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LinuxWorld: Business, Business and More Business
Clarkson University wins a server from IBM. Sun is bringing embedded Linux to its UltraSparc IIe processors. Wired has an overview of LinuxWorld, talking about how it's all business and the joy is gone; and so does Internet.com; and so does Newsforge, which also has a story about LinuxWorld in Paris. The Register has a lengthy interview with Miguel de Icaza, in which he notes "Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET".
"click" That's the sound of Gnome being deleted. After reading the Register article, I'm almost convinced that Miguel is on the evil empires payroll. Hello KDE!
On the other hand, he does say it's a cool environment and I'm sure he knows a hell of a lot more about programming than I do. So, I take back the "click". Hell, I don't know what to think. I do know I don't ever want to donate to M$ again!
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Porting Gnome to
I love the idea of a common runtime environment that supports C++, Java, Perl, Python, etc., runs on all platforms, etc. etc. etc., but I DON'T want that platform in any way controlled by Microsoft (or by Sun, or RedHat, or me!) If any one entity controls the platform, that one entity has entirely too much power - we've simply traded one monopolist for another.
Now, if Miquel wishes to create such an environment under GPL, with no patents held by any organization, then I'm all for it - that way no one organization can embrace and extend the spec. But
www.eFax.com are spammers
I think - I THINK - that Miquel's goal is to out-Microsoft Microsoft, by beating MS to the punch on .NET.
.NET as widespread as HTTP _before_ MS can get a signifigant foothold, then you have a certain element of control over the Beast From Redmond.
If you can make
But that's a really dangerous game to be playing, methinks.
Miquel scares me sometimes.
DG
http://streetmodified.org/books.html
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Seriously, back in the good old days (circa 1980) IBM's VM/370 OS was "available source", and we used to play with and modify it. Some of those modifications even got picked up by IBM. We also used it for business (the customer of those modifications).
There's (obviously) nothing to stop businesses from exploiting the benefits provided by those that play with the OS.
And, as long as there's source, there's nothing to stop people from continuing to play.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The more money is going to trickle down to the little guys, read us, to develope more business solutions.
I found this to be true in my consulting business: When I don't have to charge them $250 a seat for Widnows, $400 for MS Office and $250 for various CAL and NT Servers - they tend to spend more money on my cool database applications. Less money going to Billionaire Bill means more for me.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Does anyone else think that old Miguel is looking for financial support from Microsoft. Follow the beast and it will eventually repay you?
"But it will be a cold day in hell before Billy and the boys would do anything (even for profit) for an open source project that uses the GNU licence for many of its parts."
The point is, it doesn't matter what Billy and friends do. All that was needed was a standard, and MS had the clout to push that through. But to make it workable, they had to submit it to a standards organization.
So as long as you stick to what is standardized (and since Mono is a completely free implementation of the CLR standard) MS has absolutely no control over you.
Now if you fall into the trap of wanting to make IIS.NET web services on your Linux box, then microsoft owns you. But writing GNOME apps against GTK+ using CLR gives MS no power over you at all.
IIRC, he threw a hissyfit over GMONE referring to Staroffice instead of a free alternative. I'd imagine he'd be ready to have Miguel lynched over this - getting into bed with the worst of the colsed source companies.
Doesn't he have some serious pull with the GNOME people?
-- When a fool hears of the Tao, he will laugh out loud.
I saw this in the Business Wire - apparently Oracle will be ditching Unix to run on Linux, and will then do versions for the different OS as well.
But their main servers will all be Linux.
As to those who gripe about "darned business Linux" stuff - what's stopping you from doing your own Open Source projects? We never paid attention to Windows - you don't have to pay attention to Business glomming on to Linux either.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Miguel? Do you have any idea of what type of fire you are playing with? Seriously, what you plan on doing is taking a large chunk of gnome users and kindly giving them to Microsoft in their battle to control EVERYTHING there is to control. Listen, if this came of it's own because of need then I would have no problem with it. Especially if it came from the free software movement or other companies/monopolists who weren't convicted of abusing said monopoly. The problem I DO have is that simply this may make things easier in short term but in long term horrible for the industry. The infrastructure of what we call the internet today (application wise) is built with many different, compilers, archs and setups; it works and it might not be efficient but it allows for choice. What .NET plans to do is basically eliminate choice in the long run.
.NET taking over the world, using dumbasses and tiny amounts of cash in retrospect as pawns and they are too blind to see me coming.. man I'm good"
Can't you see that Microsoft isn't doing this to be nice, they aren't even doing this for web services. They are doing this to own the whole goddamn thing. The internet, what developers develop in, how things operate.. EVERYTHING!! And you are gonna sit there and honestly interview with someone on some bullshit about how this is good for you/us/me/developers because it makes things easier and that Gnome 4.0 will support this. This is Microsoft getting out of the OS business and into a much larger market. If they become the standard (standard meaning widely used) this will set off World War 3.. Everyone trying to break ties with Microsoft will again have no choice but to follow a standard they created and will no doubt make proprietary extensions too breaking said standard submitted to the ECMA when their standard+extensions becomes standard (widely used) you are fucking OWNED.
I hope this doesn't happen because if it does, you'll be known as the fucking typhoid mary in the free software movement.
