07.14.09

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: July 14th, 2009

Posted in IRC Logs at 9:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Read the log

Enter the IRC channel now

To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.

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Links 14/07/2009: Android Scales Up, Linux 2.6.31 Now @ RC3

Posted in News Roundup at 9:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

Alexandro Colorado, international open source evangelist 18 (2004)

Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

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Paid Microsoft AstroTurfer Strikes Boycott Novell

Posted in Google, Marketing, Microsoft, Search at 10:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“It could be argued that Microsoft’s unethical Technology Evangelism (TE) practices are “old news”—i.e., that Microsoft stopped using these questionable TE practices long ago. This is very unlikely to be the case, for at least three reasons.”

–James Plamondon, former Microsoft shill (aka ‘Technology Evangelist’)

Summary: Microsoft shill Jonathan Wong travels the Web to defend Microsoft

WE RARELY bother to check who is leaving comments in Boycott Novell, but moments ago someone left a comment to police the image of Bing. It took him only a couple of hours to find the post. A quick glance at his blog shows that the about page says absolutely nothing about his job at Microsoft, but a little more sniffing reveals the “evangelist” tag (the blog is all about Microsoft, which is the top tag). Looking deeper inside the posts, we find only this one post from 2008 where Wong writes: “And since Monday, I have started a new and exciting role with Microsoft as part of their Developer and Platform Evangelism Team in Singapore.”

“Neither the blog nor the E-mail address (or even the comments) say anything about his job at Microsoft.”Nice disclosure there, eh?

Neither the blog nor the E-mail address (or even the comments) say anything about his job at Microsoft. In fact, he leaves comments with a GMail address and one common theme among Microsoft “TEs” is that “Google is evil” (Jonathan Wong’s blog shows it too, explicitly). Look at the blog. Look at what he does around the Web (e.g. regarding “Bing” alone). That’s his job as a Microsoft "TE" (another term for AstroTurfers, whose roles are borderline criminal). We wrote about one colleague of his last month because they are policing individual FOSS people and even FOSS companies in that one particular case. Wong calls all this “social media marketing”, but we call it AstroTurfing and there are laws against it.

No wonder people who negatively review Vista 7 get attacked so viciously [1, 2, 3]. They are probably being stalked because they cover particular products to which Microsoft assigns “perception management” [1, 2]. █

“Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry.”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

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Microsoft Lobbies Come Under Fire by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Linux Journal

Posted in Europe, Fraud, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Patents at 9:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: FOSS people fed up with OOXML corruption and Microsoft fronts like Association for Competitive Technology

MOST READERS are probably familiar with the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), which attacked ODF, lobbies for software patents in Europe, fights against Free software adoption in general, and fights regulators so as to dismiss antitrust actions that affect Microsoft. It is not surprising that ACT is simply a Microsoft front group which is disguised as a group representing small businesses. Even the OSI seems to have had enough of ACT and it has just published this post on the subject.

According to Techworld, Jonathan Zuck of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) has recently accused the European Commission of having a bias in favor of open source. This is an interesting claim for a number of reasons, not least of which is the question “who is the ACT?” and “what are they doing in the halls of the European Commission?”. But the question of reported bias is also an interesting one, and characterizes on of the great philosophical and political challenges of our age.

The great American experiment of democratically electing its government quickly evolved beyond the political sphere. By 1835, when Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy In America, the effect of democratic choice could be seen affecting wages, religion, attitudes towards war and peace, and even the English language itself.

[...]

And so we have an actor, Jonathan Zuck, using lines from a story that confound and abuse any notion of objective truth. By leading with an accusation of bias, it is philosophically impossible to discern what is the proper choice and what is not, because no truth, in that frame, is better than any other. The result: a stagnation of dialogue and the preservation of the status quo.

A couple of weeks ago, Glyn Moody asked for assistance with his push against Microsoft’s OOXML. Pamela Jones (Groklaw) replied as follows: “First, it’s a fact that the EU Commission announced it is investigating that very question of how Microsoft conducted itself. It is not investigating any other company in connection with the OOXML saga. And I suggest Glyn take a look at Groklaw’s ODF/OOXML page, where I believe he can find everything he needs in the way of resources to get up to speed.”

