Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Green Hills Software (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep (non-admin closure) without prejudice for improving and expanding the article. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Green Hills Software

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~~Delete.~~ Userfy into User:SimonTrew's space per his request.

This article has been {{notability}}-tagged for the last 4 years. I have done a Google Books search, looked through about nine pages of results, and was unimpressed. I also did a Google News Archive search customized to exclude press releases, some trade publications, and one local website. Then I looked through every single search-results page. It returned lots of hits but nothing that impressed me. I want to see articles in major mainstream media, not just articles in trade publications. WP:CORPDEPTH says that neither coverage in "media of limited interest and circulation", nor coverage in local media, are enough. Passing mentions don't help either. Please show me something impressive: maybe some significant coverage in The New York Times or the print version of BusinessWeek. But if we can't find any suitable mainstream sources, I think it's time for our article to be removed from mainspace.

P.S. Our article also reads like a news release. I'm a firm believer in a theory I once read — that, regarding articles on non-notable topics, COI editors tend to out-edit the COI fighters.

Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 22:07, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have been reading up on Notability_(organizations_and_companies) and I conclude that User:Unforgettableid has no case. There is nothing in that guideline that excludes trade journal text from being a secondary source in general or from being used to signify notability in particular. User:Unforgettableids sources are only personal views. If it had been the intention of the Notability guidelines to exclude trade journals it would have been an easy task to mention them explicitly. Trade journals are obviously not (or at least not obviously) ”of limited interest and circulation” or equivalent to ”local media”. gnirre (talk) 20:48, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure, they've been around a long while (I used to use their embedded C compiler about 20 years ago). Because their products are mainly used for embedded software, it's not that surprising that they don't get much outside the trade press, but if the trade press is from widely circulated publications e.g. Computer Weekly then I would say it is WP:N (obviously not just a press release in there). Of course, their early history won't be easily found as WP:RS on the Internet, nor their use in military applications. But I've not heard of their compilers being used at all as a reference platform (for language standardisation etc.), so perhaps they do really only qualify as a niche provider these days (the marker for WP:PRIMARY is telling).

I'd love to try to rustle together something more suitable, but I'm not going to remove the PROD because I probably won't have time to do so, and it can always be recreated later. But it saddens me a little to see it go.

PS I also find it amusing that on a previous AfD for this article one vote for deletion was on the grounds that "A backround check shows that this private company is not quoted on any stock exchange, and hence is only of interest to its owners and employees."

Customers?

Si Trew (talk) 22:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Simon. The British Computer Weekly and the American ComputerWorld are definitely "media of limited interest". The only reason why they attained such large circulation is because they were mailed for free to qualifying IT workers. The mediocre community newspaper in my area also has attained a surprisingly large circulation, since it also is distributed for free. Do you agree that we can count free IT trade magazines as "media of limited interest and circulation" even if they have large unpaid-circulation numbers? Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 23:25, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I only mentioned Computer Weekly as an example of a trade publication that is presumably (but irrelevantly) WP:N but more WP:RS. I think most British readers would rely on it being accurate. (I don't even get a free copy these days.)

I agree circulation has nothing to do with it, but I would imagine if a reader saw in CW that Green Hills had gone bust, they would believe it – in that sense it is a RS. In other words, the circulation numbers are not that important, but the number of people who actually read it is. Some literary magazines have tiny circulations but are very influential and in that sense RS.

I'm digressing rather, but I think the business of RS/PRIMARY sometimes gets silly because it can amount to saying "don't get it from the horse's mouth, rely on second-hand gossip". When the things being sourced are hard facts that no-one is likely to dispute, it seems silly to go around the houses to get some secondary source, which when it comes to press releases etc are little more and often less than the primary source repeated. In that sense, AP, Reuters and so on should not be considered RS when regurgitating press releases. On the other hand, a public company's audited accounts should be considered RS even though they publish themm themselves, there is little point trogging down to Companies House or the SEC or whatever to receive the same information verbatim.

But anyway, nobody is suggesting we include non-RS content. A fat article in CW would, in my opinion, count as RS not because of its circulation but because of its readership, i.e. professionals who would be likely to call it in for getting slipshod.

