It appears that some people still have difficulties with all this
new technology. Take Tom Giovanetti of the IPI, for instance.
The IPI is a group that is sponsored by (and therefore speaks along
the lines of interest of) some very large US corporations, trying to
make it look like those interests were also the interests of everyone
else. I mentioned them before as would-be
saviour of Microsoft in the EU antitrust trial, and Tom Giovanetti
is their president.
It now seems that by skillfully navigating the set of tubes that is the internet, Mr Giovanetti
has found a page with press pictures of me, and could
not resist from pointing others to it, apparently because he thinks
that having those pictures available for use by the press says
something about me.
Personally, I felt I was just being lazy by trying to avoid
the repeated questions for print-quality pictures for articles,
conference brochures and the like. So I simple made a bunch, put them
all online, and let people choose for themselves which fits their
purposes best -- with the upside that I won't have to bother
anymore. Tom however seems to think that this is some testimony to
overexaggerated self-love. To me, that interpretation seems to say
more about the interpetor than the interpretee, but be that as it
may.
While it is slightly creepy that Tom seems to be missing me so much
between WIPO meetings that he needs to search for pictures of me, it
is truly hilarious that he would then get so confused by all those
tubes that he would link to "my" blog, which is actually the blog of
Karstens Gerloff,
a former FSFE intern, and still an active FSFE Team member. The fact
that it was for the user "gerloff" apparently was too complicated to
figure out, so he assumed it must be me. Funny.
Tom: I realise that all this new technology must look very
confusing to you, but I'd still appreciate if you did not misattribute
statements. So just to clarify: the URL of my blog is http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/.
And no, nothing personal... see you next time at WIPO.
[update]
Roughly two hours after this blog entry went online, someone pointed out that Tom Giovanetti had silently updated the link on his blog. So it is now pointing at my blog for real. Thanks, Tom!
Allow me one final comment, though: On the internet it is extremely bad style to silently change articles or blog entries without clearly marking the changes. Most people would indeed consider it falsification.
That is why updates and changes should be clearly marked -- like this one is.