Moody has apparently done just that and he makes a good attempt to provide samples of Microsoft’s OOXML misconduct (we have our detailed list too). From Moody’s summary:

Taken individually, these dubious actions might be dismissed by Microsoft as “minor lapses”, “misunderstandings” or actions of an atypical “rogue” manager – as was done in Sweden, where an offer was made to support partners financially if they attended the key meeting of the national body and voted in favour of OOXML. But taken together they suggest a consistent philosophy of being prepared to use whatever means necessary in order to gain the required number of votes.

Since there are very few laws relevant to this field, I doubt whether Microsoft has broken any with its actions during the ISO standardisation process, either through those already disclosed, or others that may come come to light (although the European Commission may have its own views on this). But as well as the letter of the law, the spirit matters too, and I would be interested to hear to what extent, against a background of skewed committees, misrepresentations and overt pressure, Microsoft thinks it adhered to the spirit of the collegial, consensus-based standards-making process in finally obtaining that much-coveted “win” for OOXML.

According to this, Moody’s “long feature [is] now sent to Microsoft for their reply.”

Moody missed some good OOXML incidents like alleged blackmail in Kenya, apparent bribery of charities, et cetera. There are literally hundreds. █

“Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process.”

–Richard Stallman, June 2008

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SCO Scandals Get Worse: unXis Seems to be All About SCO

Posted in Courtroom, GNU/Linux, IBM, Novell, SCO, UNIX at 9:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Source: UserFriendly

Summary: SCO and unXis appear almost like the same thing based on new evidence

THE very latest SCO scandals, which we wrote about a few days ago [1, 2], have gotten really ugly. It is possible that Groklaw makes access to information exceptionally restricted due to fear of SCO’s wrath. Now that Darl McBride is under criminal investigation and another little scam (regarding unXis) seems to be cropping up, SCO must be fairly nervous and thus emotional.

It actually gets worse. Many domains of unXis — not just the German one — seem to be pointing back to SCO. From a Groklaw update:

In Italy, the unxis.it domain was purchased by a SCO regional manager on July 9. And unxis.ch was purchased by a SCO distributor, Jutz Josef, too. Why are SCO partners and employees buying up this domain name?

As another unXis domain is found to be SCO’s (a readers of ours found out about unxis.ch), this cannot be just bad luck. It is a clear pattern and IBM hopefully pays attention. This could lead to the smoking guns they require.

Regarding the criminal charges, here is a report from the court.

Brazell, Norris, Talos Partners, Rama Ramachandran, Darl McBride and Bryan Cave are all listed as defendants.

It is so curious that we find Norris in there. For context about Norris, see:

• SCO “Wants to Sue Linux Users Some More” After Another Mysterious Cash Injection
• SCO, Microsoft, Novell, and Other News from Utah
• SCO is Not Rescued Yet, But Group with Microsoft Connections Waves Money
• Is Microsoft Trying to Inject Money into SCO Again?
• SCO is Having a Yard Sale
• SCO: Always Losing Redundant Court Cases, But Winning Mysterious Funds
• Microsoft’s Sleight of Hands
• A Hand That Feeds SCO… Intel
• Who’s Bugging Google and Apple? (Updatedx2)
• More Microsoft Patent Trolls, Extortions, and SCO
• How Novell Learned to Stop Worrying About Microsoft FUD and Started Embracing It
• Microsoft Shills Index: Under Construction
• SCO Roundup: Novell Litigation, Money from Me Inc Software
• Is SCO and Its Anti-Linux Agenda Relocated to Microsoft Headquarters?
• Dishonesty Looms Over SCO’s New Cash Injection/Infusion/Investment/Whatever
• Stephen Norris: Why SCO? And Why Now?
• Has Microsoft Just Pulled Another Goldfarb (BayStar)? (Updated)

Groklaw has some newer articles at the moment, but none are particularly exciting. They mostly document previous motions or exhibits.

I see what looks like some duplication, but the final pages of the first PDF are interesting, where SCO lists contracts with money due various folks. This continuation of Exhibit A is in three parts, around a hundred pages in all. The first part of the second PDF is intriguing, in that they didn’t just copy some old lists. There is a note, which to my mind doesn’t seem to support SCO’s trial theories about UNIX and Unixware.

