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RMS Asks Miguel to Explain Himself
phaze3000 writes "RMS, responding to questions from the audience at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil last week, has asked Miguel de Icaza to explain himself to the Free software community about comments made last week that Gnome should be based on .NET in the future. More details at Brazillian site Hotbits and in The Register." I find this amusing.
It's time that Linux people realize that hating MS is going no where and is completely unproductive. All too often they fail to realize that MS is on to a good thing just for the sake of always putting down MS. I think it's a great move on behalf of GNOME.
scott
The man is getting old and it shows.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
I think people have misunderstood Miguel. What he has done here is to use MS as an R&D dept. MS spent millions researching .NET and built a comprehensive set of tools. GNU (and the rest of us) can benefit from this research, they can take the best ideas from .NET and implement them in MONO. This is a GoodThing.
.NET and stick with the standards he wins because .NET will become fragmented.
.NET and C# are full of ideas borrowed from JAVA, DELPHI, DCOM etc. Why not pull an MS here and embrace your enemies. Take their ideas and run with them!
There could be a problem if MS shifts the spec or extends the spec. At that point if Miguel decides to chase MS he loses. If he decides to "fork"
I think Miguel knows what he is doing. I say give him a chance if history is any indicator he will kick ass.
In essence
War is necrophilia.
Given that Sun has publically stated they are going to move to using Gnome as their desktop (not that i believe it given their last support of the OpenStep UI) -- I believe they would have some serious issues with this as well
Its no secret the position Sun takes as it relates to Microsoft
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
Ok, so RMS isn't happy with Miguel supporting a technology developed by Microsoft. But the issue isn't that the technology comes out of MSFT - the bigger issue is that in the .NET infrastructure, don't all requests/authentication/charges end up going through MS? Is Miguel essentially porting .NET to Linux by doing this? Or does Mono provide a means for bypassing the central MSFT authentication?
Beyond that, I'm surprised RMS didn't make more of an issue of Miguel changing the licensing on Mono to X11 from GPL. Lord knows that it's causing a ton of controversy among Gnome developers, and I can't imaging a bigger finger in the direction of RMS myself.
It's too bad, really - I've been using Ximian/Gnome for over a year now, and parts of it are pretty darn cool. But I'm starting to think that Miguel's getting off course - perhaps it's time to re-evaluate KDE.
'ARRGH! Pirate Designers of the Internet, we be!'
Pinning GNOME to .NET sounds like a braindead idea to me anyway. Perpetually playing catch-up and being involved in an arms race with MS. If you have any knowledge of the history of computing then you'll know the sands of .NET will continually shift.
.NET
/. about it!
Just look at the lineage :
dde, ole, ole2, com, dcom, dcom + mts, soap,
J++ & Active Directory probably fit in there somewhere too.
Pinning your business model to any of these technological donkeys is an expensive move.
to paraphrase :
The MSDN treadmill moves pretty fast, if you don't look around once in a while, you might just miss out!
Everybody has a duty to question, I'm glad RMS has done it so publicly because if it was me that asked then I doubt we'd see any discussion on
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Yes, we hate MS. We really hate MS. MS is bad, mmkay? Now that that's out of the way...
.NET is coming, lets not dilute ourselves about that. MS owns the desktop, and if they want .NET, odds are, good or bad, .NET is making it into peoples homes. So our choices are simple, we can ignore .NET, do our own thing (bonobo, watever) and stay a fringe group (dont kid yourselves, were a fringe group) of radical non-windows folks. Or, we can do the smart thing, offer full .NET compatibility. If we do that, and manage to keep up with MS's API changes and whatnot, when MS phases in .NET as the only type of app out there, we're ready, and we've got a real shot at the desktop. Want to run office? Go ahead, we can install it from your MS CD with no problems (no WINE, no emu, native). I, for one, can't wait for .NET on linux. I'll be coding my web services in VS.NET while still hacking perl in my bash console.
.NET, and let MS develop the software. Seems very logical to me, I dont understand what the problem is. Yeah, we're imitating 'the beast'. So what? Immitate now, dominate later. If linux is to make it to the desktop, it needs to catch up to windows, and this is the quickest, most painless way I see of doing this.
.NET on linux, it gives .NET more market penetration, but then again, once .NET is on linux, who needs windows?
.NET is new, its untested, its unproven, but the simple fact is, it's a very promising platform. Yes, MS built it, because they have the resources to. Why not use it?
Slashdot keeps talking about how we need to make linux so easy that my grandma can use it, here's our chance. We copy
Yes, I'm biased, I contribute ALOT to the Mono project, but I honestly believe that without something that gives native compatibility with windows apps, linux will stay on the server, and my grandma will keep shelling out for new versions of windows.
And one more thought, MS isn't trying to kill mono. Has it crossed anyones mind that this is our chance to get MS to help kill themselves? They want
Yes, this is a rant, and I'm sorry for any grammar/spelling errors. But, before you mod me down into oblivion, seriously think about this. This really is a good thing(tm), and is the best bet of linux getting into mainstream desktop land.
Miguel is thinking in terms of technology, of usefulness, of practical value to users. .Net is a great platform, and Microsoft's dominance of the client is going to guarantee its widespread use. If you want the great features of the platform, and want to interact with .Net systems created by others, but you hate the thought of being forced to use Microsoft Windows, Miguel is your friend.
.Net, and I love it. I'd love to have the advantages of .Net and Linux without it implying two different operating systems. Go Miguel!
RMS is a political ideologue who thinks in terms of leftist political objectives. Leftist ideologues aren't famous for their customer service. They would prefer to fight valiantly against the Enemies of the People, and heaven help any people who don't demonstrate political correctness.
I've been playing with
And RMS, you don't represent me, buddy. I don't see my needs high on your list of priorities.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
The article points out that it should be OK for the free software community to implement MS API's like SMB (SAMBA) and Windows itself (Wine) because they are already established standards, but it should not be alright to implement .NET because it is only an emerging standard not yet heavily adopted by many.
.NET is popular and widespread before starting a compatable project, then it will already be too late and you will be eternally playing catch-up. Think how much more accepted Linux might have been if it was also able run Windows applications well from the get-go.
.NET becomes very popular and widely deployed as Microsoft wishes it to be. In this case Linux and other OSS will benefit from already having a .NET implementation (Mono) in place. No need to spend two or three years to play catch-up while OSS loses market share to MS.
.NET is a bust and never becomes popular or widely deployed. Microsoft loses big time (since they are hanging their future on it), and OSS (mainly just Ximian) loses a gamble by having wasted some development resources. Big deal. And mainly just Ximian would have lost anything, the rest of the OSS community will have lost very little.
.NET and C# become widely deployed and OSS operating systems are caught with their pants down, not being able to host any .NET related services or applications.
I disagree with this conclusion. Why wait. If you wait until
Here are the two possibilities:
1 -
2. -
These two alternatives seem better than the third possibility, which is that
All I have understood is that it is _something_ that uses XML(which I still don't think is the big thing that everyone thought it was going to be) and it is going to have on one great big server: all the data about me that the CIA(or any advertising agency) could ever want. How does GNOME, Mono and .NET got to do with eachother... aside from Mono being noninovative? I'm not trying to troll, nor am I trying to start a flame war. I just want to understand what this really is. I have read white papers, I have looked at all of this stuff and I just don't understand what the hell it is. Is it a programming API? Is it a network? I don't get it and I am sick and damned tired of hearing about how great everyone thinks it is.
The thing that MS is very good at is hooking the developer. Start using their API and in no time you will feel the pain. That is the pain of upgrades. Remember OLE, then COM, then ActiveX, etc, etc?
.NET. If MS wants to put the followers at a disadvantage, they will do so. Period.
.NET should be ignored by the opensource community. Go out and invent something just as good or better, that stands on its own. That way, MS can't mess with it.
Everyone has to realize that following MS is just that. You will burn massive resources the rest of your like FOLLOWING. You will not do anything new, but you will put massive effort into staying compatible with them.
Do NOT forget than when MS wants to, they can hurt you. Remember the Win32s compatibility that IBM did? Remember what MS did to IBM? They released a gratuitously different Win32s just to break IBM's translator (that ran on OS/2).
The same thing could happen with
That is the reason
So if you didn't see this one coming, you simply haven't been paying attention.
It looks like Stallman just didn't realize this was the plan. Perhaps he also doesn't realize .NET refers more to the Java-like language and runtime being implemented by the mono project than the privacy-trashing hailstorm system Microsoft is trying to wed it to.
As for myself, I'm a "free as in speech," copyleft, "do what's best for the free software community" kind of guy, and I don't see a problem with moving Mono to .NET, if it works. (AWT and Swing gave me a bad taste with Java, so I'm a little suspicious of .NET, but still optimistic.) Of course, I've known since the beginning of the mono project that this was the plan. Because that's been said openly at every opportunity.
I do wish Ximian could find it in their hearts to copyleft everything, though. (No library licenses, proprietary Outlook extenders, etc.) And I know, that makes me evil and heartless.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
I think a lot of /. folks are letting their RMS disillusionments take control. I personally would definitely NOT like to see the Free software world start using Microsoft-invented, Microsoft-owned, Microsoft-patented technology if it can be helped.
This is like turning Gnome into a Windows app. Sure, .NET sounds cool from a technology point of view but you should know by now that technology doesn't live in a vacuum. As soon as anything based on .NET becomes a threat to Microsoft, they will cripple it, through technological or legal means.
The Free software community should stand firm and develop and use open technologies, and not even pay lip service to .NET.
I agree with the view taken by Nick Peterly (or whatever his name, I can't remember right now) that Miguel has been baited by Microsoft .NET and this will just give Microsoft a way to try and subvert Free software. Maybe that's not what MS was thinking at the outset, and not what Miguel is thinking, but it will be possible and we shouldn't allow MS that kind of power.
I for one will lump anything that uses .NET in with Microsoft products, even if it's "open source". Why take the chance? I'm surprised that so many /. folks are calling .NET "progress" or "a standard". It's just a Microsoft technology.
