Bonum Certa Men Certa

Salivating Over Silverlight

Baby drool



Summary: If Novell's vice president is "droolingly" Microsoft's, then how can Mono and Novell be trusted anymore?

SEVERAL days ago we wrote about GIMP getting the shaft for questionable reasons [1, 2, 3]. Rather than remove Mono, Ubuntu decided to demote a very key application.



This is good news for Microsoft. In his typical fashion* Thom Holwerda is suggesting Paint.NET (or Paint.Mono) as a replacement. What an insult that would be. GIMP is actually in the process of adding a Photoshop-like user interface as an option in the main branch.

In other Mono news, "Docky Separates from GNOME Do" and GNOME Do, which is based on Mono, is still seen as a failure by some. From a new post:

Like every other Linux program, [GNOME] Do saves time and effort. Like every other Linux program, Do also costs time and effort in the bugs that it has. The most frustrating bug I’ve had so far is that Do simply disappears on a restart. It runs and in a manner it “exists” since I can resize it on my desktop, but I can’t actually see or use it. Apparently this is a known bug, and I haven’t been able to find a decent solution to it. It’s especially unfortunate because Do provides so much convenience that when it doesn’t work properly, I feel like I’m reverting to some primitive age where I’m dependent on my mouse (the horror!)


And yet, some people would recommend GNOME Do for inclusion by default. The same goes for Banshee, which only Novell customers are permitted to use "safely" [1, 2, 3, 4]. And then there is Moonlight, which is also tied to Mono and contains proprietary Microsoft codecs. Moonlight imitates a Microsoft product that is not cross-platform. From listening to this audiocast which includes Mary Jo Foley, I was able to gather that Silverlight may converge and merge with WPF, a desktop-side environment like AIR, but one which favours Windows and Internet Explorer. Silverlight has turned Miguel de Icaza into a "drooling" fan, to use his own verbal descriptions (where he labels disagreement as "Microsoft haters" [1, 2]). Some find it so appalling that entire posts/articles are composed about it. The latest of which says:

Miguel, Microsoft and the drool factor



[..]

When he writes about Microsoft, it resembles the kind of writing that a kid does when he gets a shiny, new toy. De Icaza drools over technology announcements from the big M - and he ensures that people know he is in that state by signing off "droolingly yours."


“At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately [sic].”

--Miguel de Icaza



Novell's de Icaza does not learn from the fact that Microsoft uses APIs to discriminate against the competition, Novell included. Groklaw has just posted some more Comes vs Microsoft exhibits, showing how Microsoft used APIs to leave Novell out in the cold. As for XAML, it is already made clear that there will be platform discrimination, so why is de Icaza running into this trap? Quite frankly, his evangelism for Microsoft** makes him suitable to become a Microsoft employee.

Microsoft is taking away Novell's customers anyway. Published a few days ago:

Finally, Trammell said they plan to upgrade the entire district’s servers, probably going from a Novell system to a Windows system.

“After that point, we’re basically going to see how much money’s left,” Trammell said.


According to this news report, another district is "probably going from a Novell system to a Windows system." So does de Icaza. He abandons the roots of SUSE and dresses up the desktop with everything from Windows. Who benefits from this? _____ * Holwerda has been promoting the Microsoft party line for quite a while. We last gave an example just two weeks ago. ** A few days ago Miguel de Icaza wrote: "OMG OMG OMG OMG #silverligh4 has everything I wanted on it: full desktop apps with full system access"

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
 
Links 29/07/2025: Data Brokers Gone Wrong/Rogue and "Copyright Thicket"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles