Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bug #1 is Not “Market Share”



Summary: Opinion on the risks of losing track of the goals which distinguish GNU/Linux from other platforms

IN SOME PEOPLE'S mind, money and umpteen victories as judged by numbers are the only thing that matters. This misses a bigger picture and forgets that GNU/Linux is not a business, it's peer production of robust software. To many people, the goal is to have a solid platform which is also free, in the "freedom" sense, outside the shackles of companies that commit crime like it's a bodily function. So the highest priority is not market share, that's just Ubuntu's #1 "bug" (and yes, it was intended to be a joke, but in reality Ubuntu takes risks by embracing Microsoft software).



Yesterday Groklaw published the following in News Picks, under the headline: “If you are curious about what is going wrong with Ubuntu, read this.” It says: “The article, titled "Giving up the GIMP is a sign of Ubuntu's mainstream maturity," paints replacing it with FSpot as a fine thing, and manages to do so without even mentioning mono (Wikipedia: "F-Spot is written in the C# programming language using Mono."). So for me, it's good bye to Ubuntu until they clean it out. It's a question of ethics, but it's also a question of prudence. If you know about patents, even if you think they are stupid, you are foolish at best to pretend they don't exist.

“If you know about patents, even if you think they are stupid, you are foolish at best to pretend they don't exist.”
      --Groklaw, yesterday
"And if you wondered why Ubuntu is going wrong, in my view, read the following decision-making process, and think about how easy it is to direct anything in a particular direction if all you need is numbers (think Slashdot moderation and Microsoft). A project leader has to decide certain issues, according to the vision, not leaving all decisions, particularly legal ones, to a vote by those who are not even lawyers...“

Not everyone agrees however. Serdar Yegulalp, a former Windows journalist, assumes that it's "market share" at all costs (projection of one's preference onto others), even if at the cost of turning GNU/Linux to just another proprietary system, in which case nothing (or very little) is achieved at all. His new article contains an exaggeration ("Live Free or Die" in the headline*) and criticises those to whom freedom is a top goal/priority:

Linux’s main merit, as a kernel and an ecosystem, is its open source nature. That means the software that runs on it has little choice but to be open source. This doesn’t mean closed-source software is unavailable on Linux—just that it’s got the deck stacked strongly against it.

Because of this, software companies who don’t primarily deal in open source have shunned Linux. It’s something of a chicken-and-egg argument to say who shunned whom first. And perhaps it’s academic: does it matter who took the first step away from the table?

[...]

A constant sentiment among some Linux advocates is that it’s best for Linux as a whole to reject closed-source drivers and software. To compromise on this issue means Linux runs the risk of falling into the hands of entities that can exert control over it.


This is correct. To reject proprietary software is not to be a Luddite but to not lose sight of the goals and adjust the goalposts constantly by compromising to the point of destructive assimilation. Yegulalp stopped writing for Information Week last month; to be fair, he does present both sides of the argument, but he makes it clear which side he is on. Previously, he was promoting Microsoft software and other means by which Microsoft can only harm GNU/Linux (he interviews and supports Microsoft MVP Novell's de Icaza for example)

In other news this week, here is some very accurate coverage from Richard Hillesley, who writes about Moonlight and captures the key issues (the idea that control, for example, is a greater issue than patents). From yesterday in The H:

Both Mono and Moonlight are based on technologies developed by Microsoft to compete with and to replace technologies developed elsewhere. Mono is an open source re-implementation of the .NET framework which was intended to displace Java. Moonlight is an open source re-implementation of Silverlight which is intended to replace Flash as the popular vehicle for online advertising and video.

[...]

The problem with Moonlight (and Mono) for most advocates of free software is quite simple. Silverlight/Moonlight is intended to replace existing Web technology with another set of proprietary codecs and protocols, and Moonlight, like Mono, is patent encumbered. Patents and copyrights can be applied to the underlying technologies and to the codecs which are used to translate bits and bytes into viewable media. Patents, "de facto standards", closed APIs and trade secrets embedded in codecs, protocols and file formats are an impediment to innovation, interoperability, and the ability to translate words, music or pictures into meaningful images.

[...]

These misgivings apply equally to Moonlight, exacerbated by de Icaza's hopes and dreams that Moonlight, like Mono, will become the universal framework for the development of desktop applications on Linux, Windows and MacOS.


It is interesting to see how the arguments in the press evolve. Mono and Moonlight receive more flak and lead to more backlash over time, despite and because of the fact that Microsoft is trying to make them more accessible and even promotes them in public. It's very telling, isn't it? Microsoft would not be promoting something that's beneficial to GNU/Linux and even groom the mastermind being these Trojan horses with an MVP award. ___ * This insinuates that Free software supporters want to kill those who do not comply as this seems like an historical reference that acts effectively to daemonise from the first moment. It's similar to the "You're killing FOSS!" line of argument.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete