I installed the 64-bit version of the Moonlight plugin for Firefox, and tested it on the following listed test site:
Would you like to install the required add-on to play the content of this page?
This page requires the Microsoft Media Pack to be installed to play multimedia content.
If you choose, the software will be automatically downloaded and installed from Microsoft's web site.
[] Do not ask me to install this add-on again
[Cancel] [Install Codecs]
End User License Agreement
Before the required software can be installed, you must first agree to the End User License Agreement below.
MICROSOFT PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT MEDIA PACK 1.0
ONLY FOR USE WITH NOVELL'S MOONLIGHT 1.0 RUNNING IN AN INTERNET BROWSER
These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and you. Please read them. They apply to the software named above, which includes the media on which you received it, if any. The terms also apply to any Microsoft
- Updates (including but not limited to bug fixes, patches, updates, upgrades, enhancements, new versions, and successors to the software, collectively called "Updates"), - supplements, - Internet-based services, and - support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items. If so, those terms apply.
By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software.
If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.
1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may install and use any number of copies of the software only with the software identified above running in an Internet browser on a personal computer.
2. TERM. The term of this agreement is until the commercial release of Novell’s Moonlight 1.0 but in no event later than June 1, 2009.
3. PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE. This software is a pre-release version. It may not work the way a final version of the software will. We may change it for the final, commercial version. We also may not release a commercial version.
4. FEEDBACK. If you give feedback about the software to Microsoft, you give to Microsoft, without charge, the right to use, share and commercialize your feedback in any way and for any purpose. You also give to third parties, without charge, any patent rights needed for their products, technologies and services to use or interface with any specific parts of a Microsoft software or service that includes the feedback. You will not give feedback that is subject to a license that requires Microsoft to license its software or documentation to third parties because we include your feedback in them. These rights survive this agreement.
5. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You also may not - work around any technical limitations in the software; - reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation; - publish the software for others to copy; - rent, lease or lend the software; or - transfer the software or this agreement to any third party.
6. NOTICE ABOUT VC-1 VISUAL STANDARDS. This software may include VC-1 visual decoding technology. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:
THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE VC-1 PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSES FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (A) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE VC-1 STANDARD ("VC-1 VIDEO") OR (B) DECODE VC-1 VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE VC-1 VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE.
If you have questions about the VC-1 visual standard, please contact MPEG LA, L.L.C., 250 Steele Street, Suite 300, Denver Colorado 80206; http://www.mpegla.com
7. EXPORT RESTRICTIONS. The software is subject to United States export laws and regulations. You must comply with all domestic and international export laws and regulations that apply to the software. These laws include restrictions on destinations, end users and end use. For additional information, see www.microsoft.com/exporting
8. SUPPORT SERVICES. Because this software is "as is," we may not provide support services for it.
9. ENTIRE AGREEMENT. This agreement, and the terms for supplements, Updates, Internet-based services and support services that you use, are the entire agreement for the software and support services.
10. APPLICABLE LAW.
a. United States. If you acquired the software in the United States, Washington state law governs the interpretation of this agreement and applies to claims for breach of it, regardless of conflict of laws principles. The laws of the state where you live govern all other claims, including claims under state consumer protection laws, unfair competition laws, and in tort.
b. Outside the United States. If you acquired the software in any other country, the laws of that country apply.
11. LEGAL EFFECT. This agreement describes certain legal rights. You may have other rights under the laws of your country. You may also have rights with respect to the party from whom you acquired the software. This agreement does not change your rights under the laws of your country if the laws of your country do not permit it to do so.
12. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. The software is licensed "as-is." You bear the risk of using it. Microsoft gives no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws which this agreement cannot change. To the extent permitted under your local laws, Microsoft excludes the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
13. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF REMEDIES AND DAMAGES. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to U.S. $5.00. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
This limitation applies to
- anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and - claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages. The above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages.
svn co svn://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/moon
* Moonlight source code (src/, plugin/)
Unless explicitly stated, this code is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL 2 license only (no "later versions").
In addition to the GNU LGPL, this code is available for relicensing for non-LGPL use, contact Novell for details (mono@novell.com).
We consider non-LGPL use instances where you use this on an embedded system where the end user is not able to upgrade the Moonlight installation or distribution that is part of your product (Section 6 and 7), you would have to obtain a commercial license from Novell (consider software burned into a ROM, systems where end users would not be able to upgrade, an embedded console, a game console that imposes limitations on the distribution and access to the code, a phone platform that prevents end users from upgrading Moonlight).
Download and install the moon tarball or moon SVN module from SVN:
* configure like this: ./configure * Build and install, run: make && make install * To install the plugin in your home: make test-plugin
moon]$ ./configure bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
"application.cpp:18:37: mono/metadata/appdomain.h: No such file or directory"
mono-core, mono-devel, mono-data, mono-winforms, mono-web
checking for MONO... configure: error: Package requirements (mono >= 2.2) were not met:
Requested 'mono >= 2.2' but version of Mono is 1.2.5.1
application.cpp:18:37: error: mono/metadata/appdomain.h: No such file or directory
/usr/include/mono-1.0/mono/metadata/appdomain.h
Comments
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 14:40:15
Had he actually read the instructions on the Moonlight download page (http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/), he would have seen this:
The 'here' link pointing to:
http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/moon/moon-1.0.tar.bz2
Why did he grab the 2.0 development branch if he wanted the 1.0 source code? Duh.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 14:42:03
No one is fooled by your trolling, however.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 14:43:33
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 14:49:59
That's trolling.
I'm not trolling, I'm pointing out your pathetic attempts at trying to make people believe that Moonlight is fundamentally broken when it isn't.
Had this "guest" (which you fail to mention who it is, btw, likely because it's one of your friends who you worked with to plot this sabotage) actually followed instructions and grabbed the 1.0 tarball and read the README/INSTALL files that come with it, he would have succeeded in getting a working Moonlight. But no, instead, he /pretends/ to try (but purposely failing) so that you have one more thing to badmouth Novell about.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 14:53:12
Expressing an opinion or outlining experience in one's own space is not trolling. Check your dictionary. It be might outdated (referring to mythical creatures and such).
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 14:57:30
Your "guest" is not posting his true experiences, he PURPOSELY FAILED so that he could complain.
What kind of moron checks out a development svn branch to test how well the 1.0 release works? Anyone with more than a single brain cell would have grabbed the 1.0 release if he wanted to review the 1.0 product, he wouldn't grab the 2.0 development branch to review the 1.0 product.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 15:09:13
saulgoode
2009-01-24 15:20:06
Nonetheless, thanks for the writeup. If I were an advocate of Mono/Moonlight, I would consider it a shame that Moonlight does not support OGG/Theora/Vorbis directly. Being as I am not, the project's focus on supporting MS media types is probably for the best.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 15:28:59
The ./autogen.sh vs ./configure thing and the svn vs tarball thing are all pretty common knowledge for even half-way competent linux users, so the fact that these weren't known by Roy astounds me.
As far as the ogg/vorbis and ogg/theora codecs, it would be a waste for Moonlight to support them directly if Silverlight doesn't, because no website is going to be providing ogg content via Silverlight because 99% of their visitors wouldn't be able to view it if they did.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 15:35:04
That may be so, but the site listed in this "review" was not a 2.0 site, it was a 1.0 site.
