05.27.08
OOXML and Mono: Not So Different After All
A fairly intriguing analysis which was posted just 4 days ago delves into the tricks Microsoft might be playing at the moment and also makes a comparison to Mono.
I’m sure that Microsoft will try to gain some advantage from OOXML, as broken as it is. They could try to reproduce what they managed to do with .NET and CLR by standardizing and opening only a subset of the .Net API , thus letting Novell create a very limited .Net implementation, Mono. Regardless of what the future options could be, the OOXML standardization will prove to be the single most destructive episode of the standardization history.
Another good analysis of Mono’s goals you will find here.
Please consider contacting your national standards body, asking it to usher the complaint from South Africa. If bodies are not pushed to do so, laziness will defeat true need. As another quick reminder (this time from Linux Journal):
The deadline for countries to file — listen up standards bodies — is Thursday the 29th.
Other than South Africa, according to current reports, no country has yet filed an appeal. Prodding might help. █
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.
AlexH said,
May 27, 2008 at 9:37 am
Interesting that the author doesn’t actually point out an area in which Mono has been limited to support that assertion. Quite easy to point out those areas in Mono which provide features not found in .net (Gtk#, Cecil, Gendarme, the POSIX/UNIX classes, Addins, etc. etc.)
“Analysis” probably isn’t the right word.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 27, 2008 at 11:09 am
Alex,
Legal limitations and technical limitations are both worthy of consideration.
As as off topic remark, I notice that you are the main maintainer who hacks on Novell’s Hula. May I suggest the possibility that you have a sentimental attachment to Novell and are therefore biased/passionate? Moreover, if I dare ask you this, do you endorse the Microsoft/Novell deal? I just wish to resolve who is who.
AlexH said,
May 27, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Hardly off-topic; the only reason I found this site in the first place was a story you ran about Hula which was totally, factually, incorrect. I replied, and pointed out the completely obvious inaccuracy, which you failed to correct.
Talking again of factual inaccuracy: no, I’m not the “main maintainer of Novell’s Hula”, and the link you’ve given isn’t to Hula, it’s to Bongo. Novell’s Hula is called Messaging Architect’s M+ Netmail these days, and that’s not something I have any involvement in whatsoever.
But, y’know, you’d know all this if you’d actually taken me up on my original offer to tell you what did happen with Novell…
AlexH said,
May 27, 2008 at 12:41 pm
As for my sentiments on the Novell/Microsoft deal - don’t know, don’t care, if I’m honest. I don’t use any Novell products; I stick mainly to Fedora and Debian, although obviously I use free software that Novell contribute to, like KDE, Mono, etc.
Basically, it doesn’t affect me. If I got worried about every patent cross-licensing deal out there I wouldn’t get much done, tbh.
gggggg said,
May 27, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Until your previous comment I thought that you were just a troll and/or a paid shill. But now it’s clear: you’re just an idiot.
How about affecting the way use and distribute them.
How about the way that people that develop, use and distribute them.
It’s just because care enough about those in the past that you can use them, with those rights that you care so little about.
Besides that, your logic is hilarious.
“Quite easy to point out those areas in Mono which provide features not found in .net (Gtk#, Cecil, Gendarme, the POSIX/UNIX classes, Addins, etc. etc.)”
So they weren’t stopped from adopting further NET technologies because they created their own. That’s exactly the reason. What you shown proves the man right.
The reason or one the reasons that Mono was created was provide an easy and fast to run NET based windows applications on Linux. How easy can that be if they have to rewrite most of their applications.
I know of one case where the developers simply wrap their application with WINE like Google did with Picasa. A “NET application”. So much for cross-platform development.
Where’re the big .NET applications that were created to run on both platforms or that were converted to run Linux.
Where’re the Linux Mono applications that run on windows without Mono making use of the NET framework.
So much for the myth of cross-platform development and deployment of the NET technologies.
So, you don’t mind. Right, that’s why you take every opportunity to come here spread disinformation. About OOXML, about Mono, etc…
You’re an idiot. You would be a good sidekick to that supreme Win-Troll by the name of “Moshe Goldfarb”
Alex H. said,
May 27, 2008 at 3:28 pm
@gggggg: Nice attempt at a personal attack.
Which statements of mine are actual misinformation, as opposed to just opinions you disagree with?
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 27, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Alex,
I wrote “main maintainer who hacks on Novell’s Hula” (to make Bongo, which I think would be a wonderful project and I wish you success), not “main maintainer of Novell’s Hula”.” You misquoted me.
The point I was making is that code you started with came from Novell, so I expect you to be protective of Novell.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 27, 2008 at 6:07 pm
gggggg,
There’s no “Moshe Goldfarb”. That’s just one nym among hundreds or thousands that Gary M. Stewart (Flatfish), a Microsoft Munchkin, has been using for over a decade. He picked the name “Moshe Goldfarb” (a holocaust survivor) to do his more recent trolling and escape some people’s filters.
AlexH said,
May 28, 2008 at 1:58 am
@Roy:
I started hacking on Bongo because the project was shafted by Novell. Why on earth would that make me protective of Novell?
Please don’t call Bongo “Novell’s Hula”. It’s not. The initial version we forked was never released by Novell as “Hula”, and is nothing like the “Hula” that got included in e.g. Debian and Ubuntu.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 28, 2008 at 3:12 am
I didn’t mean to make fun out of Bongo (and seriously, I wish it the best), but I wanted to convey the message that it is/parts of it are derived from a Novell project.
Miles said,
May 28, 2008 at 10:17 am
Unless AlexH is a current (or past, if you are really desperate to claim his bias) employee of Novell, I don’t see how Bongo being based on a past Novell project makes him biased in favor of Novell at all.
But since we are discussing biases… Roy, you seem very biased against Novell, even when other companies that you praise are just as bad if not worse than Novell.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 28, 2008 at 10:24 am
It’s primarily the patent deals that we’re against.