07.01.09

Report: Microsoft’s Patent Racketeering Comes from Myhrvold

Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 5:44 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft rarely assaults directly

“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”

–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO

Summary: Microsoft extorts $120 Million out of rival Intuit, using the patent troll it is grooming

ACCORDING TO Glyn Moody, the world’s biggest patent troll — an anti-competitive man [1, 2] who originates in Microsoft — makes his move to make some more money through patent racketeering. Others at Microsoft are still behind him [1, 2], so his firm (essentially a shell) should not be treated an an entity separate from Microsoft. Moody calls it “the Super-Troll” (we called it Übertroll).

As with all patent trolls, the danger is that the more companies accept these proffered licensing deals, the stronger the trolls become. I imagine we’ll see many more such stories leaking out as Intellectual Ventures gains in confidence and ambition.

The big problem is not only that Myhrvold’s an ex-Microsoftie, but that Microsoft is also an investor in the company; this means that we are not going to see Microsoft on the receiving end of Intellectual Venture’s “offers”. But there is a very real danger that at some point the larger supporters of open source will be.

[...]

Expect, then, Mr Myhrvold to emerge as public enemy number one for the free software community; it’s just a matter of time now that the super-troll has awoken from its deep slumbers and started to feed on those that foolishly fail to defend themselves.

Moody links to this article which is titled “Intuit Taxed $120 Million by Intellectual Ventures.” It says: “Its latest deal is a licensing agreement with financial software company Intuit Inc. that will bring in $120 million, according to people who have been told about the transaction.” It is worth reminding that it is not possible to cross-license with a patent troll because it hasn’t actual products which may constitute an infringement.

TechDirt complains that the press does not scrutinise such people for the huge damage they cause to the industry.

Aaron Martin-Colby points us to Good Magazine’s softball interview with Erich Spangenberg, considered by many to be one of the more successful “patent trolls” or “non-practicing entities” out there.

In other news of interest, Novell has just earned yet another software patent.

Network content in dictionary-based (de)compression , patent No. 7,554,467, invented by Kasman E. Thomas of Wilton, Conn., assigned to Novell, Inc. of Provo.

Yes, Novell is part of the problem. Its exclusive deal with Microsoft is hinged on software patents and it legitimises them. █

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Poll: 62% Don’t Trust Microsoft on Mono

Posted in Debian, FOSS, FSF, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, Ubuntu at 5:10 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A lot of news about Mono with special emphasis on key developments

A GREAT DEAL has happened [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] since Richard Stallman spoke his mind about Mono. Coverage in the press was initially scarce because Stallman’s statement had been made public just before the end of the week, but here is ZDNet UK catching up.

GNU project founder Richard Stallman has called on developers to pull back from Mono, arguing that increasing use of the open-source toolset could prompt legal action by Microsoft.

Stallman does not even say much (or anything) about the fact that Mono makes Windows stronger [1, 2, 3]. Novell makes it happen. It is almost Novell’s obligation to do so because as the SCO-faithful Maureen O'Gara put it a couple of days ago, “Of course, without Microsoft propping up its Linux business, Novell would be in the tank.” To say more on the path to Windows, watch how Novell loses to its so-called ‘partner’. From the news:

Sydney Water has decided to migrate its email platform from Novell’s GroupWise to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and is looking for a contractor to help implement the change.

Is Novell trying to befriend the company which takes away its Netware and GroupWise customers? If so, why? And why does it help Microsoft by promoting and spreading .NET? GreyGeek writes the following in LinuxToday:

De Icaza has been trying for EIGHT YEARS to get a distro to become totally dependent on MONO, and since Novell bought De Icaza, both have increased their propaganda efforts, with the assistance of Microsoft TEs, trolls, astroturfers and fanbois.

IF MONO is what its advocates are saying it is (the best thing since sliced bread and safe to use), it would already be in widespread adoption by now. The fact that you can count dependent programs on the fingers of one hand says VOLUMES about how the Linux community as a whole totally distrusts MONO. They are right to hold that distrust.

