02.22.08
Gemini version available ♊︎Mark Shuttleworth’s Stance on Mono Inside Ubuntu
Mark Shuttleworth, whom we have great respect for after maintaining his stern stance against intimidation tactics, has responded to our concerns regarding the existence of Mono in Ubuntu. His message to us was CC’d to the Technical Board and the leader of Fedora. It would be worth bringing it to our readers’ attention because some were concerned (if not outraged) about the subject.
Hi Roy
At this stage we see no significant issues with patents and Mono. There is a risk of a patent claim against almost any component of Ubuntu – across every jurisdiction in which Ubuntu ships, the patent minefield is too complex. Our view is that we can deal with patent suits if they arise, but removing or re-engineering the relevant components.
“We cannot live in fear of that threat, we can only respond to it as an when it arises.”Yesterday’s announcement from Microsoft suggests that they have come round to the view that patent litigation is not an effective strategy for them.
The real patent risk to free software, in my view, is not a large-scale industry participant like SONY or IBM or Microsoft, instead it is a small, hard-to-identify patent holder who does not actually need to get products out the door. We cannot live in fear of that threat, we can only respond to it as an when it arises.
I don’t mean to undermine the good work that you do in reminding people of the risks, but only to say that we have discussed this in Ubuntu and are confident that the course we are on is a reasonable one.
Mark
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Woods said,
February 22, 2008 at 6:18 am
Well that is definitely a relief to hear. I think Mr. Shuttleworth has a definite point in that we shouldn’t live in fear of patents. This is the FOSS-side of things after all; is there anything we can’t rewrite if some patent-troll comes calling? On a more somber note, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance – Jefferson”, which makes sites such as this so valuable (I guess its safe to say that people at least are aware of the Mono-problem…)
I seem to recall reading once an article (in Linux Format) where Mr. Shuttleworth was mentioned as saying that Microsoft was more sinned against than sinning when it comes to patents (meaning that Microsoft has itself suffered from patent-trolling and would do more so in the future) Could Microsofts new announcement mean that, at least when it comes to patents, the business side and FOSS side will finally start standing together against patent-trolling? (My heady optimism is probably explained by the beautiful day outside…)
Bootnote: I’m still keeping Mono far away from my system. Luckily projects like Xesam make this easier (giving the boot for Beagle…)
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 22, 2008 at 6:34 am
Woods, Mono has problems other than software patents. I shall post a new article about it in about 10 minutes.
Victor Soliz said,
February 22, 2008 at 8:01 am
I think there are flaws in MONO’s design, if the intention was really to make a dev platform and not a way of porting .net apps to other operating systems, then I think keeping the .exe and .dll on it was a very bad idea, right now MONO apps force the OS to start to look a lot like windows.
I think MONO would have been great without OS devs using their time to aid silverlight and without those terrible ideas, there was no reason to copy .net’s implementation, free software could have done something better than .net instead of blindly copying it.
Victor Soliz said,
February 22, 2008 at 8:04 am
Right now, I am starting to think we can’t fight the beast. What Mark is saying is that we shouldn’t limit ourselves for fears of Microsoft, perhaps he is right. I think, instead of fighting mono we shall start to make mono more ours than MS’, fixing that .exe / .dll stuff would be the start, the problem is that we would need mono devs’ help to do it, and they do seem to behave too pro Microsoft (I mean, the whole moonlight debacle is ridiculous). Perhaps a fork…
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 22, 2008 at 8:11 am
With all due respect to your good arguments, I think you’re absolutely backward on this one. Microsoft is, for all I can tell, is in a terrible shape (posted half an hour ago) not just because of FOSS, which has its growing pains such as Mono, but also because of Google and other disruptive attack vectors. Hang in there and see how things flip over.
remi said,
February 23, 2008 at 1:50 am
I’m not sure if the readers of this blog are mostly opensource users/advocates or developers … but I would be interested to know how most developers feel re: mono in linux, versus general users.
I’m not saying that the issues aren’t worth thinking about … but I *greatly* enjoy being able to choose my own development platform (linux) when I have to code using .NET.
A lot of companies code in .NET as it’s an industry “standard,” kindof like Java. It’s “tried and true.” I, personally, love being able to code in .NET on linux – and totally free!
You have to remember that most of mono is build on top of open ECMA specs … making it a perfectly legal implementation. The only questionable bits are things like ADO.NET and Windows.Forms.
I haven’t coded in .NET in awhile, but I love the fact that I can whip up a quick script/app, compile to an .exe, and email it to someone who’s on a Windows box. (there might be some issues compiling to bytecode using mono and using the windows .NET runtime … but it always works fine for me)
Just my $0.02
P.S. .NET has created a big community of (truly) open source Microsoft programmers … there are way more open source .NET projects (GPL compatible, etc, not weird MS licenses) than any other Microsoft technology has created, that I can think of. I don’t remember lots of open source VB apps / libraries. Hell, it became popular enough that there have been *multiple* open source cross-platform implementations!!! (mono wasn’t the first/only project, and it wasn’t always under Novell, either) How evil does _that_ sound???
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 23, 2008 at 2:19 am
remi,
You raise a valid point, but be aware that the issue here is the incorporation of Mono as part of the base (or core) of GNU/Linux distributions, not the use of Linux for .NET development.
ue said,
February 23, 2008 at 5:16 am
I think he does the right thing in not worrying too much, any software of any significance can be attacked by patent trolls.
However, I don’t think mono is such a good idea. It will always chase the tail of Microsoft .Net. It would be better to go for java, that now is fully open source if you want a managed language. It is already available on more platforms than mono, and if you really need to integrate with .Net it have good tools to do that too. The java development and specification process have been much more open than that of .Net even during the closed source days of Java. This means that going with java will make FOSS much more in control, than if you get too much involved with mono and corresponding Microsoft technologies.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 23, 2008 at 5:38 am
Read this post from yesterday. It’s not really just about patents.
paul said,
February 23, 2008 at 7:14 am
Why do we need MONO or NET at all?
Java is much more Enterprise ready than MS NET and MONO.NET. NET is nothing more than a clone of Java in 90% of its respects, Even the damn libraries names are the same. Just substitute java/javax for System., etc.
The danger is choosing any MS based technology is that we are feeding the beast and sooner or later, you will get eaten!!
Why in the world would anyone who desires an Open System choose to use a technology that is controlled by a singel entity (I mean the NET specs, not the Mono Project itself).
Unless you want to be a MS propeller head, jst say “NO” to MS and MS based technologies.
Randeep Jalli said,
February 23, 2008 at 7:34 am
Personally I maintain my position, (IIRC) Ubuntu has signed NO agreement with Microsoft shielding its users from the risk of litigation wrt Mono. I think its is important that what Mr. Shuttleworth is relying on here is a gentleman’s agreement. Microsoft has been known to use this kind of tactic to try and beat out or “extinguish” competition in the past. Just google “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish” this could very well be another attempt to do the same kind of thing. Until and Unless microsoft issues a statement to the affect that it WILL NOT sue users who have mono installed on their system I will not install any of the mono libraries on my computer. Just relying on the fact that they have been sued by patent trolls, and do not want to have it happen again out of the goodness of their hearts, is very irresponsible and goes against what Microsoft is, a COMPANY. Just like any company they are here to make money and if enough linux users install Mono and they see that they may be able to litigate a business model suprise:THEY WILL DO IT(or at least their shareholders will force them to ).
While Mono may be a clean implementation of .Net, just remember that Windows Forms, ASP.NET, ADO.NET are PROPRIETARY WINDOWS COMPONENTS. That was(probably) the reason for the Novell-Microsoft agreement. As far as “living in fear” some times it may be a good thing, it keeps children from putting their hands on hot stoves.Microsoft is a VERY litigous company and although they may try and make it look otherwise DONT FORGET THAT.
Mike said,
February 23, 2008 at 7:35 am
“Java is much more Enterprise ready than MS NET and MONO.NET.”
Java has serious problems in areas such as generics, value types, native code bindings, and native GUIs. And if you have been following the Java news recently, even the Java community is mighty unhappy with the recent language development.
Besides, what makes you think Java is patent-free and unencumbered? Sun has numerous patents, and they have been blocking attempts at independent implementations any way they can. If you want Java, Sun’s shitty implementation is your only option.
Come up with something better than Mono if you can and if you like, but Java is not the answer, Java is a disaster.
“Why in the world would anyone who desires an Open System choose to use a technology that is controlled by a singel entity”
Mono is its own project, and Mono desktop apps on Linux generally don’t use dotNet technologies.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 23, 2008 at 9:04 am
I might be repeating this for like the 20th time in this Web site alone, but it’s important. Remember that Novell paid for Mono ‘protection’, whereas Linspire and Xandros appear not to have received any. The deals are not identical and there is a lot more to be said about clues and things to come (w.r.t. Mono). I don’t trust Microsoft’s ‘goodwill’ (giving away its so-called IPR). History tells us we mustn’t trust them blindly. This suspicion (caution rather) which works against Microsoft’s invitations is simply well earned due to past deeds. Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on me.
When Sun resorts to malicious prosecution, give me a shout
For all I know, back in May 2007 when Microsoft assaulted Linux with unsubstantiated threats, Sun went out of its way to offer its patents, in case Linux requires them as a defensive tool.
Rambo Tribble said,
February 23, 2008 at 10:04 am
Really, the only justification for Mono is for it to be used in a shop;s transitioning away from .Net to a true open environment. That is, however, an extremely valid justification.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 23, 2008 at 10:12 am
This, I suppose, was the raison d’être, but I am most worried to see that Novell is actually teaching children how to program in Mono (.NET) instead of teaching them something like C++ or Java.
Rob said,
February 23, 2008 at 6:36 pm
There are three ideas here:
one – that mono is a bad technology and there are better choices
two – that the implementation of mono is less than what it could be
three – that mono is based on .Net which a Microsoft technology and we all know that anything having to do with Microsoft is evil and must be banned or we will all be borged
idea one – that mono is a bad technology and there are better choices: well guess what: technology like everything else will either find a market or die. Mono has found a number of uses that the programmers could not find anything that would work for them (game scripting) and some very good applications have been developed like beagle and some others come to mind. In the case of the scripting engine: nother else could be found and in the case of the applications: mono enabled the programmers to realize their ideas is programs that enriched society (and yes the OSS communities).
idea two – the implementation o mono is less than perfect: well this is open to opinion. The original developers of the project want to create a bridge tools set that support developers to be able to provide solutions that span Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX and other platforms and with they have and some success. To change the underlying implementation would be invalidate the whole premise for having mono and yes some might want this there is a small and possibly growing number of users that need/want this.
idea three – is the old Microsoft is bad argument which is getting old. we need to get over this and get on with building new and innovative software and systems.