There will be a lot of SCO action later this month in new hearings. █

“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”

–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO

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New Surveys Confirm: Vista 7 Will Fail in the Market

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 8:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: New surveys of companies and CIOs show that Vista 7 is poorly received by businesses, even before arrival

SOME months ago we wrote about the high rejection rate of Vista 7 (83% of businesses not to deploy it in 2010). This older survey is now supported by a couple more that are new. The first is being covered by the Inquirer:

Six out of ten firms will skip Windows 7

[...]

The firm asked some 1,000 companies about the Windows 7 operating system set for release this year, and found that six in ten have no intention of upgrading to it. If one thousand responses sounds high to you bear in mind that the firm sent out some 20,000 of the time-sucking surveys.

Silicon.com conducted a CIOs survey and reached similar conclusions.

Despite its imminent release, Windows 7 isn’t likely to hit business desktops any time soon.

A recent silicon.com CIO Jury found that many IT chiefs are putting off the migration to Windows 7 until at least 2011 but it’s clear from their comments that this isn’t a rejection of the new OS, but more a question of priorities.

This is why Microsoft is so terribly nervous at the moment and it will sooner or later commission (i.e. pay for) IDC to show the opposite. It usually works this way.

John Dvorak, a pundit who moved to GNU/Linux some months ago, has nothing good to say about Vista 7 in his latest column. He hasn't much hope for Microsoft.

The subtractive approach that Microsoft is using generates plenty of ill will. Someone buys Windows 7 and expects it to have a feature. But no, you got the wrong version. XP-compatibility, for example, does not exist on many versions. This would be a crucial thing to have, especially on the cheaper versions, since people on a budget are more likely to be running old code. So Microsoft has to field support calls about this and people get irked.

The company should pull the plug on this entire scheme ASAP. It was the reason Vista failed. It generates ill-will. It generates suspicion. And it’s stupid. Stop doing it Microsoft!

Don’t stop doing it, Microsoft!

Microsoft is helping GNU/Linux with its own missteps. █

“My initial evaluation of Windows 7 shows that it’s really just Vista with a fresh coat of paint.”

–Randall Kennedy

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Carphone Warehouse AstroTurfing Exposed, Microsoft’s Voyage Into Twitter Continues

Posted in Deception, Fraud, Mail, Marketing, Microsoft at 8:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Carphone Warehouse disguises AstroTurfing as worship on the Web

Boycott Novell has had its encounters with agencies whose job is to plant fake (paid) blog posts. We always snitch on them. See Unruly Media for example. It seems reasonable to bring criminal charges^* against such agencies (and those who hire them for services) and then shut them down permanently. We already do all that we can to address this problem [1, 2, 3, 4] and today we hope to help expose Carphone Warehouse, thanks to our reader David Gerard. Here is David’s summary of the incident:

This just arrived and appears genuine. Carphone Warehouse are (a) sending spam (b) to request blog spam. I suggest not dealing with them, cancelling existing contracts with them, and telling them why.

For future reference, a copy of the evidence is appended in the body of this post. Here is another complete copy:

Delivered-To: dgerard@gmail.com
Received: by 10.102.215.10 with SMTP id n10cs431768mug;
Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.211.195.3 with SMTP id x3mr5020984ebp.28.1247488867684;
Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <webpartners@mobiles.co.uk>
Received: from mobiles.co.uk (mail.mobiles.co.uk [81.6.195.106])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 5si330642eyh.50.2009.07.13.05.41.07;
Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of webpartners@mobiles.co.uk designates 81.6.195.106 as permitted sender) client-ip=81.6.195.106;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of webpartners@mobiles.co.uk designates 81.6.195.106 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=webpartners@mobiles.co.uk
Received: from [195.242.214.21] (HELO ds4)
by mobiles.co.uk (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.2.14)
with ESMTP id 22484445 for dgerard@gmail.com; Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:41:07 +0100
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?davidgerard=2Eco=2Euk?=
Sender: “=?iso-8859-1?Q?webpartners@mobiles=2Eco=2Euk?=” <webpartners@mobiles.co.uk>
From: “=?iso-8859-1?Q?webpartners@mobiles=2Eco=2Euk?=” <webpartners@mobiles.co.uk>

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:41:05 +0100
To: “=?iso-8859-1?Q?dgerard@gmail=2Ecom?=” <dgerard@gmail.com>
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-USER_IP: 195.242.214.20
X-Mailer: JMail 4.3.0 by Dimac
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=”iso-8859-1″
Message-ID: <auto-000022484445@mobiles.co.uk>

Hello. I`m Chris Conwell, Director at mobiles.co.uk. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Carphone Warehouse Group, we were the UK`s first retail mobile phone website (launched in 1995) and are now the largest web-only mobile phone store in the UK.

