Today we look at Moonlight 3.0 preview. We have taken stock of anyone who covered it, based on Google News. All that we found was coverage from Microsoft booster Gavin Clarke, his colleague Mary Jo Foley (“Look! I’m writing about Linux too… [but only when it's good for Microsoft]“), and longtime Microsoft booster Marius Oiaga. They are continuing a trend we that noted and highlighted many times before, namely that Moonlight is being promoted heavily by fans and defenders of Microsoft’s illegal monopoly. Joining those 3 we have part-time Microsoft booster Darryl Taft. The only exception we could find came from The Inquirer, but that writer too had come from IDG, which has a financial relationship with Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and covered this Moonlight 3.0 preview as well. It’s hardly even news, which is why GNU/Linux sites hardly mentioned it at all.
“Yesterday we learned about a fascinating rumour that Mark Shuttleworth resigned from Canonical’s top spot so that Google can take over Canonical.”One reader urged us to comment about Canonical’s addition of an Apple enthusiast to its staff (he is also a former Novell employee). We wrote about it yesterday while still trying to figure out whether it’s an identity crisis for Canonical. There is a lot of discussion about this in our IRC channel.
Pamela Jones from Groklaw wrote: “On a personal note, while I like Matt personally, he wrote to me not long ago that he couldn’t see why people were so negative about Microsoft, so this is the end for Ubuntu being truly FOSS, as far as I’m concerned, and the beginning of it becoming fused mystery meat, if I may put it that way. They can be whatever they want, of course, but I think it would be foolish to expect anything now but a loss of the F in FOSS at Canonical now.”
Canonical has already hired a man from Microsoft to lead its desktop efforts and a couple of weeks ago he announced Canonical’s decision [1, 2] to send search requests to Microsoft’s Bong [sic] (Canonical left users out of this decision). Then there’s the issue of Mono, which is interesting because the same guy from Microsoft suggested removing the GIMP (a decision that most users oppose, based on a poll, so the will of the majority was eventually ignored).
The SD Times reports that Microsoft has sold nearly all of its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) support coupons. Microsoft purchased the $240 million worth of coupons from Novell as part of patent indemnification deal. According to Microsoft, a total of 475 customers have used an undisclosed number of the coupons. Based on those figures, each of these customers has bought, on average, just over half a million dollars worth of coupons.
“I’ve heard from Novell sales representatives that Microsoft sales executives have started calling the Suse Linux Enterprise Server coupons “royalty payments”…”
Summary: A reader alerts us that GNOME permits the GNOME Foundation committee to have more Microsoft influence; Planet SUSE promotes .NET
IT IS bad enough that GNOME accommodated anti-Stallman people whose employers paid for a position (akin to lobbying). When these people are attacking Richard Stallman they only divide and thus harm GNOME [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], probably giving way to conscious erosion of Freedom in the project (Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza [1, 2], for example, brings Mono and Moonlight to GNOME).
It’s truly like lobbying (the language of money) and one of our readers, Ziggyfish, worries slightly about the new GNOME Foundation committee (the director is from Novell). Among its members he finds Jeff Schroeder, who runs a blog about Microsoft SQL Server (blog name is “Jeff Schroeder – SQL Server and other interesting stuff”). There is also Ke Wang, whose resume says:
“06/2004 – 08/2004 Summer intern, Systems and Networking Research Group, Microsoft Research Redmond
Mentor : Dr. John Dunagan
My project: FDR – Flight Data Recorder. In this project we are trying to use black-box analysis to the persistent state changes to manage changes on a computer. Persistent state here means the registry system and file system. Our goal of this project is: given all the registry and file modification traces of some machine, we can automatically group them into meaningful groups that are corresponding to the actions happened on that machine. During the summer I’ve finished initial algorithm design and implemented a GUI to present results. Later we are wishing to refine it and do more experiment using more traces
[...]
Program Committee, SDM 2006.
Invited as university representative to the Microsoft Professional Developers’ Conference (PDC) 2001 by Microsoft Corporation.”
