03.03.10
Posted in Debian, Europe, FOSS, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 6:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: More migrations to Free software are seen in Germany and setbacks are spotted elsewhere in Europe
OpenOffice.org continues to evolve under Oracle’s guard, which is good news. According to the following article, OpenOffice.org also continues to gain greater adoption in Germany. Here is Bull speaking about its migrations to OpenOffice.org. [English translation]
Insgesamt wurde weltweit auf mehr als 8.000 Arbeitsplätzen, davon 500 in Deutschland, das Lizenzkosten-freie Office-Paket installiert. Durch den konsequenten Einsatz von offenen Standards setzt Bull auf eine zukunftsfähige IT-Strategie, die die Abhängigkeit von kommerziellen Anwendungen und proprietären Standards verringert – getreu dem Firmen-Claim „Architect of an Open World™“.
That’s a lot more desktops running Free software and ODF. Bull has a customer base with more than 100,000 installations worldwide. There is also this new update about Munich’s migration to Debian GNU/Linux and ODF:
The consolidated IT of the city of Munich is reporting at CeBIT 2010 on converting their workstations to Linux and OpenOffice.
The migration to the free office package was finalized for Munich. All 15,000 office PCs of the city council will work on OpenOffice, under Linux or Windows. In the context of CeBIT Open Source, city experts and the DBI service will answer questions about the migration at booth F24. On display will be their Wollmux software tool for personalized templates and forms administration.
We wrote about Munich’s important migration (which Microsoft tried to derail) on numerous occasions before [1, 2].
The trickier part, as Holland shows us, is getting rid of proprietary lock-ins and never returning to them again. Here is what Glyn Moody wrote about “The Continuing Scandal of Vendor Lock-in“:
This is a strong argument for mandating open source/open standards solutions in the public sector: depending on “level playing fields” as Microsoft demands so vociferously is actually surrendering to the status quo because of the huge lock-in problem. The only way to get true equality of opportunity is to force people to move to open standards, and *then* let the market operate freely.
Moody has a new example of this Microsoft Office lock-in. He refers to the Microsoft-occupied Open University [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] which requests “application forms [for a CIO] only in .doc or .pdf…”
Speaking of lock-in, Pinguinpat has added to our Wiki this new page about how Microsoft is not only removing choice at the OEM level, but also goes further to rob taxpayers for increased lock-in:
Belgian tax money,
The Belgian national government is actually giving ‘less gifted’ people the opportunity to buy a computer to get access to the Internet.
Beautiful right? Well no: the minister in charge refuses to halt the cartel between Microsoft, computer manufacturers and vendors.
Getting a computer includes buying Microsoft software. So for every sold computer, Belgian tax money goes directly to Microsoft.
Minister Van Quickenborne minister ict – openVLD doesn’t seem to care. As usual Microsoft doesn’t need to take the law seriously.
It’s one thing when a private company decides to trade with an abusive monopoly but entirely another when government institutions do so at taxpayers’ expense and without their permission/approval. █
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01.14.10
Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 6:56 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: MEPIS is listing Novell’s Mono among non-Free software, as it probably ought to
MEPIS is a popular GNU/Linux distribution which is built on top of KDE. The KDE 3.5-based build of SimplyMEPIS 8.0.15 is said to include Mono, but this is not correct (Distrolove is inaccurate).
Warren Woodford has announced the release of SimplyMEPIS8.0.15, a new update of the beginner-friendly distribution based on Debian’s stable branch.
What’s New in SimplyMEPIS 8.0.15 :
> Devian 5
> 2.6.27 Linux kernel
> OpenOffice.org 3.1.1
> Firefox 3.5.6
> BIND 9.6.1-P2
> Skype 2.1.0.47
> Mono 2.4.2.3
> you can play any audio/video files.
Having taken a look at the official press release, Mono seems like just an addon, which is advertised alongside the proprietary Skype. █
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12.27.09
Posted in Debian, FSF, GNU/Linux, GPL, Law, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Ubuntu at 10:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: gNewSense is shifting to Debian codebase, shafting Mono, and the debate about Mono and Moonlight reaches new levels
THE FSF has already taken a stance against the use of Mono and the SFLC has shown that Moonlight is not acceptable from a legal perspective (the latest “promise” from Microsoft has at least 10 holes in it).
gNewSense, the distribution which Richard Stallman is currently using, has already removed Mono [1, 2] and gNewSense developers are now “dropping Ubuntu” (not our words) and moving to Debian, just like MEPIS did. From the site’s updated FAQ (“modified on December 23, 2009, at 09:42 PM”):
13. Will gNewSense 3.0 be based on Debian instead of Ubuntu, and why?
Yes, because:
* Debian separates free and non-free software better, so it’s easier to make a fully free derivative out of it.
* Debian supports the architectures we want to support (e.g. MIPS).
* it suits our infrastructure better (easier development).
Since Gobuntu never materialised [1, 2], this means that there is no longer a truly free/libre variant of Ubuntu.
gNewSense’s reasons are known (see above). In the case of MEPIS, the reasons had to do with infrastructure too. One cannot help wondering if Ubuntu’s increasing reliance on Mono also had something to do with this decision, even subconsciously.