Java is open source and is MUCH less susceptible to patent attacks. It has CONSIDERABLY MORE tools and applications built with it and for it than MONO does.

Qt4 is GPL’d and has an excellent API and development tools, bar none. It also has excellent apps built by it and tools available for it.

MONO serves no purpose, except to raise the risk of patent attack or of being left in isolation WHEN Microsoft adds extensions to .NET that patents will prevent being added to MONO. This is backwards from Microsoft’s usual attack mode.

The remainder of this comment is well worth reading.

Perhaps the most interesting finding today is this poll. Based on 557 votes in total, 62% don’t trust Microsoft on Mono (at the time of writing). Compare that to 73% who said "No" to Mono (for whatever reason). Might it be safe to infer from this that the majority of people are with Stallman on this subject?

Debian

Looking at distributions more specifically, Stallman referred to Debian as an example. One of the Debian officials wrote an open letter to Stallman. It concludes as follows:

So, Debian didn’t change “the default installation” (whatever that’s supposed to be) but the dependency of a package which is used by a minority of our users who explicitly wishes to install everything GNOME related (which is to the best of my knowledge in accordance with upstream developers who added tomboy to the default GNOME installation, too).

This is already covered by Heise

Debian - Mono is not in our default installation

[...]

In response to the open letter written by free software guru Richard Stallman about the Mono problem, Alexander Schmehl, Debian developer and spokesperson for the GNU/Linux distribution has pointed out that Debian has no plans to include the controversial programming environment in the default GNOME installation. Stallman, who opened his letter with “Debian’s decision to include Mono in the default installation, for the sake of Tomboy”, had suggested that Debian were including the Mono libraries for anyone using Debian with GNOME.

There are other noteworthy remarks and there are skeptics of Mono inside Debian. How is this for an argument?

I recently came across this very interesting article, written in 1999, which details the tactics used by Microsoft to fight IBM. They obviously saw OS/2 as a threat. Back then, Windows 95 was the trading token. They could have caused IBM a great deal of harm shall they refused to license it to them, but it seems the idea of subjugating IBM was more appealing. This is how Garry Norris (IBM) put it:

“Microsoft repeatedly said we would suffer in terms of prices, terms, conditions and support programs, as long as we were offering competing products.“

“[Microsoft] insisted that IBM sell 300,000 copies of Windows 95 in the first five months or face a 20 percent price increase“

Nice deal, eh? Make your dependancy on Windows 95 stronger, or else we’ll use your existing dependancy on Windows 95 against you. No surprise IBM abandoned the PC market. Are Red Hat and Sun/Oracle set on the same direction?

Why don’t people learn from history? It is an immense loss to ignore all these lessons. Consider what Bill Gates, for example, had to say on this subject.

Ubuntu

Canonical repeatedly insists that it will not change its Mono policy, not even after recommendations from the FSF and SFLC. There is a lot of coverage about it, such as:

1. As It Stands, Ubuntu Has No Issues With Mono
2. Ubuntu’s Position on Mono Revealed (Update)
3. Mono Discussion: Stallman Warns, Ubuntu Dismissive

This comes at a price. From yesterday, for example, there is this:

Our company also takes the potential threat of patents seriously. As such we stand by the position of the SFLC, FSF and RMS in that Mono is just too dangerous.

We are therefore going to look at switching from Ubuntu to Fedora.

The threat is too great to ignore. I wish the UTB would reconsider this as more harm will come to Ubuntu rather than good.

For context, there is more in this address.

Sam Varghese cites the assessment of the SFLC and aligns this with Canonical’s relative apathy.

The Ubuntu technical board has announced that it sees no reason to consider a dependency on Mono as an issue when suggesting applications to be included in the default set included in the GNU/Linux distribution.

[...]

The Software Freedom Law Centre, which provides “legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance Free, Libre and Open Source Software” has a diametrically different view.

Following the statement made by Free Software Foundation chief Richard M. Stallman against Debian’s inclusion of Mono as a default, SFLC technology director, Bradley Kuhn , has written an essay, backing Stallman’s view about it being better to avoid a language like C#.