That's all by the by for the AfD and just me ruminating. I'm not making a stand for this article, it's more just a slight pang of sadness to see it go. Perhaps it can be userified to me, if it does? That way I can try to make amends some time. Si Trew (talk) 00:33, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK. So, to summarize your two key points: You said why you think trade publications are reliable sources. (I still think WP:CORPDEPTH implies that they don't establish notability.) Also, you requested userfication. (OK; I have changed my vote to "userfy".) Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 02:05, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

”I still think WP:CORPDEPTH implies that they don't establish notability” – Why? What is your problem with trade press? Mainstream media gets many of its stories from trade press. I'd say trade press is often a much better source that mainstream media. I don't know the Wikipedia definition of "notability", but I hope it means ”worthy of notice” rather than ”has happened to be noticed by mainstream media".gnirre (talk) 07:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting what User:Ihcoyc has written elsewhere: "The current notability guideline for businesses discount purely local coverage, on the grounds that while your business may be notable in the town in which it operates, this doesn't translate to notability in the general world. Trade publications and websites, in my opinion, suffer from the same problem. They just aren't likely to be read by anyone outside your trade. And, since many such publications rely on submissions from the businesses they cover, their independence is also subject to some doubt. If you want to rest your case on notability on coverage in business periodicals, they need to be general interest and general circulation periodicals of the Wall Street Journal and Business Week type. A mention in Blacksmithing Today or Modern Dental Offices just doesn't feed the weasel. Likewise, your receiving a minor award at an industry awards banquet does not make a strong case for notability of your business." Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree some trade publications are not independent. I think we can all agree not to use non-editorially-independent material as reliable sources. This should, though, not exclude us from using other content from trade journals. So what if they are not read by anyone outside the trade? A great part of wikipedia is based on specialist knowledge. Notability does not mean "known by the general public” or ”covered by general media”. I could maybe agree that it could medan "could well have been covered by general media”. I understand the reasoning around ”local coverage” but the comparison to trade texts being somehow ”local” does not make sense. You are presenting the views of one person. Have his views been somehow canonized by the Wikipedia community? He is making a free interpretation of "local coverage". You should not delete an article based on some guys interpretations. gnirre (talk) 09:08, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep [1] —Ruud 20:51, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rudy.

Your link points to Google Books. I have now looked through about nine pages of Google Books search results pages for significant coverage of the company, but had trouble finding any.

WP:PRODUCT says: "A specific product or service may be notable on its own, without the company providing it being notable in its own right. In this case, an article on the product may be appropriate, and notability of the company itself is not inherited as a result."

But you want the company article itself to be kept. Please, if you have time, leaf through the Google Books results. Please find a few actual specific examples of significant coverage in reliable sources. Preferably each including one lengthy paragraph, or more, about the company itself. Did you take a look? Were you able to find anything?

I shall send you a {{talkback}} template to point you back here.

Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 22:20, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Green Hills Software was founded in 1982 by president and CEO Dan O'Dowd, who owns 97% of the company. Customers include Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola. Rival Wind River Systems filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ..."[2]
"Some of the challenges of using RTOSs include the fact that while there are some big players, such as Wind River (maker of VxWorksTM) and Green Hills Software (maker of IntegrityTM), there are literally hundreds of RTOSs in use today, and ..."
"The [Boeing] 787 used COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) operating system software by Green Hills Software and Wind River ..."
"When setting the license agreements for your software, ... An example is the disagreement between Express Logic and Green Hills software. It appears that Green Hills became a reseller of Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS, and eventually developed an equivalent, micro Velosity. Claiming that ..."
"In the underlying action, Microtec was sued by Green Hills Software, Inc. for allegedly passing off Green Hills' compiler code as its own. The complaint included claims for false designation of origin, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade ..."
"At the start of 2005, Green Hills Software Inc. filed a lawsuit against Wind River, after the latter attempted to quit a 99-year cooperative agreement between the two companies before the time limit was up. ..."
From The New York Times: "Besides Metrowerks, the noteworthies include Cygnus, Greenhills Software, Imprise, Integrated Systems and Wind River Systems."
From BusinessWeek: "Potential acquisition targets for chipmakers like Freescale and others could include makers of software and related tools for the non-PC computing market, such as MontaVista Software, Green Hills Software, and QNX Software Systems International."