It also works fine for me and I was able to build Moonlight against ffmpeg without any problems. I guess I'm just a more competent Linux user than you and your other anti-Novell friends though.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 15:41:54
Great, I'll try to explain this to my grandpa.
It's clear what is going on.
saulgoode
2009-01-24 15:46:07
I don't think the article's author deserves berating over his suggestion. It probably would be a good idea for the compilation instructions to properly mention when 'autogen.sh' should be used; it is just that the Moonlight project is not unique in failing to do this.
It my opinion that this a good reason why Free Software and Open Formats supporters should not -- and will not -- be enthused by the prospect of Silverlight/Moonlight dominating the Web.
ricardo nunes
2009-01-24 15:46:46
with this sentence the mask fall from your face, novell and microsoft, and of course the ms-agent provocateur Icaza.
can you explain how come 99% of the users won't be able to view content in ogg since Firefox will suport it natively? and what about a simple codec download?
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 15:54:12
Watch some Comes vs Microsoft exhibits and it will become evident to you.
seller_liar
2009-01-24 15:57:51
Using silverldarkness is not possible, but using moon is possible!
But novell insists to promove the cancerigenous m$ package.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 16:04:05
We're talking about viewing it via Silverlight. Obviously if content providers used the <video> tag to deliver theora streams and the user is using Firefox (or any other browser which supports the HTML5 video tag), then they'd be able to view it.
As of Silverlight 2.0, it doesn't support codec downloads afaik. Maybe 3.0 or some future version will, I don't know (and I don't have the connections to find out).
Uh, Silverlight was only released a little over a year ago. Media content providers have been avoiding Ogg for much longer than that. How can you argue that it's Microsoft that won't let them? That's utter nonsense.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 16:06:33
Just one example.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 16:15:43
saulgoode
2009-01-24 16:16:15
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 16:22:35
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 16:24:46
It is common knowledge for anyone who checks out source code from svn, cvs, or git repositories that he'll need to autogen.sh before he can ./configure. Nearly every FLOSS project does this. This is not new. It's been the case for over a decade.
The documentation need not explain things which normal (non-developer) users should not have to know. Had this "guest" done what any normal user would have done (e.g. download the tarball), he would have been fine.
No normal user grabs svn trunk source code. Give me a break.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 16:30:25
Your Grandpa wouldn't have been a moron and try to compile it himself from svn trunk. He would have just clicked on the download link and installed it like any other Firefox plugin. And it would have worked flawlessly, just like it worked flawlessly for your "guest" until he decided he needed an excuse to fail to compile it himself, because clearly his experiences with Moonlight up until he decided he didn't want video codecs was too pleasant and he needed an excuse to attack it.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 16:38:35
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 17:34:34
So now that we know more facts about this anonymous coward, we can see full well that it is exactly as I suspected: he sabotaged his experiences on purpose, while trying to cleverly disguise his purposeful failure to be a fault of Novell's.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 17:35:42
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 17:39:34
I guess that only makes Novell more like Microsoft.
Shane Coyle
2009-01-24 17:46:18
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 17:49:13
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 17:52:14
When he failed to prove that it was difficult by following Miguel de Icaza's instructions for installing Moonlight, your friend decided to intentionally make it difficult for himself so that he could have an excuse for failing.
Shane: Slated wrote it. The same guy goes by Homer on comp.os.linux.advocacy and the same guy that makes numerous personal attacks against Mono and GNOME developers on this website.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 17:53:53
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 17:55:10
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 17:56:18
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 18:00:36
e.g. if some anti-Linux journalist posts an article claiming that Linux is crap because he or she couldn't get it to work and claims that it's "too hard to install software" because he or she couldn't figure out how to compile source code (as opposed to doing it the normal way by installing packages via the GUI tools which make it trivial), wouldn't you point out the dishonesty?
Shane Coyle
2009-01-24 18:21:48
If commenters are to be investigated and identified, then posters almost must necessarily be.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 18:32:50
C.J.
2009-01-24 19:30:27
Hey there Roy,
take a look at autogen.sh. the instructions are for the user-facing dist (the tarbll), and not the svn. to create the configure script, you can just run autoeconf or sh autogen.sh. I wrote some articles about it here:
http://wp.colliertech.org/cj/writing-free-software
Cheers,
C.J.
C.J.
2009-01-24 19:40:26
if you're running a debian-based distro, there are some docs here:
http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianMonoGroup/Moonlight
we're happy to help on irc.gimp.net #mono - look for cj, meebey or directhex
it's good to see you getting involved beyond hurling insults.
Cheeers,
C.J.
C.J.
2009-01-24 19:42:45
looks like you need to build mono from svn as well
C.J.
2009-01-24 19:46:34
As RMS likes to say: Faster if you help.
I believe that mplayer & ffmpeg will do most of the work. look for docs on that. baby in arms. can't help much more right now
C.J.
2009-01-24 19:56:27
C.J.
2009-01-24 20:05:46
your grandpa isn't going to build from svn.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 20:05:46
You'll notice I spelled it correctly in later posts.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 20:07:49
I've just gotten back. The reason for omission of introduction to the poster is that no background was needed to seam bits together in this case. It's nothing to do with denial of disclosure.
C.J.
2009-01-24 20:11:42
saulgoode:
As a rule, devs who build from svn learn this "the hard way" once :)
all gnome packages use autogen.sh. I agree that he shouldn't be berated. I'm a fan of educating rather than insulting. It *does* seem as if he wasn't trying very hard to get it built, though. we *do* have mailing lists and an IRC channel that he could have visited to get the answers to his question.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 20:14:49
Like I said above, it's obvious that he purposely sabotaged his experience. He knew that building from svn trunk was likely to have problems because it was under heavy development (most projects use svn trunk for unstable development), and so he was hoping that he'd encounter problems (be it crashes because current trunk was broken or build problems).
An honest reviewer would have at least tried the 1.0 tarball, he wouldn't have tried svn trunk, that was a dead giveaway that he was trying to find problems.
C.J.
2009-01-24 20:16:32
patches welcome
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 20:17:28
He pretended to be for the purpose of this review so that he would be able to pretend that it was hard.
Like I said, sabotage.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 20:19:11
C.J.
2009-01-24 20:31:37
Let's don't forget violator of the freenode network channel guidelines and censor of rational discussion.
C.J.
2009-01-24 20:32:45
http://freenode.net/channel_guidelines.shtml
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 20:36:20
Jose_X
2009-01-24 21:22:03
I hope you aren't feeding off the Microsoft money supply.
If there was an honest mistake, then just say so. No foolishness that you or anyone else can do will change what is and had been going on with Microsoft and/or Novell, but it doesn't help to be foolish.
Apologies if you made an honest mistake. Mistakes happen all of the time, even when you are dealing in areas where you have had exposure in the past.
C.J.
2009-01-24 21:58:04
Would you like us to put together some docs on how to build moonlight from svn so that you and Homer can get some patches for the vorbis codecs in? I'd like to see that happen as well, but I don't have the time to do so right now.