To quote a conversation that came up an hour ago in our IRC channel (the full log will be posted tomorrow):
| kecskebak |
Did anyone listen to the latest Ubuntu UK Podcast? |
Dec 27 13:25 |
| kecskebak |
Talking about Silverlight / Moonlight |
Dec 27 13:25 |
| kecskebak |
“At last a real Microsoft Open Source application…” |
Dec 27 13:25 |
| kecskebak |
“Watch the Winter Olympics on Ubuntu” Yeah, right… |
Dec 27 13:26 |
| oiaohm |
God |
Dec 27 13:26 |
| oiaohm |
Its not really open source while MS hold the cards to revoke the licence. |
Dec 27 13:26 |
| oiaohm |
Some of the ubuntu guy are legal morons. |
Dec 27 13:27 |
| kecskebak |
That’s a typical Ubuntu attitude to software freedom, sadly |
Dec 27 13:28 |
| oiaohm |
Problem is most of them have no clues what freedom is. |
Dec 27 13:29 |
| oiaohm |
So will have to learn the leason the hard way. |
Dec 27 13:29 |
| kecskebak |
I think the attraction of GNU/Linux in the UK is it crashes less or you don’t have anti-virus |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| kecskebak |
The software freedom part is seen as rather eccentric and for geeks |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| kecskebak |
Anyone who believes in anything in the UK tends to be regarded as rather suspicious |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| kecskebak |
That’s why Richard Dawkins gets a kicking in the press |
Dec 27 13:31 |
| oiaohm |
Software freedom is about data protection kecskebak |
Dec 27 13:32 |
| oiaohm |
I want to be able to access anything I create in the future. |
Dec 27 13:32 |
| kecskebak |
Yes – that’s precisely why I moved from Flash to Inkscape |
Dec 27 13:32 |
| oiaohm |
If you don’t have direct control over the software you don’t have direct control of your data so you are in a invisable jail with your data held hostage. |
Dec 27 13:33 |
| amarsh04 |
ms-publisher has been a real trap that way |
Dec 27 13:33 |
Regarding the text of the new Moonlight covenant, Groklaw writes: “So Moonlight is being framed as a proprietary product, then, I gather.” Groklaw highlights what it calls an “interesting bit” from the covenant, namely: ““Moonlight Implementation” means only those specific portions of Moonlight 3 or Moonlight 4 that run only as Conforming Runtimes within a Conforming Host on a Personal Computer and are not licensed under GPLv3 or a Similar License.”
One of our readers, Brandon, has written a long post to explain Microsoft’s “Mono/Moonlight Agenda”. To quote just a portion (it is a very detailed analysis):
Many relevant points are brought up in this section. James Plamondon states (infamously) that “Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat.”
This would imply that by using the C# standard (ECMA 334 & 335), Microsoft receives a small victory. An example of defeat would be lines of code written in Java, C++ (Standardized, C++98 or C++03 for example), Python, etc.
The second paragraph explains that they want to use psychological, economic, and political weapons to convince people to adopt their standards. Often I hear a lot of business talk about wanting to use Microsoft because most of their customer base is Windows machines. Other excuses for sticking with Microsoft has been the FUD “Total Cost of Ownership” studies that falsely prove Microsoft is cheaper or that GNU/Linux is more expensive.
Some days ago we wrote about Novell’s removal of GPL-licensed code from MonoDevelop [1, 2]. Why is Novell still against the GNU GPL? Its ally Microsoft hates the GPL with passion, so this may not seem so absurd a move after all.
In defence of the GPL, Groklaw writes regarding Glyn Moody’s article and Google’s highly-cited document: “The GPL would mean there’d be no need to work hard to avoid fragmenting. If you choose a license that can fragment, you will get fragmenting, because proprietary desires are sure to come into the picture, as they did with UNIX. That’s exactly what is wrong with Apache. It’s open, until it isn’t.”
At this stage, Mono too is being closed. It’s not so surprising considering the fact that Novell calls itself a “mixed source” company. It’s false marketing [1, 2]. █
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07.19.09
Posted in Debian, FSF, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, Ubuntu at 11:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Solang photo manager does not require Mono
Summary: How F-spot would force Ubuntu, for example, to adopt more Mono applications with non-ECMA .NET components
LAST NIGHT we arrived at an interesting realisation. If F-spot will depend on Banshee, which according to the plan we have heard that it will [PDF], then Ubuntu, which already uses F-Spot, may have to swallow this other pill too — one which contain non-ECMA components (Banshee that is). So, the latest statement from the FSF aside and also API concessions aside (Mono gives Microsoft power and leverage over GNU/Linux APIs), there is an inherent legal problem here, which is difficult to stop. Another prospective concern is the increasing proximity between Moonlight and Banshee [1, 2, 3, 4], which might bring Microsoft codecs even further into GNU/Linux.
Check out this new mashup from Linux Today, as selected by its editor Carla.
[phred14] [Who is asking for Mono?]
Simple answer – nobody. Mono is being pushed into Linux, not pulled. So far the one application that’s dragging it into “default” isn’t even very important, and Mono/C# isn’t even critical. A Mono-free C#-free clone of that application was built in practically no time.
Simply put, Mono gives Microsoft control over a Linux desktop API, even without patent threats. The ECMA standard is irrelevant, if only because it’s incomplete, and *always* needs extensions. In order to field a functional, complete Mono, you need to start cloning Microsoft stuff. You may as well base the Linux UI on WINE.”
[GreyGeek] [Re: Re: Re: Mono a solution looking for a problem?]
[...]
The lack of MONO apps IS glaring, isn’t it!
What’s even MORE glaring is that De Icaza has been working on MONO since December of 2000, when he changed the name of his company, Helix Code, to Ximian in order to focus on developing MONO. Yet, NINE years later there is only a handful of MONO apps. IF MONO is the such a marvelous RAD tool, why has it taken so long to produce so few applications?