And to conclude, popular blogger devnet writes about Ubuntu’s decision: “I think this is pretty bold…they’re inviting someone to throw the first stone so to speak.

“I’m with Stallman on this one….better safe than sorry.” █

“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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Who Promotes Mono? Microsoft and Novell

Posted in Europe, FSF, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 3:31 am by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: New signs lead back to Microsoft (not just Novell)

IN recent posts [1, 2, 3, 4] about Richard Stallman's statement on Mono, we saw that resistance to it mostly comes from Mono developers, Novell, Microsoft and other such stake holders. We have already seen the FSF and the SFLC putting their weight behind Stallman’s statement and now there is this from the FSFE (Adriaan de Groot from the board of directors of KDE e.V.):

There have been two posts about C# and mono on PlanetKDE this week (e.g. Richard and Andreas). The comments on Andreas’ entry are quite cogent, as are those replying to Richard, but it deserves a wider audience. As far as asking RMS at Gran Canaria this weekend, it’s worth a shot if you abstract the question away from specifically-C# and specifically-mono.

[...]

This isn’t to say there’s not other submarines in the water. We don’t know. Maybe we should. The known submarine should be treated with caution. And the side of caution is to treat C# as a non-Free platform to be avoided.

Mono is a win to Windows [1, 2, 3] and it is also helping Novell, which owns Mono and has exclusivity over it (including perceived ‘protection’ from Microsoft patent assaults that target Mono). This is explicit in the Novell/Microsoft agreement. As Stefano Forenza puts it, there is “pressure Novell and Microsoft.”

Pressure Novell and Microsoft (as some of you work in both the companies) to change the agreement to look like this:

Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Google and its affiliates hereby grant to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this License) patent license for patents necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification. If you institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the implementation of the specification constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses for the specification granted to you under this License shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

Is that easy. Everybody wins. Even Microsoft.

Just look what they are doing. At Novell, there is now promotion of a new conference called Monospace. Details of the registrar are “protected”, so it is hard to know who initiated the Web site, but Miguel shows that it’s probably Scott Bellware, whose blog says: “I am a recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award.” As for the conference he seemingly sets up for Mono, its description is: “Monospace is the conference that teaches .NET software developers and organizations how to use the Mono framework to leverage investments in .NET skills on a broader array of platforms where business opportunity awaits.”

Microsoft staff may openly say "Fuck you, Richard Stallman", but there are rebuttals to this disgraceful behaviour. Stallman was being polite and rational.

Does anyone still doubt Microsoft’s involvement in Mono? Some people in the Mono team itself are directly on Microsoft’s payroll (not just via Novell). Had Mono been beneficial to GNU/Linux, would Microsoft really help it? Mono is a bridge leading to Microsoft, not from Microsoft. There is even evidence. █

“I would love to see all open source innovation happen on top of Windows.”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Addendum: the gentleman who insulted Stallman has expressed regret about it and the statements should not be attributed to Microsoft.

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06.30.09

More People Say “No” to Mono, Including the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC)

Posted in FSF, GNU/Linux, Law, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, TomTom, Ubuntu at 4:04 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: More opposition to Mono surfaces, detailed explanations offered

AS we pointed out over the weekend [1, 2], the SFLC and FSF are in alignment with Richard Stallman's views on Mono and so are many others. But Bradley Kuhn has just made it more official with a long essay at the SFLC’s Web site. It’s a recommended read.

In an essay last Friday entitled Why free software shouldn’t depend on Mono or C#, RMS argued a key point that I agree with: the software freedom community should minimize its use of programming language infrastructure that comes primarily from anti-software-freedom companies, notwithstanding FaiF (Free as in Freedom) implementations. I’ve been thinking about an extension of that argument: that language infrastructure created in a community process is likely more resilient against attacks from proprietary software companies.

