04.25.08
Posted in ECMA, GNOME, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, RAND at 9:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Image contributed by Beranger
Mainly by accident, yesterday I arrived at the following old article. It speaks about GNOME being “written — hopefully — in Mono and C#.” As we pointed out before, a similar article was corrected just recently, several years after it had originally been published. The article stated that GNOME was to be written in C#, but Miguel or somebody else probably felt compelled enough to ‘correct’ that article several years later by contacting editors.
Anyway, here is the opening paragraph from this other long article bearing the headline: The Upcoming GNOME Monarchy of Mono
Unix was originally all about not being… Multics. If Mono is to follow a similar nomenclature (just for the kicks), we have to talk about Mono’s upcoming ‘monopolization’ and ‘monarchy’ in the next generation of the Unix programming land. Your see, if everything goes well, in 2 to 3 years most new Gnome user/desktop applications will be written –hopefully– in Mono and C#. Update: Miguel deIcaza replies.
This update from de Icaza contains a clarification about GNOME and Mono, namely:
On Gnome and Mono
I am sure that there will be multiple editions of the same piece of software (One in C#, one in Python, and one in C ;-), so for those of you who for some reason do not want to run Mono, you will always have some C code you can run with roughly the same functionality.
What does “roughly the same functionality” actually mean? Is there a C implementation of Moonlight, for example? Given that only Novell is claimed to have ‘bought’ Mono ‘protection’ from Microsoft (the filings reveal this), does that mean that only those not using Mono are ‘safe’ and are promised to have roughly — whatever that means — the same functionality in GNOME? This relates to our old writings about second-class citizenships [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. It was only days ago that we spotted C# getting promoted in the GTK Web pages.
The main question asked here is not whether GNOME will be getting inherently dependent on Mono. The question is: how hard will it practically be to avoid Mono in GNOME? Or asked differently, how disconnected will the Free desktop pragmatically remain from Microsoft’s software patents? The excuses pointing to ECMA and the RAND are always somewhat comical because these are of course incompatible with the GPL. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 8:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Posted in America, Antitrust, Corel, Europe, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 3:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Why is Novell so blind?
Corel was last mentioned earlier this week along with some background about the company's history when it comes to formats, Linux, and Microsoft. Is Corel collapsing at the moment, based on the news about its CEO resigning?
The CEO of Corel Corp. plans to resign, two weeks after an investment firm that owns a majority stake in the Ottawa-based graphics and desktop applications software vendor offered to acquire all of the remaining shares and take the company private for the second time in five years.
[...]
Ironically, WordPerfect Office X4, a new release that Corel announced last Wednesday, is being touted by the vendor for its strong compatibility with its rivals’ document formats, including Microsoft’s Office Open XML, Adobe’s PDF and the vendor-neutral OpenDocument Format for Office Applications. Corel claimed that X4 is the first office suite to let users import, edit and export PDF documents — including scanned ones — without the need for third-party software.
Whatever happens, this does not look too encouraging, but abuses against WordPerfect have a long history and the case is yet to be resolved in court. Microsoft is trying to ‘pull another WordPerfect’ at the moment using OOXML, which is made deliberately incompatible with everything else in the market (secret extensions and deviations).
A belated reposted Associated Press article about the protest in Norway seems to have just made an appearance in unexpected places.
Roughly 60 data experts staged a rare and noisy street demonstration in downtown Oslo on Wednesday to protest Norway joining adoption of Microsoft Corp.’s document format as the international standard.
[...]
Opponents claimed the move locks out competitors and forces Microsoft customers to keep buying the American software giant’s programs.
The entire world, not just Norwegians, ought to have learned from history and vigorously prevented a repetition of it. Remember what Groklaw wrote about WordPerfect experiences (Microsoft-imposed nightmares). It’s quite a deja vu. █
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Posted in Deception, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Search at 3:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Can we trust what Microsoft tells us?
“The elements of the evangelical infrastructure – conference presentations, courses, seminars, books, magazine articles, whitepapers, etc. – should start hitting the street at the start of the Slog. They should be so numerous as to push all other books off the shelf, courses out of catalogs, and presentations off the stage.