Also, if .NET is such a marvelous CROSS PLATFORM tool where code written on one platform can be recompiled with few or no changes on another platform, WHY isn’t Linux being FLOODED with .NET applications?
The answer is simple. MONO is a patent trap and most Penguins realize it. So, just like it did with the ISO committees, Microsoft is flooding the Linux development groups with .NET moles and the Linux forums with astroturfers and TEs.
GNU/Linux distributions like BLAG reject Mono for obvious reasons (not just the adherence to the FSF’s principles). On the other hand, Ubuntu’s suppression of discussion about Mono [1, 2, 3] is characteristic of a betrayal of democratic principles, or at least ones of an open community thriving in liberties. Humanity for others, unless they dislike Mono. It is indicative of a ruling minority taking decision-making powers from an opposing majority (most people reject Mono), which leads to unrest.
Speaking for myself, I am truly torn here. I have used Ubuntu since its very first release (4.10) and I still have Ubuntu installed on 3 separate boxes. To manually delete Mono is still to send out the message that a Mono-defending distribution is acceptable because subsequent removal of Mono is never accounted for; the message does not get across and users are assumed to have accepted Mono when choosing this one distribution among many hundreds. I remain optimistic that Ubuntu/Canonical will keep this debate alive and maybe resolve its differences. The facts about Mono are not hard to come by. █
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07.16.09
Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, Java, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Search at 4:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“We could refresh the look and feel of the entire desktop with Moonlight”
–Miguel de Icaza
Summary: Another new roundup of Mono news
YESTERDAY we wrote about Moonlight and Mono-based applications getting more tightly integrated. We now see it confirmed by Novell employees Miguel de Icaza and Jonathan Pobst [1 2], so our suspicions were correct from the very start. This is all part of Microsoft’s ambition to fill the Web with Silver Lie content and the desktop with .NET/WPF, which in turn imposes a patent tax on GNU/Linux and makes a poorer experience for GNU/Linux users. From ITPro news:
The first version of Silverlight was launched in April 2007, while version 2 arrived in 2008. It runs on Windows and Mac – and even Linux. The latter is developed by Novell in conjunction with Microsoft, a project known as Moonlight.
“[I]n conjunction with Microsoft,” says this article, but the Microsoft/Novell Web site calls it “Microsoft Moonlight”. It serves Microsoft’s interests.
Microsoft’s Anti-Java
In the blog post where Mini Microsoft suggests laying off 15k employees we also find this comment which reminds us why it’s good that Bing is dying. Microsoft uses Bing to smear .NET’s (and Mono’s) main competitor, Java. From the commenter:
“Regarding Bing, I believe there are untrustworthy behaviours under the hood, specifically black list result filters. Try this searching for “transferhandler.export to clipboard swing”. Google finds about 100 results all related to Java. Bing finds exactly two results. One is my comment on this subject elsewhere and the other is in French. How can it be possible without deletion of “things Java” ?”
This is not surprising because Microsoft applies the same type of treatment to all major competitors of Microsoft, GNU/Linux included. See our previous posts on the subject, e.g.:
Attacks on Stallman
For the past fortnight or so (shortly after Stallman’s official statement on Mono and C#), Stallman has come under attack from many directions, usually from defenders of Mono or users of Mono (including Canonical employees). He is still not impressed by Microsoft’s “Community Promise” (CP) [1, 2, 3] and this makes him no friends. Stefano Forenza wrote about these attacks on Stallman only to be called “misguided” by Caonical’s CTO.
The first meme being directed to Richard Stallman for citing ‘eMacs virgins’ in a speech and the other one only gods knows whom.
While the latter is just is yet another generalist campaign (like the infamous “hey, even double click is patented!”) the first is a frontal attack to Richard Stallman as a person: knives coming out all of a sudden.
Even the Canonical CTO blogged about it.
While the video isn’t available yet, I have big doubts there is something even remotely offensive in such Stallman talk. It’s very easy to take feminism as an excuse, as many people (not just girls) will jump in no-matter-what without even knowing what it’s being talked about.
The new method in place seems to be that if you support Stallman and support his stance on Mono, then you’re also a chauvinist. It’s not said explicitly, but it is being implied that to be associated with Stallman is also to accept his sometimes-tactless humour/modest proposals.
Sam Varghese correctly points out that Mono’s most vocal defender inside Debian is himself quite chauvinistic. That person is Josselin Mouette.
Mouette, it may be recalled, is the developer who had posted what were considered sexist posts to the Debian project mailing list meant for important announcements for developers.
(Mono is an open source implementation of parts of Microsoft’s .NET development environment; many sections of the FOSS community fear that Mono may prove to be a patent trap down the line as .NET is totally Microsoft technology. Recent statements have done little to dispel this impression.)
I asked the Debian leader Steve McIntyre a few queries about the Mono change and he, as always, sent back straightforward replies. McIntyre, I may add, has always been open and upfront in dealing with iTWire.
But after Free Software Foundation chief Richard Stallman called the Debian move risky – he based the statement on the inference that a decision on including Mono in the Debian default install had already been taken – Debian spokesman Alexander Reichle-Schmehl decided that the project had to speak up and did so by trying to explain things through a post on his blog.