What I think is that if mono enables programmers to develop innovative software and/or systems this is a good thing. If there are patents then let the mono team know and they will change the mono tools to make sure there is not a problem and the religion – well leave it at the door when MS (or a number of other players) tries to pull a fast one then we can deal with it. We spend way to much time and energy on worrying about “The Evil Empire” and not enough about creating new and innovative software.
Go forward – explorer create new things and remember “keep your powder dry” you never know when you will need it!
Dan O'Brian said,
February 23, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Rob: precisely.
If Roy spent half the time he spends writing anti-this and anti-that articles and spent it instead of improving Linux software (be it KDE, GNOME, whatever), he would be a lot closer to realising his ultimate goal of the world being able to free itself from Microsoft than he is now.
If the Linux software isn’t ready for a mass influx of technically non-savvy Windows users to use, then they won’t come. All the finger pointing, mud slinging and propaganda in the world isn’t going to change that.
(Note: personally I feel that Linux software is very close if not already ready for the average non-tech savvy Windows user, but there are always improvements that can be made to make it even easier for them).
Dan O'Brian said,
February 23, 2008 at 7:09 pm
er, my first paragraph should say:
“If Roy spent half the time he spends writing anti-this and anti-that articles and instead spent his time improving Linux software (be it KDE, GNOME, whatever), he would be a lot closer to realising his ultimate goal of the world being able to free itself from Microsoft than he is now.”
Meaning… if Roy spent 8 hours a day working on improving software and 8 hours a day advocating Linux instead of spending 16 hours per day writing anti-this and anti-that articles, we would be closer to victory over Microsoft than we are now (how much closer depends on how talented a programmer Roy actually is).
gary g said,
February 23, 2008 at 7:42 pm
>Yesterday’s announcement from Microsoft suggests
>that they have come round to the view that patent
> litigation is not an effective strategy for them.
What has flyboy been smoking?
I’ve read the agreement and dont see any signs of that.
There is a lot of PR BS which tries to make it seem like it but its like trying to squint at 3am in the bar and trying to make yourself believe that the willdebeast at the end of the bar doesnt look like Karl Malden.
If you want to believe that, its your choice but this week’s announcement was nothing more than spinning a decision they lost and have to respect.
Of course, the EU answered right back with “We will believe when we see it. You tried to pull the same stunt 4 times before.”
And Roy hits it right on the nose:
“…but be aware that the issue here is the incorporation of Mono as part of the base (or core) of GNU/Linux distributions, not the use of Linux for .NET development.”
Personally, I dont trust Miguel “OOXML is a superb standard” Icaza because of many of his stances. He’s tried so hard to be Microsoft that he seems to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Of course, he is also a di**..
Exe, DLL, the only missing now is ActiveX…yum.
Dan O'Brian said,
February 23, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Resorting to personal attacks now, are we?…
Oh wait, I forgot that it’s different when Roy and his ilk do it…
no said,
February 23, 2008 at 8:52 pm
If we spent more time on developing great software based around pure open source frameworks and libraries, we wouldn’t be having this argument and Microsoft would be playing catch up to us.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 23, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I don’t approve such language (in fact, Groklaw would have deleted such a comment, but we have no censorship here).
There’s no ‘ilk’, so please stop pretending there’s a ‘cult-like’ activity. The only grouping that I see here is one of Mono developers who essentially do a denial of service attack in the comments.
That is the classic line I’ve been hearing for like… forever, whenever the subject of Mono comes up.
Your argument is of course valid and difficult to challenge, but it becomes a problem when you have the so-called ‘Mono stuff’ and so-called ‘non-Mono stuff’ competing against each other for inclusion. It ought to be agreed what we want the Free desktop to be and then work together rather than unproductively reinvent the wheel.
Jose_X said,
February 24, 2008 at 12:14 am
The more dot net there is, the better off Microsoft is and the worse off Microsoft competitors are.
The better off Microsoft is the worse off FOSS is. Microsoft’s closed source monopoly platforms need to be unmonopolized. Mono helps keep them strong when the mono apps are directed at the general FOSS group instead of at those coding on MS dotnet.
Anyone that downplays Microsoft’s closed source monopolies has their cards on Microsoft’s side.
Maybe I will elaborate later, but this is getting stupid.
I’ve been writing a lot recently, and I want to take a break (not to mention I am very busy on weekends) http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-02-22-017-26-OP-MS-DV-0001 .
Happy said,
February 24, 2008 at 2:19 am
I don’t really care if people choose to use Mono or not. My personal choice is not to use it. I believe that in the long run it is not going to be a good thing for FOSS.
I use Fedora and it is easy for me to just remove the offending package and anything that depends on it. I assume Ubuntu users can do the same.
I guess if Gnome or Fedora ever gets to the point where Mono is a required package, then I’ll move to something else.
soot said,
February 24, 2008 at 4:47 am
>I don’t approve such language (in fact, Groklaw would have
>deleted such a comment, but we have no censorship here).
Roy, you didn’t even notice, but Dan has parodied your own language. You are constantly attacking pro-Mono posters here as being Microsoft’s ilk. Which I see as much more of an insult than what Dan has written.
Live by your own standards, Roy.
soot said,
February 24, 2008 at 4:49 am
Dunno about the censorship-bit, either…
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 24, 2008 at 4:54 am
Please show me where I said or insinuated this. I have not a doubt in my mind that this is false, but other people who comment here or send me E-mails call Mono programmers all sorts of things. I don’t do this myself. If you choose to characterise myself based on content added by others to the site, then you’re just asking me to delete comments, which we never do (neither me nor Shane).
The question to ask here is this: does one maintain (and also define) a high standard by removing poor content (censorship) or maintaining integrity by avoiding censorship? Groklaw is sometimes criticised for banning disruptive users and deleting rude comments. So which is it?
soot said,
February 24, 2008 at 5:28 am
Well, since you asked for it:
“It was nowhere. Microsoft uses GNOME and Novell (via de Icaza and ilk) to boast pseudo-support of OOXML. ” (boycottnovell.com/2008/01/01/novell-praises-patent-deal/)
“The Register would retain someone of your ilk for any purpose other than humour.” (boycottnovell.com/2007/03/page/2/)
And countless ones where you called Novell and other companies MS’ ilk.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 24, 2008 at 5:49 am
Mono or Novell ilk, not Microsoft ilk. Big difference!
Did you follow the link? It’s not me who said this. It was quoted, i.e. someone else’s words.
soot said,
February 24, 2008 at 8:13 am
That makes a world of difference, certainly. How about your frequent insult of pro-Mono posters that they are Microsoft’s ‘shills’?!? I’m sure you didn’t mean to insult anyone with that, either?
Dan O'Brian said,
February 24, 2008 at 8:22 am
Roy, it’s clear that all your ranting about Mono in GNOME isn’t going to change anything. The GNOME devs ignore you, Mark Shuttleworth ignores you, the Fedora project ignores you as do many other projects/groups.
Who have you convinced to reject Mono? Anyone beyond a half-dozen ignorant users? Doubtful.
I laughed so hard when Mark Shuttleworth responded to your whining.
Oh well, this arguing was fun while it lasted but I think it’s time I get back to work poisoning GNOME with this Mono disease.
Good luck trying to fight it…
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 24, 2008 at 9:36 am
And once again you put fake words right inside my mouth. I never said this. This recurrence of misattribution is getting tedious. See this recent incident. You make stuff up to provoke and incite people against me. That’s not fair.
False, false and false. With the exception of Mono developers (whom I never contacted), none of them ignores me. Please get your facts straight. Thank you.
Again you are trying to mock me without having any information about my inbox. There are actually some vice presidents of very large companies who appreciate my endeavours which involve combating market abuse.
The issue was raised in the GNOME Foundation’s mailing list and ended with a promise (from Shaw, IIRC) that Novell will be asked to abstain from making GNOME dependent on Mono or strategise on it like it did. I can’t recall the exact details, but I could recheck. The issue was actually raised there by ‘some guy’ called Richard Stallman.
I didn’t laugh. He’s a great person and he doesn’t ignore my mail. Whether he agrees with all my convictions is a separate matter altogether.
soot said,
February 24, 2008 at 10:53 am
>There are actually some vice presidents of very large companies
>who appreciate my endeavours which involve combating market >abuse.
HAHAHAHA; oh sure company vice presidents sent encouraging letters to young Roy here…!
Yeah, sure…
Mark Shuttleworth sent you an e-mail made from the template for answering the thousand weirdo-mails he receives every day, and you take that as an encouraging sign, huh?
Well, if it keeps you happy that you can lie to yourself about your total insignificance I guess that is probably all the better for you.
Jose_X said,
February 24, 2008 at 1:35 pm
soot, why would you be so agitated if roy’s writing was that insignificant?
Though it’s difficult to prove lots of things one way or the other, Novell’s, Miguel’s, etc comments are the ones that tend to be the most controversial and removed from reality (I think because they are not being honest with their intentions and real beliefs).
Fact is there are many platforms and languages you can use to build great applications. In all the years that mono has been around I have not seen Linux (OS) go from garbage to wonder on account of mono as one might be tempted to conclude might happen if one had been paying attention all of these years to what was being said by Miguel and others (I am only looking at bits and pieces that have made headlines and been repeated by apparent mono supporters; I don’t follow Miguel’s blog or anything like that).
Fact is that Novell has positioned itself to benefit financially from the growth of the mono/dotnet world. Miguel and all others associated with Novell are speaking to their paycheck and heavens knows what other potential future financial gains when they praise dotnet. Whether they would be correct or not, the fact is that they are speaking to their paycheck. The center of the main bridge from FOSS to Microsoft platforms is Novell (look at the IP they own and the deals they have struck). Novell has no interest in upsetting Microsoft (taking food from Microsoft’s table). In fact, they may be bound not to take any of certain actions against Microsoft (without Microsoft approval or prompt) while instead engaging in others. Meanwhile, Novell is likely to get a nicer deal in the future if the FOSS dotnet mono world grows to any significance. Unquestionably then, Novell and those closely associated with Novell fall well short of being disinterested bystanders.
Furthermore, Novell has shown others how they too can benefit from a lucrative Microsoft deal. Help Microsoft at the expense of those things hurting Microsoft (yeah, Red Hat.. sure… more like the uncontrolled FOSS community but let’s point the finger at a large commercial entity for obvious reasons) and you get some money and power. Sell FOSS up the river for a pie from Microsoft’s table.
