I stumbled across an interesting document today. It has several fascinating quotes from court records and Microsoft annual reports. The references are well documented. I suspect you will see a common thread of intent throughout the quotes below. They summarize the 33 page document fairly well. Yet the document is well worth the read.

A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and
Consumer Harm
(March 31, 2009)
See the end of this post for a link to the original document.

“This anti-trust thing will blow over. We haven’t changed our business practices at all.”

—Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and then-CEO (1995)

“[W]e need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS.”

—David Cole, Microsoft Senior Vice-President10

“The approach we will take is to detect dr [DOS] 6 and refuse to load. The error
message should be something like ‘Invalid device driver interface.’”

—Phillip Barrett, Microsoft Windows Development Manager11

“If Intel has a real problem with us supporting [Intel’s microprocessor rival,
AMD] then they will have to stop supporting Java Multimedia the way they
are.”

“I have decided that we should not publish these [Windows 95 user interface]
extensions. We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration
that will be harder for likes of Notes, WordPerfect to achieve, and which will give
Office a real advantage…. We can’t compete with Lotus and WordPerfect/Novell
without this.”

—Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and then-CEO

“Please give me one good reason why we should even consider [enabling
Microsoft technology to work on competing systems]. (Hint: any good answer
needs to include making more money and helping kill Unix, Sybase or Oracle.)”

—James Allchin, Microsoft Senior Vice-President

“We set out on this mission 2 years ago to not let [N]etscape dictate standards and

control the browser [APIs]. All evidence today says they don’t.”

See Findings of Fact, supra note 20, ¶¶ 81–83. At a meeting between Microsoft and Netscape executives,
Microsoft made it clear that if Netscape attempted to expose its own APIs rather than build off of Microsoft’s
platform, “Microsoft would view Netscape as a competitor, not a partner.”

“[W]e should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take more
advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java
apps.”

—Microsoft’s Thomas Reardon

“Don’t encourage new cross-platform Java classes; especially
don’t help get great Win32 implementations written/deployed. Do encourage fragmentation of
the Java classlib space….”

Government Exhibit 518, Email from Ben Slivka, United States v. Microsoft Corp., 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C.
2000) (No. 98-1232), available at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/518.pdf.

What we are trying to do is use our server control to do new protocols and lock
out Sun and Oracle specifically”

— Bill Gates, Microsoft

In the next quote below Horacio Gutierrez
is referring to Linux. Curiously the ECIS document has the following statement regarding Linux, “The open source Linux operating system is the principal rival to Microsoft Windows.” If your readers have read even one quote from Microsoft’s management prior to the quote below they must surely know that C# on Linux simply can not be anything less than an attempt to destroy a competitor.

If someone believes that Microsoft is trying to help Linux and open source by providing access to C# via Mono then surely they are gullible, or simply on the M$ payroll. IMHO I don’t see how a rational human being could see this any other way. The intent of Microsoft management via their track record is quite clear.

Notice the deliberate distortion of the truth below.

“This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement. There is an
overwhelming number of patents being infringed.”

— Microsoft General Counsel and Intellectual Property and Licensing Vice

President Horacio Gutierrez

See Roger Parloff, Microsoft takes on the free world, CNN MONEY, May 14, 2007, available at

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/

You can find a copy of the document here on the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) web site at http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the story about the scorpion and the frog, but one of the basic principles of the story is that scorpions do not change, even when it costs them their own lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

That was not me.

Bullshit, Roy – you use the words disease, poison, and poisonware all the time to describe Mono.

You did it in this very article, for heaven’s sake!

You know, the world is going forwards, and the main software platform will definetely be a managed platform (a virtual machine) because of its benefits.

Free software community has done it before and will have to do it again, if it wants to be relevant – _innovate_. I mean, not only copy from others, but invent something that would be almost instantly accepted as a better solution to the problem. Firefox example springs to mind – standarts – (almost) – compliant, open source, addon-supporting platform that almost took the world by storm (I mean, the twenty something percent that it currently has is not such a small amount overall..).

In the market of managed languages, there are two main competitors – Java and .NET. Java’s age is showing and if the next version doesn’t come with features that make it on-par with C#, it will be the language of legacy enterprise applications. So something must be done in this area.

