05.18.08
Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, ISO, Java, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Open XML, OpenDocument at 11:08 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
Some weeks ago we noted that Alex Brown, coming to his own defense, would attempt to bash ODF. He soon did [1, 2], which put under great shadow his role at the defunct ISO. Perhaps he was just joining Microsoft’s anti-ODF smears [1, 2] and overseas crusades [1, 2] (among other obnoxious things [1, 2]).
But in any event, this post’s focus mustn’t be document formats; it’s really about programming languages and development frameworks. The common theme here is that people justify their own choices by attempting to convince themselves that some hypothesis is correct, using flawed benchmarks such as Brown’s.
“Mono isn’t free lunch. This isn’t a free desktop.”We previously explained just how Novell helps Microsoft fight the GPL-licensed Java [1, 2, 3] and promote XAML. Miguel de Icaza last did this yesterday in his blog where he raved about Silverlight 2.0.
We also wrote about and how GNOME was getting saturated with Mono, never mind the uncertainty that's looming (yet conveniently ignored). It has already sneaked into GNU/Linux distributions other than Novell's. Remember that Mono is a Novell project, which it hopes to exploit in order to gain advantage (potentially putting others at risk).
A reader has just buzzed us to say that Mono’s more prominent promoters have just proceeded to what seems like further demotion of Java. They apparently try to show that Java is slow in order to justify their preference for Microsoft technologies.
Here is a thought: What might we be seeing here? GNU/Linux (or plainly cross-platform) developers choosing a ‘catch-up mode’ clone from a fierce and aggressive rival over an established (and original) framework that is wholly licensed under the GNU GPL? With friends like these, who needs enemies? They seem to insist strongly enough on making the Free desktop just another Windows clone with tools that are merely a compromise residing in the shadow of Microsoft lawyers. Mono isn’t free lunch. This isn’t a free desktop. █
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Posted in Antitrust, Courtroom, Europe, Microsoft, Open XML at 10:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
England, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland…
Things are not looking all that bright for the marketing plot called OOXML, which is neither open nor XML. A few days ago we wrote about the developments in Denmark, but news reports were all in Danish [1, 2]. The complaint in Denmark merely joined a pile of other complaints and even court actions against standards bodies, including ISO (implicitly against Microsoft control or abuse of it).
A couple of weeks were supposed to remain before a final decision is made, but according to this report from Denmark (an article written in English for a change), that may soon change. It’s most likely that Microsoft will continue to divert attention away from this backlash and hope to just market OOXML (or OXML [sic]) as though it’s already an international standard.
By voting to adopt a standard based on Microsoft’s OOXML document format, the Danish national standards body has approved an unknown text against the wishes of the main representatives on its own technical committee, according to a technical committee representative from the Danish city of Aarhus. He has now made a formal complaint to Dansk Standard about the OOXML vote.
The complaint came from Jens Kjellerup, IT manager at the City Executive for Children and Young People in Aarhus, who sat on the Dansk Standard technical committee that assessed adoption of the Microsoft format as an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
[...]
He also expressed surprise that in the first vote on OOXML in September, Dansk Standard voted “no with comments,” backed by a unanimous vote of its technical committee, and then changed its vote to a “yes” in March — although the committee this time was full of disagreement.
[...]
He explained, however, that the consequence of complaints may be that the final approval could be delayed.
The EC‘s judgment on this case is still due. It’s separately yet collectively investigating the abuse in several different countries. It’s an antitrust investigation, which indicates it’s rather severe and Microsoft left a lot of work to done if all the scandals were ever to be exhaustively explored. We previously compared Microsoft’s misbehaviour to a distributed denial of service attack, wherein tracking the corruption was too difficult because there was too much of it happening too fast. It’s a fact, not an exaggeration, but not a deliberate one, either. █
Related articles (external):
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Posted in News Roundup at 10:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
F/OSS
GNU/Linux
The ‘Bad Guys’
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents at 9:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Okay, this new post with the headline “Make Your Distro Free of Miguel de Icaza’s junk code” was just too difficult to ignore. It showed up in Free Software Daily just a few moments ago.
Go ahead and ‘un-Novellise’ your distro. It might even spare the lives of a few kittens. 
█
“At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it immediately.”
–Miguel de Icaza
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Posted in Asia, Deception, Free/Libre Software, FUD, Microsoft, Windows at 9:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”
–Microsoft, internal document
This is certainly not a rant, but merely a comical reminder of who the BSA and Gartner Group really are, as well as whom they serve. To be truthful, it’s just business as usual for them. And nevertheless, it’s good to find some timely validation from other sources. It lends to credibility.
Those who follow the link digests closely enough probably will have noticed the new article from India about so-called ‘piracy’ (a propaganda term), whose decline is partly caused by quiet and gradual migrations to Free software.