I am not saying anyone in particular is thinking of selling FOSS out, but we wary because naturally anyone with those intentions (at least should push turn into shove) will still say that they “tricked” Microsoft into a deal that hurts Microsoft. Microsoft’s plan may backfire, but it will be in spite of these deals.
Dotnet is a platform. It requires a lot of mental commitment to code for it (true of any major platform). That is a valuable gain to Microsoft who controls that platform’s destiny and has the top tools for dotnet development, and whose survival ultimately depends on many developers coding for their platform over the platform of others. With the ton that Microsoft has on the line and invested in dotnet, the best the wider FOSS community could do to help break up Microsoft’s stranglehold on the industry would be to ignore dotnet completely and continue making Linux (and other open platforms) as great as possible as fast as possible.
However, mono is a clone of an MS platform. To make it “ours” we’d have to start by no longer following Microsoft’s lead in any of the specs associated with dotnet. We’d also take some other steps, too. If we don’t do this but instead spread MS dotnet (through eg mono), we get a bunch of devs that are capable and want to code in dotnet but we can never compete in that domain against Microsoft. This makes it easier for Microsoft to end up with a lot of devs that will be able to make Vista and other platforms strong on account of the many FOSS apps that work there. This makes it easier for these devs to “tell” themselves in the future that working on MS platforms (like Vista) directly with MS tools (like MSVisStu) that will be superior on that platform is “OK”, especially as jobs grow in that area and disappear in other areas.. again giving MS tremendous strength. You can’t out dotnet MS because they set the standard.
And you can’t beat MS on Vista no way no how as long as Vista is closed source or even were it to become fake open source (“open source” not buildable and usable by others).
[Being Microsoft for a minute...] To fight FOSS you need a multi-pronged approach. Patents are one of these things (something that the very wealthy Shuttleworth could resolve for Canonical whatever day of the year he wanted.. at such time leaving a bunch of small independent developers out in the cold (unless it was a deal that solved everything for everyone)). You naturally need a lot of coders coding to your platform’s spec. You also need to make sure that Linux and competing platforms (this is the war MS must win to stay in control) cannot have anything interesting and significant that is lacking in Vista and other relevant MS platforms; hence, you want all interesting FOSS to run on Vista and you want (ideally) all the FOSS devs working in a way where Vista never stays behind. Furthermore, if the devs code for your dotnet platform (ideally everyone) then you gain several things. The devs are somewhat stuck in their position because shifting API etc is not an easy thing to do. Simultaneously all other platforms are suffering, in particular, commercial companies for java, lamp, etc suffer and are easier to be bought out or have them come to Microsoft with hat in hand. As jobs grow in that area and others wither, many of these devs really become stuck. MS gains power over everyone and real FOSS bit rots and/or becomes illegal or its user and developer base become marginalized and stigmatized. Anything related to MS assets (eg, certifications and hardware) goes up in value further giving MS leverage. Real FOSS loses the support of (dying) Red Hat and many others that do really contribute to a clean FOSS. Part of the marginalization is when it becomes clear (in that hypothetical future) that you can’t really make a living on FOSS or find top quality business tools there (at least not with the completely free non-MS stuff), and gains in hardware support will take leaps backwards. … OH, make sure some key players and technologies stay in your corner, for example, buy off Novell so that as many bridges as possible to MSland continue to be maintained for all time (and Novell’s job is easier and cost efficient if the greater FOSS community will just play along).
With this background, here is my view on Microsoft’s recent spec “gift” to us http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080221092839846 . It’s a long reply in the comments section of the MS announcement article Andy Updegrove wrote a few days back http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080221092839846 . You can also find that same “Where’s the beef?” comment here http://www.linuxtoday.com/it_management/2008022102126OPMS
The best way to break the Monopolist’s stangle hold is to work on Linux/free platforms, taking advantage of the *specifics* that that platform has to offer (at least at the POSIX, LSB, etc level) and let Vista and all things MS rot. MS by themselves cannot compete with us. They have had a huge lead, but the lead has been disappearing fast, even with the current helping hand Novell and others are giving to Microsoft today.
Though this should not necessarily be the case under ideal situations (if we could ignore the MS mononpoly context), unfortunately, I think mono is like a plague to a healthy independent FOSS community, and patents are just a small part of the reason why. Yet in the patents arena by itself, we have more trouble than is worth the trouble. Novell will continue to make sure that mono follows MS’s dotnet without straying and each time getting deeper into territory where MS is more likely to have crucial/key/road-block patents making it all the more unlikley that anyone can leverage or use mono apps in the future when mono would hypothetically deviate from the standard, the standard MS feeds to the world as strategy dictates. The ability to work around a patent diminishes the further you follow a long a particular path that is set up with traps. It’s the accidentally violated patents the ones that most tend to have work arounds (or be bogus or too general), and we know MS will likely make a conscious and very serious effort to set up traps that will be as difficult to bypass as possible. For example, imagine if one fine day you/mono decide not to follow dotnet spec (and so lose patent inmunity), you will likely find that the most fundamental aspects of dotnet are patented. Sure, you may find a work around to a subset of these, but… well, my point is that you will then be hooked and bobwired, and it will be much less painful (short-term) to just let yourself be reeled in further than to fight. Why set FOSS back years? Why give Microsoft many extra years of monopoly control? [I am speaking to those that don't have MS $$$ on the line.]
Without sites like boycottnovell, the actions and intentions of some of these players dealing closely with Microsoft would not be as clear and as widely known.
And one more thing, remember that many commercial companies want to beat Microsoft, but they can take advantage of a slow dying Microsoft to help keep FOSS somewhat under control without (they hope) losing the (unpaid and cooperating) support of the very community they would not mind seeing under control. I say this not pointing fingers but so that the developers and the end users keep their eyes open and a salt shaker handy. The community of the non commercial (or small to medium independent or non profit or gov, etc) players (the bulk of us) are what make FOSS the asset that it is to customers and developers everywhere, and, certainly, within the commercial world, there will be those that do not care about too much more beyond their bank accounts. Maybe in 4 year’s time Novell will do the right thing and not sign another so MS friendly deal. [But buying people off can happen very transparently, so we should focus on what is going on and not who signed what.]
In any case, let’s not help out Microsoft, and let’s remove the Microsoft temptation as quickly as possible. Anything slower in removing them than very fast is taking too many risks for my level of comfort. Why tempt businesses to sell us short?
Also, let’s not get carried away helping to create situations whose threat level will only be clear once the Monopoly is removed.
RlillySR said,
February 24, 2008 at 3:24 pm
No matter how one looks at Mono, the community is potentially opening themselves up to all of problems. The only result is it weakens us.
We are much better off developing our own technology/software to bridge gaps. We should start focusing on FSF high priorty projects like DotGNU Project (Free Software for Webservices and for C# Programming) http://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/ and others to put ourselves in a much more powerful position long term.
Victor Soliz said,
February 24, 2008 at 5:14 pm
And so does .net, specially on “native GUIs” , .net does not specify any way to use that, there are gtk# and qt# , bindings for gtk and qt, but if you were to use those you could also use the Java equivalents, both are as pointless.
Or, do you think gnome’s apps use windows.forms? .net is as backward with GUI as Java is, or it is worse considering that it is illegal to use windows.forms outside of Microsoft’s .net. ( Yeah, not even the vague “promise” allows you to do that).
Victor Soliz said,
February 24, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Such a relief…
This is the reason I say we stay with C++ , python, ruby and so many true open source platforms, at least for things for gnome or KDE considering they are the core of open source right now, it does not make any sense to use other things.
Could at least show a little comon sense and get rid of abominations such as .exe and .dll , really.
soot, Dan: Trolling is not welcome, how about you find yourself a real job? Advocating someone’s agenda on the internet doesn’t sound like a great thing to explain to someone on your first date, regardless of how much money they pay you, it is not worth it.
–
I am not sure if this was referring to my posts. Anyways, would like to make some clarifications.
Should still fight MONO implementation on default gnome apps, it does not make any sense to let it happen, should at least be verbose and not let this happen smoothly.
Ubuntu is not going to remove MONO, (not a reason to stop insisting over Mark, might one day help him decide to pick another desktop if Gnome gets too extremist) simply because Canonical doesn’t tend to modify gnome from mainstream a lot, and would be a lot of work to try to battle MONO apps that got feature boosts through Novell (A company that is really forcing Gnome’s move to MONO (They are the only party other than MS that I can think as able to think this will benefit them).
I was just saying that assuming we fight attempts to make us dependent on it, it shall get useful still, in a WINE way, as long as we protect it from poisoning, in fact MONO might be requiring to get “poisoned” by anti-Microsoft like Microsoft is attempting to poison it with antiLinux (And I know my language sounds terrible).
In other words, we need work force to produce a change, since it looks just articles are not taking us anywhere and the parties involved have just decided to reduce any criticism as “conspiracy theories” or irrational “zealously” Instead of the concerned criticism it is. (e.g. Jeff Waugh’s usual comments in this site)
In addition, If not to change MONO into something more benign, we still need work force since there is a war going on right now, Novell is gonna place money to make sure MONO apps are feature richer than alternative, native apps to force their inclusion in default distributions of other desktops. F-Spot vs. gthumb comes to mind. We need devs on native apps to ensure there remains a way to do fine with just native apps, the ideal would be that native apps get better/more features so they remain a superior choice, at the very least they can win the performance battle.
So, I am going to try to learn some GTK…
Victor Soliz said,
February 24, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Now THAT’s a place that could use some work force.
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 24, 2008 at 9:22 pm
The link to be aware of is this:
http://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/danger.html
“The DotGNU project was started in reaction to Microsoft’s .NET strategy, which was born out of a vision for the future of information technology which we do not agree with, namely that “the era of ‘open computing,’ the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending.””
“That .NET vision statement is so shocking that it is necessary to provide appropriate context, quoted here under “fair use” rights from the New York Times, July 25, 2002 (Late Edition, Section C, Page 6, Column 3) article “Microsoft Tries to Explain What Its .Net Plans Are About”, written by John Markoff “
Be sure to read the rest. It’s merely an embrace, extend and extinguish classic. We need something defensive, not collaborative (w.r.t. Microsoft’s plan).
Additionally, I wish to add the following thoughts from an anonymous reader who dissects the response:
“I’d say a nerve has been struck, especially some of the items they steer away from.