I'm happy to enable you if you're serious. If you're serious about making the mono project better and enabling your readers to make use of the Silverlight technology using Free Software, I think you can do a lot. If you're not serious, I stand by my prior statement that boycottnovell exists only to sew misinformation and benefit from the historical hard feelings of disenfranchised F/L/OSS community members.
I don't have a lot of time to put in to this, since I have my own projects to attend to, but I can answer questions and give advice.
Cheers,
C.J.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 22:02:50
Here is a newer remark suggesting that Moonlight -- in its complete form -- is not even Free software.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 22:07:43
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 22:08:14
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 22:11:16
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 22:15:12
C.J.
2009-01-24 22:31:46
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/directhex/ubuntu intrepid main
and then run something like this to get the source and patches from the package maintainer:
$ sudo apt-get build-dep moonlight-plugin-mozilla $ apt-get source moonlight-plugin-mozilla $ cd moonlight* $ debuild -uc -us
Note that this is untested, and YMMV, as they say :)
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 22:34:15
C.J.
2009-01-24 22:38:26
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/directhex/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/directhex/ubuntu intrepid main
C.J.
2009-01-24 22:39:53
Roy, that's incorrect. It's the codecs that can't be distributed, not the engine. Free codecs can be used. Please get the facts right.
Shane Coyle
2009-01-24 22:52:24
Here at BoycottNovell, we "sow misinformation and benefit from the historical hard feelings of disenfranchised F/L/OSS community members."
That actually came in second to "Exploring the reality behind exclusionary deals..." when we had a poll for the site slogan, way back when the deal was announced.
;^ )
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-24 23:26:54
Sabas@kde.org writes:
"Akonadi was rejected by FDO because there was no Qt implementation. A fact which apparently matters less when the proposed implementation is based on another toolkit. I personally feel that this is a lost opportunity for FDO from getting less and less relevant due to being a politicial instrument for others in the market, rather than serving useful value for us as a desktop project."
By the way, can anyone tell me, what's the deal with "go-mono"?
go-mono.com ?
Is this in any way related to the choice of the name Go-OO?
What's the "go" for?
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 23:42:14
Can he back up his statement with any proof?
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 23:46:42
Yep, just as I suspected: more anti-Novell FUD. Started by a Red Hat, not Ximian nor Novell.
C.J.
2009-01-24 23:48:15
Haha. Indeed!
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 23:49:04
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-24 23:51:41
AFAICT, there aren't any Ximian nor Novell technologies anywhere on freedesktop.org.
How many of your sources do we need to expose as frauds before you'll start fact-checking before making these accusations, Roy?
C.J.
2009-01-24 23:53:55
Because it sounds good or positive? I assume it has something to do with the go-oo thing. Both Novell sites, no? Sounds like a public-facing web page promoting community involvement?
C.J.
2009-01-24 23:57:42
Oh, I just realized that you mean "engine + codec" eh? Talk to Jo about getting an implementation with ffmpeg. He's in the uk, so he can prolly do it.
Cheers,
C.J.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 00:01:30
That's why I brought this up here with questions.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 00:10:39
Regardless, now you know that statement is bogus.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 00:12:35
That's not me stating it as fact. It's me presenting somebody else's opinion. I asked you for opinions on it.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 00:13:50
C.J.
2009-01-25 00:16:36
Dan,
Started by hp (formerly a redhat employee), not redhat. fdo is pretty independent and doesn't get grants or donations from large corporations, AFAIK. They operate off of servers that their contributors happen to have laying around. IIRC, they were instrumental in re-tooling the X11 build system and re-branding it as "X.org". They are also heavily involved in things like dbus, cairo, avahi and pkg-config. They know a lot more about X than I do :)
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software
The folks I've interacted with at fdo are hp (formerly of redhat now running his own company), kieth packard (formerly of SuSE & HP, now at Intel), and Chris Hammond (contributor to GAIM/Pidgin, employed by VMWare).
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 00:18:39
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 00:21:11
From what I can tell, freedesktop.org has resulted in a lot of positive collaboration between all of the core desktop components and GNOME/KDE.
I'm personally very thankful for their efforts regardless of who founded it.
saulgoode
2009-01-25 00:34:01
Yet linking against -- nay, incorporating -- libtheora and libvorbis into Moonlight would not be "illegal". Why doesn't the Moonlight project do this? Aren't there 30 full-time Novell employees working on Mono/Moonlight? Wouldn't the propaganda value alone justify delivering an unencumbered, Open Source implementation of Moonlight and hosting a website sample media?
The Moonlight project's focus on facilitating Microsoft's media stack while ignoring less proprietary solutions sends a strong message as to where their priorities lie. Does Novell really expect the Free Software community, or even just the Open Web advocates, to welcome Microsoft's proprietary offerings as a standard for Internet media sharing?
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 00:52:32
As far as Novell pushing Microsoft's media stack, that's a clear misunderstanding on your part.
Moonlight isn't the dominant player and so cannot push alternative media codecs. Novell is implementing Moonlight for compatibility, so that Linux users aren't left out in the cold when they encounter Silverlight-based sites.
I don't see Novell pushing Moonlight as some sort of preferred media player.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 00:54:18
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 01:04:06
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 01:07:16
What?
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 01:08:59
--Microsoft, internal document
[PDF]
saulgoode
2009-01-25 01:57:28
I will repeat what I stated in my first post of the discussion: If I were an advocate of Mono/Moonlight, I would consider it a shame that Moonlight does not support OGG/Theora/Vorbis directly. Being as I am not, the project’s focus on supporting MS media types is probably for the best.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 03:34:53
Slated
2009-01-25 04:01:52
Considering that this was merely a reply to a Usenet post, asking some perfectly reasonable questions in an entirely civil manner, I'm utterly appalled by some of the unreasonable and vicious replies in this thread.
And the entire basis for this viciousness, seems to be that certain people think every point in that post is rendered moot, simply because I didn't download on specific version of Moonlight, supposedly making it deliberately difficult. This conveniently ignores the other, far more important questions relating to licensing and other restrictions.
As to exactly why I downloaded from SVN instead of the tarball, the answer is that when I view this page I see the following instruction:
"You can download a tarball of the source or you can check it out from svn."
The word (and thus the link) "here" is missing.
It turns out that the explanation for this is because that page does not, for some strange reason, simply provide a URL link to the download, but instead uses Javascript to create that link, and since I use the NoScript plugin with Firefox, it had disabled Javascript on that page, and so that link was completely missing. Under the circumstances, I followed the only available lead I could see, to obtain the sources, and made a bast-effort attempt to compile them.
Having now downloaded the illusive tarball, I tried building it, but now I encounter this error:
utils.h:60: error: ‘ssize_t’ does not name a type
And the build fails.
So now I'm back at square one.
I suppose I will now be flamed for failing to build from the tarball too, unless someone wishes to actually discuss the important licensing issues, instead of attacking me for simply reporting a build failure.
BTW, the only clue I found to this error on Fedora is here, but that's a different version of Fedora, and the poster is using the SVN version rather than the release tarball.
C.J.
2009-01-25 06:36:45
Can you post your full build log to pastebin so we can try to debug it for you?
http://pastebin.com/
Cheers,
C.J.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 13:36:03
It seemed pretty clear to me from the COLA thread as well as this post individually (considering you wrote so little pertaining to your objects to any licensing - not to mention that you knew full-well that you'd have to agree to a EULA to use the MS codecs from the start) that Roy posted (without context) that it was about the difficulty in installing Moonlight (the thread on COLA was even named "moonlight not so easy to install").