For those who have not been following the whole Mono kerkuffle (a lot has happened recently), here is an excellent summary, which concludes thusly:
Well there are issues around Mono, including patents. This means that some people, myself included now refuse to use it. Those that are pro-mono don’t seem to understand exactly why everyone isn’t shouting hosannas over their projects. Indeed one of them classified Tomboy as ‘An Exciting Program’, which stunned me. Tomboy? Exciting? I didn’t think so.
It is “exciting” for Microsoft, that’s for sure. Its APIs spread to the competitors’ platforms, which makes Microsoft more powerful. It does not bother Novell. █
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
“[The partnership with Microsoft is] going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
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07.13.09
Posted in Debian, FSF, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Ubuntu at 4:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: “Move over, Richard, we’ll take it from here” — that’s the sort of message embraced by parts of the Mono community
WE already know, based on pretty extensive evidence, that many Mono fans are also close to Microsoft. That is what makes this whole movement rather detrimental to Microsoft's most potent competitor, namely GNU/Linux.
In prior posts about Mono and Microsoft’s “Community Promise” (CP) [1, 2, 3] we showed that it had changed virtually nothing. If anything, it finally revealed that Mono has indeed patent traps in it, maybe just not at the core. One of the rudest pro-Mono people (from Debian) is being very blunt about it:
Q: Are there patent issues with Mono?
A: Just like any other software, Mono certainly infringes on thousands of stupid software patents. However the Debian policy with patents is to put them in a trash and pee on them, unless they are actively enforced with reasonable chances to win. The situation of Mono is much more comfortable than (for example) that of MP3 decoders, for which patents are actively enforced; it’s just that they are so lame that we choose to ignore them.
Q: Are there specific dangers coming from Microsoft regarding Mono?
A: Microsoft has claimed to possess patents on some Mono compatibility layers with non-standard Microsoft APIs. Not only this is completely irrelevant to GNOME, since nothing in Gtk# and related stuff uses these compatibility layers, but if you know how things work in the patent world, you already understand this is merely FUD. Microsoft has nothing, but claims to have something in order to scare consumers away from Mono. Actually, not enforcing the patents, while knowing they are violated, would make their case very weak in a patent suit. What their behavior shows is that they are very afraid of Mono. It is stealing customers from their best and most advanced product, their lead development framework. There is absolutely zero chance that they are sustaining Mono from behind, since its very existence is going to make them lose a large amount of money.
He even throws a fit at Stallman at the end. This is part of a pattern for him and other proponents of Mono have been doing the same thing ever since Stallman spoke out regarding Mono [1, 2]. One person even used the F word.
Ubuntu is apathetic towards Richard Stallman’s advice [1, 2], but Glyn Moody justifiably distrusts Microsoft on the whole matter. Regarding the CP, he writes:
Now, is it just me, or does Microsoft conspicuously fail to answer its own question? The question was: does it apply to all versions *including* future revision? And Microsoft’s answer is about *existing* versions: so doesn’t that mean it could simply not apply the promise to a future version? Isn’t this the same problem as with the Open Specification Promise? Just asking.
See the comments in GNU/Linux sites to get an impression of how many people reject Mono. It is only a vocal/aggressive minority that seems to be spreading Microsoft inside GNU/Linux, despite opposition from about 3 out of 4 GNU/Linux users (according to a recent poll).
Mono people understand that their attempts to marry Microsoft and Linux are backfiring now that the SFLC and FSF speak out, so Plan B is seemingly to discredit Stallman in person to make his technical assessments go away or be dishonoured. It has gone on for about two weeks. Sam Varghese addresses this issue in a new article where he writes:
Let’s remember that De Icaza has gone on the public record stating that he believes .NET is the “natural upgrade” for GNOME. Here’s a direct quote: “I’d like to see Gnome applications written in .NET in version 4.0 – no, version 3.0. But Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET. A lot of people just see .NET as a fantastic upgrade for the development platform from Microsoft.”
GNOME 3.0 is around the corner so he probably won’t have time to realise his dream. What of version 4.0?
Not unrelated to this whole Mono debate may be the fact that some GNOME people have started a campaign to smear Stallman, to the extent of even releasing a private email exchange. But then is not new behaviour from people at the top of GNOME. Anyone who criticises Mono seems to come in for a rough time.
Jason at the Mono Nono Web site correctly predicted that Stallman would suffer the wrath of Microsoft fans for merely daring to reject Mono. By the way, this is not a reference to one particular person because many blogs independently find an opportunity to pile criticisms on Stallman, for whatever reason or statement that he ever made (there is more than one, but the timing and motive are unlikely to be coincidental).
I told you the knives would come out for Stallman.
[...]
The sad thing is, much of the damage is already done. Stallman is facing a concerted attack on his character and competence and stands little chance of coming through it unscathed. Such is the penalty for daring to critize Mono. This garbage is already all over Planet Gnome, Planet Debian, Monologue and spreading.
The Mono Nono Web site also offers this list of reasons to ignore Microsoft’s CP, a clever trick which the ‘mainstream’ press consistently fell for:
If I had to list my concerns around the Promise I would come up with a slightly different list:
1. Standard bits alone are not enough to deliver killer apps. We have several Microsoft emails about limiting the usefulness of what was standardized, so we know they at least discussed this internally.
2. The Community Promise has that restriction that the Open Specification Promise does not. By not extending the Promise to partial implementations, it could “lock out” alternative implementations of the standard. Limited sub-sets of languages are a common practice in the industry for specialized purposes.
3. The Community Promise will constantly be misrepresented as covering the whole of mono – giving a false veneer of security over the non-covered bits (which end up to be the “juicy parts”)
4. The Community Promise only applies to the current version. This could be used by Microsoft to “freeze out” competing implementations. Just update the standard, but not the promise.