It is quite a flood / Denial of Service attack, but good job at staying focused. They do use all the common tricks and misdirections, the main ones being name calling and more name calling. I keep thinking I’d like to catalog the tricks and have a giant book or database.
Some of the ideas are quite good, like working with Ubuntu and Red Hat.
One of the misdirections used by the MSFTers there is the conflation of copyright and swpatents. Also, the deliberate obtuseness seen by the mono/msfters since the start of mono. One of those threads is almost an exact repeat of what Jeff Waugh was doing against ODF.
The entry near the top quoting RMS is important. I wonder if that’s one of the main reasons he’s handing Emacs over to others.
[...]
Here’s one of the licensing issues at the heart of the mono problem. I have not added my comments yet to the blog and usually read just the articles.
Username “CoolGuy” wrote this:
The first few years of the mono project, I used to pose that question to Slashdot when there were mono articles, and got attacked in about the same way. However, none of them were ever able to provide an answer.”
Just FWIW. Take it as you will.
prakash said,
February 25, 2008 at 7:08 am
well,I feel mono must be removed from Gnome and make it as a dependency for “mono set” of apps including banshee,beagle et al.
I am wondering what is Mr.Miguel de Iqaza doing with porting .net of M$haft to Linux?WTF?there can be better things he can do in Gnome and GNU/Linux as a whole rather than porting .net cr@p to Linux
reya276 said,
February 25, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Wow simply amazing, after reading all of this, I’m just a bit overwhelmed to think that GNOME which I use in Ubuntu Gutsy has all this .Net garbage in it/ I’m a web developer in Florida and that .Net is what everyone here requires but I will rather stay without a job that do .NET garbage, I encourage everyone of my clients and former/current employers to stick to all open source software and technologies. Also maybe I should switch to KDE 4, but now the question is; Does KDE 4 have any mono code in it? And if not can KD4 provide the same experience as a Desktop. Also another issue is that KDE4 is now being ported to Windows, these are the things that make me feel that no matter what we do as a community we will never defeat the MS truck because all these so called pro linux developers love to jump ship, I got 3 kids which I need to feed but I rather got to work at Publix than use any .NET technology or any MS product related to my current line of work. If you live in the state of Florida visit our website (http://florida.ubuntu-us.org/)
Open Honesty said,
April 25, 2008 at 9:23 am
If Novell protects us from Microsoft, who protects us from Novell:
The one thing we all have to remember is that open source leads to new concepts and market opportunity for small development shops. Just ask Astrum Inc. http://www.astruminc.com, what astrum did was to develop the first SUSE based Solution Stack using Novell technology. What they produced and what the independent testing reported was a beast of an appliance and Astrum published these reports on its website.
This solution described at RSA is the first true Identity based encryption system that can target users who have access to critical data or compliant sensitive data and harden compliance based policies that are compliance mandated. Astrum then did a OEM with nCipher and converted the nCIpher HSM from a 32bit card to a true 64bit card with eDirectory integration. Now if that wasn’t enough they then developed a key management system that never exposes any part of the key to a hacker outside the appliance and without making a customer change it’s network or put agents on it’s storage. I was very impressed as I spoke to representative from Astrum. Now according to nCipher as told to me at RSA this makes the Astrum solution the only solution to meet the up coming FIPS 3 compliance changes and make this appliance very unique in the market space.
The problem:
The concept from what I could gather was presented to Novell under NDA two years ago at the end of 2006 and promises of concept protection were made and agreements were signed and both worked with business units to ensure no competitive issues may arise. They did not! So Astrum shared with Novell executives the plan that at the end of the day for example map 8 of the PCI requirements to the appliance along with all the major compliances while having the ability to leverage all the security solutions sold by Novell or any other security software based solution that could sit in the network. What happened is Astrum became the first ever to develop and Novell based solution stack using SUSE enterprise server in a appliance only to have it stolen from them!.. Hence the following links.
http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20080416/AQW05816042008-1.html
http://www.novell.com/linux2/appliance/
So if the solution is potentially a market changing concept as Linux can be why expose a concept to a company like Novell who touts protection in the Open source community, of course they promise protection from Microsoft but who promises concept protection from Novell. When Novell realized the market impact of such a solution they have moved to slowly create competition for little Astrum who is coming to market with out any assistance as promised by Novell. This solution from what I hear from internal Novell had enough potential market impact that it changed a direction for a major software company like it did for Novell. Prior to 07 and from what I understand Novell couldn’t spell compliance much less understands an appliance stack approach to compliancy and encryption.
Develop for Novell on SUSE or jeOS, and expose a development and market plan, NO WAY!!! I really feel for these guys and have to ask why anyone would trust Novell and are they truly moving to a channel model.
CoolGuy said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:07 am
@reya276
I commend for your ethics. Its hard to stay on the true path after all the lull for money is very strong.
As someone said before linux is not about making billions or getting your statue carved in wax – but about making computers useful and fun, solving problems and getting the job done
CoolGuy said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:28 am
open honesty – novell is a just another evil incarnation of the microsoft.
they have no ethics or any shame what so ever. they are just here to milk the gnu/linux/foss and destroy its long term viability for short term profits on their balance sheet.
stevetheFLY said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:36 am
Pffff… With all this FUD in the above comments, let me just quote Mark Shuttleworth again:
“At this stage we see no significant issues with patents and Mono.”
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
stevetheFLY: 80.132.128.196
eet: 80.132.139.19
stevetheFLY said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:37 am
So, no reason to wet your pants, yet.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
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cojii said,
April 25, 2008 at 1:36 pm
@stevetheFLY
OH yes, just because Mark the great says something , it must be solid gold is that what your spouting ?
NO significant issues, instead of ‘no’ issues is that your claim now ? It’s better to have a small amount of uncertainly that none ?
A ‘pact’ with the devil for which little info is available, but for which ‘only novel’ assures protection; as if we needed protection from something when there are free libs available that contain ‘zero patent encumberments’..
People must fight back and only use operating systems that dont partake of the mono folly , or face the ultimate consequences; all illogical when clear alternatives exist that dont require us to dodge the mindfield of non OSS projects.
cojii
mass-carpone said,
April 25, 2008 at 4:36 pm
The ‘devil’, ey? I’m so happy that you remain calm and reasonable.
That makes it all so much easier to take you people seriously…
Mark is a person one can have very different opinions about, but I’m pretty user that when he makes a statement like that in writing it is not from his personal view on the legal issues, but the law-firm of that billionaire speaking.
mass-carpone said,
April 25, 2008 at 4:37 pm
funny typo: what I meant to type was not ‘user’, of course, but ‘sure’.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 25, 2008 at 5:18 pm
He also has motives for justifying the inclusion of mono, which would be hard to take away at this stage. Jeff Waugh might — just might — be among those who are responsible for putting it there. I don’t know, but I’m only guessing that all sorts of people told all sorts of things to Mark about the ‘wonders’ of C#.
mass-carpone said,
April 25, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Mark made a statement about legality, not about technical merits.
Jeff Waugh said,
April 29, 2008 at 3:15 am
More insinuations from Roy about me, Mono, Ubuntu, ODF, etc. with no basis in fact or research whatsoever. This does not serve the FLOSS community, nor does it serve your own interests, Roy. Reality is much more interesting, nuanced and relevant than the deranged muck you post here. Get a grip, do some research, and if you actually care about FLOSS at all, contribute in a positive way.
masteroblaster said,
April 29, 2008 at 6:59 am
Roy seems but a scared child; not a nice one though. There is absolutely no sense in talking to him.
cojii said,
April 29, 2008 at 3:11 pm
He has EVERY right to voice his opinion Mr Jeff Waugh, and if you cant take the ‘heat’ GET THE heck out of the kitchen. You could also prove him wrong , instead of yelling about his lack of proof, but not supporting obvious M$ technology, but then I guess that would be too hard huh.
Why, you almost sound like you want to strip him of free speech. I wont deny some hard evidence would go along way to credibility, but your method holds no more water, now does it.
It’s obvious to all but probably those that support mono and its attempts to ban Java, that VERY FEW but the hardcore M$ appologists want anything at ALL to do with M$ , when its QUITE CLEAR from all their linux hate talk etc.etc ( lets not forget the ooXML spectacle that dear mr miguel was so HAPPY about )., that they want nothing but for linux to die and leave their poor little monopoly alone; and all you do by suppporting their little brainchild is helping them more easily succeed in that cause.
I hope you can sleep well, as the rest of us just use java
cya
cojii
Miles said,
April 29, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Jeff Waugh is innocent until PROVEN guilty, cojii, or have you forgotten that?
It’s up to Roy to PROVE what he insinuates about Jeff, it’s not up to Jeff to prove his innocence, even though Jeff has done a pretty good job of proving Roy’s allegations to be false.
If Jeff sued Roy for libel, then it would be up to Roy to prove Jeff’s guilt or Roy would be penalised. Since Roy can’t prove Jeff’s guilt, I think we all know Roy would be up shit’s creek. Roy’s lucky Jeff hasn’t taken this to court, imho.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 29, 2008 at 7:04 pm
First of all, nobody was accused of being “guilty”. In case you are new to this debate, the situation involved claiming that Jeff protects Mono, Novell and to an extent he also shelters even OOXML. In many ways, Jeff think like Miguel from what I was able to gather. That’s just my opinion.
The rest of your message (about libel) is almost laughable and it illustrates detachment from this whole exchange of arguments Jeff and I have had in blogs. Just because someone does not like or agree with opinions (e.g. that Mono is harmful to Linux, that implementing OOXML is a death to standards, etc.) does not make it a legal case.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been receiving E-mails from various different people who are equally pissed off or were pissed off by Jeff, whom they said never offered an apology. So remember never to be hypocritical. Jeff has made his share of accusations against me as well.
Jeff Waugh said,
April 29, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Roy, you’ve put forward your opinions — these hilarious insinuations — as fact, without any basis in fact, evidence, or reality. You repeat them over and over again, and avoid reporting on my activities, statements and beliefs that do not support your own FUD… and that’s just the stuff I do in public, that a modicum of research (and willingness to report on) would find! Let’s not worry about the things you’d have no idea about, or the benefit of the doubt some would think was due to someone who has committed so much time to FLOSS.
You continue to suggest, as you have done right here in the comment I am replying to, that I “protect Mono, Novell [and] OOXML”. If it’s just your opinion, perhaps you’d like to a) back it up and b) not repeat it as if it were fact while reporting on unrelated issues.
Reality laughs at you. Anyone with any basic handle on my beliefs or activities in the FLOSS world can see that you’re off your rocker, and that has an impact on their belief in the rest of your “reporting”.
