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Game: Spot the death threat

Monday, 8 October 2007 distrowatch linux

In short: Caitlyn Martin said last month that she was unable to review Puppy Linux. She claims today that a commenter in a Distrowatch thread issued her a death threat… Nasty stuff but I just can’t see the threat angle of it. "Threat" included in the post.

Information security consultant and writer for O’Reilly, Caitlyn Martin just published a report saying she received a public death threat for saying she couldn’t review a certain distribution of Linux (Puppy) because it refused to boot on her laptop.

She finishes her report:

This is a public appeal to Barry Kauler and the Puppy Linux user community to speak up against anyone who would resort to threats of violence to defend their distro. Indeed, Id like to see some of that community speak up against the personal attacks on me in general. Do you believe there should be hell to pay (quoting post #90 again) if someone has a bad experience with Puppy Linux and reports on it?

Immediately I thought it was pretty disgusting. Death threats aren’t cool and they’re really, really uncalled for especially over something as inconsequential as somebody not reviewing a distribution of Linux. But she does say to go and check out the thread and the post where the “threat” is made, so I did. Here’s the “important” part:

So, in most circumstances - I would not bother to refute ignorance
In her case, it culminated other disparaging Linux insults

Besides, it serves notice - if she wishes to continue in her vanities - Esp. RE published political rantings :
There WILL be hell to pay, (not from me) = who needs yet more terrorist 'justifications" to worry about ?

There truly is such a thing as being “DEAD right” !

Fair enough ?

Read the rest. Post #90

So, yes. A bit of an arseholic reply. I’ve dealt with my own fair share of people who refuse to read what I say and go on what they think I say. She’s not blasting Puppy Linux for not working, rather saying that she can’t review it if it refuses to boot. That’s certainly a valid thing to say from a reviewer’s point of view.

But I can’t see a threat in there. I can see that the tone is fairly unpleasant but I can’t see anything that warrants a post titled “A Death Threat From A Puppy Linux Supporter” Have I just seen too many flamefests and there is a threat in there?

If so, could you please help my addled little mind and spell it out because I’m really not getting it?