Moreover:
Consider that we know for a fact that F-Spot and Banshee, at least, use non-ECMA covered parts of mono. Maybe they will be re-written soon. That’s great. But at the time of the announcement and currently, they were and are not covered by the standard, and so not covered by the agreement.
And lastly:
There are many such internal documents that clearly show Microsoft understands exactly what standardizing parts of .NET means, and how to keep that offering in control and inferior to .NET. If Mono is not “chasing” .NET, then it fails to meet Windows developers expectations. If Mono is “chasing” .NET, then it both runs the risk of anti-competitive tactics on the non-standard parts, and is undertaking a task not likely to succeed.
Many more answers were delivered regarding Mono (even from Microsoft). Now more than ever it is clear that Mono is a trap and thus it must be avoided. █
“I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue”
–Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist
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07.12.09
Posted in Debian, Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 1:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
It gets dark under the Moonlight
Summary: A further look at Mono, those supporting it, and where it is all likely to be heading
TO those looking for our response to the Mono CP from Microsoft, here is the short explanation and a longer analysis. Some people still inquire about this in the IRC channel.
It is saddening — albeit hardly surprising — that Microsoft is among the big advocates of Mono right now. The pro-Microsoft spinners hold the very same position; Microsoft’s ally and Mary Jo Foley’s friend Gavin Clarke promotes Mono and the Microsoft blog at the Seattle P-I claims in light of this CP that:
The move was another indication that Microsoft increasingly is embracing open-source technology.
Saying you will not sue something based on some conditions that must be fulfilled is hardly en embrace, it is a patronising insult. As Rene Levesque-Caline puts it (in reference to Sam Ramji and other Microsoft decoys [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]):
Does Carmona not realize that tHese are recyclable guys that Redmond sends out to smile and take guff and make us believe that things have changed?
ANYTHING they say is for PR benefits but in no way woyld they have authority to do what you want.
They are low level managers with no power that are sent for PR (Carmona believes that they arent).
Their job is to distract your attention from what Ballmer, Hector Gutierrez and others with REAL power in Microsoft say about free software and Linux.
Have you EVER listened to some low level serf when you want to know which way the company is going or do you listen to Jobs?
Same goes for every big company I can think off.
But because these guys smile and act nice, were supposed to forget that Linux they claim stole from them over 200 times.”Yeah guys, I dont believe what my bald boss claims. Im one of you. Pinky swear.”
Were supposed to forget that Ballmer said that Red Hat users (U-S-E-R-S) owe them money (he also reminds us that VP de ICaza’s company, Novell, has paid the extortion fee and are the ‘legal’ Linux) because Linux stole from them.
Anything the Rajmi’s of this world say has absolutely no meaning because their boss says this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v=5B0GTYf PoMo
I am a Red Hat user and Microsoft says that I owe them money because Linux stole their IP.
Has this changed?
No?
Then Rajmi is meaningless as he ever was.
Comes vs Microsoft shows us well how Microsoft acts towards Linux and NOTHING weve heard from the heads of the company has shown this is to be different.
(I dare anyone to show me one quote from a MS head which says differently. I can wait…..)
Are there people in Microsoft who use/develop FLOSS on their own?
Sure, the odds are pretty good. But in a company of that size Im sure you can find also bedwetters, pedophile, addicts and insomniacs like in any large cross section of society. Heck, Im sure you’ll find a few Windows users working at Apple. This shouldnt be considered exceptional.
None of this matters because those ‘brave groups of Redmond FLOSS lovers’ arent the ones who run the company.
And if Rajmi does make a statement now, how much do you think that will mean when Ballmer comes out with his next statement on Linux?
You think you could win in court by claiming that some meaningless peon made certain claims while no one in charge at MS says a word?
I know that we have clients sometimes claim that such and such employee promised things that they had no power or authority doing which is why we always start every partnership by specifying which empployees here speak for the company. Anyone outside these select few does not represent or have the authority to make such claims.
A Rajmi promise would be equally meaningless except it could make for great PR for Microsoft.
At least his predecessor, Bill Hilf, had a little juice then and lots more now and the only thing I remember him during his lovefest was “”The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn’t exist in 2007. ”
Other people whom we consider to be Microsoft sympathisers hold a similar position to that of pro-Microsoft reporters, but they cannot ignore the caveats.
Neither parts of .NET not implemented in Mono, such as ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows.Forms, nor libraries developed by Mono specifically for GNU/Linux, have ever been affected by these or any other patents, according to Mono’s Licensing FAQ. However, the affected parts have been more than enough for sections of the free software community to reject Mono, or at least to treat it cautiously.
The same issue gets raised by longtime critics of Mono.
“In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.”
Watch this reaction from Novell’s PR team and pay attention to the fact that a Novell employee embarks on a joint .NET/Mono event (one among other such new events... like MonoSpace). Novell/Mono people are also in Gran Canaria and one reader at LinuxToday complained about “Mono Infiltration” (that’s the subject line of the message).
I run Kubuntu KDE 4.3 RC1 and I just wanted to install sysinfo to check my system specific hardware. When I tried installing it, I was surprised to see the Mono junk. I just couldn’t stand it and I immediately killed it.
Is it in Canonical’s KDE now?