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 13:38:22
What I find shocking is that I'm a newbie at building Linux software compared to your long history of building various packages for Fedora, that I'm surprised something this trivial was able to derail you so easily.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 13:42:12
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 13:43:36
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 13:48:20
Shane Coyle
2009-01-25 13:52:48
Did you think it would be licensed differently in SVN? The EULA seems to be specifically for Microsoft's "media pack" (codecs) and, as I've said before - that's MS' code, and they can license it as they wish.
If we want MS to respect our license, we should also respect the terms of theirs. Now, if we were talking about Freely written code that implemented something like MS' code, that's different, but these codecs are MS' code, no?
(and, I probably wouldn't agree nor download their code as well)
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 13:55:34
Like I've said before, HE WANTS TO FAIL.
I'll agree that there looks like there may be actual bugs in Moonlight's build, but they are trivially overcome - especially by someone such as Keith who has years of experience with this sort of thing.
His antics are no more believable than a linux kernel developer pretending he doesn't know how to compile a simple helloWorld.c with gcc.
If this was some anonymous joe, I might believe that he actually doesn't know - but I know you and your friends way too well, you'll sabotage things to prove that you are "right".
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 13:58:09
However, there are likely legal issues with doing so as MPEG-LA has patents that ffmpeg does not license.
Shane Coyle
2009-01-25 14:01:23
Ah, that makes a bit more sense to me, I couldn't for the life of me understand that leap...
Thanks.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 14:06:02
1. a year or so ago he claimed that GNOME was being rewritten in Mono. His proof? He pointed at libgnome-cil packages in Fedora.
Had he bothered to read the package description (which he'd obviously knew how to do, being that he was a Fedora packager), he would have discovered that this was nothing more than a simple .NET binding so that Mono apps could use libgnome, and were not, as he suggested, a replacement for the libgnome c libraries.
2. Later, after being proven wrong about the above, he claimed that GNOME's C DBus implementation was being replaced by NDesk.DBus which was written fully in C#. The truth was that NDesk.DBus was meant to replace DBus-Sharp (which were simple bindings to the C library). He used his own "confusion" to suggest that core components of GNOME were being rewritten in Mono and used that as excuse to attack GNOME / Novell / Mono.
3. Then, as Jose pointed out above, he "mistakenly" attacked Jimmi Hughs claiming censorship and astroturfing which was later proven to be false.
I'm sure there are many more examples in the archives of this site alone if one cared to bother looking.
saulgoode
2009-01-25 14:15:01
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 14:19:35
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 14:24:15
Who knows, maybe we'd even get ogg/theora support for free if we compile with ffmpeg right now. Have you tried?
What's your real motivation for making them do extra work to add a feature that you yourself would never use (you've already stated you aren't interested in using Moonlight, even if they added ogg support)? And it's obvious content providers interested in using Silverlight wouldn't use theora. So why? It would be a waste of effort.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 14:27:54
Needless to say, Novell marketed this thing for Microsoft.
ricardo nunes
2009-01-25 14:39:55
if this is really true the real objective of GNOME the reason GNOME was born is completely destroyed.
this why i always recommend KDE, E17 etc instead of GNOME.
that is why when someone asks me to install Ubuntu i recommend Kubuntu or remove ms-novell-mono packages completely.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 14:45:16
Miguel has not pushed for GNOME to be rewritten in Mono. All of the GNOME mailing-lists are public, you can check for yourselves. He was obviously joking.
saulgoode
2009-01-25 14:46:34
YOU are the one who claimed it was impossible:
I am the one saying that it is NOT impossible: Theora/Vorbis has nothing to do with MPEG-LA. FFMPEG is not necessary to handle Theora/Vorbis content. Why is this being made so intentionally difficult?
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 14:52:40
Sorry for the confusion.
And indeed, Moonlight could implement ogg via libogg/libtheora/libvorbis, etc - but for what purpose? Just to say they can? It'd never get used.
ricardo nunes
2009-01-25 14:53:42
this was an interview to theregister, let me quote some more http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/01/gnome_to_be_based/
"That's what Gnome leader Miguel de Icaza, believes should happen. Miguel calls .NET the "natural upgrade" for the Gnome platform, and enthused about the technology in an interview with us at LinuxWorld this week. Basing Gnome on the .NET APIs will cut development time significantly,"
i do sincerely believe that is not joking!
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 14:59:14
ricardo nunes
2009-01-25 15:02:22
it's an interview, right?
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 15:03:55
You realize that Silverlight 1.0 is scripted with javascript, right? So what did you really hope to achieve trying to visit a Silverlight website with disabled javascript?
I just keep catching you in more and more self-sabotage!
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 15:20:15
He never said he was joking. Maybe Dan knows better... maybe he's an unofficial spokesman for Senor de Icaza.
If he was joking, where would be the joke? I don't find it amusing at all.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 15:32:14
A quick google search revealed this:
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 15:33:58
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 15:43:03
This contradicts what the interview said.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 15:46:06
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 16:01:41
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 16:02:24
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 16:03:42
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 16:08:08
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 16:15:27
This interview with Miguel was translated to text. When speech is translated into text, it is not lossless. You obviously lose things like tone of voice which are a big hint to when someone is being sarcastic or jovial.
Remember when Shane noted that his humor in a post earlier this month probably didn't translate well to text? Same thing.
So comparing Obama's inauguration speech with an interview with Miguel that was flattened into text is so nothing alike.
You know this, you are just being stubborn.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 16:17:49
Shane Coyle
2009-01-25 16:25:46
This interview was 2002, looks like he's got quite a lot of work to do on his plan... and, it was with El Reg.
Nothing to see here.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 16:29:19
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 16:30:53
Slated
2009-01-25 18:55:01
http://slated.org/files/buildlog.txt
Slated
2009-01-25 19:16:47
You do realise what NoScript is, right?
NoScript disables scripts on a case-by-case basis, rather than wholesale like the built in function in Firefox. 99% of the scripts I encounter on Web pages serve no useful function other than to spam or invade my privacy. Where I need access to a Web page, and it obviously doesn't function correctly without scripts, then I will enable them for that page by adding an exception to NoScript.
There was nothing obviously broken about the aforementioned go-mono page, and so I had no idea a link was being suppressed by a blocked script. The first I knew of this link was when I read your earlier comment, which quoted something different to what I had read.
Anyway, I really don't see why I should have to justify myself to an astroturfer like you, who dedicates his free time to attacking those who defend Free Software against Microsoft's menacing advances.
Shane Coyle
2009-01-25 20:16:56
<h1>Source<⁄h1> You can download a tarball of the source <script type="text/javascript">
var html = "<a href='" + data.tarball + "'>here<⁄a> "; document.write(html);
<⁄script>
or you can check it out from svn. <pre> svn co svn:⁄⁄anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/tags/moon/1.0rc1 <⁄pre>
As always, you can get the development source from trunk:
<pre> svn co svn:⁄⁄anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/moon <⁄pre>
C.J.