You are simply not informed and do not make an effort to inform yourself when the possibility exists that further information may show that you are wrong (or irrational).
(People being pissed off at me does not support your arguments. It just shows that I have the capacity to piss people off, which is not an exclusive skill by any stretch of the imagination. I am a public figure. Whatever I say or do, I am bound to piss some people off, and I’m quite comfortable with that.)
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 29, 2008 at 11:14 pm
So, do you defend Mono and Novell’s role or not? I judge based on deeds and words and show things that are said and done. I don’t make stuff up but form an assessment which is an opinion based on the above.
The question I would love for you to answer is this: do you endorse what was done between Novell and Microsoft? (You know, your former employer, Canonical, still suffers from it.)
Jeff Waugh said,
April 29, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Oh for pete’s sake. You’re such a blockhead. You haven’t based anything on deeds and words — you’ve ignored my actions and words in the real world, and now that you’ve finally got around to asking an actual question for once, it’s a moronic one at that (and of course, it’s in the comments on your site). This is why I gave up trying to help you the last time. You can’t actually bear to comprehend something that questions the irrational world view you’ve created for yourself.
Grow up and do something useful for a change.
Dan O'Brian said,
April 29, 2008 at 11:39 pm
There’s no evidence whatsoever that Canonical suffers from anything related to the Microsoft+Novell deal.
Just because you say it does doesn’t make it so. The only “harm” anyone has ever claimed the Microsoft+Novell deal has caused is “it confirms that Linux infringes on MS patents in the eyes of the average Joe” which, even if true, only means that the average Joe is clueless about how patents work.
Being that Microsoft signed the same agreement, doesn’t that then, by that logic, say that Microsoft infringes on patents too? Otherwise they wouldn’t have signed, would they have? And certainly they wouldn’t have dumped $300 million.
Fact remains, Linux very likely does infringe on MS patents. Just like every piece of MS software likely infringes on someone’s patents as well.
Is the patent system busted? Yes, but that’s not Novell’s fault.
Instead of badmouthing Novell who still does a lot for the benefit of free software, why not instead fight the misunderstandings of how patents work? Why not educate the masses about how every piece of software out there infringes on patents and that it makes the whole software industry a powder keg? Why not lobby for patent reform?
You’ll do a lot more god that way and you’ll do less damage to good people who are actually on your side – the side that wants free software to succeed. For all your accusations, I’m sure Miguel and Jeff and Novell all want Linux to succeed. It’s in all of their best interests… and they have contributed a lot more to free software than you likely ever will, so why attack them? They aren’t your enemy – unless you want to destroy free software (maybe that is what you are after, disguising yourself as a free software enthusiast? I mean, all you do for advocacy is preach to the quire – that’s hardly beneficial to the success of Linux by itself).
Jeff Waugh said,
April 29, 2008 at 11:40 pm
You do “make stuff up”. You make up conclusions that fit your world view based on a very selective sampling of what’s happening in the real world.
I wonder how my participation on the Standards Australia OOXML working group, and the public comments I made during that period fit with your world view of me being some kind of proxy, shill or supporter (some of your favourite words) for Novell and Microsoft?
Very selective coverage of that on your website, Roy. None of that was repeated ad-nauseam on your website, Roy. No… see, now that you’ve branded me as some kind of “enemy of freedom” (funny kind of enemy, considering everything I do), anything that doesn’t fit your world view is unlikely to be well represented here.
Is there any point writing this? No. The cognitive dissonance will just cause you to ask questions about something entirely unrelated so you don’t have to face up to reality.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 30, 2008 at 12:00 am
Jeff, you didn’t answer the question about Novell.
Dan, for starters see http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2006-11/msg03765.html
And by the way, we *do* lobby for a patent reform. You clearly read this site selectively, but I cannot blame you.
Jeff (again), I never framed you that way and you know it. I also understand that you’re in a difficult situation where you must represent a diversity in views (GNOME).
Jeff Waugh said,
April 30, 2008 at 12:06 am
Of course I didn’t answer such a stupid question. Don’t duck the insinuations you’ve made in this thread and so many others. Quoting immediately above, as if it wasn’t plainly obvious enough:
You have absolutely no basis in fact to suggest that any of that is true. If it is your opinion, back it up. Why is it your opinion? The evidence, and what I actually do and say, simply doesn’t back it up (unless, of course, you choose to paint refutation of your irrationality as “protection”).
Man up and take responsibility for what you say and insinuate, or shut the hell up and get over yourself.
Marcus Schmidt said,
April 30, 2008 at 5:34 am
It’s no use. Roy won’t come out of his self-constructed tin-foil tent. He will never talk straight, like an adult.
By god, when will someone finally PLEASE get together money to put a lawyer on Roy? Sue him for libel, get him at least to revoke the slander he wrote.
I’ve really had it up to here with this mud-slinger. It’s just a pity that this website seems to be seen as too unimportant to prompt such a reaction from any company. And unfortunately not even Jeff, who would have good material for a libel case against Roy, isn’t ready (yet?) to take on the bad publicity that comes out of a lawsuit.
Perhaps I’ll just open a ‘Sue-Roy-Schestowitz!’-website to collect donations for this purpose. Anyone annoyed enough by Roy would be welcome to contribute.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 30, 2008 at 6:08 am
Threats are cheap, Marcus. Claims with substance are not.
Marcus Schmidt said,
April 30, 2008 at 6:15 am
Your claims are completely without substance and thus d i r t – cheap!
Open Honesty said,
April 30, 2008 at 10:10 am
You want evidence, re-read my post. Novell doesn’t mind nickle and dime opportuntities and they will support you as a developer. But when you come up with something unique you better be very carefull to engage Novell.
REPOST:
The one thing we all have to remember is that open source leads to new concepts and market opportunity for small development shops. Just ask Astrum Inc. http://www.astruminc.com, what astrum did was to develop the first SUSE based Solution Stack using Novell technology. What they produced and what the independent testing reported was a beast of an appliance and Astrum published these reports on its website.
This solution described at RSA is the first true Identity based encryption system that can target users who have access to critical data or compliant sensitive data and harden compliance based policies that are compliance mandated. Astrum then did a OEM with nCipher and converted the nCIpher HSM from a 32bit card to a true 64bit card with eDirectory integration. Now if that wasn’t enough they then developed a key management system that never exposes any part of the key to a hacker outside the appliance and without making a customer change it’s network or put agents on it’s storage. I was very impressed as I spoke to representative from Astrum. Now according to nCipher as told to me at RSA this makes the Astrum solution the only solution to meet the up coming FIPS 3 compliance changes and make this appliance very unique in the market space.
The problem:
The concept from what I could gather was presented to Novell under NDA two years ago at the end of 2006 and promises of concept protection were made and agreements were signed and both worked with business units to ensure no competitive issues may arise. They did not! So Astrum shared with Novell executives the plan that at the end of the day for example map 8 of the PCI requirements to the appliance along with all the major compliances while having the ability to leverage all the security solutions sold by Novell or any other security software based solution that could sit in the network. What happened is Astrum became the first ever to develop and Novell based solution stack using SUSE enterprise server in a appliance only to have it stolen from them!.. Hence the following links.
http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20080416/AQW05816042008-1.html
http://www.novell.com/linux2/appliance/
So if the solution is potentially a market changing concept as Linux can be why expose a concept to a company like Novell who touts protection in the Open source community, of course they promise protection from Microsoft but who promises concept protection from Novell. When Novell realized the market impact of such a solution they have moved to slowly create competition for little Astrum who is coming to market with out any assistance as promised by Novell.
This solution from what I hear from internal Novell had enough potential market impact that it changed a direction for a major software company like it did for Novell. Prior to 07 and from what I understand Novell couldn’t spell compliance much less understands an appliance stack approach to compliancy and encryption.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
April 30, 2008 at 10:14 am
Open Honesty, your post is absolutely off-topic.
Absolutely, absolutey unrelated. What triggered you to post that semon of yours?
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Open Honesty said,
April 30, 2008 at 10:54 am
Wrong, goes to the heart of the discussion. Can you trust Novell with MONO
or any other linux opportunity this is my concern. I use little Astrum as an
example of who trusted Novell based on the fact that they where the first to
develop a Novell based solution stack with SUSE, tested, validated the
market potential to find out Novell has taken the entire concept and ran with it. So what ISV who may have patentable technology would expose this to Novell. So the question is and still can’t find an answer to is if Novell protects us from Microsoft who protects us from Novell.
Miles said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:04 am
Why doesn’t Astrum sue Novell? Surely they must have made Novell sign some sort of agreement not to steal their idea – I mean, it’s pretty common practice.
Little Company doesn’t go “ooh, I have a great idea for a new product! Let’s tell Big Company all about it without first making them sign an agreement not to steal our idea.”
Either that or Astrum was just stupid.
Open Honesty said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:10 am
Miles,
good point, I don’t know what Astrum will do. But it did bring up the quesiton and if your an ISV buying into Novell’s come develop on our stack spin and we will protect you from Microsoft. Than who protects you from Novell? True or not isn’t that a valid quesiton and what if Astrum does have agreements in place and what if it is true and they do sue would you risk developing on a Novell stack?
Just wondering?
Miles said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:19 am
The law protects you from Novell.
Would I develop on a Novell stack? Sure, if it was the best candidate technically and the cost was right. I’d obviously have my lawyers write up a contract protecting my ideas from Novell stealing them, but I’d do the same if I decided to build on top of RHEL or Solaris too (or any other system), that’s just common sense.
If Astrum and Novell did have a contract and Novell broke said contract, then I would definitely think twice about engaging in contracts with Novell myself, yes.
That said, I did a Google search on Astrum & Novell fter my last post and I find it odd that if what you are saying is true, that Astrum would still be touting Novell all over its website.
Brings to question:
1. Why hasn’t Astrum taken legal action?
2. Why is Astrum still touting Novell all over the place
and
3. Why hasn’t Astrum taken its business elsewhere?
Hence why I find your story hard to believe.
cojii said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:24 am
Jeff and those parties yelling and shouting like school children do little to bolster their claim that they aren’t in M$’s pockets. Abusive words bring down your message, but then wait I guess bringing something down is your goal isn’t it
I am convinced now that they are, because rational people with nothing to hide dont put this type of ‘face’ forward, and I still see nothing here at all renouncing the ‘obvious’ role here M$ would have in wanting mono to spread, its just laughable for any of you to think linux FOSS advocates dont see right through all of this mono and ooXML debocale, but you go ahead and keep your head in the sand as the walls of justice for OSS ignite and your pathetic cause for M$ patent adoption fall down in rubble.