“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage. “
–Internal document, Microsoft (read more)
Some months ago, Mary Jo Foley wrote about Live search being seemingly ‘broken’ and returning results that support Microsoft’s business agenda. This was by no means an isolated observation and we covered many additional examples before. Some of these examples you can find in:
The complaints keep on coming. Here is one of the latest reports.
I was looking to see what search sites might have a particular bug that I (ahem) came across and was trying the search for the number 0 in various places. There is a pretty good Wikipedia page about zero. Zero has a rich and interesting history and there are many other potentially reasonable results.
Microsoft and Yahoo have, for quite some time as a matter of fact, been collaborating with the Chinese government on search engine censorship, disclosure (unmasking), spying and the like. It’s just something to bear in mind. Microsoft’s patents said a little more about this.
Interestingly enough, it was only yesterday that the BBC published the following good article which warns about closed system that restrict information and can be exploited by large corporations to feed minds in a self-serving fashion. It’s an eye-opening example of the need for what the article calls “programmable” systems.
He contrasts generative devices with “sterile appliances”, closed systems which appear to give consumers access to the net.
He argued such devices were damaging innovation and potentially putting easilly-abused powers into the hands of a few companies and governments.
“Consumers are eagerly asking for technologies, which can be used to surveil or control them,” said professor Zittrain.
So, when will Google release some code to the public? This was the rationale behind the birth of Wikia. █
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Posted in Asia, Europe, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, OpenSUSE, SLES/SLED at 2:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“I’ve heard from Novell sales representatives that Microsoft sales executives have started calling the Suse Linux Enterprise Server coupons “royalty payments””
–Matt Asay, April 21st, 2008
The latest news from Russia, accompanied by a roundup of recent and related events, was posted just a few hours ago to show the impressive growth of Free software in this very large country. There is now an English translation/interpretation of this. [via Glyn Moody]
Russian Ministry on Information Technology and Communications published recently a document entitled Concept of development and usage of Free Software in the Russian Federation (Russian). It is a 29-page text, which is by far the most detailed roadmap of government involvement in Free Software. The legal status of this document is not very strong: in the recent Russian governmental tradition a ‘concept’ is a kind of a detailed policy declaration, which may not be fully observed or may even be rejected or forgotten after a short period of time. However, it may serve as groundwork for future projects and more specific policy measures. Thus, even though a concept document does not create anything by itself, its availability is necessary for creation of good things.
This is of course great news, but also just spotted in the blog of Novell’s CMO was the following.
Dr. Summers talked without notes or charts (a great lesson for all presenters) on “America and the New Global Economy.” While the essence of Dr. Summers’ observations were on how America could continue to compete in the face of accelerating competition from China, India, and Russia, it was his remarks on innovation and the source of innovation that struck me, and I hope you, as the most profound.
Dragoon does not talk about Russia specifically, but he mentions it a couple of times. Novell is already moving its operations to India and recently we showed what great damage it does in China [1, 2, 3, 4]. That leaves Russia.
Stay out of Russia, Novell. It’s doing just fine without your Microsoft royalties and with GNU/Linux distributions that are not Ballnux — the abomination which is a seemingly Microsoft-owned Linux. Has Novell no shame? What’s rather curious here is the similar approach Novell and Microsoft take when it comes to business in these nations. Those two close (and closed) companies share similar dilemmas in general.
All nations, including Russia, should steer clear of SUSE and Novell. Even OpenSUSE (or ‘open’ SUSE) does not offer anything of value (and neither does SLED) if the following verdict from yesterday is anything to go by.
To be honest I was a bit disappointed with openSUSE. Speaking about the good points, I liked the collection of software installed and the nice control center. But, I had no audio and the video was poorly configured with the liveCD. Also, the menu system just didn’t work for me. Having to go through 3 clicks to open a program is just too much, I can imagine going through this many times a day isn’t very interesting. For me, in this test I would give openSUSE 11 one and a half Pinguins, but since it is a poor cruelty to chop this cute animal, I’ll give two.
The problems that I encountered are most likely from openSUSE not having proprietary drivers installed, which is understandable. But, openSUSE`s Gnome layout was just too confusing for me to recommend to someone used to a Windows or KDE UI. The layout was just not effective.
Next up, we’ll take a look at the new Mandriva release.
As stated earlier, Mandriva seems to be growing to become Russia’s favourite distribution in government. Even the schools, which adopt ALTLinux, are essentially using a Mandriva/Mandrake derivative.
