11.29.07

GNOME Foundation, Please Stop Attacking the Messenger and Please Listen

Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Office Suites, Mono, GNOME, Open XML, OpenOffice at 6:46 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Disinformation Fights Information

I tried to send some information through to Luis Villa, but there is no response yet (here or on the GNOME Foundation’s mailing list). I shall post it here urgently before the discussion becomes irrelevant.

From my E-mail

“I’ve been informed of a thread in the Foundation’s mailing list and I am stunned to see a shoot the messenger tactic being used to intercept inconvenient truths. Let it be clear that I’m a GNOME user sometimes and I am only concerned about directions that the project recently took. About the site which I co-edit, things are taken out of context in the mailing list and the credibility put to question in order to suppress postings that we based on factual evidence (articles and quotes).”

”This is a case of “get Mono, or be left out in the cold”.“The point many of the posters appears to be escaping completely (which is probably a cause for concern) is the connection between Mono and Moonlight (even OOXML). They need to see the attempt to forcefeed people .NET infringements through Web sites (Silverlight) and document exchange (translator project and OOXML, which itself is protected by patents)? Even IBM can apparently see this. It’s gradual and it’s quiet. This is a case of “get Mono, or be left out in the cold”. Microsoft is already cracking down on businesses that use Linux. This type of extortion is barely covered by the media, i.e. it is becoming a reality quietly.

I’ve been following the discussion in the mailing lists (people send me pointers via E-mail) and one thing that I noticed is that Jeff Waugh is being hostile and disrespectful towards us. Where else have we heard this today? That is something which we do not do. This leads to prejudice and suppresses legitimate information.

In the mailing list’s archive you’ll find a lot more information, but just to highlight bits that caught my attention:

Richard Stallman: “The more “cool stuff” depends on Mono, the closer we get to a situation where a Microsoft attack on Mono would put GNOME in a vice.

If these programs are important enough to deserve the term “miss out on”, then I think they should be written in another language.”

Rui Miguel Silva Seabra: “People are very freaked out and nerves on a real fringe, so it’s very easy to trigger alarm. We have Novell, as a huge puppet from Microsoft’s manouvers to divide the Free Software community, to “thank” for so much friction.”

Richard Stallman: “Microsoft is trying to spin the apparent “support” of GNOME into proof that OOXML is not bad for free software.”

Luckily, OpenOffice.org is not a Novell project (same features available in other GNU/Linuxes), unless you consider the highly disturbing fact that Novell is now discriminating against Linux, due to Microsoft’s terms. OpenOffice.org for Windows is incompatible with OpenOffice.org for Linux now. It is divided. Ron Hovsepian said that it was Microsoft’s condition.

Maybe it depends where you read about Novell, but the company’s image is on the decline. After Novell liaised with a company that hates Linux (by its own confessions), the world should be careful (in my very humble opinion) of Novell’s motives and moves, if now altogether yawn at Novell’s product, which are increasingly aligning with Microsoft patents. █

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