If any of you really were for FOSS , then you would show it by embracing known, 100% FOSS projects, and your abysmal failure to do so just proves where your true loyalties lay.
You should all be ashamed.
Oh and while I’m at it..about the tons of money M$ gave for its supposed patent infringements well M$ makes alot of money so its side of payments was much higher as a result, which takes nothing away from the fact that Novel’s payments , while smaller are substantial and veiled in secrecy, and atm do nothing for the FOSS movement.
That is why I shall continue to ‘Boycott Novel’ , and any other distro that installs the mono disease as core components, instead of letting the user decide , which is what democracies usually do .
Let’s not forget that Ubuntu included the mono library even though it its current from ( in gutsy) the library was anything but stable ( was a known fact), in addition to the fact that ubuntu hardy heron, shipped mono as 1.2 instead of 1.9 which was claimed to be much stable. So we have not only the unwise decision to include mono in the first place and infect users needlessly instead of allowing them to decide to install it on their own later, but we see here that its not enough to do that, that they need to ship unstable libraries to boot
Further indication:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/6088/
So they released again, a old version of mono, as if mono isn’t bad enough to begin with. Force something on me is one thing, but to force a broken tool is just unbelieveable, but it reminds me of the tactics used by mono supporters in this thread.
I also recall seeing a thread where F-spot had a bug in it, ( imagine that ) but developers never did anything about it , including ignoring to elevate bug level and continuing to ignore it, amoungst clear dissent from other developers that it was not just a feature request. It seems there again things forced down users throats instead of being discussed in public forum and threats answered, instead of swept under the proverbial rug. Is this what OSS is about, or are these the tactics of M$ ?
Smooth move exNIX.
cya
cojii
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:29 am
“Jeff and those parties yelling and shouting like school children do little to bolster their claim that they aren’t in M$’s pockets.”
@coji: They don’t have to! You have to prove your accusation, or otherwise you’re committing libel, and I would sue you for your house if I were Jeff. But I ain’t Jeff. Jeff is a friendlier person than I am. Be thankful for it.
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cojii said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:31 am
@Nikolas
LOL, so we dont have free speech anymore, just as we no longer have the freedom to not use mono since its forced upon us by some distros, is that the idea.
To spread FUD and lies and threat of lawsuit…
Does that remind anyone of a particular company ? LOL
go you
haha
cojii
Miles said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:43 am
Reminds me of someone… who could it be? Oh yes, this describes the person that goes by the name cojii (aka CoolGuy?) quite well.
If someone attacked you personally, you’re saying that you would not demand evidence to back up those claims against you?
Because from where my fat arse is sitting, everytime someone has in the least bit insulted you, you immediately come back with personal attacks of your own.
Combine that with your normal immature rhetoric and “LOL”‘s and one can only conclude that of all people engaged in conversation in this thread, you’re the only one likely of being a child (and I mean that in a condescending way).
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:47 am
No, this is not covered by free speech.
If you accuse someone of a CRIME, this is NOT free speech!!! Get this in your head.
I can’t go around and claim ‘coji is torturing chickens in his bedchamber’. I have to come forward with solid evidence, or you can sue me for libel. Solid evidence is a photo, for example, or a hen that can make a statement in court. IF and after I brought forward conclusive evidence that can stand up in court, THAT is the point at which I can ask of you to prove ME wrong. But NOT BEFORE!
Going round and insinuating something by saying stuff in vague way like ‘oh, you know what these cojinskians are doing with sheepdog’ isn’t allowed, either.
Yeah, that would be libel, too. There IS a law against it.
So, come off you high ‘free speech’ horse; you are just asking us to allow you commiting slander and libel in the name of free speech. And that would be an utter misuse of freedom.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:48 am
Given the amount of libel I’ve been given (anything from child molestation to changing sexes), trust me… Jeff gets an easy ride and it’s an expression of opinion. I’ve been polite and I do try to validate information.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:49 am
> If you accuse someone of a CRIME, this is NO
> free speech!!! Get this in your head.
Whoa! Who accused who of a crime???
Open Honesty said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:54 am
Miles,
I agree, not trying to debate the validity of anything. I just wonder what small shops will do if they feel something has been taken from them and they don’t have Novell’s bank account and legal team to defend themselves. This can be said about Red Hat or any big company, even Oracle who is moving to distribution. I think about American Ariines who had the issue with the tail some years ago. They felt it was cheaper to pay for dead bodies from one crash than fix the problem on the entire fleet. So is it cheaper to steal from one source and give to all sources which is no doubt more profitable for the a company who distributes Linux.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
April 30, 2008 at 11:58 am
> Whoa! Who accused who of a crime???
You. Jeff. Of corruption. Which is a crime in, I think, all or our home countries.
You and your buddie, like coji, accuse people working on the GNOME project, as well as Novell people, like I’d even need to mention those, of corruption.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
April 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm
What, what, what?!?!?! Corruption? When did I ever accused Jeff of corruption? Now you’re just making insinuations probably as some kind of revenge.
Google said,
April 30, 2008 at 1:08 pm
KDE clearly rejected OOXML – why is that GNOME has to support it ?
Google said,
April 30, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Java has serious problems in areas such as generics, value types, native code bindings, and native GUIs. And if you have been following the Java news recently, even the Java community is mighty unhappy with the recent language development.
Besides, what makes you think Java is patent-free and unencumbered? Sun has numerous patents, and they have been blocking attempts at independent implementations any way they can. If you want Java, Sun’s shitty implementation is your only option.
1. Java is under GPL – Sun has been pretty open with Linux – they are one of the largest contributor to it – i might say. Sun sells Linux machines.
http://www.sun.com/software/linux/
2. Do you have any source to backup that so called community is unhappy with the recent developments ??
Miles said,
April 30, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Because GNOME has customers and/or users interested in being able to open OOXML documents?
There were a number of GSoC proposals for the GNOME Office applications wanting to implement/improve OOXML support in those applications. That suggests that there’s an itch to scratch. Denying users the ability to open OOXML documents is not the best way to convince users/customers to use your products.
If a customer demands feature X, you implement feature X. You don’t tell him “but that feature doesn’t align with our political views” and expect them to still buy your product. They’ll simply go elsewhere.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
April 30, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Roy, you might have forgotte, but in the context of the OOXML-debate you repeatedly accused the GNOME foundation of being undermined by Microsoft; you even accused Jeff Waugh and his wife to be sponsored by Microsoft and insinuated that this somehow was going on over their private company.
As always you CAREFULLY phrased the most dangerous parts of the accusations as questions but they worked as character assasination anyway.
And you WHOLE BLOG is about how Novell has ‘betrayed’ the Linux community and you constantly insinuate Miguel de Icaza being on Microsofts paylist.
Don’t try to play innocent; you know perfectly well what you do.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
April 30, 2008 at 7:21 pm
No, here you make false statements by using words like “sponsored” and “paylist”. I have no doubt in my mind that these people are /not/ paid by Microsoft in any way. My arguments were very different. Look back at them please and don’t make such guesses.
LinuxIsFun said,
May 1, 2008 at 12:30 am
You are free to implement OOXML but publicly endorsing it is not a good thing – knowing very well how ugly the OOXML fiasco is.
Even after RMS/FSF call to GNOME to public denounce the standard went unheard. I know very well how the issue was shoved under the carpet by some people.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 12:43 am
I don’t think GNOME was ever “publicly endorsing” OOXML, as you put it, but it was ushering its arrival by premature actions and words that gave Microsoft ammunition.
And now that accusations are flying about the use of the word “corruption” (I never said that in the contexts claimed), it there was any, OOXML was *IT*. It’s well documented. It was corruption all over the world and it continues to this date, albeit more quietly.
LinuxIsFun said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:29 am
they didnt take a stand against OOXML as KDE did – they just kept quite about the whole issue. isnt that endorsing it ?
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:36 am
@LinuxIsFun: Uh, no. Neither was the GNOME Foundation’s facilitation of Jody’s participation in ECMA an endorsement of OOXML. In fact, the GNOME Foundation was entirely plain spoken about the fact that it wasn’t endorsing OOXML.
This is the kind of idiotic pap, repeated again and again on this site, that does absolutely nothing for the FLOSS community.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:37 am
“Endorsement” would have to be more active. The role was passive at best and semi-active at worst (like Jody stepping into the Shills Barracks known as ECMA International)
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:38 am
Jeff, I replied just a moment before I saw your message. And yes, I agree with you that describing this simply as “Endorsement” is not correct.
LinuxIsFun said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:46 am
Jeff I am mistaken that Gnome said anything publicly – but keeping quite about such things when RMS personally asked for a stand on the issue – that too does not help FOSS in anyway.
We have a common enemy here – proprietor standards and patents.
Lets stand on this issue together.
I understand that everyone is on a very high pressure and we are walking a very thin road. Too many controversy, lies are corruption going around – its just hard to trust anyone lately.
Novell is making it worse. Icazza statements that mono is safe and on the other hand only novell is protected from patents is making things worse. We fear that GNOME will be doged down in controversy by novell actions.
LinuxIsFun said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:53 am
We are worried about Linux companies signing patent deals with Microsoft – this does not help in anyway.
Novell has been receiving lot of money and protection from Microsoft. This is really bad for FOSS. We cannot trust Novell/MONO code anymore. This will prejudice against other Linux companies like redhat who have been fighting this battle since a very long time.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 1:57 am
Don’t give me the “let’s stand together” crap after dishing it out as if we said or did something we didn’t. Get over yourself and don’t be so disingenuous.
If you’re concerned about Miguel and Novell, make that known responsibly and constructively (ie. not like this site). But don’t involve GNOME. Neither Miguel or Novell define the behaviour of the GNOME community (a multitude of perspectives for which no one person is responsible) or the GNOME Foundation. It’s simply not a relevant angle.
If you disagree with the GNOME Foundation helping a community member to participate in the ECMA process and kick Microsoft’s arse on the inside, that’s fine. But don’t suggest that Novell had anything to do with it. Don’t suggest that there’s a conspiracy at play unless you have evidence to back it up.
… and don’t diss “GNOME” when it comes to Abiword and Gnumeric implementing DOCX/Office2007 formats. That’s completely ridiculous and nonsensical. If you are interested in seeing Microsoft beaten, don’t shit on the people competing with them. If you feel the need to be irrational and nonsensical, beat up on everyone equally. I look forward to the flamage of OpenOffice.org, which supports DOCX/Office2007 formats quite well.