Here is another new perspective:

I think it is interesting that he thinks that it is the “‘best technology’ Linux camp” that is the camp that offers the greatest threat to Microsoft. I can understand why some may think that this is true since this camp is creating flashy and very useful products and features that increase the appeal of Linux. However, mono is not the only tool that the “‘best technology’ Linux camp” has at its disposal. Many view the use of the Qt toolkit as a better alternative, and one that does not have the risk associated with mono. Furthermore, I do not agree with the thought that “‘best technology’ Linux camp” is the one that Microsoft feels most threatened by. I think Microsoft is only threatened by the combination of both camps.

I view mono as a distraction for FOSS developers. Yes, there are some practical advantages in its use, but there are a lot of questions surrounding it. It has the potential of dividing the two mayor camps of Linux contributors. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this controversy.

Since Nokia’s Qt toolkit is mentioned above, here is what KDE developers say on the subject (mind the good comments) and here is what Jack Wallen thinks about Novell’s role.

If Microsoft is threatening patents against .NET, it would seem to me that the Novell/Microsoft relationship didn’t really work out all that well. And now Microsoft is back to their old tricks. And what should the Linux and open source community do about this? Should another deal with Microsoft be made? Is the seamless communication between Linux and Windows worth making a deal with a partner that is only going to turn around and stab you in the back again and again and again?

The Register on the lessons to be learned from TomTom:

Although Stallman frequently speaks about the dangers of software patents on open-source, trust for Microsoft has run particularly thin recently because of the company’s legal attack on TomTom over a FAT patent dispute.

Stallman urged the community to instead distribute and recommend non-C# applications whenever possible to avoid Redmond lawyers from being able to disable major OS functions on a whim.

Microsoft neither retracted nor backed its accusations against Linux. Horacio Gutierrez from Microsoft said about Linux that “there is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed.” He named not even a single one, but Mono is an easy target and also a very unique one.

GNU/Linux users do not want Mono. Well, maybe with the exception of SUSE and Canonical, whose desktop engineering manager comes from Microsoft. In response to the many discussions stemming from Stallman’s essay, Canonical has published yet another statement about Mono.

The Ubuntu Technical Board has been asked for a position statement on the use of C#, specifically the Mono implementation, by applications in Ubuntu.

These applications, as well as the Mono stack, were proposed for inclusion like any other application and underwent the same review process that all new applications and platforms undergo before being accepted into the archive.

With specific regard to the default installed application set, applications have been reviewed and compared against each other on merit and features. These often take place during the Ubuntu Developer Summits, most recently over the default media player.

For those who prefer Ubuntu (like myself), here is a handy new guide: “How to Completely Remove Mono on Ubuntu” █

What Microsoft has

What Microsoft wants

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06.29.09

Mono Proponents Do Not Address the Real Questions

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 6:10 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Defence by beating up straw men

Summary: Supporters of Mono answer questions that are not even asked — a pattern which requires simple clarification

ACCORDING to a recent poll, 73% of GNU/Linux users at Tux Machines say “No” to Mono; the number may be greater after Stallman’s statement on this sensitive subject. But from those who defend Mono (a minority that includes the Microsoft and Novell crowd) we keep receiving the same misguided rebuttals that escape the real issues and typically divert the debate to straw men or false premises.

There are two key issues to discuss when it comes to Mono:

1. Intimidation and software patents, which are related to one another because the latter enables the former and offers leverage
2. Control of APIs, which again is a matter of leverage

It is not about performance, level of use, or even portability, which Java and C++, for example, already cater for. These are hardly the aspects being criticised.

“Our hostile critics wrongly insinuate that Mono skeptics want it abolished, but it could not be further from the truth.”Mono sympathisers are frequently Mono developers^* and some suggest a compromise: “My personal final verdict? Mono should be treated by distribution makers as something that is “legally sticky” and should be included much in the sense that audio and video codecs, or flash are “included” in the distribution. For example, the mp3 codec is not distributed in large by most distributions, because its a legally sticky inclusion.”

