02.07.11
Poisoning Mobile Linux With Microsoft Staff and Mono
Summary: How Microsoft interferes with the success of Linux-powered platforms, notably using entryism and software patents
MICROSOFT is losing the mobile race. It’s not even a contender anymore. The Register‘s pro-MAFIAA and freedom-hostile Andrew Orlowski blocked comments when he linked to reports that we mentioned last night about Nokia’s threat from Microsoft. Elop seems to be ‘pulling a Maritz’ (not Putting on the Ritz) by considering en masse dismissals and a Microsoft deal. But not only MeeGo seems to be at stake (Novell’s Mono team is also trying to put Mono in it). The emerging market leader, Android, is also being harassed by Microsoft.
“The emerging market leader, Android, is also being harassed by Microsoft.”The king of Android (and formerly a Java promoter at Sun), Eric Schmidt, helped create what’s probably the most commonly used distribution of Linux. Schmidt’s role at Novell is still noted by a lot of Web sites which speak about his departure from Google’s throne (latest examples can be seen at [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]). Android is now under patent attacks by Microsoft and some allies of Microsoft, so the fact that Novell helps Microsoft must not give him much comfort.
The main vector of attack against Android seems to be patents. Most major distributors of Android already pay Microsoft for Linux, for alleged software patents they would never name. To make matters worse, Novell is trying to put Mono inside Android and friends of Microsoft (the writer is Wallace McClure in this case) are currently offering free promotion of .NET/Mono for Android in a two-part series [1, 2]. It can help infect Android with Microsoft patent traps that later the monopolist will use, even after warnings. Watch this new piece from SD Times (occasional Mono booster):
Furthermore, a new set of .NET controls for Android comes in beta version optimized for MonoDroid. As soon as Novell releases a full version of MonoDroid, the Android Edition of Resco MobileForms Toolkit will go live in full version.
Mono is becoming a real pain in the bum and it is a joint product of Microsoft and Novell (Mono codebase includes bits from both companies).
Docky is one popular Mono project that we wrote about before (it extends others but gets extended too) and its developer works for Canonical now, helping to port a Vala project to C (Unity). Over at Identi.ca, “Toros” says that he got “elementary Wingpanel and Plank dock (Docky rewritten in Vala) in action (screenshot),” which means that there is hope for a move towards C as well.
“Such people carry the baggage of Novell influence even after leaving the company, experience suggests.”As one last item of interest, consider this new press release about former Ximian staff becoming a Vice President: “Over the past 20 years, Mancusi-Ungaro has held senior marketing positions in technology companies ranging from start-up to leaders in their respective markets. He is best known for his work at open source start-up Ximian, which was acquired by Novell. During his tenure as director of marketing for Linux and Open Source at Novell, he was a leader of Novell’s worldwide Linux and open source marketing efforts, developing and refining Novell’s approach to marketing open source technologies in the enterprise space and serving as key company spokesperson on open source issues and direction. While at Novell, Mancusi-Ungaro developed Novell’s Lizard Blizzard strategy and was one of the co-founders of the award-winning openSUSE project. He also held senior marketing leadership positions at Lotus/IBM, Webhire, Deltek Systems, and Health Allianze. Mancusi-Ungaro holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Hamilton College.”
Chris Mellor said about it that “Greg Mancusi-Ungaro joins the Enterprise deduplicating data protection array vendor after stints at Novell and Ximian, which was bought by Novell. Attachmate bought Novell in November last year.” Another news site said that “Sepaton Inc. named of Greg Mancusi-Ungaro VP of marketing. Mancusi-Ungaro previously worked at Novell, Lotus/IBM, Ximian, Webhire, Deltek Systems and Health Allianze.”
Such people carry the baggage of Novell influence even after leaving the company, experience suggests. There is this tendency people have to use what’s familiar from the previous employer or former colleagues and amid new memories of IPX, one must also consider Novell history in relation to other moves between companies, e.g.:
The company clearly lists its management team, which includes financial and technology veterans who previously worked at Paine-Webber, Novell and US Internetworking.
The Microsoft-backed Novell is turning out to be a lot of trouble. That’s what makes it so necessary to keep track of Novell’s folly. Based on its latest announcement, Novell brings to market nothing but proprietary software. Gone are the days of 2005 when Novell truly dabbled in some FOSS. Novell is now batting for Microsoft and it causes real damage to Linux (not SLE*, which pays Microsoft). █
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verofakto said,
February 7, 2011 at 11:45 am
You should link to the IRC conversation that resulted from that. Here, around Dec 10 20:37 when “DBO” logs in. After half an hour of squirming and trying to change the subject, you were forced to apologize to him, and I quote, “I deeply apologise [...] I can see I did you no justice”.
Imagine if every person you’ve ever attacked, every member of the FOSS community that has ever been targeted by you and your cadre would log into your chat room and calmly demand an apology? You’d be apologizing clear into the next decade.
twitter Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Such hypocrisy. A person who runs an entire website, and who obviously spends a large part of their life devoted to libeling Roy Shestowitz has the nerve to accuse Roy of libel. Then again, this is what you do – nitpick and conflate to harass and libel.