Even Tux Radar (Linux Format, the magazine) has been sort of derailed in the sense that it writes about Microsoft software now, due to Mono.
If you’ve been following the Hudzilla Coding Academy – our free Mono and C# tutorial series – you’ll be pleased to know that it’s now available as a special edition magazine, on-sale worldwide and available online.
Wow. Miguel’s vision of GNU/Linux. Would you like a EULA with that?
It is worth adding that Novell closed down offices across Europe last year (SUSE operations are mostly located there, unlike Mono which is centred around Boston). This was done in order to save money and have people work from home or somewhere else. Later came large-scale SUSE layoffs (or offshoring), but the Mono team was unaffected. That’s the trend [1, 2, 3].
Based on this new European article, Novell is now leasing office area. Leasing, not buying. Sounds reassuring, eh?
The following companies leased office area in the complex: Javart, Bongrain, HTC, Novell, Forma Deco Art, X-press Couriers, Safira Polska, Budlex, Bueltel International Poland, Schutz Polska, M.P. Polska and the Warsaw branch office of Echo Investment.
Microsoft has a long history of turning its competitors into allies and thus eliminating competition. GNOME is hopefully smarter than Novell (which got filled with former Microsoft managers). █
“We could refresh the look and feel of the entire desktop with Moonlight”
In an open letter, we’ve asked Microsoft to just hire de Icaza and take him away from GNU/Linux, but instead they have just given him a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award. He is very valuable to them. He seems happy about it and the .NET crowd is happy about this too (watch Twitter responses).
Thanks to everyone that participated in the campaign to nominate me for a C# MVP award, when I got back to Boston I found on my piles of email that I am now part of the program.
Novell’s de Icaza’s close colleague, Nat Friedman, has decided to leave Novell. Friedman will not return to Microsoft but he will not be focused on Free software, either. It seems like a case of Fog Computing fever, just like with de Icaza’s colleague at the CodePlex Foundation, Sam Ramji, who admitted that the Foundation was determined to promote Mono and Moonlight.
And, so what if it causes a minor stir in the community – who cares what it took to get where we are today anyway? This is truly important stuff! Damn the principles, full speed ahead to Redmond!
What bizarro world indeed where people are going crazy over Microsoft’s latest whatever and actively denouncing competitors? (Some bizarro world-residing promoters of Banshee and Tomboy mayhaps?)
The thing I like the most about the article is not only does it lay out reasons for preferring an Open Standard, it lists and documents how Microsoft promotes DirectX (like all their products):
1. Network effects and vicious cycles
2. FUD about OpenGL and Vista
3. Misleading marketing campaigns
I note with some interest that Microsoft leaving the OpenGL Architecture Review Board is noted as a FUD tactic. This one of the flip sides of having Microsoft “get on board” with you – if they leave it sends a powerful negative message. Pay attention SVG Working Group.
The SVG Working Group should take a sobering look at how Microsoft corrupted ISO. Simon Phipps from Sun wrote: “While it’s great to see Microsoft finally joining the SVG WG after all these years, let’s not forget (as this article does) that they were involved at the beginning and it was their unforgivable NIH attitude in rejecting the decision of the WG not to use Microsoft’s contribution that has kept vector graphics from being a web technology for a decade. Imagine what could have evolved by now had they not listened to their greed and control-lust and instead worked with everyone to perfect web vector graphics. Even still I can’t help myself wondering if they have joined the WG to snuff it out by over-activity.”
Likewise, there is danger when Microsoft proponents like Miguel de Icaza are allowed to have influence on GNU/Linux. Microsoft must be laughing over this while it’s also working to get GNU/Linux sued [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. █
“You got nothing to lose. You don’t lose when you lose fake friends.”
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time away from the computer while on vacation, which has been nice, but I took some time yesterday to catch up on my RSS feeds. Even thought it’s pretty quiet out there right now, I found several posts and announcements about beta releases, project releases, and so on.
The Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) is coming up shortly. We’re looking for some volunteers to help man the openSUSE booth at the show. If you’re an openSUSE enthusiast and planning on attending SCALE, please drop a note to the openSUSE marketing list.
