09.30.09

Gemini version available ♊︎

Groklaw Groks Mono, Miguel de Icaza, Microsoft, and More

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 1:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Perlow velociraptor in the park
Photo with permission from Jason

Summary: A counter article to Jason Perlow’s post from ZDNet is finally published

THE previous post spoke about the “Microsoft hater” label, which conveniently annuls or crosses out any regular critic of Microsoft’s practices, including Richard Stallman.

Recent attacks on Stallman [1, 2, 3] (some going back to July) were profoundly based on the assumption that for Stallman to be concerned about Microsoft is “irrational” and “sickly”.

Groklaw has published this long article which defends Stallman from critics like Jason Perlow, who is in our IRC channel at the moment having fun with some graphics and banter (the image above is hopefully treated amicably, as Jason chose his favourite dinosaur, the velociraptor). There are also some good comments at Reddit (the Novell/Mono employees who hang out at Reddit must not have responded yet).

Anyway, here are some fragments from the very good analysis at Groklaw:

In short, Perlow attacked the man for something he didn’t say. He never said not to use Mono. Nor is Mono even necessary for interoperability with Microsoft. I note Microsoft is letting Intel port Silverlight instead of Mono to Moblin. Surprise, Miguel. Ah, the joys and surprises of partnering with Microsoft. He will drink that cup to the full, no doubt, before this saga is done. Why would *you* want Silverlight on Moblin? I can’t imagine one good reason, personally, but the fact that Intel and Microsoft want it to happen may even be part of what’s behind the new push to tell us we must use both Windows and Linux and stop being so prissy about it. I note that in Perlow’s article on how he can’t live without Windows on the desktop, Why I Can Never Be Exclusive to Linux and Open Source on the Desktop,

[...]

I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but it was just last week that Microsoft sold, or tried to sell, to patent trolls some 22 patents that could be used against Linux. Caught with its pants down when OIN ended up with them instead and told the world all about it, Microsoft quickly announced the Codeplex Foundation, which Perlow calls an open source nonprofit but which actually could more accurately be called Microsoft’s Push-Mono-Down-Your-Throat foundation, now that Sam Ramji has announced that giving Mono more “credibility” is the goal. This is the star to guide you if you wish to be “pragmatic” and “compromise” also. I suggest you read Andy Updegrove’s understated but — to me, hilarious — analysis of the legal structure of the Codeplex Foundation.

[...]

And I have a question for those who tell us we have to compromise and use both proprietary Microsoft software and FOSS. If the purpose of Open Source was nothing more than making money as a Microsoft partner, you tell me — what was it all for? Why not just use Microsoft software, then, and call it good? No. Really. What was FOSS developed for, if that is the end result, a Microsoft-FOSS fusion? Why even bother? The idea was to provide something better, an alternative, one that was totally free of proprietary restrictions, so that it would be you who control your own computer. And that is exactly what Microsoft can’t ever offer you.

More obvious mistakes are being pointed out in the comments.

Addressing the real issue which is not the messenger but the promoter of Mono and Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation, well… he is not alone. Miguel is joined by colleagues who bring about “fusion” between Microsoft and Linux, to borrow the term used by Groklaw. Novell helps organise the .NET/Mono Code Camp, which is supported by Microsoft and Novell (and probably Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation). Also worth bearing in mind is Novell’s role at the Linux Foundation. The key panel at LinuxCon was moderated by a Novell employee, whose role there has been a little problematic [1, 2]. There is also this:

Generating lots of interest from press, enthusiasts and attendees, LinuxCon touched on everything from what music best represents Linux to “Is Linux bloated?” – which sparked lots of opinions, including one from Novell’s own Matt Richards.

Novell used that “bloated” debate which came from Novell’s James Bottomley to market its SUSE Studio product (appliances programme). We wrote about this last week.

Dog with a sign

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

5 Comments

  1. David Gerard said,

    September 30, 2009 at 3:45 pm

    Gravatar

    Jason Perlow is being a quintessential ad banner troll.

    twitter Reply:

    Jason’s reasons for using M$ junk boil down to the fact that his customers use crap software and he’s attached to a few particular pieces of junk himself. His number one irrational attachment is a flow chart program. I once used kvivio and thought it was nicer than Visio. I prefer GIMP to Photoshop, and so on and so forth. None of this will really help Jason because his customers will continue to use garbage as long as Jason is irrational enough to tell them that the garbage they know is better than the freedom or performance they could have with free software. Sad.

  2. NotZed said,

    September 30, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Gravatar

    “Is Linux bloated?”

    Yes, yes it is. But at least with the kernel it’s bloated only once Then again, look at sound drivers – two interfaces and they both suck. Or video drivers.

    And the `desktop’ is a total mess. Each iteration of almost every application gets fatter and slower for minimal or no real improvement in functionality or stability.

    finalzone Reply:

    Define bloat.

    Concerning sound and video drivers, it is really vendors issues. At least open source iterations are working despite the lack of important source. On sound part, pulseaudio does a good job to simplify configuration while providing advanced setting. For videos, both AMD and Intel made effort to provide 3D support and release documentations.

    About desktops, lightweight iteration from enlightenment to ICEWin via Fluxbox are filling the void left by both Gnome and KDE. Be glad GNU/Linux or BSD based distributions provide the ability to switch to different desktop environment.

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    At the kernel level, Linus says there are many integrity checks and logging wasting CPU cycles (companies like Oracle need those), but recent benchmarks show that Linux is still faster than FreeBSD, for example. Also see this.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 04, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, June 04, 2023



  2. Links 04/06/2023: Unifont 15.0.05 and PCLinuxOS Stuff

    Links for the day



  3. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge

    Links for the day



  4. StatCounter: GNU/Linux (Including ChromeOS) Grows to 8% Market Share Worldwide

    This month’s numbers from StatCounter are good for GNU/Linux (including ChromeOS, which technically has both GNU and Linux); the firm assesses logs from 3 million sites and shows Windows down to 66% in desktops/laptops (a decade ago it was above 90%) with modest growth for GNU/Linux, which is at an all-time high, even if one does not count ChromeOS that isn’t freedom- or privacy-respecting



  5. Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

    We’re reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown — an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds



  6. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already



  7. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day



  8. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day



  9. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023



  10. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day



  11. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day



  12. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day



  13. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day



  14. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day



  15. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day



  16. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023



  17. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that



  18. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day



  19. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)



  20. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day



  21. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day



  22. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)



  23. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug



  24. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years



  25. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023



  26. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day



  27. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day



  28. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day



  29. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day



  30. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts