Re: Squid Disinformation

Hiya,

        Read that quote again carefully, because it IS carefully worded to
be deliberately confusing about Squid's abilities.

> I read with interest an article in today's UK issue of Network Week about web-caching. The article included comments from Ed Gordon, Managing Director of Inktomi (Europe). In particular, when asked whether European ISPs were ready for more sophisticated caching products, he said:
>
> "There are some early adopters in Europe, but people have been using freeware - products like Squid - which doesn't have transparency, or is not dynamic, scalable or offer the performance"

        All it's saying is that Squid doesn't have transparancy (which it
doesn't as a base system, some OS mods or extra software is required to
get it to me transparant), and that other freeware "is not dynamic, scalable
or offer the performance".

        This a carefully worded phrase, designed to be technically and
grammattically correct, so attacking it on the basis of being misleading
is going to fail. It is however, designed to be grammattically confusing,
intermixing the Squid and non-transparancy statement, within the general
context of "freeware" and "or is not dynamic, scalable or offer the
performance" (and mixing in the non-transparancy bit too). The "or" in
the middle is the trick of this statement. People tend to skip over "or"s
and mentally process them as "and"s on the first pass.

        It is a statement designed to require clarification, something
which a magazine isn't going to bother doing if you complained about it.

        Just another wonderful marketing tactic brought to you by your
local ruthless spin doctor.

        Cheers,

                Stew.

-- 
Stewart Forster (Snr. Development Engineer)
connect.com.au pty ltd, Level 9, 114 Albert Rd, Sth Melbourne, VIC 3205, Aust.
Email: slf@connect.com.au   Phone: +61 3 9251-3684   Fax: +61 3 9251-3666