I was searching the web for decent potential partners and came across davidgerard.co.uk. I have an idea which I hope you will find useful:-

We would like to have our editorial team research and hand write some content for you to add to a page on davidgerard.co.uk. We will agree a subject with you that is relevant to both of our sites (it won`t be a sales pitch for us!) and will include a single simple text link back to a relevant content page on our site. The content will be uniquely written for you and will not be re-used elsewhere. It should be helpful to your visitors and of course the search engines, as will the presence of a relevant link back to us. Hopefully we will also benefit from the link in the longer term. We are not currently in the position of being able to exchange or return links so we thought this could be a good alternative.

Naturally there are no costs whatsoever for you.

If this isn`t appropriate for you, please accept my sincere apologies for having troubled you.

GETTING A QUICK RESPONSE

I realise you may prefer to simply reply to this email which is no problem and I`ll respond as quickly as I can. However, I have found that email isn`t always as reliable as everyone thinks plus I`m out and about a lot of the time. We have therefore created a simple and quick-to-use response page that provides detailed information and answers to questions on the various options and allows you to send messages to our team . . and lots more.
The page is at http://www.mobiles.co.uk/partner-response.html and we have created an access code for davidgerard.co.uk which is 20090711150119IEQFU.

REMOVAL
If you feel I should not have sent you this email, I`m really sorry – please just reply with REMOVE in the subject.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Kind Regards – Chris Conwell
Director
www.mobiles.co.uk
Mobiles.co.uk Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC

Registered in England no. 3253714 at 1, Portal Way, London W3 6RS

It is not enough only to expose but to also shut down the agencies that do all of this. Lack of complaints means that they can carry on unabated (maybe just humiliated).

It is worth adding that Microsoft steps deeper into Twitter.

As of late Wednesday, the new Microsoft account had three posts — one pointing to a new feature, one to a new product, and another to a positive review of Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The last time we summarised Microsoft’s activity in Twitter was last month. There are also the following posts to become familiar with because Microsoft hired several agencies to police Twitter:

• User “Microsoft Incentives” Wants to be Your Friend, Too
• Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf Continues
• Who is Pumping MSFT and Pimping Microsoft in Twitter?
• Microsoft Hires Federated Media for Twitter AstroTurfing
• Does Microsoft Still Create Twitter Accounts for Guerilla Marketing?
• Microsoft’s AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck

More information on the subject of Microsoft AstroTurfing is appended below. █

Related:

• LawMedia Group May be Another Confirmed Microsoft AstroTurfing Agency
• The Microsoft Connection with Dewey Square Group and DCI/New Media
• Microsoft ‘Bribes’ Mac Bloggers to Slam Apple, Gartner Hosts Google FUD
• Microsoft, TCS, DCI, Edelman, and Those Fake Letters About IP/SCO/Monopoly
• James Plamondon: Microsoft Guerrilla
• FullSIX and Mr. Youth LLC May Be Ruining the Web (AstroTurfing) on Microsoft’s Behalf
• Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
• Astroturfing Examples: Learning How Microsoft Tames the Internet
• Waggener Edstrom, Maureen O’Gara and Other Microsoft Shills
• Partial Index: Summary of Bribed Sites, Journalists, and Bloggers (Vista 7)
• Waggener-Edstrom Behind the 2008 Laptop Bribes, Edelman Behind 2006′s
• Manipulation, Astroturfing, and What Governments Can Do
• Beware the OOXML AstroTurfer: “The Wraith”, “multivac1”, “hAl”, Among Other Nyms
• Microsoft May Have Bribed India for OOXML Pressure
• Microsoft Has Been Rigging Votes/Polls for Ages
• Gary M. Stewart (aka “Flatfish”) About Microsoft AstroTurfing: “It’s made me A LOT of money….”
• Former Microsoft Shill Openly Confesses, Alleges Microsoft Still Does This
• Respecting AstroTurfers?
• Some New (But Very Old) Microsoft AstroTurfing Examples
• Joe Barr, Linux.com Editor – My Obituary
• Joe Barr Knew Microsoft’s Tactics All Too Well
• 66 Pages of Microsoft Evilness
• Another AstroTurf Scam Exposed?
• Quick Mention: Sony is AstroTurfing, Just Like Microsoft
• Memo to Novell: Leave YouTube Alone
• Microsoft Blast from the Past: Ads Banned for Spurring Violence
• Is YouTube’s “NovellVideo” a Novell AstroTurfer?
• Microsoft/Munchkin ‘Breaks’ the Web to Break Open Document Standards (Again)
• Rob Enderle Guarantees “Amazing Numbers”, Show E-mails to Microsoft
• Microsoft Agents from Waggener Edstrom Airbrush Wikipedia, Glorify Paymaster
• Microsoft Unleashes Proxies at Journalists to Defend Vulnerable Vista
• Microsoft’s OOXML Viral Marketing Reaches YouTube