But again, I’m talking to a wall, and Roy won’t ever actually learn (even from the wisdom of people who have done far more for FLOSS than he could ever dream of, be it me or any of the others of tried).
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 2:31 am
It does not. Now you’re just adding to the Microsoft pitch, but I know you don’t do this deliberately.
http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2008/04/will-openofficeorg-support-ooxml.html
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 2:54 am
I’m adding to the Microsoft pitch? I fucked up the tense in my comment above, but there you go again blaming it on a conspiracy. Predictable and sad. So, I await to see the robust flamage of this site against OpenOffice.org, for even thinking of implementing the VILE EVIL that is DOCX/Office2007. Not going to happen? Ah, a detail that is easily ignorable in Roy’s bizarre little world view.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 3:00 am
Only in your interpretation (or imagination). I merely said that this type of statement helps Microsoft gain ammunition. There are certain incorrect statements that need not be made because they can be quoted out of context.
Google said,
May 1, 2008 at 3:06 am
hey ppl u know u should quite down a little bit. only god knows who is right and wrong and he will judge accordingly. no one can escape HIS court of law
lot of things have been done in dark and lot of lies told – but god is the witness and he will surely judge when the day comes.
for cheers those have done no wrong. and for those who did will be prosecuted. its not for man to be a judge
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 4:37 am
Roy; I installed the OpenOffice 3.0 preview and it imports OOXML quite nicely. You don’t really believe that they’d drop this support for the final release?
OpenOffice is so popular mainly because it is so compatible with a broad range of document formats – including the CLOSED MS formats DOC, XLS, PPT etc. So there is support for closed-source document formats aplenty. How come I don’t hear you yelling blue murder because of that?
I fail to see any reason in OpenOffice supporting the closed-source formats but NOT the new, ‘open’ (if in a minimal sense) document formats of MS.
OpenOffice’s user base (which might well be bigger than all of the Linux user base) would certainly have NO understanding for OOo NOT supporting OOXML.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 6:24 am
See what Leif Lodahl said.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 6:51 am
Errr… Have you read further than the title?
He writes, that OOo won’t support OOXML as an ‘academic’ standard but that it WILL support MS Office 2007 as an existing file-format (which is an implementation of the OOXML standard, though a faulty one).
That is quite an ‘academic’ distinction…
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Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 6:54 am
You should also read the sources Leif Lodahl quoted.
They say that OOXML support in OOo is underway, it’s just not ready yet, for the release date of OOo 3.0:
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/office_open_xml_ooxml_filters
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Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 6:55 am
You should also read the sources Leif Lodahl quoted.
They say that OOXML support in OOo is underway, it’s just not ready yet, for the release date of OOo 3.0:
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/office_open_xml_ooxml_filters
[The blog software is acting up and saying that I already postet this comment, but I cannot see it here. Bear with me in case that I've now posted a duplicate comment.]
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 6:56 am
Yes, I’ve read it of course.
Would I cite something without reading?
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 6:57 am
I almost suspect that because the blog actually doesn’t prove your point but mine:
You should also have read the sources that Leif Lodahl quoted.
They say that OOXML support in OOo is underway, it’s just not ready yet, for the release date of OOo 3.0:
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/office_open_xml_ooxml_filters
[The blog software is acting up and saying that I already postet this comment, but I cannot see it here. Bear with me in case that I've now posted a duplicate comment.]
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 7:04 am
It might sometimes happen if you tap “submit comment” twice. Hopefully there’s no bug.
OOo will have OOXML importers (filters), but it does not actively support OOXML, just devours it.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 7:29 am
Jesus, Roy. OOo will support Office2007 formats the same way it supports the binary formats. In and out. Pull your head out of your fantasy land.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 7:34 am
As a general advice (unrelated to this discussion) I just wish to say that your rudeness has always been a great disservice, never mind the role you purport to have taken as a representative figure. I am hardly surprised that some people sort of embargoed GNOME because of you (I am not one of them by the way).
Dan O'Brian said,
May 1, 2008 at 7:45 am
Considering you’ve done that before……. yes.
Marc M. said,
May 1, 2008 at 8:12 am
Roy, I suspect Jeff’s rudeness is a direct result of his growing impatience with your unfounded accusations and insinuations.
Your accusations and insinuations about him, Miguel, GNOME, and Novell are meant to hurt their credibility and trust in an attempt to ruin their lives.
Maybe you’re jealous that they have so much respect and success compared to your complete incompetence at getting a job for yourself?
Oh wait, I’m sorry, that’s an attack against you – except, this attack is actually based on fact rather than speculation like your attacks are based on.
When you finally manage to get a job, Roy, keep us informed of which company you get a job at so that we might be able to dig up dirt on it and create a BoycottWhereEverRoyWorks.com and point out how you have no morals because you work for such a company that makes decisions that some people might find immoral and that we can all speculate about how some day your company might do something Really Evil(tm) without any evidence what-so-ever.
Maybe we can even take a page out of your playbook and start manufacturing evidence that CompanyRoyWorksFor is immoral.
Odds are extremely likely that you’ll end up working at some company or organization that doesn’t make all of its IP freely publicly available, so no matter what we’ll have at least that dirt on wherever you work.
Get a clue about how the real world works and don’t be so quick to attack real people who really try to improve the world – people like Miguel de Icaza and Jeff Waugh, who, by anyones account (other than you and your posse), do more for the betterment of Free Software each and every day than you will in your entire lifetime of spamming comp.os.linux.advocacy adovcating the use of linux to people who don’t need any convincing and attacking free software communities in an attempt to convince yourself that you have any value to the overall free software community whatsoever.
Even most of us KDE developers laugh in your general direction.
Marc M.
KDE Developer.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 8:40 am
Yes. I’d like to join into the advice to Roy that he should try really, really hard to raise the QUALITY of his ‘articles’ instead of posting so many of them. And so much trash among it. Mass doesn’t equal quality doesn’t equal a convincing argument. Not without reason, mass-posting is prevented on forums and such.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 8:57 am
Marc,
I apologise for putting it like this, but debating with Jeff often seems like it ends up seeming hostile, which reminds me more than anything of the Microsoft Munchkins that use insults, libel and aggravation techniques in the Linux newsgroups (no, I’m not making a proper comparison here, but I mean to say that it’s almost equally discomforting in both cases). in USENET I just use killfiles extensively to block out the noise and vulgarities. These are intended to drive away regulars, cause damage to reputation and disrupt conversations, which is why Groklaw went as far as moderation.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 9:03 am
The problem you have is that you can’t killfile me using some crack-addled reason you’d use on usenet (where you post an unhealthy amount, to an audience smaller than this blog, which indicates you have a problem). This means you’re stuck with an inconvenient reminder of reality, when usually you’d prefer to block it out.
Grow up. Realise how foolish and embarrassing this whole thing is. Do something useful and productive for a change.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 9:09 am
Jeff, can’t you ever talk straight to a person’s face when someone confronts you directly? Here is someone with a direct, moral appeal to you! Someone who wants to talk straight with you and appeals to your sense of honour – and AGAIN you turn aside by mumbling something about usenet and killfiles and other unrelated trivia!
Justl like in similar situations when Jeff Waugh confronted you. Can you NEVER stand up to a person who confronts you? I think you owe that to all the people you’ve insulted, Roy!
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Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 9:10 am
HRkkk! I didn’t mean ‘JEFF’, THIS WAS MEANT TO ROY!
Please excuse my worst typo ever!
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Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 9:34 am
Sorry, but all this got me really enraged. Roy; here is the man you’re criticizing; talk to his face. This is NOT just another blog you’re quoting, this is a living person, from the real world, not the Usenet.
Marc is also from the Real World (TM); talk to him. This has got nothing to do with how things are on newsgroups, no matter how well you know usenet. Take me, I have never been to a newsgroup and I don’t care about them, but I do care about how you talk about persons’ real lives. Usegroups clearly seem something that is important to nerds but we are talking about people who do things, actually achieve things. People, also, whose real lives are affected by the questions that you only indulge in – on a purely theoretical basis – in you newsgroups. Do justice by these people, and talk straight.
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Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:40 am
Alright.
Instead of answering, Roy has hammered out another series of ‘articles’. I think we got the message. No answer, as they say, is an answer as well. ‘Avoidance behavior’ is what I would call it. Other people might find less friendly words for it.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:45 am
No answer means that no time is worth spending trying to change the mind of trolls. Have you had anything positive yet to contribute to this site or are you here just to heckle?
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:47 am
Ah, so we’re trolls. Nothing will ever change the fantasy land you inhabit, Roy.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:49 am
Agreed +1.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:55 am
Jeff, I was referring only to ‘Nikolas Koswinkle’ (if that’s a real name).
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:59 am
I don’t give a crap who you were referring to. The only reason why you have to take me semi-seriously (while still dicking around with conspiracy theories) is because I’m a public face. Everyone else you can accuse of nymshifting and trolling, questioning whether or not they are real people, etc. You can’t do that with me, and yet you’re still not answerable, responsible or accountable for the ridiculous crap you post.
Miles said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:59 am
I read an interesting quote from the newspaper this morning in the talkbacks section aimed at a journalist who is constantly accusing people of wrong-doing without any evidence to back up her claims:
This quote applies to this site equally well.
Roy is the type of person who only knows how to point the blame finger, but isn’t the type of person who is willing to put his money where his mouth is and actually contribute to F/LOSS to solve actual problems.
Miguel and Jeff are problem solvers and are actively contributing solutions to real world problems.
It’s quite obvious to anyone that actually takes the time to look into the contributions by Miguel and Jeff that Roy’s articles only paint a very minuscule picture of the whole story – and that minuscule portion is the portion that Roy wants everyone to see because it’s the only portion of the big picture that will stir up controversy and hate toward these two outstanding gentlemen.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 11:02 am
For you, Jeff, it has always been respect, since 2005 or thereabout. Obviously you don’t see my positive coverage of your work elsewhere, or simply choose not to because it doesn’t support your vendetta.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 11:07 am
Now you are really trying to turn things around. Jeff Waugh has never even HEARD of your existence before you started bad-mouthing him in your blog
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Miles said,
May 1, 2008 at 11:08 am
I’m interested in your pro-Jeff Waugh articles, can you provide a link?
I’ve only ever seen you criticize him, I find it likely that Jeff has had the same experience.
