Tuesday, September 30, 2008

"Geen Stijl" is a communist website!

"Geen Stijl" is a highly controversial weblog in The Netherlands with a right-wing affiliation. US inhabitants that compare it to "Fox TV" might find it liberal, but trust me. If you move any further to the right on the political spectrum in this part of the world you're either burning copies of "The origin of the species" or wearing swastikas on your sleeve.

Recently "Geen Stijl" published an entry on Linux, saying that "Linux is a kind of communist Open Source Operating System and Hugo Chaves, dictator of Venezuela, understands this". Later on it states that "Everyone who uses Linux supports terrorism, atomic weapons, high oil prices and the destruction of the earth".


My goodness! What are we doing? I have to install Windows right away. But I know my people since I've been one of them for a very long time. And I know they're cheap. "Going Dutch" has not become an expression without a reason. So I decided to check up on things. I went to Netcraft and found this report:

http://www.geenstijl.nl was running Apache on Linux when last queried at 27-Sep-2008 18:54:25 GMT
OSServerLast changedIP AddressNetblock Owner
LinuxApache30-Aug-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
LinuxApache4-Jul-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
LinuxApache30-May-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
unknownApache7-May-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
LinuxApache6-May-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
unknownApache4-Apr-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
unknownApache14-Feb-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
unknownApache4-Jan-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
unknownApache/2.2.6 (Fedora)3-Jan-200881.173.64.50GeenStijl
unknownApache30-Dec-200781.173.64.50GeenStijl

So, what is the verdict? It simply means that "Geen Stijl" is also responsible for "terrorism, atomic weapons, high oil prices and the destruction of the earth".

Absolutely clueless these people.. Professor Hoxha, I guess it's better to get a real degree and research your story before you publish it. Not only is your FUD harmful to a perfectly decent Operating System - it is completely unfounded as well.

24 comments:

Christophe said...

Hey, you can't expect right-wing people to think before they open their mouth, or they'd be all mute! :)

Seriously though, this is typical of the misinformation and FUD that non-technical people accept at face value. We may think that nobody in their right mind would believe the obvious lies that are spread about Linux and Free Software in general, but the truth is that non-technical people are so out of touch with what really happens in IT that they do believe the lies without even blinking, and we end up with this kind of blog posts.

And look at the comments, many of the people defending Linux are just as clueless (like the one saying that Apple computers run a version of Linux, and that even the iPod runs Linux!). It makes you desperate sometimes...

Anonymous said...

good one :)

Anonymous said...

hehehe good post man, well spotted... I can't believe people like that still exist these days... keep it up dude.

Anonymous said...

Hitler was a National Socialist, not particularly right-wing.

Anonymous said...

I've been using Linux for the better part of 10 years now. I'm certainly no commie. I think that because Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation presents itself as a totalitarian organization this confuses people.

My guess would be that Linus is a libertarian although he works for an industry group that is controlled by companies (such as IBM) that are fascist in nature.

Finally, Fox News is not "right-wing." It is an extreme "left-wing" fascist oriented organization and could only be considered "right-wing" in comparison to ultra-extreme "left-wing" Marxist media outlets like CNN.

shootthecops said...

haha nice find. any chance this is just some classic trolling? i remember a website that had something similar which was evidently just that.

Diederik ter Rahe said...

Eh...

Have you read Geenstijl before? They usually mean the opposite of what they write. Sometimes in an attempt to get people to think for themselves...

Anonymous said...

"Geen Stijl" is a website ment to be controversial. They usally try to stir up the hornets nest by totally overreacting on simple things.

They are not left- or right wing, because they use "anything" to get negative responses from the people, company's or institutions they are targeting.

Most times these articles are meant to point out ridicule or strange way's of thinking and doing. They want to turn common things upside down just to make you think.

And the author has walked straight into the trap i'm afraid. ;-)

Anonymous said...

"Geen Stijl" is a website ment to be controversial. They usally try to stir up the hornets nest by totally overreacting on simple things.

They are not left- or right wing, because they use "anything" to get negative responses from the people, company's or institutions they are targeting.

