Bonum Certa Men Certa

DRI CEO: “The Biggest Risk Was That Microsoft Would Come Hell-Bent to Destroy Us... Not Necessarily by Competing”

Summary: Testimony with Richard Williams and what Novell could learn from him

ONE of our readers has suggested that we keep record of the following Richard Williams (DRI) testimony, which may come handy in the future. He speaks about Microsoft's demeaning and disrespectful approach. Later on he worked for Novell, for obvious reasons.

Williams explains that Microsoft tried to buy out the product and make it seem like a licensing deal (i.e. pretending), then implicitly telling DRI to turn to another market. It's basically the paying for a competitor to leave the market and assessing/accesssing all the source code first (shades of i4i). Williams never had such experiences when he worked for IBM, he argues.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Direct link



Unintentionally, he may also include a little piece of advice there for Novell, and particularly the Mono folks. He says: "I wasn't interested in doing clone. The risk I saw in doing a clone was that all you've really done is you reproduced something good or bad... and you take all risks inherent then with reproducing that other people's product."

Speaking of Mono, "Justin" from Linux Today argues that Microsoft's Muglia silences de Icaza:

There was an recent article on Software Development Times (Dec 15, 2009), that reported on the last Microsoft Professional Developers Conference. It says that Ozzie and Muglia "were insistent that Silverlight was part of the open Web. They pointed to Mono Moonlight as an example".

Yup, as Mono oposers have said from day 1, Mono, and now Silverlight, server MS as a way to validate their offerings. They give credence to their claims that they are now being "open" and that their proprietary offerings should be given equal consideration by governments seeking to standardize on open solutions.

Interestingly, Miguel de Icaza was there and raised his head to chime in saying that "he wanted Microsoft to go a step further by contributing technology to ECMA International". Wow, either he is very naive or he really does not get it. Any way, Muglia quickly quieted him down by saying that "Microsoft was trying to balance standards with its ability to rapidly innovate the Silverlight platform". That was all it took. Go on dreaming Miguel.


Thanks to Novell (especially Moonlight), Microsoft is willing to describe Silver Lie as "open" [1, 2] (and the same with .NET, because of Mono).

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
 
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part II: Turning a Once-Respected Patent Office Into a Circus and Laughing Stock
It's not legal, but administrators who don't care about the law and don't fear the law would just go ahead and turn things to junk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 04, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 04, 2025
Slopwatch: Mindless Slop Pieces, Fake Images and Text, Linux FUD on the Cheap
spewed out by Microsoft-controlled LLMs
Links 04/06/2025: Workers' Strikes, Sudan Exodus
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: Linux Foundation PR Spam and Lee Jae-myung Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Future Leaders of the World and Platforming Jordan Peterson
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: WSL Backfiring on Microsoft and "Disney, Microsoft Announce Massive Layoffs"
Links for the day
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux FUD From Slopfarms, Blaming Linux for Microsoft Issues; Even WebProNews Has Become a Slopfarm (Googlebombing "Linux" With Slop Images and Fake/Plagiarised Text)
The Web is really getting bad; it's also overwhelmed by fake material or plagiarised material, wherein the plagiarism gets disguised/hidden by LLM sausage factories
Links 03/06/2025: Tiananmen Square Massacre Censorship and Growing Military Activities Around Taiwan
Links for the day
Linux is Already Dominant (Android), Let's Make GNU/Linux Dominant in Desktops/Laptops as Well
"Dr. Stallman recently warned everybody about Microsoft."
The Loyalty to Microsoft and the Salaries From Microsoft (Funding SLAPPs Against Techrights and Tux Machines)
Garrett always knows better. He knows everything best.
Windows Falls in Italy as GNU/Linux Jumps to 5%
Italy knows a thing or two about digital autonomy
Nigeria is All Android and Google
Windows down to almost nothing in Africa's largest population
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Second Wave) Not Limited to Redmond
"More layoffs at Microsoft as axe falls in Washington and California"
Gemini Links 03/06/2025: Forth System and "Common Lisp is a Dumpster"
Links for the day
The Leaks Were Right: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft in May, Then Another Wave in June
Just as we've been saying for over a month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 02, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 02, 2025