“I’m a huge fan of guerrilla marketing.”

–Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Fan

_______
^* The practice is already illegal in Europe (there is actually a good link to a more recent article about the Commission ushering a law around June). The US FTC catches up. People should contact the European Commission and/or the FTC (the World Wide Web has no physical borders). Those who still AstroTurf are essentially breaking the law, which was officially passed over a year ago.

From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court.

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Another Angle on Personal Attacks from Mono

Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, Ubuntu at 7:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Mono: a league of gentlemen?

Summary: Mono-Nono’s opinion on bad treatment of Mono dissenters and Mono resistance from Groklaw

Boycott Novell is far from the only skeptic of Mono. Other skeptics predate Boycott Novell’s existence. Here is a quick look at what other Web sites said about Mono last week (and slightly before that). Will Groklaw be the next victim of smear campaigns? Let’s hope not.

Mono-Nono’s Take on Mono and Personal Attacks

Yesterday we wrote about recyclable smears against Richard Stallman and made a little statement of our own. As Jason puts it, “Many mono apologists like to portray critics as fanatics, aggressively opposed to anything Microsoft-related.”

Jason sets the record straight on Stallman and feminism. Those who regularly read Stallman’s political blog would know very well that he is a promoter of women’s rights (and freedom and equality in general).

So now that we have Stallman painted with the “sexist” brush, I see some people casting glances to the “Death Threat Crazy” and “Nazi” brushes.

Let me clear: I wasn’t at the conference, and I don’t know exactly what Stallman said. It is possible he made an inappropriate remark. Some reasonable people say it was a joke gone bad; stuff like that happens.But, even if it were an honest-to-good malicious sexist remark (unlikely considering Stallman has a long record of supporting women’s rights in his writings and interviews), the character assassination has been totally disproportionate to the event. He may indeed need a word of correction from a trusted friend or even a letter of concern from a respected group. What he doesn’t need or deserve is a pack of snarling jackals lumping him in with lunatics making death threats and freaking Nazis. (Assuming the death threat thing is legit, I haven’t looked it up. I know I got a lot of death threats from owning peeps in Quake, so that junk can be serious business.)

A more polite response to Stallman does exist and it addresses technical issues alone (i.e. no character assassinations, which usually indicate one loses the argument anyway). Mono critics find out very consistently that it’s somewhat of a taboo that evokes backlash. Everyone sees it and nobody is spared; this currently includes Richard Stallman, as we showed earlier.

Jason made many remarks on personal attacks, some of which are being retracted (e.g. the one against me and against Stallman). A Microsoft intern, for example, decided to have not only his own article withdrawn but also those of others. See this from cache: “At the request of the original author, the original post has been removed and replaced with this message (from the original author): Dear FOSS Community, I apologize to Richard Stallman and anyone who may have been offended by my post. It was written in a hurry in a moment of utter frustration and dejection following a day I wouldn’t want to wish upon anyone. I am utterly ignorant about the things I wrote, and I only wish that I can be forgiven and forgotten so I can concentrate on becoming a better programmer and contributing to the community I hurt. I promise to carefully read everything I can about Free Software. I understand that Freedom is more than just the source code, but I don’t understand anything more yet. I will appreciate any advice you can provide to me. I owe so much to the open source community, I’ve gotten advice, feedback, lessons and an overwhelming faith in humanity. It is always my dream to benefit a cause bigger than myself. I want to dedicate myself to my art and give back as much as I can. Thank you”

For those who have not subscribed to Jason’s Web site, maybe it’s time to seriously think about it. He used to contribute to us.

