus essentially converting it to Kubuntu). — Ed.

They “find it a puzzler as to why Ubuntu seems to be a favorite”. I’m sure the reasons for this escape them completely. They live in a world where they have surrounded themselves with other who feel exactly the way they do, and anyone who feels strongly against them has simply left (or wisely keeps their mouth shut). It’s the same sort of monoculture-blinders that Microsoft wears; I’m sure they don’t understand why anyone would prefer to use Linux over Microsoft. I also suspect that their “research data” thats “shows people prefer KDE over GNOME by a significant margin” comes from similarly biased sources. Funny, Microsoft’s surveys always show people love Microsoft, too.

Oh, well. Print magazines are so last-millenium, anyway; there’s not much that can’t be learned from Google Academy™.