Our hostile critics wrongly insinuate that Mono skeptics want it abolished, but it could not be further from the truth. It is not an elimination of choice or freedom, thus no intolerance should be implied; it’s about prudence. The crux of the matter is inclusion by default, not inclusion in the repositories. The downside, however, is that the API issue remains. This was never solely a question of software patents. As this one person puts it, “Linux is being tamed.”

Assuming Mono gets shoved into Linux and gains acceptance, then Linux is “tamed.” Even without the patent threat, even if C# is some sort of “standard,” Microsoft still defines .NET and everything about it. From past behavior it’s quite evident that they know how to walk the fine line of bending “standards” to their will and marketplace benefit. Mono gives Microsoft power over a major Linux Desktop API, and the ability to make sure it’s always the “second platform”, always a day late and a dollar short.

The other interesting thing about Mono is that nobody is asking for it.

In a similar vein, Microsoft used Novell to push OOXML into OpenOffice.org. Mistakes need not be repeated. On the legal side, there is more of Stallman.

Stallman says “Don’t depend on Mono”

[...]

The debate over Mono has simmered ever since the Mono C# implementation was announced. The suspicion has been that Microsoft have patents that are relevant to C# and are just waiting for Linux developers to become comfortable with Mono so they can pull the rug out from under Linux. Mono’s defenders point out that Mono itself is an implementation of the ECMA standard for C# and that the patents that are usually referred to belong to the higher .Net layers which run on C# based systems, but aren’t implemented as a core part of Mono. Microsoft made a statement in 2003 saying the patents which are relevant to the ECMA/ISO standard are “royalty-free and otherwise RAND”; a somewhat confusing statement without saying which technology falls under the royalty free and which is under RAND terms (Reasonable And Non Discriminatory).

In some ways though, the worries about Mono are of the Mono project’s own making. By having the project implement both the ECMA/ISO covered elements and the more obviously patented ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows.Forms components, the lines have been blurred for many as to what is or is not patent safe. Stallman’s statement says that all C# implementations are potentially unsafe from a patent attack from Microsoft.

We wrote some more about this in:

• Why free software shouldn’t depend on Mono or C# — by Richard M. Stallman
• Responses to Richard Stallman’s Verdict on Mono
• Microsoft and Novell Still Fight for .NET Inside GNU/Linux

This debate is not an easy one, but the sooner it is resolved, the better. █
______
^* This post is from David Siegel, now a Canonical employee who made GNOME-Do. In his rebuttal he is escaping all the real issues and pretending it’s a matter of supply and demand. To trivialise the issue like this is simply to deceive.

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Microsoft’s ODF Lunch Paid Off

Posted in Deception, FUD, Interoperability, Microsoft, Novell, OpenDocument at 5:00 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: ODF news which is more or less organised and some other picks from the news

A COUPLE of days ago we wrote about lunch that Microsoft was having with at least one journalist, to whom Microsoft lied. It is hardly surprising that this journalist has just published an article commending Microsoft and reciting the same deception he was spoon-fed. It is a familiar sight.

Interestingly enough, the reporter also ended up talking to Laura DiDio, whom we last wrote about right here. For years she has been slamming Microsoft’s competitors and parroting Microsoft/SCO. She was paid by Microsoft to do this inside the Yankee Group [1, 2], part of that Microsoft mill.

Anyway, the reporter, whose article might be verbally ghostwritten by Microsoft, is also using Novell to embellish Microsoft’s image. Here is just a portion from it:

Paoli also highlighted Microsoft’s work with Novell, including Microsoft Operations Manger 2007 Cross Platform Extensions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server; sponsoring an open-source Eclipse plug-in for Silverlight development; and nurturing the Mono Silverlight plug-in for Linux.

Microsoft’s motivation for working on these projects is twofold: It wants to be more customer friendly, and it needs to compete in new markets, said Laura DiDio, founder of Information Technology Intelligence Corp., a Boston-based consultancy and research firm.

Microsoft has been “steadily trying to learn from its mistakes” and is trying to “turn the lemons into lemonade” with better licensing, security and interoperability, she said. The company is also entering into new markets that have higher profit margins to spur its growth—beyond its operating system and Office businesses, she added.

