11.24.07
Criticise Mono for Patents, Get Attacked
Can’t anyone see a taboo on opening this can of worms?
Fine. So we decided to confront and actually face an issue that has been hanging around the Web for several years and whose severity culminated amid Microsoft patent deals that explicitly mention Mono. None of what we said is new, yet it’s seen as controversial and we’re even being accused of lying, which we are not. Here is the response from Slated to these accusation:
Let him rant.
Some anonymous Mono fanb misquoting you, then linking to a non-existent post on Steadfast’s blog, is nothing to worry about.
And it still doesn’t disprove that Gnome is effectively dependent on Mono.
”Wouldn’t they celebrate the fact, rather than exert so much effort denying it, and making ad hominem attacks?“Think about this: If all these Mono fans are so dedicated to their cause, then why would it bother them that Gnome is dependent on their poisonous little toy? Wouldn’t they celebrate the fact, rather than exert so much effort denying it, and making ad hominem attacks?
They’re “doing evil”, and they know it. They’re just trying to disguise the fact.
Note that this VSQA blog is a “Visual Studio Questions and Answers” site, that deals entirely with Microsoft proprietary technology, such as VB.NET and ASP.NET, as well as C# and of course Mono.
This is the kind of people fighting the Mono cause now, this is the kind of people defending Mono’s corner, these are de Icaza’s and Steadfast’s “associates”.
Something has gone badly wrong when Microsoft fans are defending supposedly Linux developers. But then, of course, people like de Icaza and Steadfast are not really Linux developers … any more, they’re just “evangelists” for Microsoft’s encumbered technology.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
e-2e#t said,
November 24, 2007 at 5:15 pm
You are soooooo ridiculous and you are making such a fool of yourself in public… 8D If you could just see yourself writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth like stark-raving mad; it’s a sight to behold.
I can only tell you what I told Beranger: Stop whining and mud-catapulting; go make your own free operating-system if you feel so betrayed!
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a known, pseudonymous, nymshifting, abusive Internet troll
Jeff Waugh said,
November 24, 2007 at 7:25 pm
It *DOES* disprove that GNOME (in a technical or community sense) depends on Mono. I’ve pointed this out to you before. There is absolutely no question about this, and your continued insinuation that it’s not true merely demonstrates your negative intent.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 24, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Because they know it’s a controversial issue in the GNOME community, and don’t want to anger their friends. It’s very simple.
Victor Soliz said,
November 24, 2007 at 7:52 pm
It almost sounds as if you think Novell made Linux…
I don’t think gnome “technically” depends on MONO, at least not right now. It doesn’t change the fact that they are pushing this technology on desktop applications that could function correctly or better without it. Applications that did not need it.
Before you jump into pretending to be a pragmatic programmer, I would say like I said before that the “best tool for the job” in this case is totally away from MONO. The job is to make free-open source software to be included in gnome which is right now the top desktop for Linux an operating that is free software . Then I really can’t understand what the aim is to use MONO when there are so much better options available to do this job, which is the production of free software.
We really do not need to make so important applications (Beagle is the friging desktop search for gnome!) depend on technology that (like it or not) is under patent threats.
Denying such patent threats, would show shortsightedness at best, since MS explicitly mentions MONO as something that requires their protection. And the whole moonlight issue shows what Novell and MS are up to with Mono (please, don’t forget/ignore what’s going on with moonlight, I for one still am pretty much disgusted by it, and I hope I don’t have to remind you of what happened there.)
Victor Soliz said,
November 24, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I think spending a lot of time to prove that gnome is not totally dependent on MONO is a waste of time. For one the fact that MONO is pushed to be used on its application should raise an alarm fact. And if the gnome foundation wants a clean name they should for one try not to work for OOXML and let MS do the job. And then they should show less commitment to MONO and more commitment to their users.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 24, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Precisely! Heck, who needs search? Why don’t we go further and also add Mono to the mail client? Who needs E-mail anyway? It all starts with ‘extensions’.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 24, 2007 at 8:17 pm
The GNOME community in general is *NOT* “pushing this technology”! You need to better understand the GNOME community before making claims like this.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 24, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I agree with Jeff on this one. it’s apparently the distributors who accept this technology, but the question which remains is: to what extent do Mono contributions curb to the side what could have been an implementation that is Mono-free and Mono-independent? The complete solution which is delivered along with a GNU/Linux distribution makes use of what’s available. I know about many Beagle alternatives, but is there one which is easy to integrate with GNOME and performs very well (other than Beagle)? Google Desktop is out of the question here because we’re talking about a Free (and preferably Microsoft FUD/IP-free) desktop.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 24, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Tracker is a technology that fills the same role, and was shipped by default with Ubuntu 7.10. Unfortunately, it’s an immature project with a… difficult… maintainer that doesn’t receive a lot of active interest or support from the broader GNOME community.