2009-01-25 20:22:58
saulgoode:
I talked to the moon devs last night and this morning, and they're willing to help you do it. They can't put energy into doing it themselves, since they've got lots of other tasks on their plate, but we're all on irc.gimp.net's #mono waiting for contributors to show up and offer their time.
C.J.
2009-01-25 20:30:11
http://rafb.net/p/jSQuYr38.html
Looks like you might be using some old headers. When you build from svn, you often need to build all of the deps from svn as well. I like garnome, since it builds from stable release tarballs, but jhbuild is the tool that most of the GNOME folks use to get all the deps matched up.
http://live.gnome.org/Jhbuild http://www.gnome.org/~jamesh/jhbuild.html
Cheers,
C.J.
C.J.
2009-01-25 20:38:20
ricardo:
You and I agree here. I think backward-compatibility is more important. There are some folks at Ximian who think that everything should be managed. That would reduce interop with perl and c++ among other languages. I think the core should stay C and bindings to other platforms should continue to be the norm. There's a little less efficiency that way, since translation has to occur during runtime, but as I said, interop is more important to me, personally.
If the cil backend for gcc takes off and produces good IL, I'd re-consider, but since C is the lingua franca, I prefer not to break all past code just to make it easier to produce new code :)
Blah blah blah.
C.J.
2009-01-25 20:41:28
Dan,
I think more independent producers would use OGG/Theora. I like small media producers, and I think it'd be worth the effort. IMHO. IANAL. BYOB.
:)
C.J.
C.J.
2009-01-25 20:57:20
I'll speak for Miguel here. I wrote a wrapper around gtkglarea once, and Alp Toker re-wrote it to be nearly fully managed (skipping over gtkglarea). Alp recommended that I use his code and get rid of the gapi wrapper. I noted that doing so would break api compatibility with perl code that wrapped gtkglarea. Miguel chimed in noting that "perl is important" (can't find the exact quote in my irc logs).
I'll let you folks interpret it for what it's worth.
Slated
2009-01-25 21:29:36
Oh and BTW, while you're in the mood for publicly "exposing" people, I think it's about time that you declared exactly what your interests are in this, and the other affairs, here at BN.
I mean, after all, you know who I am (easily deduced by reading the headers in the above-linked Usenet post, since I deliberately add my real name and gpg public key to the headers), and you know my previous involvement in Red Hat and Fedora (and presumably goBuntu, and dozens of other projects, if you have a look), so I think it's only fair that you should reveal your undisclosed interests and affiliations, so those who read your posts can determine your bias, if any.
FYI I use the name Homer, because in real life that is my nickname, and indeed it is very rarely that anyone calls me by my Christian name. Since the days of BBS in the 80s, I have always used a "handle" online - it's a matter of habit, not some kind of "Fake Steve Jobs" cover-up. I'm not the CEO of some international corporation, I'm not a politician, in fact I'm nobody of much note at all, so why you presume my nickname is an attempt to supposedly cover up a dark secret, and therefore I must be "exposed", I have no idea.
What exactly is it you think you have "exposed"?
And as for your list of three points which you claim I am "feigning ignorance":
I posted several articles, Usenet posts and comments expressing my concerns that Free Software might slowly be becoming infected with Microsoft's "IP", and that part of that infestation was/is the Mono-isation of Gnome. Gnome bindings to Mono, be they written in C, C# or Hungarian, are just as much a part of that infestation. At no time did I claim that those bindings were, themselves, written in any particular language, C# or otherwise. The point is what they bind to (i.e. Mono).
As you later admit, point 2 had nothing whatsoever to do with me. You're lashing out irrationally. I did, however, post a brief article commenting on this development, and I agreed with the assertion that this (just like point 1 above) was still nonetheless symptomatic of the Mono-isation of Gnome
I stand by my assertions WRT the Jimmi Hugh incident, since there was (and still is) nothing inaccurate about the stated claim. The claim was incomplete due to my own lack of diligence fully researching the issue, since it failed to indict another equally guilty party, but the exact claim was still correct. Jimmi Hugh did remove the "Criticisms" section of the ACPI article at least once (even if he wasn't the first to do so) replacing it with platitudes, and that IMHO is censorship.
From your presence here, your vicious diatribes against Roy; BN and it's supporters, I'm guessing you have close ties to Novell and/or the SUSE community, Gnome or the Mono project. As I suggested above, it's time you "came clean", and elucidated exactly where your loyalties lie. You've become a BN "hater", and have decided to lump me in with that hate. What you fail to realise, Dan, is that I am not a "Novell hater". I strongly oppose Microsoft, and all it's supporters, be they individuals or other companies. Novell is simply coincidental to that position. Something else you don't seem to realise, is that your frothing; belligerent and vicious attacks on all who dissent against Microsoft & friends, only serves to present yourself as sympathetic to Microsoft's cause.
So let me ask you quite bluntly: Are you?
If you want to know what my affiliations and motives are, then just ask me. I have nothing to hide. How about you?
Slated
2009-01-25 21:32:25
Thx.
Slated
2009-01-25 21:34:36
C.J.
2009-01-25 21:41:13
How do you mean "bind to mono"? I'm not familiar with this term...
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 21:41:50
Good luck finding out who/what "Dan O'Brian" works for. I asked about half a dozen times and he vigorously insists on not telling.
We also have Novell employees posting here (from Novell IPs).
saulgoode
2009-01-25 21:46:39
I am not personally interested in contributing to the Moonlight/Mono Project; however, I would point out that Maik Merk had previously made an offer to help Silverlight incorporate Theora/Vorbis and might be willing to work with you on Moonlight.
The best way to pursue this, in my opinion, would be for a member of the Moonlight Project to post on the Theora mailing list.
C.J.
2009-01-25 21:48:39
Homer:
That's a lot of opposition. Microsoft's a large corporation. Do you oppose large corporations? The history of taking advantage of patents? Misusing its monopoly status? Its outsourcing of American jobs? The fact that it competes with other software vendors? Its recent contributions to the Free Software world? Its market dominance? Its choice of logo colors? The poor support for CSS 2 in IE 6?
It seems, from my perspective, that you are frothing a bit yourself. There are folks contributing to this discussion and honestly interested in helping to address your concerns with the Novell/Microsoft deal. Your knee-jerk response is to bad-mouth and insult these folks rather than taking advantage of their offers.
*sigh*
saulgoode
2009-01-25 21:49:10
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 22:03:08
You forget to ask so many things. How about:
I could go on forever...
Slated
2009-01-25 22:25:28
You're confusing two different things.
The EULA that I disagree with is for Microsoft's Codec Pack. The sources I downloaded were for Moonlight, so I could rebuild them linked against Free Software instead of that proprietary codec pack. That was the whole point of me downloading them. I thought this was clear.
However, the main point of my reply to Miguel was licensing. The fact that the build also failed, compounded the issue, but was not central to it, other than the fact that it seems obtaining Moonlight linked to Free Software, like ffmpeg, is far more difficult than using it linked with Microsoft's proprietary software.
As Dan pointed out, I'm an experienced packager, and even I am having difficulty with it - indeed I still haven't managed to build it from source yet. That isn't "feigning", it's a simple fact. I can imagine that most Free Software users obtaining Moonlight would, under the circumstances, be forced to default to also infecting their systems with Microsoft's proprietary codec pack, and that possibility concerns me greatly - hence my involvement.