So, after lunch with Microsoft (and lies from Microsoft employees) he promotes the Microsoft party line. Why is nobody surprised? And yes, that’s DiDio right there who offers ‘independent’ perspective. Classic!

“[T]hat’s DiDio right there who offers ‘independent’ perspective.”One person in Twitter adds that “Microsofties should really stop trying to slant #Wikipedia articles to smear #ODF. It’s not like we can’t see the page history.”

hAl has been very busy at Wikipedia today, adding anti-ODF contents (about 12 more edits) to Wikipedia’s article on ODF. Here are just two examples among many others. Of course he is also linking to the blogs of Microsoft employees, keeping it where it’s warm and showing how much Microsoft really hates ODF, whose interoperability it knowingly subverts [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. One of our readers writes to say: “I am reminded in this piece by the efforts that Microsoft has gone to in preventing interoperability even with interoperability specifications like ODBC.”

The person in Twitter writes: “If everyone and their dog can properly support #ODF except #Microsoft, then that’s likely either incompetence or malice on their part.”

Microsoft is of course not interested in interoperability. It never was. It is not good (for shareholders) to allow people to choose office suites based on technical merits, as opposed to pure lock-in and preconceptions. That’s where Microsoft’s FUD and perception management [1, 2] helps, as whisper campaigns surely illustrate. Microsoft Office remains one of the few Microsoft products that are really profitable and that too is at great risk as the following new article suggests:

For now, according to the BW article, Microsoft will continue to deliver its core Office package as server-based package while offering a free neutered online version. Some may embrace the free one because they are dealing with a known commodity, but many have likely switched already to another vendor and won’t give it a look. Microsoft could go all the way here and offer a tiered online pricing model and compete directly with Google at something it does well, but it’s afraid of costs spiraling out of control and killing their cash cow.

Moving again to more positive news, Rob Weir concludes the ODF Plugfest.

We had an ODF Plugfest last week in the Hague. Although we’ve had interoperability workshops and camps before that attracted a handful of vendors, this was the first one that had nearly universal participation from ODF vendors. I’m not going to recap the details of the plugfest. Others have done that already. But I will share with you some of my conclusions, based on long discussions with other participants, from whose insights I have greatly benefited.

In the KDE camp, another important milestone for KOffice 2 is being reached and marked.

Today, exactly one month since the release of KOffice 2.0.0, the KOffice team releases the first bugfix release in the 2.0 series. This release contains no new features but lots of bugfixes for almost all of the components in KOffice 2.0. We are planning at least two more bugfix releases of 2.0 before starting the 2.1 series in October this year.

The OpenOffice.org project has this important post about federating its community.

Nevertheless, one still needs the political infrastructure in order to constitute a Foss community that has any chance of sustaining itself. Mere spirit won’t do it in the long run. This means that there must be in place the mechanisms by which any member of the project can communicate to another and freely discuss project matters with the expectation that discussions have effect and are not just politely ignored. As well, it is generally important, though I no longer think it requisite, that members have a sense of “ownership” in the community or at least in what they are doing. It’s a feature more important in some areas than others, and as Foss continues to move away from its origins in the West and find welcome homes in Asia and Africa and India, that model becomes less essential.
All the same, this is just another way of saying that what global participatory communities need is a structure of governance that can accommodate difference within the community itself. Governance means here the guidelines by which authority is coordinated. Given the global nature of, especially, large Foss projects, or even smaller ones (the Internet knows now boundaries), flexibility is crucial―but so are guidelines that ensure impartiality and nullify arbitrariness.

Lastly, having covered Free software that is honestly compatible with ODF, here is another piece of software called Oxygen XML Editor. It has a new release which the ODF aggregator seems to endorse. █

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GNOME’s Evolution Proceeds as Planned?

Posted in GNOME, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 7:25 am by Roy Schestowitz

“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.”