See, Roy, if you just contact me and ask questions, the primary material on your site could be SO MUCH BETTER. It’s ridiculous that I have to reply in the comments to correct the outrageous crap you post. Why don’t you do it? I’ve asked so many times. What exactly is the problem with doing research and asking questions of people who know what’s actually going on?
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 24, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Good point, Jeff. I can recall finding out about it and then going thought he SVN tree to find out how it was composed. I was extremely pleased to see that it involved no Mono and I even wrote about it gleefully in a couple of places. I hope it will gain more attraction, which it deserves.
Usually it’s not clear which questions to ask and unless I pass complete posts through you (and others) for approval, then it’s almost impractical. I try as much as I can to cite external articles, preferably ones from a reputable sources whose text results from well-researched authorship and peer review.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 24, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Stop making pathetic excuses. Your previous post was composed of nasty insinuations couched as questions — had you posted those *QUESTIONS* to me, I could have given you detailed answers such that you could have avoided posting such idiocies to the front page of your website. You have access to the community and stakeholders of issues that you discuss. Use that access, and stop avoiding the issue.
TaQ said,
November 25, 2007 at 9:33 am
Jeff, you’re using words like “pathetic”, “idiot”, “idiocies”, “stupid” on every comment/email you answer. Not just here, all around, I’m watching some mailing list trying to get some more facts about all this mess and I just see you around with all this kind of attitude! If you think that will work like a way to scare people about you you’re wrong. This just makes you look like all those words.
Ok, I can stop reading what you write, but then I’m giving you a chance of ask “why don’t you ask me questions?” and to avoid some important (yes, they are) information. We will not ask you questions if we have a chance of get some answer like that.
I think Roy is right. He don’t know what questions to ask you because seems that you don’t allow him to freely ask for something out of the scope of what you think that are the right questions. He needs to be free to ask you everything he wants, if you allow him to do so, as you’re free to answer what you want, but “that’s not the right question” is not a very good thing to answer, IMHO. As Roy said, it will be impractical.
An open access to the community and stakeholders of issues does not necessarily means that he will have some good answers about his questions. Maybe this kind of situation produce 1000 emails but not even an article here. That can be good for some of the parts, but I really think that even if you think the posts here are crap we’re discussing on public and not on private emails.
About Mono: I’m making some tests to prove that we can remove it from GNOME, and on Fedora and Ubuntu it really works. On - what a surprise - Suse, it doesn’t, you can’t remove Mono from there without messing with GNOME. I’ll try to test another distros, but if there is any doubt of the GNOME dependency the tests are making clear that, at least right now, we can avoid Mono on GNOME.
Mono for me is a waste of time and a way to help Microsoft status. What better evidence we can have than that desperate mobilization to make moonlight, implementing something that *it’s not* a big deal right now but *can be* a big deal on the future specially with people helping them?
Come on, guys, we are watching the Vista failure every day. An OS made with some billions and years of development should not be a joke even out of the geek people. They are huge but they failed on the technical field (I’m not saying there is not very competent people working there) and now they’re playing with the other weapons: money and politics. We can handle code but we’re not so good on the other two questions, and seems that all the moves on the Free Software field about money and politics on the last years led us to the “interoperability” questions and danger to the freedom we’re facing today, with more damage than help to the Free Software, IMHO.
Let me make clear that I really think about the freedom of using Mono. If someone wants to use it, go ahead, use it (remember that all the .net stuff works better on windows, stay there is a good choice).
But *please* don’t want to make Mono a dependency of such a good project like GNOME and many others and *please* stop saying that it’s for the help of Free Software. Mess with all that for just because some “cool” apps to manage photos and take some notes. Come on!
As Slated said, “people like de Icaza and Steadfast are not really Linux developers … any more, they’re just ‘evangelists’ for Microsoft’s encumbered technology”. Of course they and others that are among the Free Software community working for microsoft interests are free to make this, but please, remove the mask, let’s play a fair game here, we can’t have players on both side of the field. Of course being such “spies” are really a tactical thing, and they will not think one moment about losing it …
Is it a game? Yes, when one side says on public that needs to defeat the other. Specially when who saids that have some billions and very much power on people around the world, as a monopoly on the system they use or on the money they get.