(Mi)suse Linux: for misused customers who are naive enough (or scammed) to believe they must pay Microsoft for Linux. █
Update: Matt Asay, who is in Russia at the moment, tells a story about FUD Microsoft has been spreading there.
I figured it would be good to note (and then bury) three myths that I heard perpetuated by Microsoft at the Interop Moscow conference. They’ve been largely discredited elsewhere, but it appears Microsoft prefers to keep regurgitating the party line until abject ridicule sets in.
1. Myth: Open source can’t innovate. Coming from Microsoft…
[...]
2. Open source doesn’t interoperate with other software well, while Microsoft does. Wow! The cheekiness of that one was breathtaking.
[...]
3. There is no money in open source. It’s funny to hear Microsoft use this one, as if its customers are desperate to hear it talk about how much money it makes at their expense.
[...]
Microsoft has gotten better in its open-source rhetoric. Now it just needs to make sure its far-flung outposts get the message, too.
Is this really Novell’s partner, which pretends it likes “open source” — however it defines that term?
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04.24.08
Posted in News Roundup at 10:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Posted in Bill Gates, Free/Libre Software, FUD, GPL, Microsoft at 10:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“I’m an American, I believe in the American Way. I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.”
–Jim Allchin, Microsoft
Remember Microsoft’s invasion into the world we once knew as “open source” — a world that thrived before Microsoft decided to hijack and redefine its rules. “Open source” is something altogether different nowadays. We recently showed just what Microsoft intends to do to Ruby, essentially replacing an older Microsoft-independent project with one that embraces Microsoft licences and thus permit Microsoft to dominate and control. For whatever reason, Ruby is mentioned in the context of Microsoft’s .NET quite frequently these days, including in this new article.
The company is not trying to convert people wholesale to .NET, but IronRuby is part of an attempt to regain ground lost among a generation of developers who’ve gone to Mac and open source and frameworks. “We are not fools, and think: ‘Hmm, people are suddenly going to transition.’ We think there are some interesting combinations, where people can use Ruby the language on top of our libraries, which will be appealing and interesting,” he said.
If Microsoft is permitted to grab open frameworks that compete against Microsoft’s own tools , then Microsoft can continue to change rules, slanting them to mitigate competition and assemble everything around intellectual monopolies it boasts.
To give another example of Microsoft’s attitude towards open source, watch this one from the news. Gates views it as something that already excludes copyleft licences like the GPL. Is it deliberate or is it ignorance?
As but one more piece of testamentary evidence that the old guard at Microsoft needs to be shown the door, Bill Gates has demonstrated conclusively that he has exactly zero understanding of open source, or at least zero desire to have an intelligent discussion about it.
[...]
Open source insists upon leaving software open to further improvement. And if you were to read the European Union’s report on open source, you’d see that it’s actually a massive opportunity for improved GDP growth.
What open source does is ensure that customers share equally in the economic benefits of software, rather than having profits hoarded by one company (i.e., Microsoft’s model). The GPL does this perhaps best of all. In another age, Mr. Gates would have found the GPL to be a dear friend to his better capitalist instincts. It’s actually a close cousin to a proprietary license in some ways, except that it protects through openness, not closed source.
This was last mentioned a couple of days ago. Microsoft likes open source only as long as it gets to define what it means and what gets excluded from it. It even encourages the separation between “free software” and “open source” and argues that free software should only be seen as gratis, whereas the GPL is something really ‘nasty’ just because Microsoft is unable to compete against it. █
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Posted in Asia, ECMA, Europe, GNU/Linux, Interoperability, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument at 10:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
There is a lot happening in Europe at the moment, but that’s not the only subject of this post. Herein you’ll find a grouping of more good news for real open standards (like ODF) and Free software. The OLPC debacle may have eclipsed the good news, but it’s actually a wonderful time and another major tipping point for GNU/Linux.
As far as FOSS and ODF go, some weeks ago we saw big success stories in Germany [1, 2, 3]. This wave is not over yet and here is some of the latest.
According to this German article, the City of Munich and the German Federal Foreign Office have started to collaborate on the implementation of their open source and open standards strategies.