–“Gnome to be based on .NET – de Icaza”, 2002

Summary: The prophecy of Novell’s Miguel de Icaza is becoming true

Today in the news:

GNOME 3.0 may have more Mono apps

The next major version of the GNOME desktop environment, version 3.0, may contain more than the one Mono-dependent application than it currently does, according to GNOME Foundation member Dave Neary.

[...]

Red Hat’s community Linux distribution, Fedora, recently decided to throw out Mono altogether from its default install, and replaced Tomboy with Gnote, a recently created port of Tomboy.

What is Novell doing to GNU/Linux? Should one buy Microsoft coupons or Novell's SUSE?

Microsoft sees itself losing (“We are not on a path to win against Linux,” wrote Jim Allchin), so it is using Novell as Plan B. █

“[The Novell/Microsoft package] provides IP peace of mind for organizations operating in mixed source environments.”

–Ian Bruce, Novell’s PR Director

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Microsoft and Novell Still Fight for .NET Inside GNU/Linux

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 5:53 am by Roy Schestowitz

Reversal of a rather famous joke

Summary: An assemblage of new writings that show who is promoting Mono

Yesterday we gave a sample of responses to Richard Stallman’s advice against Mono and C#. The SFLC and FSF are absolutely behind him. It is around the same time that we also find Linux developers scrambling to avoid Microsoft’s VFAT patent. It is a timely reminder of reasons to avoid software from Microsoft. As Bradley Kuhn from the SFLC put it this year, “Microsoft is unique among proprietary software companies: they are the only ones who have actively tried to kill Open Source and Free Software. It’s not often someone wants to be your friend after trying to kill you for ten years, but such change is cause for suspicion.”

Regarding the FAT situation, LWN reports:

Andrew Tridgell has posted a new patch intended to enable the kernel to work around the VFAT patents. Unlike the previous version (covered on LWN in May), this patch preserves the long filename functionality which is at the core of the patent. There’s an associated FAQ which describes the patch and the approach which has been taken in its development and posting.

APIs too can be patent traps, but Canonical carries on ignoring the warning signs. Well, Canonical’s desktop engineering manager is from Microsoft, so maybe it’s to be expected. Via Sam Varghese:

The Ubuntu technical board appears to have decided that there is no significant cause for IP concern over Mono, the contentious clone of Microsoft’s .NET development environment.

Varghese adds that Richard Stallman considers Mono to be risky.

The founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Matthew Stallman, has termed Debian’s decision to include Mono as part of its default desktop task a move that “leads the community in a risky direction.”

[...]

Red Hat’s community Linux distribution, Fedora, recently decided to throw out Mono altogether from its default install, and replaced Tomboy with Gnote.

While pro-Mono zealots often claim that it is possible to obtain a royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory licence for the use of Microsoft patents which may be part of Mono, in reality, it is extremely difficult to even find out how one can do so.

Another person, who describes himself as an “intern at Microsoft [who is] writing an extension to the MonoDevelop project,” has just written about this. “Fuck you, Richard Stallman,” screams the headline of his blog post where he complains about Stallman’s stance on Mono. It’s interesting to know that Microsoft is helping MonoDevelop, which helps Windows of course [1, 2, 3]. The foul-mouthed rant also links to libel about me (personal attacks) and about this subject in general. Not bad for proponents of Mono who are also working for Microsoft, eh? At least there is a pattern.

In other news, Tomboy may be getting yet another decent replacement called KeepNote.

Best Linux Notetaking Application

[...]

I know a lot of people out there like to take notes with Linux, and probably didn’t come across this program yet, as it look me a bit googling to find it again. The program is called KeepNote, and is a fantastic program for taking notes. I use it with Dropbox, and store all of my notes there and that way it is synchronized to all of my systems. The program itself is open source and free, and you can support it by making a donation on the homepage.

Other good note-taking applications are Gnote, zim, knotes, and Basket.

We wish to end this with an ongoing discussion about licences. It is based on conversations where it has emerged that when it comes to Mono/Moonlight (to quote Novell), “In addition to the GNU LGPL, [Mono] code is available for relicensing for non-LGPL use, contact Novell for details (mono@novell.com).”