Most times these articles are meant to point out ridicule or strange way's of thinking and doing. They want to turn common things upside down just to make you think.

And the author has walked straight into the trap i'm afraid. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Hooray for absolute ignorance!

-- Joris

Anonymous said...

You've just walked into a GeenStijl-trap. They spew all kinds of shit in hope of stirring up some controversy....

Anonymous said...

The concept of "sarcasm" is defenitely wasted on the author of this blogpost.

Anonymous said...

GeenStijl are imitating "shelleytherepublican" here. They ran a feature just like that (very funny though).

http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/

With GeenStijl you never know when they are fooling you or not.

Indeed, shelley etc. too are making fun of the "right and foolish".

I know there are circles in the USA that want to blame all evil in history to the left. However, those who had to endure fascists or nazis are unanimous that they are extreme Right Wing fanatics. Only those who have been safely far away from them have had the luxury of playing "name" games with left-right.

Anonymous said...

You are so missing the point of this article....

I am a terrorist: I use Linux!! :-)

Anonymous said...

this blog reminds me of that of Shelley. Gee... same old story.

beside, the exact same thing happened to shelley. at least she has been coherent and changed host to a holy windows server.

there it goes: http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/

Anonymous said...

i hate fucking communists!!

Anonymous said...

I don't think you know the website you are talking about. It's just meant as a website to attack everything pretty much in existence. They routinely ridicule politicians, businesses, even philanthropists. Nothing is safe from them. Everything gets mocked and ridiculed, hard! Did you read in Dutch or did you use a translator? Perhaps the jest got lost in translation.
The name of the website (geen stijl = no class), says it all. It's not a website to be taken seriously, that is not it's intent. It's purpose is to attack and ridicule, it does not matter weather you are making the news positively or negatively.
Having said that, if Linux made it on geen stijl, then it must be getting really popular. Geen stijl only p*$$es on the best!

Anonymous said...

Linux is about as communist as "We the people" or "E Pluribus Unum".

The far right wing national socialists and the far left wing communist socialists both dislike the freedom that Linux represents.

Remember that Linux is Free. Free as in free enterprise.

Anonymous said...

LOL! You just got owned by GeenStijl while they didnt have to put any effort into it. You managed to make yourself looks stupid, Congratulations!

Anonymous said...

Hey, I just realized your Dutch yourself.
WTH,man. You know what kind of website geen stijl is. Why all the hubub?

FelixTheCat said...

Hey! I'm right-wing and love Linux. Sheesh! Now c'mere and let me pummel you about the head and shoulders! :)

Anonymous said...

GeenStijl is entertainment. What they do is anoying but (somewhat) funny. Might be hard to understand if Dutch is not your first language. (although part of their audience is right winged, but they do not understand the sarcasm of the site I believe)

Unknown said...

Geen Stijl is not necessarely extreme right- or from whatever extreme political wing. They are much worse; they have no philosophy other than opportunistic surfing on tendencies that come and go like the wind. They nail people down for being whatever in a rude way, but their own sensitivity is so high!

I wrote several comments on their site trying to put forward some nuances on various topics but they could not stand my salutation "Aardappeleter". (An aardappeleter is a "potato eater"; referring to simple, working class people (painted by Van Gogh) and refferring to Dutch writer gerard Reve who used same salutation...) and they banned me for that! They blew their top! They lost their mind on a simple salutation! Can you imagine?

To me they have proven to be a pathetic group of people who cowardly anonymously spread random comments like cluster bombs and are surprised about- and take no liability for damages they create. They seem to be representing a group of brainless opportunistic money makers who pretend to have all sorts of moral standards which are hard to distinguish; meanwhile they are sponsored by Coca Cola. Ahum...

Its not something to neglect though. It something to monitor closely.

Wessel Meijer,
Aardappeleter
(Potato Eater)

specy said...

Ever heard of sarcasm? Because that's what this is.

GeenStijl typically supports all kinds of stuff like file sharing, free software etc. Ow wait, that does make them a communist website, right? :-/