Polls and reactions consistently suggest that the majority of GNU/Linux users doesn’t want Mono. People do not migrate to GNU/Linux (or escape Microsoft lock-in) just to find themselves immersed in a Microsoft movement that evolves and inflates itself from inside distributions like an illness inside GNU/Linux. And when Doctor Stallman warns about this illness [1, 2], then this doctor just gets vilified not for his expert opinion but for his personal life.
A prominent voice in Debian is meanwhile saying that Debian does not come with Mono because GNOME can be separated from Debian.
So, yes, I have overseen two issues when writing my previous blog. But I still think, that it’s wrong to say “Debian will install mono by default”. If you want to say anything at all, say “Debian might install mono with its GNOME install media, but that can still change”.
Some people are justifiably concerned:
Before You Congratulate Mono
[...]
My long held theory is that mono was never to be considered a legal threat, it is a tool to be used in a strategy of erosion … insert a compelling technology, then provide a migration path by adding on proprietary extensions. It erodes Linux and it erodes OSS… and advocacy for it, even in purely legal/ethical ways, using just the free bits, and so forth, help enhance that position and acceptability.
Dana Blankenhorn talks about the negative effect Mono has had on integrity of the Free software movement. According to Blankenhorn, Microsoft is imposing a sort of "mixed source" model on GNU/Linux. Novell, which describes itself as a “mixed source” company [1, 2, 3, 4], would probably like that. It holds the upper hand because it has special ‘protections’ from Microsoft. This includes Moonlight.
So is this just a PR stunt, or is it going to last? I suppose time will tell. If you’re looking for an answer to that question, the existing dependancy Banshee/F-Spot have on System.Data (which is not covered by the ECMA spec) is an interesting place to watch.
This debate is far from over and someone has just created a Web site called “Mono Nono”. But Moonlight is an even more complicated beast that Microsoft — through Novell — spreads in order for it to be slid into GNU/Linux distributions.
Further to this previous discussion about Mono/Moonlight in immutable systems, one person looking for an explanation for “the mischievous wording in their [Moonlight] license” learned that Debian replaces Microsoft codecs with ffmpeg. Further, it was added that:
1. Debian is not an immutable system (do they ship Moonlight on a LiveCD?)
2. Distributing ffmpeg is a patent risk (MP3 and others)
If we hypothetically assume, for one moment, that the core of Moonlight is not, itself, patent encumbered, but that reliance on these codecs pulls-in patent risks, then that would leave a choice of one of the following, equally unacceptable scenarios:
1. The vendor ships Moonlight prebuilt against ffmpeg, which is a patent risk, since ffmpeg has not licensed any of the patent encumbered codecs it uses (most notably MP3). End users won’t really care about this though … until the vendor goes to court. Fedora bans such software for this very reason: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems
2. The vendor ships Moonlight prebuilt against a sanitised version of ffmpeg (essentially nothing left except vorbis and theora), thus leaving the end users with software that, in practical terms, is nearly useless
3. The vendor complies with patent law (no ffmpeg), but can/will not distribute proprietary software (Microsoft codecs), and therefore chooses to ship Moonlight “naked”. End users must then either accept Microsoft’s proprietary and patent encumbered “codec pack” as a “pushed” download, or somehow figure out how to rebuild Moonlight against ffmpeg themselves, by downloading the source from patent safe-harbours (I tried and failed to rebuild Moonlight, as seen in the link I provided). Note that unlike modular media players, such as Xine, ffmpeg does not utilise loadable plugins, therefore users must either obtain binaries that already support the required codecs, or rebuild it themselves. Rebuilding ffmpeg is not particularly difficult (for someone like me), but rebuilding Moonlight has proved to be rather less easy. Most users (noobs in particular) will just give up at the first hurdle, and default to accepting Microsoft’s proprietary blobs
4. The vendor ships Moonlight with Microsoft’s codec pack under license (e.g. Novell), and thus both the vendor and users are protected by both copyright and patent law (explicit grant). However, the vendor is now distributing proprietary software, and so end users have lost their Freedom as a de facto condition. They also have the technical disadvantages of Microsoft’s blobs (bugs, privacy, security, etc.)
Now consider that Moonlight is in fact patent encumbered, and that Microsoft only provided indemnity for direct “downstream recipients” from Novell to use this software.
Conclusion: The only practical and legal way to obtain and use this software, is to be a Novell customer running SUSE, and use their distribution of Moonlight in conjunction with Microsoft’s proprietary codec pack.
This hurts GNU/Linux, Open Standards, Free Software, developers, and users, whilst greatly benefiting Microsoft’s agenda of software and standards dominance.
Can you see why this might be a problem?
[...]
The LGPLv2.1 does not prohibit distribution under immutable systems.
The license for Moonlight does prohibit LGPL distribution under immutable systems.
Therefore Moonlight is not licensed under LGPLv2.1.
At best, it could be described as “LGPLv2.1 with modifications”, but given that the LGPL explicitly prohibits “further restrictions”, and Moonlight’s license stipulates such a “further restriction” (the “immutable” clause), then I don’t really see how it can be truthfully described as LGPL software at all. Novell would be more honest if they described it as a “Microsoft EULA”, since that’s only one small step away from what it really is.
What role (if any) does Moonlight play in Microsoft’s infamous “extend” phase? Thoughts welcome. █
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07.11.09
Posted in Debian, FUD, GNU/Linux, Java, Law, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, Ubuntu at 7:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Nothing of practical use has really changed for Mono, but its connection to Microsoft was made a lot clearer
DURING many people’s summer absence, the news came out about Microsoft’s “community promise” (CP), to which we responded only succinctly [1, 2]. Here is a longer analysis, which comprises events preceding this promise as well.