Instead of only over-bashing poor Mono (the technology is not bad, per se, it’s the evil intents of Corporation M that are worrying), you should promote an alternative approach (and no, C++, Python and Ruby (can it even be used for desktop apps?) do not suffice.

There is such a platform, ladies and gentlemen – the Parrot virtual machine ( http://www.parrot.org/ ), that, combined with the elegancy of C# language (afaik, not yet implemented) would be the killer platform for desktop app development.

On a side note, this blog or how you call it, manifesto against mono, has gone out of hands. It should be made _very_ clear that:
1. Mono apps are not dangerous to use or develop on.
2. Making key applications depend on mono platform _could be_ a legal minefield.

Thank you for reading,
Rimas

There is absolutely nothing special about Mono. Even if it is included or not. Such a discussion is good, but I consider it a waste of time.

“Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won’t leave you alone.”

–Richard Stallman

“[...] we know that Microsoft is getting patents on some features of C#. So I think it’s dangerous to use C#, and it may be dangerous to use Mono.”

–Richard Stallman

I see Mono as a normal open-source development platform. Software patents are an absurd thing and will be abolished in some time in the future. Ignoring a free software platform is foolish. You see, the world is moving, you cannot stop it.

“Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat.”

–James Plamondon, Microsoft Technical Evangelist. From Exhibit 3096; Comes v. Microsoft litigation [PDF]

You insult Mono developers by borrowing Microsoft’s words (infectious disease, yeah right..).

That was not me.

You are no better than Microsoft itself by applying FUD tactics.

No, these are pointed out so that they can be addressed (tackled).

Let me remind you, that with patent system intact, each and every software can be accused of patent infringement. But this won’t happen. No one wants it. Even Microsoft.

TomTom begs to differ.

I see Mono as a normal open-source development platform. Software patents are an absurd thing and will be abolished in some time in the future. Ignoring a free software platform is foolish. You see, the world is moving, you cannot stop it.

You insult Mono developers by borrowing Microsoft’s words (infectious disease, yeah right..).

You are no better than Microsoft itself by applying FUD tactics.

Let me remind you, that with patent system intact, each and every software can be accused of patent infringement. But this won’t happen. No one wants it. Even Microsoft.

“Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat.”
-James Plamondon, Microsoft Technical Evangelist. From Exhibit 3096; Comes v. Microsoft litigation.

Exhibit 3096 => http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf

This is despite the fact that every day at home I choose to use linux almost exclusively for personal use, and every day at work I use Windows exclusively for my job desktop platform, since that is the corporate platform (some relief from working on Solaris servers), so I think I have a good basis for comparison.

Golodh seems much in agreement with the core point here that exposure to patent infringement threats from M$ is to be avoided, but he just disagrees with the measures needed to avoid it. Would the zealots please cut him some slack, and discuss the means to that end calmly?

Something else to be concerned with now with respect to Java is what its new owner, Oracle, will do with it. They are no less interested in making money with control of their software than M$, although their heavy support of interoperability with Linux is a big difference. Will that keep Java free? Food for thought/discussion.

RO

I agree that Macs are best for end-users who want to spent their time working in apps instead of working on aps. There is a niche for this sort of people, and it only comprises about 95% of the market. That doesn’t mean that Linux shouldn’t cater for the remaining 5%, but if it wants to dominate the desktop (something I believe is possible) then it needs to do just as well for those other 95%.

I don’t think Macs are best for “end-users who…”. I think Macs are best for you (the family member that always gets called for tech support), if you don’t want to deal with their computer issues.

When a new user starts using Linux, the largest issue is not “interface” or “working on applications” (all of which, in my opinion, are easier and better in Ubuntu w/ Gnome than on either Mac or Windows). A new Linux user’s biggest issue is “unsupported killer apps”.

If you can get iTunes (with DRM and store), Photoshop, and the latest MS Office working on Linux without issues, then users will defect in droves. (I know wine and crossover tries, but it’s not there yet. PS: If Mono gets us any closer to that goal, no matter what the patent issues, I say, “hurray!” Quick show of hands, who reading this in the U.S. doesn’t have libdvdcss installed on their boxes? Or paid for mp3 support? Of course, I don’t and I did, because I think all of these software patents are legit.)