Slated
2009-01-25 22:29:12
No, only criminal ones.
I take it then that you don't oppose criminals?
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 22:35:51
Inside Microsoft (and C.J. does/did a contract job for Microsoft), it's being said that Microsoft is just a poor victim because it's "big" and "successful".
I am bemused by the words of intellectuals who say that Americans believe Iraqis dislike the United States "because it has McDonalds"; no, not because it slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi kids and loots them for energy resources.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 22:47:17
I don't know why you had that ssize_t issue on your Fedora install, but I can assure you that there is no such problem on Ubuntu 8.10, which is what I built it on.
The link you provided as a fix for Fedora 9 seemed to have a workaround which you refused to even try. The fix in that forum thread was reported as having worked and he was able to build it just fine.
You seem to want someone to spoon feed you, because even though the spoon and the baby food were right there in front of you, you refused to do it yourself, instead crying that it didn't work for you.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-25 22:57:34
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 23:03:52
I also happen to be an active blog reader, subscribed to various blog planet feeds including Mono's.
You might try reading sometime, Roy, you might find that it opens up a whole new world where you can actually collect solid information/facts that simply reading headlines doesn't do for you.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 23:07:57
In a way, you introduced me to Mono (as well as Moonlight), so thanks ;-)
Slated
2009-01-25 23:18:20
Dan is a vicious and prolific troll who attacks any dissent against those who help Microsoft.
I'm more than happy to contribute, but please note that I write these articles and posts elsewhere (e.g. on Usenet), not for BN's benefit per se, and Roy merely asks my permission to reprint them here.
Of course, he doesn't actually need my permission, since I post in public forums, but he asks anyway out of politeness.
Material from Slated is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, which basically means it must be prominently attributed to Slated.org if reprinted elsewhere, but that's all.
OTOH I do not ask Roy to post here on my behalf, although I do sometimes express my concerns about issues troubling me to him. If he then chooses to reprint that on BN, that that's his concern - I have no objections. Most of my "contributions" here are just reprints like those.
If I actually want to write an article on something, then I already have my own site at Slated to do that. I'm not being ungrateful, you understand, I'm simply pointing out that there is nothing untoward going on here. If you actually want me to write articles for you, then I'm more than happy to oblige.
Why do you want to "investigate and identify" me? Am I being charged with some crime?
Note also that you need to be very careful what data you hold about your contributors, since (depending on legal jurisdiction) you might find yourself falling foul of Data Protection laws, e.g. in the UK these would be the UK Data Protection Act 1998, the UK Statutory Instrument 2000 No. 417: The Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) Order 2000, and the UK Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 2426: The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
Other countries undoubtedly have their own laws pertaining to the retention and processing of personal data, and there are various international treaties and conventions binding these countries to respect the laws of foreign countries for foreign nationals.
This is why I have an official privacy policy on Slated. I recommend you do likewise.
Slated
2009-01-25 23:47:11
I'm not building from SVN any more, I get that error from building these sources from the tarball:
sha1sum moon-1.0.tar.bz2 ff37aadf57e2c471608f5d7c6481d27e77e8241a moon-1.0.tar.bz2
utils.h:60: error: ‘ssize_t’ does not name a type
@Dan O'Brian
The link you provided as a fix for Fedora 9 seemed to have a workaround which you refused to even try.
Try what exactly?
The advice given in that thread is:
I have no idea what that means, where to look, what to "modify", nor even how to modify it.
I'm a packager, not a programmer. You do know the difference, right?
Give me an actual patch, and I'll apply it. I'll even build an RPM spec file to apply it automatically. I'll build it, test it, verify, sign and publish it, but what I won't be doing any time soon, Dan, is writing it, because I'm not a programmer, I'm a packager.
Now certainly, I consider myself an experienced GNU/Linux user, and I was previously a professional consultant, but I am not, nor have I ever been a programmer, and I've never pretended to be. Computing is a vast field, Dan, encompassing many professions. You presume too much.
Now if I, with all my experience, can not get this to work, then I hold little hope of the average noob (predominantly Ubuntu users) getting it to work either. Obviously you're atypical, so I bow to your superior knowledge of long sized t's, whatever they are.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 23:55:01
sed -e "s/ssize_t/long/g" src/utils.h > src/utils.h.new; mv src/utils.h.new src/utils.h
you'll likely have to do the same to at least src/utils.cpp
or you could try my earlier suggestion about adding a line:
#include <sys/types.h>
to src/utils.h along with the other #include statements
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-25 23:58:17
Total course expenses: $372 USD
The look on your face: PRICELESS
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 00:27:51
C.J.
2009-01-26 00:43:39
Roy/Homer:
Excellent. That list is exactly what I was looking for. Yes, I am doing a contract at Microsoft. Yes, I oppose the same things as you do, but if I'm interested in correcting issues, I've got to get involved. Sitting on the sidelines and talking about how it all sucks doesn't do any good. We need to convince MS it's in their best interest to be good global citizens.
You are addressing the issues in your way, and I am in mine. Let's don't treat each other like enemies. We have the same end goal, let's work together to achieve it.
Cheers,
C.J. 0xBA27A83C
C.J.
2009-01-26 01:04:12
Get filenames this way:
$ grep -rsi ssize_t *
When you get the files, replace all instances of ssize_t with long
I would use emacs. Some prefer vi, gedit or notepad.
save the file and run 'make' from the dist root.
C.J.
2009-01-26 01:43:57
cjac@dlrci:/usr/src/tar/moon-1.0$ grep __ssize_t /usr/include/bits/types.h __STD_TYPE __SSIZE_T_TYPE __ssize_t; /* Type of a byte count, or error. */ cjac@dlrci:/usr/src/tar/moon-1.0$ dpkg -S /usr/include/unistd.h libc6-dev: /usr/include/unistd.h cjac@dlrci:/usr/src/tar/moon-1.0$ grep 'typedef.*ssize_t' /usr/include/unistd.h typedef __ssize_t ssize_t; cjac@dlrci:/usr/src/tar/moon-1.0$ grep __ssize_t /usr/include/bits/types.h __STD_TYPE __SSIZE_T_TYPE __ssize_t; /* Type of a byte count, or error. */ cjac@dlrci:/usr/src/tar/moon-1.0$ dpkg -S /usr/include/unistd.h libc6-dev: /usr/include/unistd.h cjac@dlrci:/usr/src/tar/moon-1.0$ dpkg -l | grep libc6-dev ii libc6-dev 2.3.6.ds1-13etch7 GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
Shane Coyle
2009-01-26 02:07:17
Basically, I was talking to Roy, not you. We do all of our site admin and discussion in the comments here, nothing behind the scenes. Also, I don't really run the site, so my opinion is not the final arbiter, but I've always held an open invite out to anyone who wants to contribute, there is no formal request, per se.
And, we should have a privacy policy, does anyone know of a boilerplate to start with...?