Debian
eWeek (Ziff Davis) adds to the many reports about Debian’s disagreement with Richard Stallman regarding Mono. The Inquirer covered this as well.
As the Debian project releases a second update of its Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (“Lenny”) distribution, a controversy has broken out over the next version, “Squeeze.” GNU guru Richard Stallman has warned that by including a Mono-based note-taking application called Tomboy, Debian runs the risk of Microsoft litigation over C# patents.
Nothing has changed since Microsoft and Mono came out all jubilant. Stallman does not like Microsoft’s CP, either.
Debian is meanwhile getting Gnote, a replacement for Tomboy.
Well, it seems that since last saturday, Gnote is now the default option in Debian for those platforms where Mono unportability prevents Tomboy from being used, namely: alpha, hppa, m68k, mipsel, mips, hurd-i386 and kopensolaris-i386.
Gnote 0.5.2 is out.
I just released gnote 0.5.2. It is a bug fix release.
Ubuntu
62% of the surveyed people did not trust Microsoft on Mono prior to the CP. We wrote about this over a week ago and also explained where Canonical stood on the subject. Heise later chimed in to say that “Ubuntu [is] to continue using Mono.”
On behalf of the Ubuntu Technical Board, Ubuntu Development Manager and board member Scott James Remnant has clarified that the use of C#, specifically the Mono implementation, is not considered to be a problem and that it, and applications based on it, will continue to be included with the Ubuntu default installation set.
One reader wrote to remind us that “Solang, a photo manager, is now part of Ubuntu.”
Microsoft
It is true that some people are in favour of Mono, but as we shall show in a moment, a lot of Mono proponents are also Microsoft proponents, but Microsoft is no proponent of GNU/Linux.
“Notice the fact that Microsoft and its friends in the IT industry absolutely love Mono and hate GNU/Linux.”First, look at this. Nice attitude there from a Microsoft intern (also noted last week, but this intern regrets his remarks and wanted to remove them from other people’s Web sites too). Notice the fact that Microsoft and its friends in the IT industry absolutely love Mono and hate GNU/Linux. Is it not telling? There is no contradiction here.
The SFLC’s Kuhn replies to these remark from the Microsoft intern with: “we should forgive him for statements (but not for still working at MSFT) Sometimes early-20s == saying stupid stuff.” For those who did not follow this, the intern cursed me, linked to libel about me, and told Richard Stallman to “F*ck off” due to a technical/legal stance on Mono.
One reader suggested that we take a look what what this guy is up to. His profile says:
* Name Nikhil Kothari
* Location Sammamish, WA
* Web http://www.nikhil…
* Bio Software Architect at Microsoft, working on .NET, ASP.NET and Silverlight…
Watch some of the older Tweets in there. He corresponds with C.J. Adams-Collier, who works on Mono and also worked for Microsoft. How about this:
“@cjadamscollier Thanks for the pointers – will keep them in mind as I look into things.”
According to the Mono Web site, he is a Mono developer or generally a contributor. He was paid by Microsoft too, by his own admission. He tried to discredit Boycott Novell and he lurks in our IRC channel. One suspicion is that Microsoft is spreading (or simply exploiting) “Linux developers” whose role is to spread Moonlight and Mono, making Silver Lie and .NET a lot more prevalent.
Here is Microsoft’s Nikhil Kothari chatting quite a lot with Miguel de Icaza:
“What is the recommended IDE/setup to use for Mono development on the mac? @migueldeicaza any suggestions?”
Here is another Twit which once again shows Microsoft’s involvement in MonoDevelop, which ultimately strengthens Windows [1, 2, 3]:
“@migueldeicaza If things pan out with MonoDevelop and I get a few cycles, I will have something interesting to share … fingers crossed.”
It is worth remembering that Miguel de Icaza literally spends time at Microsoft. He goes on campus, too, having gone there for a job interview 10+ years ago. Nat Friedman was working for Microsoft.
Watch how the pro-Microsoft Gavin Clarke is giving de Icaza exposure, as usual. Together they defend the spreading of Mono, using The Register. They are working to spread .NET everywhere (Mary Jo Foley too, as always). Oh, how Microsoft loves Mono! If Microsoft likes it, then it’s usually bad for its #1 competitor, GNU/Linux.
Why Mono is Still Dangerous
One visitor has just raised the following important point:
“By the way, what nobody here seems to be mentioning, I guess because they’re pretty ignorant about .NET in general, is that the ECMA specs only cover versions 1 and 2 of the C# language, and neither version 3 which Mono already implements or version 4 of which MSFT’s implementation is currently in beta have been submitted to any standards body. I think this is a bigger issue than support for some Windows libraries.”
More holes/loopholes are identified:
Carlo Daffara, an open-source consultant, rightly notes that Microsoft’s patent promise is not directly on Mono, but rather on these ECMA standards, which leaves “most of Mono…encumbered as before (WinForms, ADO.NET, …).”
What are the CPs good for then? Even the use of language is laughable and reminiscent of surrogate terms. “Community promise” is a case of pretending that Microsoft is pro-”community”. It’s as Orwellian as the “Community” patent, which is a loophole for bringing software patents into Europe and thus harming the Free software community — the real community.
So what it is with CPs then? Were they even tested in any court? It is a rhetorical question.
“Promises, promises,” calls them Alan Lord. They are not legally binding.