Groklaw’s Take on Mono

Groklaw wrote not a single article about Mono, but it did write a lot about Mono in “News Picks”. Here is a summary of what was brought up.

Regarding Ubuntu’s apathy towards Mono issues (that they were working on an official position), Pamela Jones at Groklaw wrote: “There are contradictory remarks, highlighted in this article. I take it that the above is the key paragraph, however, and the one that indicates that there isn’t yet any official position, and that one is forthcoming. I interpret that to mean that the issue has escalated above the technical folks and reached the legal, or at least that is my hope. They, at least, will recognize what the legal issues are and can evaluate on behalf of Canonical, the entity that would end up sued, the legal risks. However, I note that SCO ended up suing end users, not vendors, so personally, I remove mono from any distro that I use, as my personal risk analysis is based on a belief that Microsoft intends to sue someday. Remember all the folks who told us that Microsoft would never sue over patents? I told you I thought they would. And they did. I believe they will do so again, and it’s wise to anticipate that chess move with a preventive move of my own to block.”

Groklaw also shows this older post, from which it quotes:

Back in 2006, we put our trust in Mono because we refused, or perhaps disliked, to vilify a project solely because it emulated something created at Microsoft. While Open Source backers generally dislike Microsoft technology, with Mono they had another argument that being a clone it could be affected by a number of patents that Microsoft holds related to the .Net framework. This point often comes up in debates about the “safety” of the Mono project, the defense of Mono being that large parts of the .Net specification are an open, published ECMA standard. I sided with the Mono supporters then, downplaying the risk of patents from Microsoft. But then in November, Microsoft and Novell announced their Patent Agreement, which guarantees patent protection exclusively for users of Novell Linux. The Mono project is largely supported by Novell, and such an agreement is disastrous for a community project like Mono. At this point, the fence-sitters in the Open Source community largely crossed over to the anti-Mono camp. Perhaps, they were justified in doing so. I could no longer defend Mono, and my belief in the framework getting wider acceptance has diminished significantly since then.

[...]

It is entirely possible that Mono can suddenly gain acceptance if Microsoft decides to relinquish patent claims regarding the .Net framework. If it happens, .Net and Mono could well become an powerful challenger to the dominance of Java. This is very unlikely, Microsoft’s current strategy seems to be relying strongly on patents and IP to ward off the looming threat from Linux.

For now, we decided to look beyond Mono and C#.

In reference to Richard Dale (a KDE developer whom we mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) and his take on the subject of Mono, Jones writes: “What I think you are supposed to do is not create legal problems for yourself or others, so your software won’t be easily destroyed by an entity making use of a legal system which is very real.”

Citing an old page from Miguel de Icaza, Groklaw quotes the following:

We very much hope that Mono will become the standard development platform that developers are looking for: a platform that makes strong API/ABI commitments, supports older versions of the libraries and supports their products moving forward (in fact, .NET does provide this very functionality in the GAC). It is useful that the .NET 1.0 and 1.1 APIs are set in stone now, because we have a concrete goal to aim for, and developers will know that those APIs will be supported.

Jones adds: “Until they aren’t [APIs will not be supported], something utterly in Microsoft’s control.”

Jones also points to LinkedIn, suggesting that someone in Ubuntu may be an “elephant in the room” (or one among several) because he suggested removing the GIMP in favour of the Mono-based F-spot. Jones writes: “Hmm. I see Rick Spencer, now Engineering Manager, Desktop, at Canonical (since December of 2008) used to work at Microsoft. He was Lead Program Manager at Microsoft (May 2006 — September 2007), User Experience Manager at Microsoft (May 2005 — May 2006), and Usability Engineer, Usability Manager at Microsoft (March 1998 — May 2005). Given the current debate going on at Canonical over Mono, I thought it was worth at least a mention.”