Novell is hoping to put the red “N” and green Geekos right in people’s faces.
eWEEK Labs’ Jason Brooks and Andrew Garcia discuss Novell’s latest community-oriented Linux OS, OpenSUSE 11.2, which is packed with official OpenSUSE versions of the latest and greatest of what the open-source software world has to offer. Where OpenSUSE 11.2 sets itself apart from its Linux rivals is its focus on highlighting community software contributions alongside the official distribution-provided packages. This community software focus, combined with the long time “power user” orientation of SUSE distributions, makes OpenSUSE 11.2 a very configurable–but potentially confusing–Linux-based operating system option.
The best collection of Linux educational software for all ages that I know of is the openSUSE-Edu Li-f-e (Linux for Education) Live DVD.
[...]
There’s a wide variety of “edutainment” software on this DVD for kids 12 years old and up. For religious education there’s BibleTime, a Bible study tool. For chemistry, there’s Avogadro, Chemtool, gElemental, and XDrawChem. For astronomy, there’s the Stellarium planetarium simulator, and for math there’s Dr. Geo, Euler, K3DSurf, KSEG, wxMaxima and Xaos.
Let’s look at some reviews of OpenSUSE 11.2.
Reviews
Here is a new comparison which was labeled “The Ultimate Distro Showdown”. Important distributions like Fedora are conspicuously missing, whereas OpenSUSE 11.2 is included.
We laid our hands on all the three biggies—Ubuntu 9.10, Mandriva 2010 and openSUSE 11.2—and pitted them against each other. What followed was the battle of the century, as each distro pulled off one unique trick after another to stay on top of the game.
openSUSE 11.2 Emerald is really a phenomenal release. It’s smooth, polished, expensive, with extreme attention to little details. It comes with everything you may need, want or desire. You will have to work very, very hard to find any flaws.
I would like to share with you my short experience with Google Chrome on openSUSE 11.2. Although it is in a beta stage, it is stable and fast. I like many things in it and I even tried to emulate them in Firefox (thanks to Firefox add-on). In this post, I will state my personal thoughts about Google Chrome and I will refer to Firefox in any comparison. I am using version 4.0.249.43.
[...]
I can summarize the GUI design of Google Chrome with three words: simple, clean and effective. I like the way Google Chrome puts tabs in the title bar. I enjoy also how Google Chrome populates the speed dial page with time. There is no status bar.
When I wrote and published my extensive Ubuntu installation guide, I promised you many more step-by-step installation guides to come. Indeed, I have kept my word. You have had the Windows 7 guide and the new dual-boot guide for Ubuntu and Windows 7. Now, it’s time for the openSUSE installation guide.
Currently, openSUSE 11.2 is the latest openSUSE release, which will be the focus of our article today. We will learn how to choose the right edition, download it to our computer, burn the image to a CD/DVD, and then install the distribution to hard disk.
For those who want to build OpenSUSE packages, more information was made available [1, 2] and Katarina says that “YaST is falling” as she makes some suggestions.
Last but not least: If Fedora and Mandriva had gem2rpm templates in a perfect shape too, Build Service could provide packaged gems also for their distributions.
Summary: This post brings together a variety of thoughts and insights into the impact of Novell’s actions, which promote Microsoft and demote GNU
Microsoft-esque and Microsoft-funded/inspired software (see Wiki pages on Mono and Moonlight) continues to fragment and separate the community of Free software users. Recently we saw hostility towards GNU in GNOME [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. It came from the same guy who had started a banner meme to protest against Stallman’s stance on Mono.
Now that the Director of GNOME is a Novell Employee, there are those who believe that if Microsoft decided to buy Novell, it would have even more control over GNOME. From ECT (Linux Insider):
“I [imagine] Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is very pleased with this new direction with Gnome,” wrote Stumbles on Slashdot, for example. “I predict in 5 years, perhaps less, Microsoft will have maneuvered these short sighted individuals to accepting Microsoft to buy Gnome.”