Seems to be more than enough to establish notability of the company and fill a decent article with. —Ruud 02:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, Ruud, for spending the time to collect out this information. I hope this will put an end to the AfD debate, and we can all go back to doing something useful. This is a great resume of what has been going on around Green Hills, and a lot it of chould go into the article. There was also a famous fight between WR and GHS one their safety critical merits that could go in here. gnirre (talk) 07:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Rudy: I see no problem with 1; good find. But: 2 is not significant coverage. I don't see significant coverage in 3 either. 4, 5, and 6 seem to be about lawsuits. I'm not sure whether 4/5/6 help show notability or not; can anyone please weigh in? 7 and 8 are nothing but passing mentions. Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 20:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The article deals almost exclusively with its products, not the company size, actions events etcetera. If the products are notable then they deserve articles of their own. AadaamS (talk) 09:36, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I don't get why Trade Publications is not a good source. I work at one, I think, so, I am partial, probably. But please explain that again to me. ”I want to see articles in major mainstream media”? Can I make a comparison to the coverage of Linux sub-subjects? List of Linux distributions is a good start of you want to find links to companies that never are mentioned in mainstream media. Would it make sense to delete them? If some mainstream media decides to portray the ceo of Green Hills in an interview, would that suddenly make Green Hills Software notable? Why? Why does Intel have a Wikipedia entry? ARM? The line that separates notable electronic companies from non-notable seems to me to be rather arbitrary if it is based simply on what companies that mainstream media has happened to find an interest in. Close example: Wind River is a company similar to Green Hills Software – if GHS should go, Wind River should go also. But then Intel bought Wind River Systems. Did that suddenly make Wind River notable? If Intel would have bought Green Hills Software – then Green Hills would have been notable? gnirre (talk) 10:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps more articles should be deleted, feel free to nominate them too for deletion. AadaamS (talk) 13:27, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is obvious that my point is the opposite. gnirre (talk) 06:56, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your point was indeed obvious, but imho not so relevant to the discussion we ought to have. Your point did not explain how Green Hills software lives up to WP:GNG (which is the deletion criterion), only that trade publications may qualify as WP:RS. If you want to keep the article the best thing you can do is to improve the article, which currently mostly deals with its products not the company itself. So you think the company is notable? Then you must have proof in the form of WP:RS and nothing stops you from improving the article with said sources, or doing the same with all the other companies you mention. AadaamS (talk) 09:30, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, this article is AfD:d because Unforgettableid considers trade publications not qualified to be second hand sources. Read what he writes on this page. If you have domain knowledge of the embedded industry it is obvious that GHS is notable. Finding trade press refs to show this should be no problem at all. Thus discussing the qualifications of trade press is relevant. The fact that this article is under threat to be deleted is an argument against spending time improving it. Because if it is deleted, you would have been wasting your time. gnirre (talk) 11:02, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was already wondering whether you actually care about the article being deleted or if you are more interested in preserving the status of trade press as WP:RS. Clearly the latter. AadaamS (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what you are going for here. I care about this article. I have contributed to it in the past. I fought for its quality against shills a few years ago – if you think it sucks now, you should have seen it then! Now I am fighting to preserve it from some deletionist subspecies. I've probably consulted it also, so I have personal use for it. If the status of trade press as a reliable source (RS?) is at stake, in any form, I care about that too, but I don't know anything about that issue, if it exists, apart from the writings of Unforgettableid on this page. gnirre (talk) 18:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it's deleted, you can then transwiki it to an alternative wiki, or to a forum post or personal website, if you like. —Unforgettableid (talk) 20:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are entirely correct. There's nothing wrong with a trade pub. The same standards apply as with any source we might consider at AfD. We're looking for reliable independent secondary sources with a reputation for fact-checking and editorial control. LOTS of articles in LOTS of trade pubs qualify. Sure, there's also lots of stuff we can't use, e.g., articles written by individuals with close ties to the subject, interviews that consist only of the CEO saying whatever he likes, coverage of their press releases, etc. But tutorials, news and market analysis, reviews, comparisons, etc., are all potentially helpful. Msnicki (talk) 16:58, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My comment of 20:12, 16 September 2013, above, argues against your point. Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 20:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree that the article is badly written and poorly sourced. That, however, is not our concern at AfD. Here, our only concern is notability. The question at AfD is not whether appropriate sources have been cited, but whether they exist. I'm satisfied they do based on searches for their name + "C compiler" or their name + "integrity" (the name of their embedded OS). For example, P.J. Plauger's Embedded C++: An Overview discusses their compiler work and Philip Hunter's Linux security: separating myth from reality, Network Security, Vol 2004, Issue 8, Aug 2004, pp 8-9, discusses their OS work. (Sorry, you need to log in as I did, e.g., with a university ID, to read the Hunter paper.) Msnicki (talk) 14:48, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Msnicki. I've not done much in the way of AfDs for companies so this may be a easy question. Regarding the Plauger cite, Green Hills is mentioned five times in the article:

