02.04.10
Sleeping with Mono
Summary: Assorted items about Mono and Moonlight
NOVELL is promoting Microsoft through GNU/Linux (and Microsoft on Apple devices [1, 2]). The obsession with Mono and Moonlight is about making Microsoft (not necessarily the same as Windows) stronger and this new article from Dr. Dobbs shows what Novell does for proprietary software, leading to unrest. More in IRC (starts here):
| Chips_B_Malroy | you might enjoy this thread: http://mepislovers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24925 | Feb 03 22:31 |
|---|---|---|
| Chips_B_Malroy | Titled: Resolved – need moonlight in 8.5 | Feb 03 22:32 |
| phIRCe-BNc | Title: Error processing the URL: .::. Size~: 0 KB | Feb 03 22:33 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | comment number 10 says it all, as to why Moonlight in addition to the patents/legal/etc problems, is just no good | Feb 03 22:33 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | and why M$ with Miguel’s (Novell) help, makes mono-moonlight a 2nd rate platform | Feb 03 22:34 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | or should I say, a M$ trojan | Feb 03 22:34 |
| balzac | Well, I suppose I don’t need to worry about brand loyalty with asus | Feb 03 22:36 |
| balzac | do we have any favored PC manufacturer’s left? | Feb 03 22:36 |
| balzac | who sells notebooks without an OS? | Feb 03 22:36 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | MS and Miguel know full well that mono-moonlight is incapable of playing Silverlight content from Netflix because of the ms drm there | Feb 03 22:36 |
| balzac | I may go for a lenovo for my next notebook | Feb 03 22:36 |
| oiaohm | Intel proved it possible to force MS to give over silverlight for Linux. | Feb 03 22:36 |
| oiaohm | So really why bother with moonlight | Feb 03 22:37 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | oiaohm> yes, right as almost always | Feb 03 22:37 |
| oiaohm | I am supprised people are not more up in arms that intel can get real silverlight for Linux yet most others cannot. | Feb 03 22:38 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | <oiaohm> So really why bother with moonlight?” For me, never, I was just passing on the post, as I thought it might be of interest here. The point I like to make is how useless moonlight is | Feb 03 22:38 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Oiaohm> if Intel can get it, at some point someone well get the flash dump of it, and hack it. And it will end up in a repo in some part of the world they cannot sue. | Feb 03 22:39 |
| oiaohm | If MS is truly wanting to make it a platform should they not be releasing it to all directly? | Feb 03 22:40 |
| oiaohm | Ie not giving different parties specal treatment. | Feb 03 22:40 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | If moonlight is useless, and it is, then Mono is too. As Moonlight is supposedly the killer app. | Feb 03 22:40 |
| oiaohm | Problem for Moonlight and Flash is more and more html5 is picking up what they are aimed at doing. | Feb 03 22:41 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Oiaohm> the point that is made here that MS does not release Silverlight for Linux directly because they want Mono-Moonlight so as to be substandard. | Feb 03 22:41 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | which is a true statement | Feb 03 22:42 |
| oiaohm | For what reason. | Feb 03 22:42 |
| oiaohm | Either to destory Linux or to be able to destory Novell after it built the market. Or both | Feb 03 22:42 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | So Windows will do everything silverlight that Linux-mono-moonlight cannot, like play netflix | Feb 03 22:42 |
| oiaohm | I more take the line of both. | Feb 03 22:43 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | yes, both probably | Feb 03 22:43 |
| oiaohm | I know of very few companies that have made deals with MS and walked away in good condition. | Feb 03 22:43 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | but the fact that moonlight cannot, and most likely never will be able to legally play the MS DRM licencing in the Netflix Silverlight videos, means something. And it should be taken to the front of the debate. | Feb 03 22:44 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Moonlight is useless | Feb 03 22:45 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | therefore mono is too | Feb 03 22:45 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | the one thing users want it to do it cannot | Feb 03 22:45 |
| oiaohm | If you really understand how the Linux kernel works you can see major problems with all JIT language designs. | Feb 03 22:45 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | which is beyond me most likely | Feb 03 22:46 |
| oiaohm | People forget that Linux kernel does GC on a process by process base. | Feb 03 22:46 |
| oiaohm | So all the talk about GC giving safety is mostly crap. | Feb 03 22:47 |
| oiaohm | Ie since mono containes a GC it safe…. | Feb 03 22:47 |