Novell is increasing focus on Mono and its vice president has called developers to program for Microsoft's Silverlight (XAML). He once said that they could “refresh the look and feel of the entire desktop with Moonlight.” He seems to be ignoring the conditions under which access to Moonlight is granted.
Simon Phipps argues that “Microsoft desperately needs a clueful open source leader to fix this stuff.” Put in context:
There is still a strong thread of thought at Microsoft that imagines open source is purely the domain of solitary programmers of private means. This is yet another “covenant” from them that gives no assurance whatsoever to the average FOSS developer. Microsoft desperately needs a clueful open source leader to fix this stuff.
These are unacceptable conditions for Free software users. As one person put it:
Moonlight 2 sounds good but they still need the licensed codecs.
“Covenant” appears to be a marketing term that means:
“If you only do what we say we’ll let you do with our stuff, we think we’ll let you use it. For now, anyways. But we can still take it all back if we happen to change our mind.”
This isn’t a “covenant”; it’s an advert for a “free trial offer”.
derp sarcastically puts it liks this: “thank you for not suing me. MS decided not to persecute #moonlight users.” Later he wrote to me: “best part is that they can break the agreement any time they want. so nothing matters. except for de icaza”
But de Icaza explained to eWEEK that this model was not so “open-source-y.” Yet, he assured readers that “Microsoft’s intention was to expand the reach of Silverlight, but the original covenant was not a good cultural fit.” And, “The new patent covenant ensures that other third-party distributions can distribute Moonlight without their users fearing … getting sued over patent infringement by Microsoft,” he said.
It is possible treat it like freeware, not Free software, but it’s even worse (and there is an expiry date to worry about). Watch this new article bearing the headline “Download New Moonlight For Free!”
rysiek writes “A few days ago, Miguel de Icaza wrote on his blog that the whole of MonoDevelop is now ‘free’ of GPL-licensed code. ‘MonoDevelop code is now LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licensed. We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop (like RemObject’s Oxygene).’”
To say that Microsoft and Novell have a muddy history when it comes to open-source projects and the GPL would be an understatement. Things were looking up, with the release of the open-source implementation of Silverlight, Moonlight 2, last week, but today things took a turn for the worse: Novell has just cut all the open source code from MonoDevelop.
Novell doesn’t just want mainframe shops to put SLES 11 on their boxes and run Linux workloads, it wants them to take the commercially supported Mono clone of the .NET runtime environment and use that to move Windows workloads over to mainframe boxes. So Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Consolidation Suite (SLECS) bundles roll Linux and Mono software together and provide a single support package for the stack.
Along with Mono, I see Ubuntu including this on the live CD as well. Microsoft writes such good software and has such excellent standards that we should all embrace whatever Microsoft wants. Besides they have never done anything that would harm any potential competitor.
So, people in charge of what gets included in Ubuntu, bring it on.
Microsoft just doesn’t change. No matter what they say.
As always the best course is to avoid them. There is no longer any real need to use any of their technology. You may try to convince yourself otherwise, but you are just wasting your time. Rather, look forward and embrace the new world that is before you.
Subject: And let’s not forget the Microsoft trolls..
Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold own companies that buy many patents. They are not bound by any Microsoft covenants. Both of these individuals serve their interests today by working to Microsoft’s benefit.
And note the covenant doesn’t apply to old versions. This pressures existing users to stay on the treadmill investing in Microsoft standards over and over to avoid patent problems from Microsoft.
I’ve read the analyses of the most recent promise, and it’s not good enough. I don’t care how “nifty” people think this new software is, because with that license/promise I’m never going to even look at it.
P.S.: Miguel was, apparently, recently so proud of removing “all GPL components” from MonoDevelop. Makes me quite glad I removed the installation as soon as I noticed it…and all other mono components with it.
Maybe I should say “good riddance” to him… but that’s not ok.
What is better is that Miguel does what he wants and Linux folks do whatever they want. If that means parting ways, I see it as a good thing for both parties.
I really should say to Miguel “goodbye”. And “thanks for all the fish”.
What if Novell starts selling some kind of *BSD? Maybe they can start selling something without the Linux kernel?
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