According to one of our readers, “this basically means that at your option you can acquire a proprietary license instead of using the LGPL. This is similar to e.g. MySQL or Qt.”

The opinion of another reader is very different. “I’m aware of that,” he says, “but it’s wholly irrelevant to my argument. I am not claiming, nor have I ever claimed, this software is not available under different licenses.

“The point I take issue with is Novell’s interpretation of non-LGPL use, which as I indicated, would preclude LGPL distribution on something as innocuous as a LiveCD. There is absolutely nothing in the LGPL which precludes distribution on inherently immutable systems, so this clause is a “further restriction”, as explicitly prohibited under the LGPL. Therefore Moonlight is explicitly non-Free software, regardless of any potential patent threats.

“Distributing LGPL software on inherently immutable systems is not “non-LGPL use”. Period. Novell’s assertion is a lie.”
      –Anonymous reader“Non-LGPL use means just that: use under terms other than the LGPL. If you don’t like or don’t want those terms, you can convey those in the LGPL instead.

“Notice they also want to support distribution on tivoized systems, not just inherently immutable ones. But this is not LGPLv3, so such wording is unnecessary. Maybe Novell’s legal department is paranoid, or incompetent (or both).

“Novell need to force, through licensing, distribution of Moonlight in a manner in which they can guarantee it will be updated with a certain specific component that they push to users - something not possible on immutable systems. And on immutable systems, Novell can ensure this mysterious component is either preinstalled, or paid for in lieu anyway (at ISV level), due to their “non-LGPL use” redefinition clause.”

Adds another reader: “Distributing LGPL software on inherently immutable systems is not “non-LGPL use”. Period. Novell’s assertion is a lie.

“The fact than Novell wish to fool people into seeking non-LGPL licensing, where it is totally unnecessary, is quite palpable, but that does not make their assertion true. I don’t care that other licensing is available as an option. I don’t care that I (or others) may distribute and use this software on immutable systems if we/they are fooled into accepting a proprietary license. The fact that “other licenses are available” is completely and utterly irrelevant. Novell is perverting the meaning of the LGPL, and abusing that bastardisation to “sell” the false premise that Moonlight is Free Software, when it clearly is not.

As a last remark, adds one reader: “Guess what that component is, where it comes from, and why Novell “need” Moonlight users to deploy it.

“Yes, that’s right, it’s Miguel de Icaza pushing yet more of their proprietary and encumbered standards down Free Software users’ throats again. Not content with poisoning us with their .NET Silverlight (Moonlight) garbage, they also want to coerce us into accepting their proprietary licensed, patent encumbered media codecs, via a “push” to all Moonlight users to install “MICROSOFT MEDIA PACK 1.0″.

“That is the real reason for all this “we consider non-LGPL use…” nonsense. That is why these systems need to be mutable, so they can install this “media pack” at Microsoft’s behest. De Icaza and friends are simply trying to force people to install proprietary Microsoft codecs. No doubt this is in fact part of the “arrangement” de Icaza has come to with Microsoft, in order that they tolerate this Silverlight “Cloneware” from Novell. Although I deeply suspect that there is little coercion on either side. Novell and Microsoft now have the same agenda.”

Speaking of Silverlight, Microsoft appears to have bought itself another contract for excluding GNU/Linux users from yet another Olympic event [1, 2] (or forcing them to install Mono for inferior and risky experience).

He also points out that the Olympics, which are being held in Vancouver, will be using Microsoft’s (MSFT) Silverlight standard, and its Smooth Streaming technology, which he notes the company worked on with Akamai.

This is another fine example where Microsoft uses Free software stacks (Linux at Akamai) to serve content. Microsoft never succeeded with CDNs, which it tried to pollute with Microsoft patents. █

“There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers.”

–Bob Muglia, Microsoft President

Addendum: the gentleman who insulted Stallman has expressed regret about it and the statements should not be attributed to Microsoft.

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