Bonum Certa Men Certa

One Last Sellout From Novell (MPEG-LA, Microsoft Patent Traps)

Earrings and girl



Summary: Weeks before its death (as a public company), Novell announces continued plans that favour MPEG-LA and Microsoft, not software freedom

THE DIMINISHING presence of Novell does not prevent the company from promoting Microsoft, which funnelled perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars into Novell in order to receive this kind of treatment. It's a bit like a bribe -- somewhat like the money Microsoft gave to Nokia, which then decided sell out without being acquired [1, 2, 3, 4].



The usual suspect is making some noise about Moonlight, which brings Mono and proprietary codecs with it (hello, MPEG-LA). The FSF's new call for a boycott against MPEG-LA supporters is another subject we'll deal with shortly. Moonlight is just a surrogate of Silver Lie, which would never support WebM. Microsoft is in complete control.

"Moonlight is just a surrogate of Silver Lie, which would never support WebM."The 'Microsoft press' is of course promoting this, but it's not alone [1, 2]. An entity called Telerik, which we mentioned in [1, 2, 3], is also helping this promotion, which is of course invaluable to the monopolist. Some Linux sites fail to highlight the drawbacks [1, 2] and also give coverage to future releases of Mono, which include Microsoft code and patent traps. Novell has been actively trying to pollute Android with Mono, using a product called MonoDroid [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. It is speculated that Moonlight too will try to pollute Android, not just with Microsoft patents but also with MPEG-LA patents (Google is currently the main opponent of MPEG-LA and Microsoft is trying to increase the cost of Android, using lawsuits and extortion a la MPEG-LA).

Based on comments that we found in Identi.ca over the weekend, the Mono bullies or Mono lobby continue to act like Scientology. The usual suspects are harassing anyone who dare to say a negative thing about Mono and/or Moonlight, as always. Among the bullies in these discussions we find some Novell employees like this gentleman (who also hangs out in Reddit, smearing Techrights). Hypocritically enough, Mono bullies like to say that they are the victims; they should take a look at their own behaviour. Mono boosters must come grips with the fact that merely naming those who do the pro-Microsoft coding is reasonable for the same reason an attacked party often blames the attacking troop if not the general (people like Microsoft MVP de Icaza) who start this attack, sometimes embodied by a project with the funding of the 'state' (Novell or Microsoft in this case). To quote the Novell/Ximian trooper:

Attacking someone's project often results in that person feeling personally attacked. I should know this as well or better than anyone because I'm one of the authors of the most widely attacked projects in the Free Software community: Evolution, Mono, and Moonlight.


Mono and Moonlight are 'attacked' because they are harmful. They help Microsoft, not Free software. The 'attacks' on them are not personal attacks, unless Mono and Moonlight are two people with feelings to be hurt. Trying to personify them is missing the point.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day