| oiaohm | Multi process application that in a lot of cases runs faster than mono is also as safe. | Feb 03 22:47 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Well, I am not a fan of Netflix or Blockbuster. | Feb 03 22:47 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | But I expect that Silverlight for Linux on Intel will get pawned. | Feb 03 22:48 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Because MS has basically paid off both Netflix and Blockbuster to use their patented Silverlight tech | Feb 03 22:49 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Will it be legal? no | Feb 03 22:51 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | maybe in some parts of the world, maybe | Feb 03 22:51 |
| oiaohm | Really hope MS does. | Feb 03 22:52 |
| oiaohm | Intel is not past sueing MS ass off. | Feb 03 22:52 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | myself I don’t want Silverlight | Feb 03 22:52 |
| oiaohm | Neither do I | Feb 03 22:52 |
| oiaohm | But I would like an another interesting court case against MS. | Feb 03 22:53 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | I can find what I want with other means | Feb 03 22:53 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | But I do believe that M$ is trying to drive demand for Silverlight with Netflix and Blockbuster. Using both of these two, is creating another monopoly in the USA, as they are the biggest two in this market for most users here. | Feb 03 22:54 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | Blockbuster, correction, I know it uses Net and MS DRM, but it never says where I can see that it uses Silverlight, but I believe it does | Feb 03 22:55 |
| *FurnaceBoy (~FurnaceBo@BAS1-TORONTO10-1279748207.dsl.bell.ca) has joined #boycottnovell | Feb 03 22:56 | |
| Chips_B_Malroy | comment number #10 from the link: ”No drm so it doesn’t work on something you would want it for like netflix.” | Feb 03 22:57 |
| schestowitz | Thanks | Feb 03 22:57 |
| schestowitz | I’ll mentioned this tomorrow | Feb 03 22:57 |
| schestowitz | There’s related news…. | Feb 03 22:58 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | The dirty little secret of Mono-Moonlight is, its never going do what you want it to really do. | Feb 03 22:58 |
| schestowitz | Linux Tablet from Google Coming BTW ……. \0/ | Feb 03 22:58 |
| schestowitz | Microsoft sill in the pits http://www.zdnet.co.uk/talkback/0,1000001161,40018130-39001096c-20106869o,00.htm | Feb 03 22:58 |
| phIRCe-BNc | Title: How many more times? – Conficker worm disrupts Manchester police systems – Talkback at ZDNet UK .::. Size~: 86.38 KB | Feb 03 22:58 |
| FurnaceBoy | Chips_B_Malroy: one of the dirty secrets  |
Feb 03 22:58 |
| FurnaceBoy | schestowitz: wow. when will they wake up.  |
Feb 03 22:58 |
| schestowitz | Chips_B_Malroy: but Microsoft can tell regulators it plays “nice” with Linux | Feb 03 22:58 |
| schestowitz | That’s what the deal with Novell was partly about | Feb 03 22:58 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | FurnaceBoy> yes, hehe | Feb 03 22:59 |
| schestowitz | Pretence of support and fair play… with SOFTWARE patents | Feb 03 22:59 |
| FurnaceBoy | schestowitz: did you see Bugliosi on YouTube calling for Bush prosecution? | Feb 03 22:59 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | So, MS needs to come even more clean than just its community promise not to sue Linux. It needs to also open source its DRM, if users want to play Netflix Silverlight. | Feb 03 23:00 |
| *gargoyle-grin has quit (Quit: Leaving.) | Feb 03 23:00 | |
| oiaohm | Chips_B_Malroy: the community promise is time limited | Feb 03 23:00 |
| MinceR | actually they need to start providing proper patent licenses | Feb 03 23:00 |
| oiaohm | Or is complete crap. Chips_B_Malroy | Feb 03 23:01 |
| oiaohm | Ie only covering programmers who don’t get paid. | Feb 03 23:01 |
| MinceR | ones that apply to everyone, are free of charge, and don’t have a time limit | Feb 03 23:01 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | you right on both oiaohm | Feb 03 23:01 |
| MinceR | to the entirety of .net/mono | Feb 03 23:01 |
| oiaohm | that is a major problem in the Linux world on adverage over 75 percent of programers are paid to build stuff. | Feb 03 23:01 |
| MinceR | until they do that, they’re only screwing around, looking for gullible marks they can screw with | Feb 03 23:01 |
| oiaohm | If they want to keep the DRM closed source that is there business. | Feb 03 23:02 |
| oiaohm | But not being prepared to say we will not attack open source is not good. | Feb 03 23:03 |
| Chips_B_Malroy | they are trying to put out a product (moonlight) that is defective by design. Because Miguel and MS already know that the quality Silverlight videos from Netflix contain MS DRM that Moonlight cannot legally play. | Feb 03 23:03 |
Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza is referenced with glee by the ‘Microsoft press’, which was promoting Silver Lie on Monday:
The response in the developer community to the Silverlight release has been almost universally positive. Miguel de Icaza, vice president of developer platforms at Novell and head of the open source Mono Project, called Silverlight 4 “a case of doing the right thing for users and developers” in a blog post soon after the release. “There are many other great features in Silverlight 4, but none as important as Silverlight becoming a universal runtime for the CLR. This is a revolution,” de Icaza wrote.