Roy Bixler
2009-01-26 02:24:01
As for Roy S.'s and Homer's list of points against Microsoft, I wish you well in your quest to make Microsoft see the light. You would be fighting against long established and well-entrenched corporate culture. As an example, consider Bill Gates' "open letter to hobbyists" from 1976, which shows that he believes that, without the profit motive, good software can't be written. Other examples can be found in the Comes vs. Microsoft exhibits on this Web site which show that Microsoft competes in a very cut-throat way and doesn't hesitate to use every advantage, including their operating system monopoly, at their disposal. Frankly, their reputation in this regard is so bad that it would take a long period of fair competition before I and many others could trust them again. Microsoft has had a long period of success. It's a shame that they see it as their duty not to allow others in the software world a chance at having the same success.
C.J.
2009-01-26 04:37:38
Yeah. I know. It's not going to be easy. I'm tenacious, though. Sometimes I make mistakes and do silly things. Ask the GNOME devs about the exchange I had with them about getting an account on the cvs server if you want a good example of me embarrassing myself in public :)
http://mlblog.osdir.com/gnome.infrastructure/2006-02/msg00068.shtml
Let's hope this attempt isn't a repeat!
Slated
2009-01-26 06:21:09
Re: Privacy Policy.
Try this:
http://www.privacyinternational.org/privacypolicy
Slated
2009-01-26 06:41:19
rpm -q glibc-headers glibc-headers-2.7-2
The greps I performed matched yours exactly.
Slated
2009-01-26 07:54:54
I don't know you personally, but I'm sure you're a perfectly nice guy.
Having said that, I have to say that we probably don't have the same goal.
Let me explain:
I am not a Linux advocate.
Read that again.
Yes that's right, I am not a Linux advocate, in fact I'm not an advocate of any software in particular.
Surprised?
Read on...
I have an interest in computers. It's a pretty hardcore interest, and I do waste a disproportionate amount of my time on it. It's a geek thing, pure and simple. I'm not a programmer, although I have dabbled in various languages - mostly 68k assembly when I was younger. My programming skills are, well ... limited, to say the least, although I seem to have a particular talent for scripting (mainly bash) and packaging (RPM). My main field of expertise is security, and this is the area in which I have worked the most, although in recent years I worked mostly as a consultant on SoA integration of embedded systems in heavy industry - an unenviable task, given the age of some of the archaic systems I had to support. I have now been retired for about four years, and my interests have changed dramatically in that time.
So what are those interests?
Not computers, that's for sure.
I use them, of course, just like everyone else in the 21st century. I use computers like I previously used a TV, as an idiot-box - an object to "veg-out" to. Sometimes I get a craving for something new, something interesting, something different - and I go looking for it. If I can't find it, or what I find disappoints me, then poke and prod until I have something close enough to suit my purposes. Sometimes I poke and prod anyway, just for the hell of it - just to relieve the boredom. Sometimes my poking and prodding produces something that others find useful, and I share it with them. I don't set out to, it just happens that way ... sometimes. But these days, the technical aspects of computers holds no interest for me whatsoever. In fact, it bores me rigid. I'm burnt-out, kaput, I've had it, it's over.
There's only one aspect of computers which still interests me, and that's Free Software. Not because it's software, but because it's Free. And yes, I'm talking about Freedom, not cost. My interests have shifted entirely from the technical to the political. The only thing which interests me today is the politics of Freedom, specifically personal Freedom in the modern, computer-bound age.
What I see concerns me greatly. I see civil rights violated in the name of Intellectual Monopoly, under the pretext of anti-terrorism. I see corporations ganging together to form quango organisations that supplant democratic authority with legalised bribery (a.k.a. lobbying), again - in the name of monopoly. In short, I see monopoly as a way of life, a creed adopted by modern society, and consumed like pigs at a trough. It's the spread of a disease called corporatism, otherwise known as corporate fascism. It's anti-democratic, it's anti-Free Market, it's anti-capitalist, and it's anti-Freedom. It's a form of communism, where the corporations become the state, and it's taking over the world.
Microsoft is just one corporation at the leading edge of that movement. My one and only goal is to see Microsoft, and the evil movement they are part of, removed from the face of existence. I don't care that they sell software, and I don't care that they attack Linux ... they attack Freedom - my Freedom, and they must be destroyed. They could be insurance salesmen, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to me.
My biggest problem is making people see, understand, and care about the truth. I advocate that truth. I advocate Freedom. That's all. Nothing else.
I view the technical details of this Moonlight issue with utter disdain. They are secondary and incidental to the main issue - the politics of Microsoft and all who support them. I'll play, but only to be courteous. Meanwhile I'll keep fighting to spread the truth about this evil corporation and it's agenda. You need to bear that in mind, or you might end up taking my comments personally - perhaps like Dan does.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 08:20:31
GNU/Linux is an important enabler for change, for justice.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 13:18:15
Whether I'm right or not about Homer feigning ignorance is irrelevant to the larger dishonesty about how you tried to hide who wrote this guest post.
As a "journalist", you have the responsibility to disclose who is writing these "reviews" and what your relationship with him is to your readership so that they can judge any bias (which in this case is a very strong anti-Mono/anti-Moonlight bias).
And then of course, if you're actually going to publish "reviews", it is best to get a review from a neutral party who is willing to be objective.
Homer is not objective nor unbiased in the least.
Thirdly, if Homer wants to write an article about how he disagrees with the license, that's fine, but don't hide it amongst a "I can't make it compile" article because that's another source of dishonesty (note that Homer didn't even mention what his disagreements with the EULA were, he just c&p'd the EULA and then the rest of the article is him complaining about how hard it is for him to compile - so BS that this article was about his disagreements with the EULA, he didn't even talk about it).
Roy Bixler
2009-01-26 14:28:32
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 14:34:55
It is well-known that he hates Mono and Moonlight. He's said so on numerous occasions.
He's called it a "poison".
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 14:36:17
According to these standards, unbiased/credible = "loves Mono/light"
This embraces the assumption that only lunatics can possibly dislike Microsoft technology inside their Linux box.
We shouldn't listen to "lunatics". We should happily embrace Microsoft technology inside Linux boxes.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 14:37:54
Yes, and...?
You're blind to what you're doing.
People who do not agree with you are now "biased" and therefore not worthy of publication.
Roy Bixler
2009-01-26 14:43:41
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 14:45:44
No, not at all. You simply need to find someone who hasn't made up their mind or at the very least can be trusted to give an honest effort to provide an fair and objective viewpoint.
If they dislike it because it's Microsoft, then yes. If they dislike it for technical reasons or licensing reasons, then no.
Correct, we should not listen to lunatics.
We should embrace Microsoft technology in Linux if it is good and suitably licensed.
Mono and Moonlight are Free Software. Their technical "goodness" may be a matter of opinion, but they are licensed under Free Software licenses (except the Microsoft Codecs that are separate from the Moonlight xpi install, but which you can recompile Moonlight to use ffmpeg - clearly Homer's Fedora 8 system is too old to compile it without some adjustments to the code, but that's beside the point).
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 14:48:59
You're only supporting his views and legitimacy of his views then.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 14:49:20
If he is so obviously anti-Mono that he calls it a poison, and then you publish a "review" article by him - how can anyone expect anything but negative feedback? It's a waste of time to read such an article because he's obviously not going to say anything nice about it.
You also failed to mention who wrote the article, so it is unclear to readers what the authors bias was to start off with, which is DISHONEST.