"MS =
Go back and read Miguel's statements on Microsoft's security in context. He correctly distinguishes Microsoft's security design from its implementation.
On paper, .Net's secuity model is quite nice. Just as NT's model is well designed. Unfortunately for all of us, Microsoft has been choosing the wrong pair from [fast, cheap, right]. That was the point of the Trustable Computing Memo. It's time for Microsoft to start coding as well as they design.
Besides, this is a tremendous opportunity for Mono in particular, and Open Source in general. Here, we have a spec from Microsoft, rubber-stamped by ECMA, with both closed and Open implementations. Both sides have something to prove. Microsoft must prove that they can "turn the boat" again, as they did after the Internet Memo, and write secure code. Mono must prove that the tenets of Open Source (many eyes == shallow bugs, full disclosure, etc.) can bear fruit in an apples-to-apples comparison. This competition can only improve the breed. In the end, we'll be able to choose the greater good, instead of the lesser evil. <trollbait /> :-)
For some, blissful ignorance of Microsoft has been the best way to go. Who am I to argue with Linus Torvalds? But Miguel has chosen to take the fight to Microsoft, by competing on their .Net turf. More power to him!
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Both your questions are irrelevant. The first set of questions about whether Microsoft can change the C# and CLI spec is irrelevant because already a lot of stuff in .NET is not in the C# or CLI specification. Miguel has stated that creating a compatible implementation of .NET is not his goal yet people keep assuming it is. The CLI and C# are good technologies that fix some of the mistakes that Sun made with Java (and made some new ones) but somehow assuming that implementing the development platform now means that Ximian will have to mirror the .NET development environment when MSFT probably has twice or thrice the number of programmers working on .NET fulltime versus Mono's five fulltime and about fifty volunteer employees.
.NET framework to Linux. Instead I assume it will be a successful port of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure which is good enough for me.
Quite frankly, I don't ever expect Mono to be a port of the
As for your second set of questions, I somehow doubt that MSFT can hand over their technology to a standards body yet still threaten to sue anyone who implements it. However, IANAL and stranger things have happened.
Microsoft is playing the favourites game again. First MS gives the rights to MFC to Bristol (where is Bristol today? Notice also that Bristol did not get the rights for COM?), then COM and MFC to Mainsoft (where is Mainsoft today? Notice that Mainsoft does not have the rights for .NET?), and now finally Ximian is the "annointed one".
This is a Microsoft play through and through. And it surprises me that Michel is that STUPID to fall for it. I think the reason is because MS seriously sweet talks into into Michel's ear. And most likely the Ximian team went through various scenarios and thought, "Hey this is a win win situation." But the reality is that it is not a win win situation. Microsoft will string along Michel until they do not need him and Ximian anymore. And then there will be a new annointed one.
What disappoints me is that Michel thinks he can outfox Microsoft. Bigger people have tried and have their problems. Michel is a small fry and when Bristol or Mainsoft or Software AG tried to get more action MS stopped them dead in their tracks. Standards mean squat to Microsoft. How many people does Microsoft have on the standard bodies and how many does Ximian? Get my point folks!!! Sorry for being so harsh, but after having talked and written about Microsoft for a decade (switched to Open Source) I am amazed that people still fall for this tatic.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
It seems some people yearn for the days when they where the only ones using linux. They are as bad as M$ trying to put themselves on a pedestal by sabotaging other peoples attempt to step out of ignorance.
Business is good. A "mixing of open source and close source ideologies" ends up making a very competitive and successfull candidate. It's not that one or the other is necessarily bad, but that extremes of either become self defeating. Sure RedHat has certain proprietary secrets which they use to make a profit. So what. They also make linux very accessable and allow more people to discover the 'joy' of linux. These heady idealist who scream down with all things proprietary are nothing more than neo-hippy-nihilist-posers who need to think before they parrot. Part of what makes linux and open source such an inspiring concept is that it makes information accessable to the people, and thusly empowers them to some extent. Successfull business' that push open source solutions manage to put the empowering project in more hands, and helps to fuel the ongoing development and exploration in the community. I think it's very symbiotic. The real bitch I think these people have is that money no longer falls out of the trees. Such is the state of the economy. Many of us are finding we have to work for a living. For some of us, this is no revelation. Some of us even find joy in our work.
The newsforge comment on RMS' attendance habits is just plain false. RMS was at LWCE in San Jose in the fall of '99, and there was no "GNU" prefix attached. He was really tearing up the dance floor at the /. /Andover party :)
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
As a Ximian user, I've got to say ...in the beginning Ximian was great, but since they've started their 'subscription model', they've gone downhill rapidly.
...around 800bps to 1kbps speed wise ...which is a disgrace.
.NET, Miguel appears to not have been warned as a child against making deals with the devil. Someone needs to take Gnome away from Ximian, before it's too late.
...there should be different price structures for business and home use. $9.95 a month is OK for businesses, but something like $1 - $3 per month for home use is a more reasonable amount.
If you don't subscribe, the Red Carpet downloads are at a pittance
As for
As for the 'pay for update' subscription service
Keep it up Ximian, and I'll be finding myself a new GUI, along with a lot of others, I imagine.