Why does he not simply join Microsoft? He already works for them part time and the creature he created (Mono) is entering the GNU/Linux desktop, ushered by articles like this new one from ECT. People don’t even realise that they are using Mono, so it’s like a diseases that’s growing quietly inside the body of the Free destkop. It is still being promoted by Ryan Paul, who is also promoting an FSF-hostile article from his new colleague, Zonker. This is not good. █
ChipsAhoy said,
February 5, 2010 at 8:44 am
Chips_B_Malroy and DaemonFC, I hope you guys realise that your Sansa music player devices are running Mono.
Next time, you guys might want to do a little more research. You guys are looking a might bit foolish right now.
your_friend Reply:
February 6th, 2010 at 1:48 am
Thanks for the news. If true, this exactly why mono is dangerous – it looks like it works and you can be suckered into it without knowing. Working around .NET all day, I can tell you that NET fails like the London Stock Exchange. If Mono works at all it is a tribute to the power of free software to make even the worst of software work. Other examples of free software making garbage look good are Samba and the Linux kernel’s handling of ACPI, but mono is a special trap. Just as soon as Microsoft has extorted or bribed enough fools into using .NET, they will pull the patent rug out just as they have with FAT and other bogus patents. That Mono works at all is bad news for software freedom. If Mono succeeds even in a “good enough” way, Microsoft sticks around that much longer and does that much more damage to real standards and software freedom. It is a critical part of their decade old effort to destroy free software and should be avoided in all forms. I will avoid this device and others running that kind of non free software, even if it’s based on gnu/linux.
According to this excellent analysis by Groklaw, NET and “interoperability” has been an anti-linux trap all along, invented to trick Intel into abandoning GNU/Linux. Mono is an important component of Microsoft’s 2002 plan to get people to stick with Windows as a development environment, but it is a failing effort. “Interoperability” is a poor substitute for freedom and those who persue it will always be dragged around by the nose and their software experience will be something like what Windows has always provided. Intel ignored Microsoft and so do other sensible people. This letter from Microsoft clearly shows what their plans were all along and Mono advocates are clearly dupes who listened to Microsoft’s “white picket fence” talk only to be screwed over. Microsoft basically admits that GNU/Linux was technically better the whole time.
Eight years after Microsoft promissed Intel interoperability, the Windows platform is still a hostile piece of work. XP, for example, still treats all other file exchange protocols as second class citizens. Want to make a link to a particular document on an ftp server? Too bad. Want to use sftp? Go buy a client. X11? Same thing and Vista breaks the popular clients. Play ogg vorbis or theora? Ha ha, right. CSS, SVG, ODF and on and on it goes. I’m not sure what people get in return for opting to use such a poorly performing, hostile OS.
All free software work involving Microsoft should be abandoned. It never ceases to amaze me that people still uses their second rate platform as a desktop but this is a disease that feeds itself. Intel engineers, “raised on Unix/Linux” knew better. People who use Windows daily don’t and can’t. When you use non free software to solve your problems, you remain ignorant of what free software can do for you. When all you know is Windows, you will teach your friends and clients to solve their problems with awful kludges that work on Windows. The more free software that’s ported to Windows, the less incentive these people feel about moving and the more they feel “sensible” people endorse their poor choice of platform.