Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell Helps Microsoft Build Its World Wide Web Fortress of Lockin

On several occasions in the past we mentioned Silverlight, which is Microsoft's attempt to hijack by the Web by embedding and incorporating more O/S-specific functionality into Web sites. It's similar to ActiveX in that respect, but it's worse. What's more, it involves heavily-patented technology, which takes us back to the 'clone' products debate. Mono and Novell continue their embrace of this worrisome direction, whereby they support Microsoft's attempt to turn the Net into .NET.

According to Miguel De Icaza, Mono project leader and Novell open-source president, Mono engineers have been working 14-hour days to create an implementation of Silverlight on Linux using Mono, an open-source implementation of Microsoft's .Net software.


We realise that a lot of dedicated people and labour are involved in making this possible, but would such technology be 'safe' if one uses Linux distributions that are not 'protected'? Red Hat has always avoided Mono for a reason. If there is perceived Linux support for Silverlight, then a nightmare scenario could emerge. Have a look at the following message.

Silverlight is about The Microsoft Web

Silverlight is not about the World Wide Web. It's about The Microsoft Web. It's about getting fools to rally around Microsoft. After all of this time and experience with Microsoft, anybody with half a brain will be smart enough to avoid doing that. The last thing you want to be is dependent on Microsoft and set yourself up to be a DIRECT competitor with "Microsoft Cloud Services" down the road. Dumb. Foolish. Stupid. Smart investors won't invest one dime in your company and might even short your stock.

Remember, it's Microsoft's cloud. Microsoft is not investing in huge datacenters all around the world for no reason. And, Microsoft will do whatever it takes, including operating that new online services business at a huge loss, to starve off any smaller competitor that foolishly chose to develop on the Silverlight platform. Microsoft sold $44 BILLION and cleared $18 BILLION profit last year. How many billions did you make last year?


This is apparently something that Novell, being a so-called Linux distributor, is willing to support rather than protest against. The same argument can be applied and used in the context of the ODF-OOXML duel. By supporting technology that benefits a monopoly, you only make that monopoly stronger. Perfectly valid (and cross-platforms/vendor/application) solutions already exist. Even Mark Shuttleworth is not being fooled by this. To quote what he said the other day:

"I have no confidence in Microsoft's Open XML specification to deliver a vibrant, competitive and healthy market of multiple implementations. I don't believe that the specifications are good enough, nor that Microsoft will hold itself to the specification when it does not suit the company to do so," Shuttleworth said.


Novell is a friend bought by Microsoft. As long as it gives power to technologies which literally break compatibility with other Linux distributions, Novell is not a team player in the Linux world. Novell, Xandros, and Linspire should be shunned for taking some money and selling their soul to those who want them destroyed. It is not only them who suffer harm, but those who supplied them with code as well. They took the products they received free of charge for granted.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Lookout, It's Outlook
Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development
very recent update
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?
Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
 
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households)
The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google
Links for the day
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm)
It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”
Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!
Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC
Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds
Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery
Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market)
Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too
Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster
Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla
India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters
online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???
Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago)
how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s