Germany intends to gain more independence (practical and financial) with Free software and Microsoft does not sit idly. Microsoft’s OOXML misconduct in Germany was last summarised here, however partially.
Over at the Commission, which already has Microsoft on probation, questions about OOXML as a procurement option arose. We last wrote about procurement and misconduct just a day ago. Here is the latest:
THE EUROPEAN Commission has started investigating Microsoft’s OOXML standard under procurement rules instead of the old competition statute with which they usually bash the software giant.
The Danish Unix User Group (DKUUG) complained to the EC’s competition regulators in February about a Danish government mandate on the use of software standards. But the Competition lot didn’t want to know about it.
The European Commission confirmed today that its Internal Market people had taken up the complaint. They were examining it to see if it constituted an infringement of procurement rules.
[...]
It was based, as originally, on the idea that Ecma International, the standards body that backed OOXML, had specified that the standard was to be implemented “in a way that is fully compatible with the large existing investments in Microsoft Office documents.”
This meant that it was designed to give Microsoft documents an advantage, said, Simonsen, in the same way a television manufacturer might have an advantage over its rivals if had designed a signal that was tuned to operate special features on its own sets.
The EC’s procurement police are now considering whether this puts the Danish government in breach of procurement rules, despite the moves Microsoft has made to make its standard acceptable.
It seems clearer that unless Microsoft considers implementing or officially supporting ODF (and properly so), Microsoft Office could become irrelevant and excluded from government procurement. The Microsoft Spin Machine appears to be well lubricated though. Watch what it emits in the Malaysian press:
It’s not about choosing, but about having a choice.
Yes. Try to understand that fantastic quote from Yasmin Mahmood, Microsoft Malaysia’s (current) Managing Director. This was reported by Tech&U, which is currently leading the pack as the most reliable source of Microsoft propaganda. What’s wonderful is that they quote Yasmin word for word without questioning what she really means. It makes hilarious reading.
This type of spin was seen before. Of course it’s a matter of choice. It’s a matter of choosing applications but without unification inside standards there is hardly an ability to choose between applications. Microsoft is, as always, preying on ignorance.
As shrewdly pointed out by the same blog a few days ago, in reference to South Africa's decision on document formats:
This goes to show that certain Ministries of Science and Technology can stand up for the interests of their citizens, and not have to feel pressured by a single foreign multinational. If only this independence was more prevalent around the world.
Brendan Scott, who has covered some of the OOXML fiasco, wrote a very long essay about it this issue. He explains how governments became agents of monopolisation, anti-Commons.
Misapplication of “value for money” requirements when purchasing software results in poor value for money – Government purchasing policies for software tend to support the creation of monopolies.
Government purchasing has effects on the price paid by citizens for the product purchased. In some cases purchasing produces volume which permits scale discounts and therefore a net benefit to citizens who also purchase the product. However, in the case of lock in software* Government purchasing can create a monopoly in the software which leads to increased costs for citizen purchasers and a net detriment for society as a whole. It is not appropriate for value for money policies to be assessed on a per acquisition basis when software is being acquired. Doing so will almost certainly create net costs for the community when considered in the aggregate.
[...]
Government procurement can both create and reinforce a monopoly in goods and services which it is acquiring. Anecdotal evidence suggests that bureaucrats look at “value for money” type formulae and assess it against the cost to Government on a purchase-by-purchase basis. This approach is fine in respect of goods and services which are easily substitutable (such as hammers, screws, cars etc). In respect of goods which are specifically designed to prevent substitutability – eg devices which are not designed to be interoperable it is an extremely hazardous approach. If those goods also tend to be a natural monopoly (such as software in general, but particularly that which is designed not to be interoperable) this approach is absolutely the wrong one.
Microsoft must be baffled, scared and therefore merciless at the moment. Add all the above to recent news about dropping profits and large-scale GNU/Linux migration. Some lobbyists from Microsoft must already be packing up suitcases to make unplanned visits worldwide. This is a time to watch Microsoft’s behaviour carefully because Microsoft won’t give up easily. The Microsoft Unlimited Potential programme, aka the “anti-Linux dumping budget”, is one to keep an eye on for sure. Deep pockets make room for disruptive intervention. █
“Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don’t evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, ‘how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?’”
–Bill Gates, The Seattle Weekly, (April 30, 1998)
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