If you had mentioned who had written the article, at least the bias would have been clear to the readers.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 14:53:43
As Shane has already stated, it is irrelevant who I or anyone else works for.
But yes, I think it fair to say I have a bias in favor of Mono/Moonlight. And by that, it would be unfair for someone to publish my review of Mono or Moonlight pretending I am some neutral party. ESPECIALLY if they hid my name making it impossible for people to find out my previous opinions.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 14:56:50
It's not a review. This never claimed to be a review.
I've already explained to you why the source was not named. it has nothing to do with hiding anything.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 14:58:14
He has an objection to Free Software licenses?
Mono and Moonlight are both licensed under Free Software licenses supported by the FSF. Richard Stallman himself has stated that even Moonlight is Free Software.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 14:58:31
So what's your stake in it?
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 15:00:34
He also encourages not to use .NET/Mono to develop.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 15:00:55
I make no money from them.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-26 15:01:51
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 15:16:24
Having legitimate, defensible convictions does not make one incapable of commenting.
Roy Bixler
2009-01-26 15:36:42
Shane Coyle
2009-01-26 23:14:23
But, of course, this is the internet, and at the end of the day, no one really knows who is whom and what their affiliations are - so, we're back at square one and can only judge each other on the 'content of our characters (and comments)'...
If I made all comments come up as 'Anonymous', I think it'd be interesting to see how they get 'modded' without everyone assuming their agenda first and using it as a reason to discount the argument...
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-26 23:54:47
Shane Coyle
2009-01-27 00:16:23
Too much focus, in my opinion, is spent on the messenger (in both directions).
In many cases, these folks are just trying to help with corrections, further the discussion with questions, or are "just another websurfer pushing a point of view", so to speak.
Whatever their motivation, we can either out-debate them, or we can't. May whomever is correct, win.
Slated
2009-01-27 02:02:04
Dan: "If they dislike it because it’s Microsoft, then yes."
IOW Dan O'Brian thinks it's "lunacy" to dislike criminals.
Well, at least we now all clearly understand his position, which is intractably biased towards Microsoft - convicted criminals, and anyone who dares to dissent against these criminals, their business practises, and their technology, must therefore be a "lunatic".
Personally, I'd lay odds that he is actually a Microsoft employee. It would certainly explain his utter indifference to Microsoft's criminal behaviour.
Slated
2009-01-27 02:05:03
http://slated.org/why_dotgnu_is_wrong
seller_liar
2009-01-27 02:24:14
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-27 02:26:44
"[The partnership with Microsoft is] going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on."
--Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
Why are people who work for Microsoft also working on Mono? Does that not trigger anyone's alarm?
Jose_X
2009-01-27 12:38:04
Slated wrote a piece linked earlier which mentions gangsters ( http://www.answers.com/gangster ). Doing business with gangsters is risky to say the least. For Microsoft's case, it may even be illegal doing business with them if, for example, you'd be colluding with them in violation of anti-trust laws [a very relevant issue for many].
Mono has been criticized here repeatedly, over and over, etc etc, for reasons that have nothing to do with technological aspects or the current licensing. That you wish to continue to ignore that without convincing rebuttals hints you may be biased at least as concerns those issues.
I generally stay away from the tech issues because I don't know enough. I don't want to be biased if possible.
I also like the GPL, but have pointed out numerous times how that is not an elixir by any means. In fact, contributing and helping GPL code from an abusive company is not good. One of the safeties of the GPL and other free software is the ability to fork when you have bad/abusive leadership/ownership of the source. Having said that, I also don't like dotgnu because they aren't forking in their own direction but are following the same path still lead by Microsoft. So what good is free software if you don't leverage it to fork and leave bad leadership alone to play by themselves?
Microsoft knows what really matters, and that is why they want to move the argument over to technical and licensing issues, just as Dan advocates. Those two issues are secondary. In particular, dotnet's technical positives were largely inherited from elsewhere, and the GPL (because of copyright law) is actually quite an advantages license to those that own the code, putting that much more importance for the community not to contribute when the leadership is rotten. [Is the leadership rotten? Well, Novell's leadership is in bed with Microsoft's leadership it appears, and Microsoft is definitely rotten.]
As for "poison". It would be dishonest not to call poison by its name. mono is poison in a number of ways (which have also been covered here repeatedly).
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-27 12:48:01
In private, it was actually suggested to me that Dan might be AstroTurfing, but I choose not to believe this although he seems to be close to Novell's headquarters? (Massachusetts?)
Jose_X
2009-01-27 13:33:35
Sometimes, "good" people make mistakes, and sometimes "good" people become "bad" people in order to leverage their past "good" name. And what about "bad" people becoming "good" people but not being heard?
It also seems that some of the firestorms here might have been more constructive engagements if there had been less attacking of people. After a while, the bystander can't figure out who is defending primarily and who is attacking primarily because everyone always claims to be defending something.
Trying to identify the roles various people have played or play makes up a significant chunk of the postings here. The idea is to make it easier to trust or distrust messengers in the future (no matter the message). It's an effort to battle marketing and to manage complexity. I can live with that focus, do participate to some extent, and can appreciate it to some extent, but it's better whenever we can focus on the message ahead of the messenger. Sometimes the message is complex or there are missing pieces and trust becomes part of the equation. In these cases, humans look towards the messenger for clues; however, this weakness is exploitable. It gives power to those that try to buy people, quote them out of context, or trap them so that they can later point to support. Maybe I'm helping the wrong side and not even intentionally? The "messenger" can also be faked. At the end of the day, we'll go farther if we can avoid having to fall back to evaluating the messenger because we failed to deal properly with the message; always let's try message first, messenger second.
[Note, I admitted guilt to having succumbed to judging the messenger. Basically, some messages are complex, and the messenger can give a clue to how to attempt to digest some of the messages.]
Jose_X
2009-01-27 13:40:57
One reason to be anon is that you might fall on the "wrong" side of the fence (for that discussion), but you might feel you have legitimate reasons for being on that side and want to communicate these.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-27 15:49:58
Whenever I read articles, I judge greatly based on who writes the article and the publication (editorial board). I'm fortunate to be able to differentiate based on tens of thousands of articles/posts I've read. I happen to take notes.
Let's not pretend that we live in a society where all mean well and no corporate role comes into play. Messengers do mean a lot to the message.
I can't help being reminded of how presidential candidates get 'advertised' based on their obedience (i.e. how receptive they would be to those who would fund them). This shows you how great a role money plays and also the rule of "self censorship" (meaning things that people dare not say because of peer reaction).
For those who don't know the opinions of Ralph Nader or Ron Paul, here's a video.
Dave
2009-01-28 16:07:37
The only reason I'd have Moonlight installed is to view already-created content. Though even this doesn't work half the time.
Dave
2009-01-28 16:14:39
Zenitur
2009-03-09 08:17:42
Jon Galloway
2009-03-26 05:46:12
http://veritas-vos-liberabit.com/tmp/2009/MoonVorbisTest/Bin/Debug/index.html (requires Silverlight 3, beta just rleased)
Some more info here: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Mar-23-1.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Mar-24-1.html
Silverlight 3 has a raw AV pipeline so you can write any codec you want.