Not a problem if they could leave us alone building and using Free Software. But today - after they laugh a lot about this - seems that it’s a big problem to them. I can use Free Software all day along and don’t remember that microsoft exists till I see some declaration of them working like a menace to my freedom.
Jacup said,
November 25, 2007 at 10:59 am
You write: ‘I think Roy is right. He don’t know what questions to ask you because seems that you don’t allow him to freely ask for something out of the scope of what you think that are the right questions.’
This is baseless and stoopid accusation.
Go fork GNOME if you want to but stop your accusations. It’s always the unimportant people that haven’t contributed a single line of code to GNOME that want to dictate GNOME’s direction. Go away, you troll.
TaQ said,
November 25, 2007 at 11:15 am
Oh, are you sure? Check the previous threads here on site. Did you checked them? If so, we can have different ways to see things, but the only one that is using “stupid” when talk about that it’s you and this does not help the discussion.
As always, the kind of thing that “made a huge effort to shut up”. It will not work. Try a better one.
I don’t - and can’t - dictate something about something that it’s not only mine, but I think we have the freedom to talk about something that belongs to all, am I right?
If you think I’m trying to “dictate” something you didn’t read the post and the comments, or your are trying to make some “noise” to avoid the main point here or you didn’t understand what is happening here. Go away and try to make a more consistent comment the next time, you troll.
TaQ said,
November 25, 2007 at 11:17 am
Sorry, the correct words are “made a huge effort OR shut up”.
SundayRefugee said,
November 25, 2007 at 3:00 pm
“It’s always the unimportant people that haven’t contributed a single line of code to GNOME that want to dictate GNOME’s direction. Go away, you troll.”
Those would be the USERS.
Clearly showing the order of priority in the project, and the regard thereof. Thanks for the enlightentment, Jacup
Jeff Waugh said,
November 25, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Why are you assuming that “Jacup” speaks for GNOME?
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 25, 2007 at 3:12 pm
TaQ is right when he says that Jeff maneuvers me into asking the questions that he wants to answer. This was mentioned before here.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 25, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Roy, this is terribly disingenuous of you. I have offered to answer *any* questions you have. That thread demonstrated that you were incapable of asking any questions *at all* until a lot of pushing and shoving. My door is still open, despite your disingenuous statements and appalling research and coverage. That ought to demonstrate my integrity in the face of such unprofessional attacks.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 25, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Jeff: “Anyway, you’ve asked the wrong question again, assuming that GNOME is wedged to Mono in some way. I’m sick of this idiotic conversation, so I’m going to give you the answer you’ve managed to stay away from asking for the entire discussion.”
From: http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/07/gnome-corrections/
It seems to me like you have the answers only to questions that you want me to ask.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 25, 2007 at 4:16 pm
You were sledging *GNOME* and asking about *distributions*, trying to make some kind of insinuation about GNOME through them. You didn’t ask the obvious question that might demonstrate *GNOME’s* position. I’m not here to defend decisions made by distributions. I’m here to answer questions about *GNOME*.
I’m absolutely happy to answer your questions, and I’ve kept my door open the whole time despite your insinuations and attacks on my integrity (and my wife’s integrity).
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 25, 2007 at 4:34 pm
You’re adding drama here, which is unnecessary drama. Looking back at the text that I quickly wrote (I always write quickly here, which explains the many typos and ambiguities), I said that sources of incoming for GNOME and its member is something that I am curious about; in particular, I am curious about Novell’s role in funding GNOME and what role (if any) the Microsoft/Novell deal plays in that.
Jeff Waugh said,
November 25, 2007 at 4:38 pm
You also questioned the personal integrity of GNOME Foundation directors, including me and my wife, suggesting that perhaps there was financial benefit involved in this issue. That is repugnant and offensive. If you were genuinely curious, and not just looking to create conspiracy theories and sledge highly respected members of the community, you would have ASKED ABOUT IT. There is no excuse: You’ve had an open door. I’ve said this over and over again, here and in email. There is absolutely no excuse for your behaviour. It’s completely unnecessary, no matter how much you try to rationalise it.
SundayRefugee said,
November 25, 2007 at 7:08 pm
“Why are you assuming that “Jacup” speaks for GNOME?”
Jacup speaks from an assumed moral highground as someone who contributes code, as he clearly ad-homs anyone who he *assumes* hasn’t, as somehow having no right to an opinion. If I am in error, I do apologize
Do I stand corrected?
Jeff Waugh said,
November 25, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I have no idea, but either of us would be fools to make the assumption.