"Green Hills software is now marketing their embedded compiler products with full EC++ support."
"Green Hills software is a leading vendor of compilers for the embedded marketplace."
"Green Hills has a major customer who decided last year to adopt Embedded C++ as an internal standard for embedded projects."
"Dinkumware supplied the necessary hybrid library to Green Hills, who in turn supplied the customer."
"Green Hills has settled on the name Embedded Template C++ (ETC++) for the combined language and library."

As best I can tell, there's very little here that would go into the Green Hills article. While the paper is certainly a reliable source (and would make a solid source for an article on Embedded Template C++), I don't see it being a reliable source for Green Hills. Using the language from WP:NSOFT I would call this a "passing mention"

All that being said, I understand that guidelines for one domain don't necessarily apply the same way to other domains, and for establishing notability of a business the Plauger article may be significant or sufficient. I'd appreciate any guidance you'd care to give. Thanks! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 23:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Those are just the sentences that mention Green Hills. But surrounding each of those sentences are other sentences about EC++ support, the embedded marketplace, etc., providing the context for why Plauger thought it interesting to mention Green Hills. I wouldn't hold this article up as the gold standard of articles establishing notability but I found it sufficient. YMMV. Msnicki (talk) 00:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To User:Unforgettableid: Yes, you have hit the nail on the thumb. Sorry, I do tend to pack the maximum amount of words into the minimum amount of thought. Userfy to me if it goes, please; and I think the point of the policy on trade pubs is not whether they are RS but whether they are in themselves N. Presumably you can be RS without being N, else there would not be the need for both separately. Si Trew (talk) 14:50, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it does go keep, I hope Ruud will add all that to the article. Thanks Ruud.

I have some sentiment with "we can all go back to doing something useful", but if we get a decent article out of this, then that is useful. I made the mistake of looking at my watchlist; I was supposed to be translating an article about a French railway viaduct architect (cos, er, people are panting out to find out that kind of stuff), but ended up correcting the diacritical marks in references to poor old Szőllősy, commenting on whether the instructions to the ANTIC processor on an Atari 8-bit are programs, why there is stuff in the article on languages of the EU about Esperanto, which isn't one, and how many beans make five. One day I might get some work done, but then, nobody forces us to come here. Si Trew (talk) 15:07, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This company and its products have survived the test of time (older than a good chunk of Wikipedia readers), and the main problem is one of recentism in getting web-based sources. There should be enough to justify one article, just would take some work to dig out. Agree the article now has severe sourcing problems since it is just a bullet-list of products from the web site written only in present tense. Alas, a private company that makes money from quietly shipping useful products does not need all the hype in popular press that venture-funded ones do. And perhaps even merge Integrity (operating system) into this? I see Μ-velOSity already does point back here, so those wikilinks are misleading. At least we finally have one technical article that does not say it does cloud solutions! W Nowicki (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your point about recentism. Finding sources (see above for the two I cited) was more difficult than I expected and I came to the same conclusion. In the early to mid-80s, the early days of PCs and workstations, Green Hills was the go-to source for a C compiler. Among developers, their C compiler was as well-known and respected then as gcc is today. I'm not generally fond of the "I know it" argument but this is a case where I do know Green Hills got a lot of coverage 30 years ago but it's not easily found today. Msnicki (talk) 17:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone contacted GH's PR department? They probably keep a corporate "scrapbook" of coverage and might be able to supply pointers to reliable sources. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear closing admin: I'm not sure whether or not you will relist this nomination in order to offer the "Keep" voters more time to find sources. But I ask one favor; if you do, then it would be great if you could please say so. You could use a comment such as, for example, {{relist|Relisting in order to offer the "Keep" voters more time to find sources}}. Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 20:59, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.