A 'Micro' kick in the 'Soft' crotch
Thanks to a Microsoft partner [
1,
2,
3] called Novell, the plan to have a semi-cooked, always-behind, patent-sensitive .NET implementation for GNU/Linux is under way. As expected, it's
far from satisfactory. Unless you are Microsoft, you are a second fiddle
at Microsoft lawyers' mercy. Have a look at some early thoughts about
MonoDevelop:
MonoDevelop an open-sourced IDE for creating software using Mono has gone gold. Sounds interesting! It is more stable than before, but there are some caveats:
1. The documentation is far from complete!
2. To be able to create applications graphically is darn nice, but the GTK# implementation of Windows.Form namespace requires an awkward approach: I can't simply drop components on my form, but I have to create a layout before doing anything and I'm still waiting for a normal Visual Studio compatible layout manager.
[...]
Windows.Form raises software patent issues. This was covered before in posts about Mono [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33], so it needn't be further discussed or repeated. It was only days ago that we last mentioned
the dangers of Mono, the context being remarks from a GNOME Foundation member.
The name .NET echoes some of the framework's aspirations to become part of the Web (or Net). The 'host' to prey on will have a seemingly-innocent and
enlightening name: Silverlight. Where does Novell stand in that regard? Have a look
at this new report:
One thing I did learn is that Moonlight is not ready and the code Miguel presented was apparently quite buggy (confirmed by comments from Miguel like “this has got a bug in it...”).
Recall again what Miguel de Icaza
said about it in this very same conference. This doesn't sound reassuring, so why did he go down this path in the first place? The duty for moneyflow seems to have been his primary motivation. It is therefore only natural to consider Novell a Microsoft accomplice in this context. We previously explained why
Novell does more harm than good here.
Now, recall again the case of Microsoft sort of bribing (with an advance payment of $3,000,000) to have Silverlight in the Library of Congress Web site [
1,
2,
3,
4]. Should we not learn from history here? Remember Bill Gates'
Corbis and the following incident, in case you never read about it before.
Annexing the Public Domain
In 1995 a virtually unknown company called Corbis purchased the Bettman Archives, the world's largest private collection of historical and newspaper photographs. Corbis, a company founded in 1989 and owned by Bill Gates, is also actively negotiating with museums worldwide for exclusive licenses to electronically reproduce works of art held in their collections. Since that time, the Corbis "collection" has swelled to over 20 million images.
The apparent purpose is to provide Microsoft with access to a huge supply of exclusive cultural "content" for its web sites and multimedia CDs, and to prevent others from obtaining similar access. The rub is that Corbis now holds exclusive reproduction rights to images which are not copyrighted, but are in held in the public domain. Gates has seduced these museums, presumably with promises of future residuals, into veering from their missions as trustees of our cultural legacies, and into exploring the murkiest areas of "fair use" practices and curatorial ethics.
What if all our memories and national assets got .NET-ified and no longer accessible in a proper archival-friendly fashion? About a year ago it was said that Microsoft had given the US Government free services for data storage of medical data just so that they impose the same type of dependency (even bankruptcy protection) that Silicon Graphics once received. Don't let Silverlight seize your data. Reject it now when it's earlier enough and complain about Web sites that use it.
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Comments
Victor Soliz
2008-03-16 16:59:27
Based on the "Novell can re-license your code at will" part of the MONO FAQ, I think this is very dangerous and a more actual problem than probable abuse by MS.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-03-16 17:19:59
In a sense, boycotting Novell could -- just could -- be similar to a case of prematurely boycotting Yahoo and -- by association -- Microsoft (don't think 'Microsoft Linux' just yet) . After last week's report about renewed merger negotiations between the two companies I dropped all my Yahoo RSS feeds (almost 15 of them).
CoolGuy
2008-03-16 17:58:14
stolwit
2008-03-16 19:12:35
Victor Soliz
2008-03-16 22:11:57
Roy Schestowitz
2008-03-17 01:21:00
It would be more effective to see our claims rebutted. Insults just make it seem like our claims cannot be challenged.
stolwit
2008-03-17 08:58:51
God; don't forget to put on your tinfoil-hat you nerd!
Victor Soliz
2008-03-17 13:28:53
Roy Schestowitz
2008-03-17 14:23:28
eet
2008-03-17 21:59:09
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from an incarnation of a known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Jose_X
2008-03-26 06:39:56
Why sweat out the code to have Microsoft leverage it against you and keep it closed? What do you get? Microsoft makes a pretty penny by helping to keep their monopolies strong. Novell makes a buck of course. .. and you get that fuzzy feeling inside.
All companies dealing closely with Microsoft (eg, Citrix that bought out Xen Source) should have their interesting FOSS projects forked, if possible, the sooner the better.
chris
2008-08-18 00:25:06
Its main competitor Adobe flash, isn't exactly brilliant under linux anyway, nor is it open source.