My response to the Windows 7 adoption rate is that Jonathan was in fact stacking the deck improperly. I try to explain why here http://boycottnovell.com/2009/07/16/msbbc-daemonises-the-eu/comment-page-1/#comment-70152 .

>> Why? Because it wouldn’t matter if the adoption rate was 100%, Roy would still call it a failure. This is irrational thinking. Since giving a direct answer would reveal his “irrationality”, he does the only thing he can…. he ignores the answer.

Roy is busy, and apparently the known paid MS Tech Evangelist did stack the deck (or at least I think so as you can see in my comment above); hence, Roy changing the subject in that situation is not likely an expression of irrationality but is similar to what many call ignoring the troll.

>> but your relationship with Roy and your devotion to Linux prevents you from seeing his problems.

I respect the positives that come out of here, and it happens largely because of the work Roy (and others) put in. I think that cleaning up after Roy is part of the work. Unfortunately, with so much at stake, there is a lot of arguing and failures to come to agreements.

>> We’ll look at it sentence by sentence and I will give you additional information to help you understand each of them in a broader context.

Well, this new explanation helps a lot.

Why must Roy be an expert on mono to say the following: “pick any of the thousands of FOSS projects and look inside and send off an email if you can’t figure out what tools were used”? There are many options to mono. Most or all of what you find in a distro was created without using mono.

What is wrong with quoting others AND also having personal opinions? Most of the argument against mono is because of its relationship to Microsoft and has nothing to do with if you are even a developer.

The paragraph you read was a response to “Eet”, as such, it assumes that the he and other readers already know some things about Roy. “Eet” himself was also using irony. He complained that Roy gave us “little substance” even though he used “many words”. Let’s re-examine the paragraph I typed. We’ll look at it sentence by sentence and I will give you additional information to help you understand each of them in a broader context.

“I simply enjoy the irony.” – This is a clue. It sets up the reader to expect an sentences that are intended to be ironic.

“People in the IRC chatroom will sometimes ask Roy which programming language he personally uses as opposed to Mono.” – This sentience assumes the reader knows that Roy tells others not to use Mono. As a result of being told what not to use, some will ask Roy to recommend an alternative or ask which language Roy himself uses. They assume he is knowledgeable about programming languages.

“He never answers them.” – Here is the twist! Roy does not answer them. Again, this assumes the reader knows that part of Roy’s character is that he doesn’t answer questions that reveal his weaknesses. His lack of answer, in and of itself, does say something about his character. This is also a phenomenon we can observe elsewhere on this website. Roy recently called the adoption rate of Windows 7 a failure, so he was asked what percentage of Windows 7 adoption would be consider a success, in his opinion. He dodges this question and changes the topic, just as you tried to do above. Why? Because it wouldn’t matter if the adoption rate was 100%, Roy would still call it a failure. This is irrational thinking. Since giving a direct answer would reveal his “irrationality”, he does the only thing he can…. he ignores the answer.

Personally, this part of Roy is what fascinates me so much. On some level, Roy MUST know he’s irrational, otherwise how would he know which questions threaten to expose this fact? Yet at the same time, he doesn’t seem to curb any of his irrational behavior or posts. Perplexing, I must say.

I’m sorry if you are still not clear on the irony after this explanation. It’s possible that there is nothing wrong with you. That your ability to use reason and logic are working just fine, but your relationship with Roy and your devotion to Linux prevents you from seeing his problems. For this reason, you may be unable to see the parts of Roy’s behavior that are necessary in order to see the irony that exists. This is not normal and something that I hope you are able to reconcile at some point. In this regard, I can not help you because I am not a therapist. I would simply tell you that there is no shame in getting help.

Hey, David. I’m hoping this doesn’t blow up here.

I wanted to point out another possibility to explain “it’s really got to be about Mono:”

One could conceivably think that the Stallman noise being made is being made by people that are not that offended or would otherwise not have made a fuss or recognize perhaps Stallman was not being literal. They might have made the noise now for other reasons, eg, to discredit Stallman now. And this desire to attack RMS now might have been most motivated because of his stance on mono and recent comments or recent talk.

Maybe you can add to your blog a response to cover this case.

you are contricting yourself.

Your example of irony is of a doctor giving a gardener advice, but you said:

“I simply enjoy the irony. People in the IRC chatroom will sometimes ask Roy which programming language he personally uses as opposed to Mono. He never answers them.”

You also contradicted yourself by saying Roy only parrots other people. I thought “he never answers them?”

What are you views on wikipedia? Everything reported there comes from second hand accounts. There are no interpretations based on primary source allowed.

And why do you think the only or most important issue surrounding mono is about technical merits? [BTW, technically, mono seems like a very large amount of re-implementing of the wheel in order to add a few pieces.]

The most important thing about mono, and this is what this site covers the most (wrt mono) by a large margin, the linkages between mono/dotnet and Monopolysoft, a company with quite a track record of breaking the law and has demonstrated they intend to use their levers (including patents) to fight Linux and FOSS.

Maybe you replied too quickly without thinking your reply through.

If you need some advice: http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-06-12-010-35-OS-CY-DV-0035

BTW, have you read Roy’s latest IRC logs? You get one or two ‘honorary mentions’.

Imagine a medical doctor telling a gardener which brand of shovel is best for his garden. People normally make arguments for tools they have personal experience with. So while it would be normal for the doctor to tell others what brand of stethoscope works best, it’s odd for him to do this with gardening tools. This is irony!

Roy is not a programmer. He do not use the tools he speaks about. He simply doesn’t like who makes the tool in question, hence why he can only copy and paste the arguments of others. Can you see the irony now? When someone argues for or against a set of tools, yet they don’t use the tools themselves? You should be able to see this. I teach for a living. So please let me know if this lesson has failed you and I will do my best to help you.

Stick around because this site is passionate about software patents (is very much against them).

Also, Microsoft is very much for patents best I can tell. Either they are crazy, or your analysis above is missing something.

Look at the quote at the top of this recent blog piece: http://boycottnovell.com/2009/07/14/microsoft-veiled-attack-chrome/comment-page-1/#comment-69984

>> “Diversionary tactics, holding action, and retreats may each seem contrary to the achievement of the overall objective when considered solely in their own terms, but taken in light of the overall conflict, may contribute to overall success.”

>> –Microsoft, internal document

You have to look at the total threats and the total revenue for Microsoft and of their total investments still cooking on the stove to recognize that paying pennies to support software patents is potentially a great deal for them.

Microsoft internal documents place patents in a strategic position to support dotnet and other “innovation” to hold off Linux.

The vast majority of the FOSS world and of FOSS leverages other languages and platforms.

>> What about proprietary codecs?

Microsoft cannot offer you that kind of patent promise for the silverlight codecs – no company could. Too much of it is panteded (even theora would be if it came to the crunch – many companies would claim patent rights).

When microsoft went throught the ‘standardization’ process for WMV to create VC-1, and other companies as part of the standardization put in their patent claims, I think Microsoft only ended up with about a 5% share of the royalties because they ended up with only about 5% of the relevant patents.

I wish you could get as emotional against software patents as you are against Mono- you might do something good for the world. Microsoft would have lost 10 times as much in patent litigation against them campared to any revenue they have from licensing patents. Microsoft are not the bad guys here..

Regards,
Biggy.