IT DOES NOT take much research to make a distinction and witness the apparent disparity between opinions in the Novell/Microsoft-dominated media and those of 'mere mortals'. For instance, the latest comments about Novell/Mono in LinuxToday show that Novell's products are not welcomed by the readers there at all, especially not after the FAT case has been almost concluded (it hasn't yet, but more on that later). Maybe it's the implicit assumption that when a product is released you must say something good, or simply say nothing at all. Comments tend to be more blunt.
“Maybe it's the implicit assumption that when a product is released you must say something good, or simply say nothing at all.”Novell re-released MonoDevelop and Mono a couple of days ago (version bump) and based on the statements made by the company's executives, this seems like the company's emphasis at the moment. It's its 'added value', for which it claims to be offering exclusive "peace of mind". Miguel de Icaza is actively supporting and advancing the company which is suing GNU/Linux-using companies.
How does it feel when Novell's press releases that involve open source are always about Microsoft technologies that they publicly promote (see this latest press release)? There is also Mono in Fox (joining the likes of Rupert) and the Microsoft press too now endorses this infiltration of Microsoft technology into the company's #1 threat. If Microsoft's press is promoting Mono, then it must be bad for GNU/Linux. Is it not time to think of it as Ballmer-owned .NET (like FAT) and accordingly refer to it as "Ballmono" (along the lines of Ballnux)?
Look at OStatic today. Go-oo is being called "Novell- and Microsoft-backed fork." It's interesting because they acknowledge that it's a fork [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], and one that's backed by Microsoft with Novell, which pays Microsoft for unknown software patents.
Speaking of which, Microsoft is promoting its patent propaganda book with a press release from New Jersey. Novell too is mentioned.
The internal debates among top executives over how to deal with the open source software movement -- including the first-ever blow-by-blow account of the top-secret negotiations with Novell that led to the world's first peace treaty and collaboration agreement between a proprietary and open source software company.
And let's not forget Microsoft. All of that talk about interoperability with Linux coming from them? It was just talk, because they've shown that anyone who tries to interoperate with Microsoft technology even as simple as the FAT filesystem will eventually be sued, or pushed into licensing, for their efforts. The way they act, the Microsoft-internal definition of "interoperability" must be "making the whole world owe us."
And so, you should be wary of FAT, Office Open XML, .NET (including Mono), Silverlight, and of Microsoft's participation in standards committees that don't have a clear royalty-free committment, or, as is the case for Office Open XML, when the royalty-free committment is less than complete. These technologies leave the door open for submarine patents to sink your business.
Comments
JohnD
2009-04-02 01:00:31
JohnD
2009-04-02 00:35:18
Guy: that's the biggest collection of FUD I've ever seen posted in a single comment, you should be proud.
Mono is an implementation of ECMA 334 and 335, ALL patents that IBM, Microsoft, Novell, and Intel have pertaining to those specifications are available royalty-free. Thus, none of those companies can sue Mono over patents they may have in those areas." I found the article by following the Linux Today link above. Roy how would you respond to Jason's post?
Roy Schestowitz
2009-04-02 00:49:39
saulgoode
2009-04-02 01:29:46
JohnD
2009-04-02 01:34:31
Roy Schestowitz
2009-04-02 01:43:22
JohnD
2009-04-02 01:53:03
Roy Schestowitz
2009-04-02 02:42:05
Shane Coyle
2009-04-02 03:16:32
If someone can figure out a physical address to send a mailed letter to, I'd love to try that approach since all I've ever received is a few autoreply acknowledgement from HP and no response at all from MS.
saulgoode
2009-04-02 05:15:31
The necessity of every potential user of Mono having to contact Microsoft or HP to request a license for the ECMA 334/5 patents is quite simply not an acceptable condition for Free Software developers, distributors, or users.
Shane Coyle
2009-04-02 14:36:08
"...will grant, on a non-discriminatory basis, to any party requesting it, licenses on reasonable terms and conditions, for its patent(s) deemed necessary for the implementation of the ECMA standard..."
But no word on exactly what those reasonable and non discriminatory terms are, that I am aware of.
JohnD
2009-04-02 12:19:26
Roy Schestowitz
2009-04-02 14:40:20
Shane Coyle
2009-04-02 17:21:52
Roy Schestowitz
2009-04-02 17:29:46
JohnD
2009-04-01 23:59:50