“It’s a pay-for-praise pool of people in suits.”With the exception of the brainwash-loaded headline it’s quite a good article because, unlike many others of its kind, it does bother to show that the BSA and its affiliates are not the only game in town. The BSA ambitiously escapes its worst nightmare (and the nightmare of its funding corporations of course). It’s free software. It makes them all obsolete. We summarised the escapades of the BSA and Microsoft in the following long post, which serves as decent background (or so we hope). The artificial inflation of figures by criminologists at the BSA gives Microsoft ammunition that changes laws and earns the company sympathy it does not deserve — always neglecting the ingredient that is alternative products and the effect on copyrights infringement on adoption and widespread vendor lock-in.
Another good exposition comes from Cringely, who speaks about the Gartner Group and the likes of it. We last addressed this serious issue about a month ago. Nothing has changed. It was a couple of months ago that Matt Asay sarcastically said that if you want something good to be said about your company, all you need to do is hire an analyst. That’s just how these businesses operate. It’s a pay-for-praise pool of people in suits. Information Week too has published an article that questions the integrity of analyst and it put special focus on Gartner, which is fairly large.
Anyone who takes these analysts seriously ought to just take a look at the track record of their predictions. Further, here is Cringely’s new take.
I have this notion to write a series of columns from time to time under the title “Reality Check” — columns intended to explain how the world of Information Technology actually functions. Because like any other entrenched, complex, and often closeted industry, things in IT don’t really work the way many people think they do. I’m guessing the Vatican is a bit like that, too. So I’ll be looking at various IT players and their roles and trying to put them into perspective, much as I did recently with a column or two about the role of computer consultants. This week the topic is Gartner Inc., or rather all the Gartner-like operations that give advice about technology to America’s largest businesses: what do these guys actually DO?
Not much of real value I’m afraid — at least of value in my view.
[...]
Into this knowledge vacuum come the vendors, who want to sell stuff, and the consultants like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and the Yankee Group, who need IT managers to feel uncertain about every decision except the decision to buy something, anything. Then look at the number of “research reports” that are commissioned by vendors. Uh-oh.
The five P’s of IT are Pride, Prejudice, Politics, Price, and Performance, with the last two being by far the least important. Consultants like Gartner are very useful for minding the pride and politics, their real function being to provide $2 billion worth of IT management CYA per year.
We will surely return to discussing analysts and consultants in the future. Many of them just happen to be some of the world’s most respected shills. Alas, we are supposed to look at them with awe and reverence. Corporations teach us to listen to them. Well, wouldn’t that be expected from those whom they serve? Self-serving impositions and all? █
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Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Minix, Novell at 9:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t (always) make it drink.”
Earlier on, trashing of the World Wide Web using proprietary XAML was seen as a subject worth discussing due to the unnecessary arrival of Moonlight. It’s a Novell project that is probably most craved — it at all — by Novell and its paying (to Microsoft) customers, who may or may foolishly believe that they receive some sort of ‘protection’ (from whom? Microsoft? Its patent-trolling ‘spinoffs’ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]? Any of the above? Or none of the above?).
Fortunately, according to this new post from O’Reilly Radar, Microsoft’s Silverlight isn’t taking off, despite Microsoft’s forcing of some of its partners (sometimes akin to bribery) to embrace it.
What’s Keeping Adobe Up at Night? Probably Not Silverlight.
[...]
In short, if book sales are any indicator, traction for Silverlight appears to be quite low.
Last month we placed emphasis on an interesting new report from a RIA expert. He argued that Microsoft was faking Silverlight adoption in order to create hype and then simply hope for the ‘cattle effect’. The following memorable leak comes to mind:
“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.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
As we alarmed before, Microsoft already has “Silverlight boosters” on its payroll.
Speaking of fake support, a new survey suggests that most people are not so easily fooled by Microsoft’s faking of support for ‘openness’. What probably speaks greater volumes, however, is Microsoft’s steep brand decline from 11th to 59th.
Our survey shows that business technology pros aren’t convinced that Microsoft is doing enough to shed its old proprietary habits.
[...]
Not surprisingly, business technology pros, who have had to force-fit Microsoft and non-Microsoft technologies together for years, have their own doubts about Microsoft’s openness. Fifty-one percent of those we surveyed regard Microsoft’s openness push as mostly a PR campaign. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “extremely open,” Microsoft garners an average score of only 2.3.
Hope remains, despite what we wrote last night and in spite of Novell's PR work for Microsoft. This game of posturing has not proven to be hugely successful. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 1:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux Releases
B2D 20080513, rPath 2.0, Berry 0.90 and Recovery Is Possible 5.4 have just been released, but also:
GNU/Linux Reviews
Fedora 9 (Short Ones)
Mobile and Embedded Linux
Firefox 3 RC 1 and Browsers Survey
F/OSS
Leftovers
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