Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Moonlight Reaches New Milestone So Microsoft Crowd Rejoices

"I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue"

--Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist



Summary: Preview of Microsoft Moonlight 2.0 is out and those covering it are mostly Microsoft fans

Information Week reminds readers that Microsoft is still attacking Linux by putting its patents inside it, e.g. FAT.

Although Microsoft asserted in a May 13, 2007, Fortune magazine article that it had concluded open source code violates 235 of its patents and the Linux kernel in particular, 42, it only claimed TomTom was infringing on three of its patents.


Raising of this issue in public may be valuable. After many years of letting FAT be absorbed everywhere Microsoft is attacking Linux using secret patents (some would maybe suggest that these are submarine patents). Technically, It's a patent ambush.

“Novell is the owner and biggest promoter of Mono, for which it acquired exclusive protection from Microsoft (due to expire in January 2012).”As an optimistic note, it seems as though Mono's grip on GNOME is being eroded. The project known as Gnote is a new GPLv3-licensed fork of Tomboy, which is the only GNOME application that brings with it a whole Mono stack to GNU/Linux distributions. Gnote is written in C++ by a gentleman whom Novell fired. Novell is the owner and biggest promoter of Mono, for which it acquired exclusive protection from Microsoft (due to expire in January 2012). As the TomTom case shows, not even "promise[s] not to sue" and de facto pseudo-standards make one safe from this aggressor's lawsuits. FAT was the equivalent of bait for a submarine patent, which is now causing great trouble to some distributors of GNU/Linux; they need to provide access to FAT-formatted USB devices, among other media.

No Lessons Learned at Novell



Microsoft bloggers are currently promoting the new release of "Microsoft Moonlight" (that's what they it), which tells us how Microsoft views the work of de Icaza. He helps Microsoft with this Mono- and Microsoft-dependent project. Gavin Clarke and his friend (partly colleague) Mary Jo Foley join others in the Microsoft crowd to celebrate the spreading of Microsoft formats on the World Wide Web. Prudent observers like Timothy who is Unix-oriented are not terribly excited. As he stated some days ago:

Microsoft challenges IBM to Websphere duel



[...]

The gauntlet was thrown down by Steven Martin, senior director of developer platform marketing at Microsoft, who launched a site called WebSphereLovesWindows to show off the results from some intricate benchmark tests that the nerds at Microsoft's labs have done to show how WebSphere on AIX iron stacks up to WebSphere running on Windows or the same application ported to C# and not using WebSphere at all, but the Windows stack.

(This site requires you to install the Microsoft equivalent to Flash, Silverlight, and I have managed thus far to avoid installing it. Because I'll give you a direct link to the PDF, which is here. Now you don't have to install Silverlight, either).


Readers also ought to watch the latest addition to this Rhythmbox/Banshee debate. The Mono team is still trying to push Banshee, which is a Mono application, into the core of Ubuntu.

2009.05.05 mrooney: I think it would be great to come into this session with a list of bug reports corresponding to any regressions of switching to Banshee, as a result of features Rhythmbox has that Banshee doesn't. It should be easier to weigh the pros and cons then, and give the Banshee developers a heads up of what would need to be implemented. Shall I create a wiki page for this spec and add this as a section?


This is part of an ongoing problem. Mono only belongs in Novell's SLE.

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

--Bob Muglia, Microsoft President

Recent Techrights' Posts

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025