Jones also quotes Ubuntu’s “Mono Position Statement” (from Scott James Remnant), adding: “Here’s my Mono statement: just because others jump off a cliff, there’s no reason why you have to.”

Jones has been giving Ubuntu a hard time this month, but she recommends this comment from GreyGeek (one we cited earlier). It is not about Ubuntu and it says:

“De Icaza has been trying for EIGHT YEARS to get a distro to become totally dependent on MONO, and since Novell bought De Icaza, both have increased their propaganda efforts, with the assistance of Microsoft TEs, trolls, astroturfers and fanbois.

“IF MONO is what its advocates are saying it is (the best thing since sliced bread and safe to use), it would already be in widespread adoption by now. The fact that you can count dependent programs on the fingers of one hand says VOLUMES about how the Linux community as a whole totally distrusts MONO. They are right to hold that distrust.”

“Shields has meanwhile realised that Banshee may not make it into the next version of Ubuntu after all.”Jones then responds to the frequently-cited article from Jo Shields (which contains smears against us). She shows that Shields is incorrect, stressing that “Mono *is* mentioned in the Microsoft-Novell deal, so this is misinformation. You can read the Microsoft-Novell FAQ that explained the deal at the time.”

In addition, Jones writes to debunk Shields’ shallow analysis: “The patent agreement itself also mentions clone products, which is defined here. You definitely want to read the comments too after the article by Shields, to get the full flavor of the pro-Mono movement, to paraphrase, as well as the comments on Linux Today, which published the article also, as well as a response from Boycott Novell. And here’s a bit more, Shields on the subject of Moonlight. Finally, here’s an article on the API patent trap that will round out the subject. If Ubuntu is being influenced by Shields, it might explain some recent events.”

Shields has meanwhile realised that Banshee may not make it into the next version of Ubuntu after all. He finds that regretful and he adds:

Remember, kids, competition drives innovation!

“…As long as it’s not gnote,” shrewdly adds a reader of ours.

Before the Microsoft CP [1, 2, 3] (assuming it changes anything, which is doubtful), someone in the FSFE warned that: [via Groklaw]

A similar kind of encumbrance would be if MIT (or Xorg) could retroactively re-license the X11 libraries to something proprietary (note: they cannot), thereby removing the platform upon which all Free Software X11 applications are built; it would be a risk, and given the importance of Free Software, a risk where the expected value of a manifestation is huge.

This isn’t to say there’s not other submarines in the water. We don’t know. Maybe we should. The known submarine should be treated with caution. And the side of caution is to treat C# as a non-Free platform to be avoided.

Notice the following part of the Microsoft CP (as highlighted by Groklaw): “Because the General Public License (GPL) is not universally interpreted the same way by everyone, we can’t give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from the open source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can implement the specifications.”

Sounds reassuring, right?

Groklaw also links to this paper [PDF]. Jones writes: “Here’s an article from RedMonk’s Steven O’Grady back in 2004, with a description of Mono, a bit of its history, Novell’s commitment to it, and who else has invested in it, namely Intel and HP.” Intel and H-P are both allies of Microsoft, no matter how hard they try to hide it on occasions. We gave heaps of examples to serve as evidence before.

Regarding this article from Bruce Byfield (titled “Open Source Landmark: Mono Freed at Last?”), Jones writes: “Nope. See rms [Richard Stallman] quote.”

Richard Stallman called Microsoft’s CP inadequate, but Microsoft carries on with “extend” mode now that Silverlight 3 is arriving under Scott Guthrie’s illusion that GNU/Linux is supported (it is not and he knows it).

Microsoft supplies Silverlight for Windows and Intel-based Mac, while the open source Moonlight project is responsible for Linux, though supplemented by media codecs that come directly from Microsoft. Moonlight is still a work in progress. Microsoft’s vice president for the .Net developer platform Scott Guthrie says it is “six to nine months behind”, though that seems optimistic. Moonlight 2.0, the first version with .NET support, is still in preview.

No word on whether the CP covers Moonlight 2.0+ at all. Will it cover future versions too? What about proprietary codecs? █

Why do you still ask questions?

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