My point about Linux is that there is a natural progression from novice to expert, even for the 95%, and it requires no additional desire or frustration than an average user experiences in any operating system. The only difference is, in Linux, users can do something about their negative experiences, and there are tools that are easy to use and people willing to help.

I’m using SuSE linux 11.1 (not Kubuntu) and I have had my share of broken library dependencies. I had never heard of “sudo apt-get build-dep”. My loss apparently, but then I rarely stray beyond the packages that come with the SuSE distribution and can be installed through YAST.

How can I say this politely?… WhyTF are you still using SuSE? SuSE is Diet Windows using Yast as an artificial sweetener. Pick Coke or Pepsi, and drink that! (More like pick corn-starch or sugar sweetened.)

In my opinion, if you are mostly a server guy, you ought to go RedHat/CentOS, just because it is what most people use on servers. If you are mainly doing desktop work, give regular Ubuntu a shot, and then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop once you are used to the “Debian way of doing things.” But I know recommending a distro is “fight’n words”, so I’ll stop now before the entire board comes to give me a beat-down.

This is another problem with Linux: there isn’t just *one* standard package manager that does everything (and does it so well that you never want anything else), there are at least two.

As opposed to Windows and Mac where there are… NONE. If you give Ubuntu a shot, I think apt is what you are looking for. Get all that SuSE junk out of your head.

I think the multiple package managers is a very strong advantage for Linux. The fact that there is “two or three of everything” (KDE and Gnome, yum and apt, rpm and deb, Grub and LILO, ext3 and ReiserFS or whatever is the other one now, Thunderbird and Evolution and Kmail, OpenOffice and KOffice and Gnome loosely affiliated applications) means that there is a rapid pace of innovation between competing communities. Desktop distributions (with the exception of SuSE, which is geared towards Windows Power Users) are very good at hiding the sheer number of choices available to beginning users so they don’t get overwhelmed. If someone hands you an Ubuntu or Mint CD, and you install it, you won’t even know about KDE until you start fiddling around inside the system because you get curious.

I disagree with scottgrizzard about Linux being for users by users though. If you need to get beyond what’s pre-cooked, you’ll need to consult a book like Frish, A. (1995) Essential system administration. O’Reilly & Associates. System administration is never for end-users, and the trick is to ensure you needn’t get involved in it. For better or worse, MS Windows goes further to make sure you don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Yes, in 1995 you needed a book to learn about system administration. Since then, we all got broadband and started blogging/list-serving/wiki-ing night and day (especially night).

You don’t need books to learn Linux – what you need is a desire to change something about your system and an Internet connection. (For serious tweaking, a spare box or a virtual machine doesn’t hurt, but only if you are playing with the core system.)

My first admin job was for my apartment complex in grad school. They wanted a Samba Domain Controller (they didn’t know that – what they knew was that the last guy had installed a pirated version of Windows 2000 on their old server which a bolt of lightning had eaten). They gave me a month’s rent free to do it, “for $700 in hardware” when I told them it could be done using free software.

I set them up with a SuSE 10.0 Domain Controller that they could manage using webmin. (Yes, I used SuSE at one point, but if you can admit you have a problem, recovery is possible.) It took me two weeks (off and on) to set up, but I did it with the help of the online helps, the mailing list, and the IRC chat room. The owner hired me part-time after that.

You don’t need to keep regular users out of system administration; you just need to not require them to get into system administration until they want to do something sysadmin-like. Then, you need to let them pick off the piece they want, without making them get involved in everything else. The good Linux distros do this, letting the user install a “server package” with the same graphical ease that they install a chess program. (With the exception of anything involving SELinux, but someone was on crack with that one.)

My points (and I do have two) are that Linux is for everyone, (unless you are in some niche like graphics design, in which case someone needs to crack the whip under the CrossOver folks), and stop using SuSE! While it may be evil, even more importantly, it’s lousy software!

PS: I just copyrighted the Yast as artificial sweetner line, before I posted it here. It’s mine… (evil laugh).

A lot of us Linux users are former Windows users (my last one was Windows 98).

PS. I’ve been a developer of Windows software for 20+ years and I’ve written several of favorite apps in C#. However, Microsoft’s intentions are clear to me and will no longer support Microsoft in any way shape or form. Long live free software. If I have to learn new languages and tools so be it. Languages aren’t that hard and the concepts between tools are fairly similar. There’s no real loss to me, only gain.