The reason I won’t be using Mono is that the .Net framework is already embraced by Microsoft, it is already extended by Microsoft. It was from the beginning and will probably always remain so.
For a detailed analysis of the CP, see this from The Mad Hatter.
So why didn’t Microsoft’s lawyers include this in the main body? Microsoft’s lawyers aren’t stupid (I know one of them, she’s a really smart lady). So why did they write it in this confused way?
I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.
The Mad Hatter told us that “from ITWire, several people have noticed that pro-mono people tend to duck having an independent evaluation done of Mono for patent issues.”
Last year Groklaw wrote the article “What is Wrong with RAND?”
We now have this article whose headline is “What does RAND mean?” What it means to Free software is that it is a term to avoid, according to the GNU doctrine.
Apparently, it must mean something, because I find it being referenced in (supposedly serious) discussions about .NET licensing.
The acronym literally translates as “Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory”. So far so good. Except I don’t have a clue what it means. What does “reasonable” mean when applied to a patent licensing policy? Well, according to my own interpretation of this word, a licensing policy is reasonable when it prevents the patent from being used to impose a tax on any users of any program. But this is just my point of view on what is reasonable. Can you expect patent holders to agree with your point of view on what “reasonable” means when interpreting their own promises?
All in all, as we have said from the very start, the whole Mono story does not deserve this level of coverage. The editor of Linux Today (Carla) agrees that Mono and Google Chrome OS have been blown out of proportion, as we emphasised a day or so ago.
Just when I was getting thoroughly bored with Mono news, which is the same arguments recycled over and over, and little of anything more definitive from the Mono camp than “Same to you!”, along came a tidal wave of Google Chrome OS news. The Chrome OS story is truly frightening, far more terrifying than Mono gaining a solid foothold in Linux distributions— because the news is simply an announcement that the Chrome OS project has been officially launched. There is no OS yet. What levels of hysteria are going to be reached when the actual code is released? Rioting? Suicides? Looting?
Carla is also the editor of Linux Planet where she has published this article from SJVN about Mono. We too are quoted.
Peter Brown, the Free Software Foundation’s executive director, though still isn’t impressed. Brown said, “It’s my understanding that Microsoft has not yet announced anything officially, but assuming it follows up on this blog post and covers ECMA 334 and 335 under the Community Promise, it will not protect free software from the threats we have been discussing That’s because Mono implements, and Tomboy depends upon, a number of libraries which are ’standard’ in the sense that they’re under C#’s “System” namespace (indicating that they’re part of the standard library) and provided in Microsoft’s implementation, but somewhat pointedly excluded from the ECMA specifications.”
So, Brown continued, “If the question is, should GNU/Linux distributions include Mono? Then the community promise from Microsoft covering these two specifications clearly isn’t sufficient. That they won’t sue us for infringement of some of their Mono patents is useless if they reserve the right to sue us over other Mono patents. If Microsoft really wants to assure the free software community that it does not intend to attack applications based on Mono in the future, it should issue a patent license to everyone for all the patents that are necessarily infringed by the complete implementation of Mono, that allows users to use, share, and modify the software as they see fit.”
[...]
But, Roy Schestowitz, editor of Boycott Novell thinks that focusing on the patent issue alone is a mistake. Schestowitz said, “Patents were never the sole issue when it comes to Mono.” Microsoft doesn’t allow deviation from the .NET core. “This ensures that Microsoft stays in control. This leads to no independence, which Microsoft may describe as ‘fragmentation.’”
Over a year ago, Beranger explained to us why Mono is more than just a patent trap; it is an habitual problem and he has just given a good theoretical example which concurs with real examples that we know of.
I am already laughing sarcastically when I imagine the faces of those Linux developers who, after having told their boss that they know C# and Mono, will be assigned to an ASP.NET project… on a Microsoft platform that uses the genuine .NET! Because this is what will happen!
And when you think that, after the initial unknown motivation to start developing Mono, the whole thing took exposure after some moron wrote Tomboy!
Therefore, believe me or not, my twisted radar tells me that in the long run, Tomboy and F-Spot are going to boost the sales of Microsoft Dynamics, which is a .NET range of products. Good work, Steve, and good work, Miguel.
Charles opines that Mono does not even matter these days.
Anyway, who should care about this? Gnome developers mostly. The rest of us have gone out of the .Net and Java wars after around 2004 or 2005, and have realized that there other realities such as Qt and Python (to name just a few), and most of all, there is the Internet, and the POSH (Plain Old Simple Html), and that new little Linux distributions launched by Google… And so much more.
Mono and .Net is one of the last schemes from an outdated behemoth; both the scheme and its inventor will soon fade in blissful irrelevance. It does not mean it cannot sting back though….
On the other hand, a journalist whom Microsoft bought lunch about 2 weeks ago (and later hooked up with Laura DiDio) has just bent backwards to find some criteria by which Mono seems better than Java. He published this in SD Times and saw all the Mono proponents citing him immediately. Novell is on the same boat [1, 2, 3, 4].
In addition, one reader warned us about what he calls “Major [Java] FUD campaign against Oracle and Sun via Deborah Gage.”
He explains that “this follows the classic MSFT tactic of a positive headline covering absolutely disparaging content.”
Microsoft still hates Java. It wants to replace it with .NET by all means available. █
“Moonlight is usable for anyone on any distribution of Linux (redhat, ubuntu, etc.) — it is not limited just to Novell as Mono is.”
–Brian Goldfarb, Microsoft
[note: Moonlight depends on Mono, emphasis is ours]
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