Summary: A sanity check that touches on the facts when it comes to Microsoft, Miguel, and Novell

THE Microsoft blogs are still grooming Miguel de Icaza to help him shove .NET and other Microsoft software (and patents) like Mono and Moonlight into the #1 competitor of Microsoft. Here is the latest example. This Microsoft-rewarded blog pretends by calling Miguel de Icaza an "ex-rival" (of Microsoft), but he was never a rival; he was even looking to work for Microsoft over a decade ago, very shortly before he started GNOME.

The Source (sort of an offshoot of Mono-Nono) writes regarding Miguel de Icaza's Microsoft MVP award:

Great to see more official recognition from Microsoft to Mr. de Icaza on his tireless efforts supporting Microsoft products and technologies!

Other good new posts from The Source speak about Mono and Moonlight, as well as the attacks on Richard Stallman for daring to resist these.

"Fatal Flaw: On Competition

[...]

The Premise

Example: “Moonlight/Silverlight will force Adobe to step up its game, and that competition benefits everyone”

Example: “Mono/.NET will force Java to step up its game, and that competition benefits everyone”

The argument here is supporting Mono/Moonlight/Microsoft is at least indirectly beneficial — if not directly so — because competition benefits everyone.

[...]

When Microsoft talks about “killing” and “fucking burying” competition, driving competitors into a “death spiral” and “out of business”, stacks and bribes standard bodies, and so on, ad nauesum to the extent that courts around the world must step in to correct their behavior time and time again, then I submit to you, Gentle Reader, that is not a culture of co-operative competition.

Outside of a whole raft of general issues with competition (who benefits? for how long? at whose expense? what are the intended end results? what are the unintended side effects? etc), it is clear that not all competition is beneficial. Furthermore it seems clear to me (though I’m sure not so clear to everyone) that Microsoft chooses destructive competition.

Jason repeats an important point:

Thus I return again to my point that the vocal anti-Free Software critics are either ignorant or malicious.€¹ The FSF is quite good at laying out its philosophy in great detail on its website. You don’t have to sign an NDA or anything.

€¹ The sadly necessary disclaimer: I’m not suggesting there is no valid criticism out there, just that people who play the “zealot” card, ridicule RMS or the FSF for “hypocrisy”, or enage in other such fact and logic-free fallacies are to be dismissed with scorn.

It is not surprising that a lot of anti-Stallman sentiments arrive from the camp which is advancing Microsoft software in the form of surrogate implementations. Stallman is aware of the problem and he wrote to me about it earlier today. Those who attack Richard Stallman usually have a thing in common; they care about power, not freedom. ⬆