I highly doubt Jeff is purposely ignoring said articles, I find it more likely that he has simply never seen them.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 1, 2008 at 11:22 am
Among the unhealthy amount of usenet traffic Roy generates while he is not out in the real world doing real things, he sometimes links to press reports of things I do. Not the ones that contradict his fantasy, of course… He has even covered articles in which I am quoted (or am the main interviewee!), but not quoted or referenced me. Amazing.
I don’t have a vendetta against you, Roy. I’m simply extremely disappointed that anyone would choose to live their life and express themselves this way, particularly someone who purports to care about FLOSS. You’re doing yourself and this community a disservice. It’s an embarrassment, and one day you will wake up and realise it.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 11:52 am
Miles, here are just a few examples:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/5355585b44a320ef/c84321649791673b?lnk=st
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/176bc1236d4d8e81/ac0f2575c82576ea?lnk=st
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/fb89526ff5a2fba8/e627a6e221b73a13?lnk=st
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/a5084c80185d1fce/2fab89360c6b3384?lnk=st
There are copies of these messages elsewhere.
Miles said,
May 1, 2008 at 11:58 am
Who wastes their time reading comp.os.linux.advocacy?
Seems like only trolls there.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm
These days, about half of those who are posting there are anonymous trolls. It used to be different, but as I’ve stressed twice today, AstroTurfing is peaking not just in c.o.l.a. It’s like an epidemic.
Miles said,
May 1, 2008 at 12:27 pm
c.o.l.a seems a waste of time anyway; “preaching to the choir” so to speak.
Helping people on a Linux (or Free Software in general) help group would probably prove far more fruitful in helping to convince people to adopt free software. Not to mention it would be “solving problems” as opposed to simply “pointing fingers”.
Just an observation.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I used to be doing a lot of this and I still do it sometimes.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 1, 2008 at 5:16 pm
To get back on the topic: Don’t you regularly accuse critical commenters on your blog of being paid by Microsoft, Roy? You call those ‘Astroturfers’, too for whatever that means. Ugly ‘newsnetspeak’, I think.
I could not find that one amusing either. And no, you linking to events in which Jeff Waugh took part in an obscure newsgroup without botherin to flame Jeff doesn’t make up for the countless aggressive and mean personal slander you directed against him in big, fat letters on your blog.
But when confronted you chicken out. It is always the same.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 1, 2008 at 9:29 pm
No, I don’t. The rest of your incorrect statements just remind me why temptation to reply and refute is pointless. You are still here just to heckle.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 2, 2008 at 1:47 am
Roy editorialises on usenet, claiming that I am a “poisonous person, identified and named”, which is a very obvious misunderstanding of the post he quotes. Yet more bile and uninformed tripe from Roy! Surprised that it happens soon after this discussion? Of course not! It’s business as usual in Roy’s la-la land.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 2, 2008 at 2:03 am
No, that was a criticism based on what people inside GNOME have said.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 2, 2008 at 2:05 am
Another airy statement in the ‘I have heard’ and ‘someone told me style’ of character-assasinatoin. Hush-hush.
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Jeff Waugh said,
May 2, 2008 at 2:13 am
Pretty clear editorialising in the headline, Roy. Those were your words, not someone else’s. Passing the buck again. Not taking responsibility for your words, etc. Same old same old.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 2, 2008 at 2:27 am
The interpretation of the articles was defended by its content, unless you can prove otherwise.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 2, 2008 at 3:12 am
Ah, “interpretation” now. Getting closer!
ET said,
May 2, 2008 at 10:52 am
Were getting way off topic now, is this the tactic of the *take your pick* team to distract from the real issue of the day which is secret agreements between interested parties, and proclamations of ‘job well done’ when unholy alliances are made ( with no disclosure ) , to rush through supposed standards that benefit only certain Operating Systems ( which legally must be downloaded through them ) ?
You can shout all you want and use profanity all you want * you know who*, but at the end of the day, we all know who is supporting MONO * the disease*, and who is not.
Some of us like clean living where no cobwebs exist , and dust free *cough* environments.
It isn’t *take your pick DE*, and while some used to once be a proud Gnome supporter due to liberal licenses ( although they were a bit too fond of DUMBing things down so I wont miss that at all ) , I’m certainly not against switching to projects unafraid of embracing FOSS.
YMMV, apparantly.
Just like children, pety arguments abound in all channels of life it seems, but one day I hope we grow beyond them, cause honestly if any aliens are looking , I’m real embarrased. ET phone home, no intelligent life here atm, shields UP before final approach as they seem to like violent games * teen arrested, ya you know what*, and squabble alot.
People will see this, and think gez if people worked on important FOSS things more, maybe we’d not need to crawl in bed with *insert* . People dont forget so soon you should remember that, as they remember shady deals and comments made by members of a given community with little stake in *you know what*.
God bless ya Roy for reminding us and if you have been less than cordial and it was unwarraned , well you know how to fix it , but gez man thanks for the updates
()
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 2, 2008 at 11:07 am
Do you really belief that load of crap you wrote?
“secret agreements between interested parties”
“unholy alliances”
“*you know who*” /Voldemort?
“MONO * the disease*”
This is a fine example of pseudo-religiouis paranoia disguised as reasoning.
I am sorry, but this really is all the substance this complete website has to offer neatly summed up:
- we KNOW there is a conspiracy even if we cannot prove it
- because we know it we don’t have to prove it
- the conspirators are evil / have evil aims
- they are a sickness, they have to be clensed from this earth
- whoever says there is no conspiracy or that the parties involved aren’t evil is ignorant and/or evil himself
What you say, that defines who you are.
Now, think it through.
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 2, 2008 at 11:55 am
Look up the definition of the word conspiracy. That’s precisely what Novell and Microsoft had done for 5 months before coming out with the deal in November 2006. They conspired against the GNU GPL.
Jeff Waugh said,
May 2, 2008 at 11:59 am
And GNOME, Roy? What about my wife and I?
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 2, 2008 at 12:28 pm
No conspiracy there.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 2, 2008 at 2:40 pm
> They conspired against the GNU GPL.
Ridiculous. A license is a license is a license. You cannot conspire against that.
And BTW, what again was the motive that you thought up for Novell for conspiring against Linux (’cause that is what conspiring against the GPL would mean)? A deathwish maybe? Are they just sooo tired of their Linux business that they want done away with it. Ri-di-cu-lous!
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Roy Schestowitz said,
May 2, 2008 at 8:49 pm
The licence in this case is more than just a legal document and contract. It has a philosophy and agreement on trust that involves tens or hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Novell wanted to find a way to betray these people for its own shareholders. I knew what it was getting into. It was warned before signing the deal.
Never forget who got this started. It’s Novell that reached out to Microsoft to establish this deal.
OPEN Honest said,
May 3, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Nick,
You are wrong, Novell lost it’s fight to Microsoft because it gave away NT, while Novell still charged for Netware. If Novell would have gave away Netware like NT this discussion might not even be happeing. But Novell is a shell of it’s engineering power it once was. Now Novell wants development for free and it will put it solutions on top. At some point you may want to step back and try to put a little business logic behind your stance and understand what they steal from you today will be give to everyone tommorrow leaving you out in the cold. Novell will make more money from 20 partners or ISV’s than support you the developer who did all the heavy lifting. The people who run Novell are not open and doubt that honest and don’t have a crap load or respect for you or any other developer if it creates more profits with less effort on there part, you should be very concerned the way the big boys are consolidating distribution and support at some point the GPL will be irrelivant and will have very little if any say so as to the direction of linux.
Dan O'Brian said,
May 3, 2008 at 11:12 pm
How could it have been warned? No one but the execs involved knew about the deal, not even many of their own employees, until after the deal was signed.
Miguel de Icaza himself didn’t know about the deal until afterward.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 4, 2008 at 12:25 am
Not true. You appear not to know the whole story. Several senior engineers, including Jeremy Allison and Miguel de Icaza, for instance, knew about this deal in advance.
Miguel, to his credit, even traveled to Redmond hoping to change it, IIRC, while Jeremy protested against the deal, albeit no vigorously enough (which he later regretted). He told this to us in an interview we did. It all appears in older articles from the end of 2006.
Dan O'Brian said,
May 4, 2008 at 9:10 am
Then, if true, You have to give Miguel a lot of credit and that there proves Miguel to not be in Microsoft’s pocket.
When I stated that Miguel was not informed of the deal ahead of time, I was referring to this blog post:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-04.html
After re-reading, he notes that he was told less than a week in advance of the announcement.
The same blog post also mentions that Sun mad a similar deal with Microsoft (also including Mono) back in 2004. Again, Microsoft paid Sun a lump sum up front while Sun would pay royalties back to Microsoft.
See here for details: http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-04/sunflash.20040402.3.xml
I find it a bit irrational to be going around bashing one company for making such a deal while simultaneously praising the other as if it never happened.
I also think we agree that the people responsible for this deal at Novell are above Miguel in the chain of command, so can we also agree that Miguel is doing what he feels is in the Free Software communities best interest?
While you may disagree with his direction, his decisions in the past have proven to be beneficial to the community time and time again.
Even now, with Moonlight, he is forcing Adobe’s hand into relicensing their Flash components or at least opening them up further than they would have otherwise (even tho according to th Gnash guys, opening of the spec isn’t much help seeing as how they’ve already reverse engineered most of it anyway). Another win for F/LOSS.
(Note also that I’m fairly certain I read on Miguel’s blog or an interview with Miguel where he pushed Adobe to open source Flash but they told him “no”)
Mono is also forcing Sun to actively improve Java again, rather than leave it mostly stagnant like they had previously. Since Mono, Sun has:
1. opened Java source and license wise
2. started to open up their development process of Java
3. added Generics support (altho kinda poor compared to C#’s)
4. considering a replacement for JNI closer to Microoft’s J/Invoke of old (which is basically the same as P/Invoke in C# now) because JNI is a royal pita.
5. considering lifting numerous other features from C# and putting them into Java
A lot of people criticize Miguel for simply re-implementing C# and the .NET VM instead of inventing his own language/runtime – but those people obviously do not understand that the research and development needed to develop something like that is tremendous and I think it clear that Ximian (a little startup) did not have the necessary resources both financially and technically.
Another group criticizes him for not using Java, but they obviously forget that until recently, Java was closed source and Sun wasn’t exactly taking requests seriously, especially from small groups (as I mentioned above, Sun didn’t really listen to feature requests seriously until after Mono was out in the wild and they started losing ground).
So really, what other choice did he have? Microsoft, at least, had already pushed their specs thru ECMA under RAND-Z (which is compatible with Free Software and which cannot be later changed to non-zero cost).