02.13.11
Miguel de Icaza Helps Show He is an Enemy of GNU/Linux
With fiends like these, who needs enemies?
Summary: Miguel de Icaza and other Microsoft boosters are taking the very opposite side (from that of the Linux Foundation and Linux advocates in general) regarding the Nokia-Microsoft deal
The fake ‘friends’ of GNU/Linux are often covered by Techrights, which strives to provide a lot of evidence to convince those who lack the time to find it that particular companies and people only ever pretend to serve software freedom. Some are “openwashing” (piggybacking the successful phenomenon), but some are maliciously abusing what they only claim or pretend to admire.
Take Microsoft Florian for example. He had journalists refer to him as an open source advocate*. That’s a lie, and it is a lie that served him well in his lobbying efforts. He has just told Miguel de Icaza: “Today Nokia announced it will do more patent monetization. If they have anything RHT needs, could be fun 
” (Miguel de Icaza is chatting with anti-Linux people who lobby for Microsoft interests and vice versa).
For those who missed Friday’s comments section in the post about Nokia-Microsoft, NetworkWorld (IDG) summarised de Icaza’s tweets (he doesn’t use Identi.ca) in which he voiced abundant support for the Nokia-Microsoft deal — yes, that which is a slap on Linux’ face (denounced by both Intel and the Linux Foundation). Funnily enough, the Microsoft booster from IDG called de Icaza an “Open source guru” (in the headline), which is also bordering being a lie; he is a Microsoft MVP, maybe a guru of Microsoft software. Suffice to say, the comments section rebuts the nonsense and there are a lot of responses to the outrageous statements from de Icaza (some cited Techrights and there’s plenty more of it in IRC and Identi.ca), which help show he that is against Free software goals. Some people are apparently starting to lean towards KDE or other non-GNOME environments because of this. To quote a new post:
Miguel de Icaza, one of the leading developers of GNOME, has said that he is “psyched” (apparently in a good way) by this. He has been taking a lot of flak from the open-source community for supporting the development of Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s C# programming language and toolkit; while I am wary of Microsoft’s moves with regard to Mono, I still do use GNOME-Do, which is Mono-based, and I’m OK with this because it is still open-source. However, de Icaza’s support of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership seems to be the last straw, even for me; as a developer of a core technology (GNOME) for Linux systems, how could he possibly support a company that has essentially issued death threats against Linux multiple times?
Yes, but Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza is either deaf/blind or ignorant; truthfully, he is neither, so it implies just malice. There is almost nobody else left — except C# and Microsoft fans perhaps — who believes this man is in favour of GNU/Linux (which he sometimes ridicules using Microsoft talking points, as we showed here before). By association, Miguel de Icaza’s current work not only harms GNOME but also OpenSUSE, which has another lump of news (not much going on there anymore). █
___
* Even though he is just a proprietary .NET developer.
vexorian said,
February 14, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Late reaction to Icaza’s reaction, posting it here just in case a certain post I wrote containing it does not get approved in somebody’s blog’s comments section.
It seems killing a Linux mobile platform and swapping it with WP7 is great news for Miguel, because it will make C# is the “lingua-franca” of Mobile devices. The reason he takes the lingua-franca conclusion? Microsoft expect their OS to work in the market supporting only one language.
When was it exactly that Miguel just stopped caring? He is not even trying to hide where he puts his heart 100% anymore. Not Linux, not even Mono, what makes him happy is more MS .NET, if it is at the expense of a whole Linux platform, so be it. I guess it happened around the time we figured out that MS was paying Novell to promote OOXML that he called it a ‘superb’ standard. After that, there really isn’t much to hide anymore.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 1:06 am
Those who think that Miguel de Icaza is pro-Linux should read his latest gem: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-14.html
Nice move dancing on the grave of Symbian (and maybe MeeGo too).
twitter Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Miguel’s blog is like self parody. I love the M$ Nokia five year plan that has more than half of all Mobile phones will use Phoney 7 at Symbian’s expense. Not even Miguel could believe that after the Hotmail and Yahoo fiascos. Miguel is a mean spirited troll rubbing salt in the Nokia’s wounds.
The weirdest thing is his touting of Angry Birds, especially his hype of the text version of the game on Blackberry as if it were a mono application. Surely this is an example of, “you can deliver the same emotion of disgust when using a cross platform toolkit,” that he was just talking about? Reviewers on other platforms like PS3 called it “blocky and unpleasant.” If Angry Birds is a mono application, even Miguel is disgusted by it. Normal people would be angry at the poor port job, Microsoft taking credit for it being on Phoney 7 before it the developer said it was there (perhaps a fake controversy for advertising purposes), and mega hype by Microsoft friendly media (Conan O’Brian, Eretz Nehederet, digitaltrends.com, hotair.com and intomobile.com, as well as from online news media agencies such as Haaretz, The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, MSNBC, and so on and so forth). I wonder if he’s also scandalized by the virtual rape job advertisers have pulled on mobile platform games that are “ad supported” like Angry Birds. The issue is left ambiguous, but either way it’s a tear down without an example of Mono doing better. Mostly this is a swipe at Microsoft for taking credit where they should not but doing it in a way that does exactly that. What a jerk.
With as much expensive development and hype as Angry Birds has gotten we might suspect Microsoft is behind it somehow, but is it? The Rovio jobs page still touts, “In addition to being the land of Nokia, the capital area of Finland is also home to a lively game development scene with a local IGDA chapter in Helsinki.” Job applications ask for “Proven strong C++ programming skills” [2] not C#, .NET and other Microsoft garbage. In fact, there is no mention of Microsoft on their site. Here, after a lot of digging, we have some informed opinion, a Peter Vesterbacka interview. In it he says of the various platforms,
it will be interesting to see how long it will take for Nokia to get their act together. MeeGo is clearly the future there, remains to be seen how big and how soon
He also describes Android as “fragmentation of the ecosystem. So many different shops, so many different models. The carriers messing with the experience again. Open but not really open, a very Google centric ecosystem. … paid content just doesn’t work on Android.”
Anyway, it looks like Angry Birds and C# have nothing to do with each other. Miguel’s weird blog is just another case of Microsoft boosters attaching themselves like a cancer to anything successful and popular. Researching this nasty mess was a waste of time but documenting the results is worth while to keep other people from having to do the same. My best recommendation is to not read Miguel’s trolly blog in the first place.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Because of the Elop hack job, a lot of publications missed the big news about Alien Dalvik and Angry Birds coming to MeeGo. What a shame…
twitter said,
February 16, 2011 at 1:18 am
The predicted failure of Nokia Phoney 7 did not take long to happen. PJ noticed this CNet article about Verrizon rejecting it.
Windows Mobile is a platform that burnt down years ago. No one wants it today no matter what the boosters call it. Nokia had a better chance with MeGo, Android or Symbian.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 16th, 2011 at 1:38 am
That’s good news. Let’s see how it goes. But is it not too late to elevate the stock?
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 16th, 2011 at 1:39 am
Oops. Reply to wrong comment…