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THOSE WHO say that AttachMSFT will axe Mono were mentioned here last week. We no longer cover silly posts that help adoption of Mono (and sometimes Moonlight) because the project seems to have hit a wall. The Mono boosters saw the AttachMSFT announcement last Monday and kept pretending nothing had happened. Their Microsoft-groomed leaders are still defending Microsoft and promoting a surrogate of Visual Studio, NoDevelop [sic].
As feared, Microsoft is acquiring technology assets developed by Novell, the leading Open Source vendor. Novell will sell its 'so-called' Intellectual Properties to Microsoft-owned CPTN Holdings LLC for mere $450 million in cash.
The foundation of Novell's acquisition (or its technology assets) by Microsoft was laid when the two companies signed a highly controversial patent-agreement to cover their products on November 2, 2006. Under the five year agreement, the companies also agreed to work closely in the name of 'inter-operability'.
We did not see any Microsoft products being made available on Linux platform at the consumer front. However, we did see Novell's attempts to create products which lock Linux user/develops into the Microsoft technologies -- Mono and Silverlight being two examples which were developed under the leadership of Miguel de Icaza. It will be interesting to see if Mr Icaza joins Microsoft!
I am very, VERY proud to say that from the start of January, I’ll be joining Collabora Ltd as their new Systems Manager.
Comments
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2010-11-29 14:34:46
OOXML and Silverlight are shining examples of why free software coders should avoid Microsoft tech. Years ago, I asked Gnome people why they would waste time on OOXML and other Microsoft tech. Their answer was that these formats would soon become dominant and that I'd thank them later. I thought then that chasing Microsoft tail lights was futile because Microsoft would always move the goal posts. Now I have a new point. Microsoft is a dying company that no longer sets standards of any kind, not even poor ones that constantly shift. Ironically, Microsoft's OOXML focus has made previous binary efforts look more successful than they really are. I'm glad people solved that problem and especially glad that Open Office can deal with most of it, but I know it is incomplete and would be broken if Microsoft had the manpower to work on it. I'll also be happy if any progress can be made on OOXML, but ODF is a more widely used and technically superior standard. We would all be better off with ODF as a universal document format and that can easily happen with a little help from friends.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-11-29 15:39:01