The IRC chat was worth reading but more for what it says about mono boosters than what it says about Roy. In the first place, it was OMGU that made a big deal out of Jason’s Docky code and Mono, not Roy. Roy relied on an OMG site and and expressed the opinion that mono was bad for Canonical. It takes a lot of effort to twist that into, “Canonical should not have hired Jason,” and even more to twist Techrights into a developer hostile news site, but that’s exactly what we see being done. We should note that DBO, who might not be Jason at all, was urged on by Jono, Canonical’s much vaunted community manager with a history of ambushing Roy unfairly. You guys are really grasping for straws aren’t you? Credit should be given to Roy for all of the other good research that you have ignored here about the real dangers posed by mono to software freedom. Even more credit should be given to Roy for his reaction to this “minor correction” as DBO called it. Roy’s reaction is a model of careful fact finding, personal understanding and grace. Roy was mislead by mono promoters but quickly apologized for a difficult to imagine interpretation of his writing that might have caused distress to an innocent person. In the end, I think it’s amusing that everyone in the conversation thinks C# and friends suck. Thank you for pointing this conversation out.
verofakto Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 9:06 pm
When you’re done giving Herr Doktor his third or fourth embarrassing colonoscopy of the day, you may want to actually _read_ what he wrote, put yourself in the person’s position and, really, rent a clue as to why I mentioned it.
“careful fact finding, personal understanding and grace” might be attributes better employed before victimizing people because they lack the ideological purity you demand of everyone from your high and mighty pulpit.
Oh and by the way, there is only one author in this blog (now that Shane Coyle has been run out). That author has responsibility over what gets posted here, even if it’s crediting your comments as “anonymous” because he’s too embarrassed to actually use one of your nyms. That goes also for the lame “I was deceived by others” excuses, as we’ve seen when attacking people in Wikipedia, declaring projects to be dead because he can’t find where they keep the source code, or posting Jenny McCarthy-do-me-proud anti-vaccine tripe that needs to be corrected quickly once it dawns on the author what it is he just posted.
And I will note that, despite his heartfelt apology (if one can call squirming and trying to change the subject an “apology”), Herr Doktor has not actually corrected or amended his tuff guy smackdown on Jason. So the smear is still there, conveniently indexed by Google.
…you know what, I just realized you fellas have a hard time reading your own material, so let me make it exceedingly easy here:
Here’s the, relevant part of the article:
Hope. That. Helps.
twitter Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Again, your response says more about mono boosters than it does about Roy. Your purported defense of Jason does more harm than good. My favorite though, is your abuse of medical terminology. The more you write, the worse it seems to get.
Anyone who reads the referenced article can see that Roy was talking about CEO level hires and that mono was a sideshow set up by them that disappoints in every way. You are twisting petty mistakes that have been apologized for, in order to distract from Roy’s well researched message. Even your purported developer thinks mono sucks and implies that it would be bad for Canonical to be filling up their ranks with Mono people as OMGU suggested and as might be happening. This validates Roy’s original concern more than it proves libel, even unintentional and soon to be corrected libel.
As the target of your smear site while I was job searching, I understand very well how your interpretation and attention can be harmful to Jason. By twisting the meaning of Roy’s article, or magnifying this petty mistake, linking to it, etc, you turn it into something that may actually be damaging. Roy will now have to add some language to the article to keep that from happening, after some more careful research to verify that any of what you and other attack dogs say is true. Otherwise, this little issue you have created will take on a life of its own as it travels around the Microsoft whisper net. It wold be better for that attention to be drawn to Roy’s positive contributions and excellent news than poor Jason.
As a final note, I’d like to point out what a foul hypocrite you are to compare my retort a “embarrassing colonoscopy.” You and other mono boosters must be the keenest readers of this site to find, twist and magnify such tiny mistakes. Perhaps you think of that like a rectal exam or other physical outrage you would like to perform on people you don’t like or on people you are paid to harass. Overtones of ignorant homophobia are not lost. This truly offends me but not the way you might think. As someone who comes from a medical family, works in the medical field and knows the value of such exams, I’m doubly offended by your puerile sophistry and mean spirited misappropriation of terminology you surely know nothing about.
verofakto Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Blah, blah blah. More poetry from the Sockmaster Shill In Chief. I’d love for either of you to actually tie me to the Mono project, Novell or Microsoft in any way, shape or form. I’m also waiting for evidence that I am a “.NET developer”, that was the best. Your paranoia is epic in its breadth and scope, as always.
Surely if anyone who reads it there’s no need to update it, then.
I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about now.
Actually I was trying to find a way to say you have your head so far up Dr. Roy’s rectum that you can see his tonsils. Every other comment you post here is mindless embarrassing praise coated in Uriah Heep-brand sticky glaze. If there are homoanything overtones I’m sorry to say they did not originate with me.