This posting at imrics.net sums it up best:
Maureen O'Gara (employed by SYS-CON) the infamous anti-Linux writer has been indulging in yellow journalism for quite some time now. She has reached an new low, however. Now she is attacking individuals by revealing the names, addresses, and photographs of Pamela Jones and her family. Pamela's 'crime'? Publishing legal documents and commentary that not only refute M. O'Gara's articles thoroughly, but expose the very nature of the SCO group's lawsuit against IBM. SCO, as you probably know, has decided that Linux 'belongs' to them exclusively. They have violated the GPL repeatedly, and brought a 5 billion dollar lawsuit against IBM without evidence of wrongdoing. Indeed, much of their lawsuit has revolved around actually trying to get IBM to give them source code so that they can find the evidence they need. Over the course of their lawsuit, M. O'Gara has been printing press releases from SCO almost word-for-word, and has been growing more and more shrill as SCO's legal tactics, theories and actions have been revealed (again, through the actual court documents) on Grocklaw.
O'Gara's smear tactics have now fallen to a new low; she is trying to discredit Ms. Jones by painting as some kind of crackpot, and by sending private investigators (funded by SCO?) to 'expose' Ms. Jones' private details to the public. This can only be because Ms. Jones has always tried to maintain her privacy. O'Gara has claimed that she is the victim of threats from the Linux community (again without evidence - though she claims this, she never even tried to call the police, for example) - this can only be her twisted idea of revenge.
Ms. O'Gara has finally gone too far, in my opinion. She has gone from a sad, clownish figure, to an abusive menace. She must be stopped, as a lesson to other yellow journalists in our field.
O'Gara was terminated by Sys-Con yesterday and all of her writings have been deleted . . . an appropriate end.
See also:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050509145744287
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2005050900926OPBZ
http://blog.stodge.org/204
http://turner.linuxworld.com/read/1262099.htm
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050510114214525
Of course, one could play tit-for-tat with the SD.Net crowd . . . I could post pictures, phone numbers, addresses, and so on of them . . . and though I have such information available, I have no intention of doing so.
It is an irony that those who take the low road are protected by those who don't. PJ of Groklaw won't be stalking O'Gara . . . I don't post the info of the SD.Net freakshow . . . criminals get trials . . . and so on.
(But, then, it is always fun to see the worst scumbags howl when they get out-evilled by someone they never considered to be that sort of threat. Oh, temptation . . . )
The main problem with uncivilized behavior like O'Gara's, though, is that it poisons the well of discourse altogether, and those who don't take the low road aren't interested in that sort of thing. "Oh," you say, "but with O'Gara fired there is no discourse, so the high-roaders are hypocrites!" No, there's still discourse, just not with O'Gara . . . or in other words, like chemotherapy, the poison in the well has simply helped clean out the cancer.