This is only partially true. From a home user perspective
From a the perspective of a business it makes perfect sense.
Now. Personally, I think a
But I digress...
Burn Hollywood Burn
"This is only partially true. From a home user perspective .NET is little more than useless garbage. Renting software"
Uhh, he said to look at it with your blinders off.
Since we're into car analogies, let me explain in simpler terms...
Miguel is saying the new Ford Mustang is pretty cool.
You are complaining because Hertz rents Ford Mustangs.
Miguel's decision to embrace technology that exists as only a fraction of an IEEE spec, a few "Dummies" books, and a beta SDK shows his lack of judgement, nomatter how you feel about it. He may turn out to be right, but not because of any great wisdom or foresight on his part. He's gambling on something that's only been *vaporware* for a year and a half, and is just now being implemented.
All this rhetoric about RMS and Mono and Ximian got me to re-read the article Ximian to Change License for Mono
How can Miguel change a license from GPL to anything else? My understanding of the GPL (section 3.1) is that this is impossible.
In other words, once software is under the GPL, can it actually be relicensed under a different scheme?
Mono is a clone of C# (c-hash) and the Common Language Interpreter (CLI). The clone of .NET (and Hailstorm) is DotGNU, which Miguel has nothing to do with.
.NET CLI framework. Insead of write once in Java and run anywhere, it is write once an any language, and run anywhere. This is very well suited to free software development, since it is much easier to reuse code, and allow more people to collaborate.
There is a clear advantage of using the
Ximian Gnome based on
and GNU Gnome.
Gnome is slowly selling out, we need a fork right about now.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This is a big mistake
Why does migel want to copy
Why isnt he focused on making something better than
Perhaps next we will hear, "Microsoft backs Gnome" or "Microsoft buys Ximian"
I bet thats his goal.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I have been using GNUStep and WindowMaker for a while now. API-wise, it beats the crap out of either Gnome or KDE, despite it being less mature than either. Other benefits include compatability with Mac OSX (of a fashion) and much, much more rapid application development. I also think objective-c is a cleaner language than C++. Anyway, people wishing to avoid the BEAST may want to consider GNUStep as a viable alternative to all of the other nonsense.
Thank you for such a detail chroncle but since I worked for IBM I've heard a different version than yours. (and since I worked for IBM I may be biased, be warned. ^_^)
:)
:)
:)
It was not IBM refused to ship PPC with NT, it's Microsoft who refused to developed NT on PPC. In fact DOS/Win32 running on 486 core wasn't so bad at that time, may be due to some architectural difficulties Microsoft did not port their NT to PPC.(you are right NT is portable and asm is not, but PPC's asm is open enough for them, at least as far as I know)
NT can run on Alpha. I'm not sure whether NT5(aka W2K) can run on Alpha, but previous versions can. It's Microsoft who left Alpha, not vice versa.
OS/2 lost to Windows mainly due to the fact that Windows do not allow OS/2 ship with many Win32 components - that almost drove OS/2 out of Win-compatibility business. In fact IBM did strike back by releasing 'OS/2 for Windows' version, but lost is lost.
Microsoft then further extended their monopolization by penalizing PC vendors if their line of products ship with OS other than Windows. That's what you've been hearing in the trial.
We, at that time, always wondered "Can they do that?", but hell, IBM did that during 70's(in other market) so why couldn't they! Now we know it's illegal, heh, oh well.
but it's too late.
In conclusion, Microsoft chose the path of monopolization. Your post sounds like Microsoft was forced to do so, may be I'm wrong.
Politics vs. technology. First, I'd like to point out that I'd like to totally get away from dual-booting... total waste of resources, IMO. I think Miguel and the corporate sponsors are hoping the same thing. I believe that Miguel's interest is holding together the intel's, suns and hp's by making concessions to satisfy their interests - maybe he could do a better job of persuasion... maybe RMS could give him some help.
I do quite a bit of cross platform work as a programmer. Frameworks and infrastructures are wonderful things. For those who say that .NET is untested and unproven, well it's been worked on since 1999 and the components have been in beta for the past year (it's at Beta 3 now). All M$ has to do is release it and turn on the marketing machine.
My confusion, I suppose, is how GNU/FSF/RMS have such a problem with all this. The Register articles point out that Miguel's position has remained consistant (they point to a 9/01 interview) and I'm reading currect events as an extension of what he's been saying all along. Anyway, isn't the FSF about bringing tools to the community without the commercial costs? .NET is unproven and spawn of the Beast so it can't be 'the best'? Is that one person's opinion (RMS)... dumb questions maybe that are steeped in confusing control issues, which I really don't care about.
What I do care about is that if Miguel or anyone has a concept and the where with all to bring it fruition, more power to him. If it's a 'bad' idea, it will fail. Integration and interoperability are not only buzzwords but they are key concepts in all sucessful implementations. Projects like this should, IMO, be encouraged and not horsewhipped.
As for RMS, I think his ego is really getting in the way. It may be me, but if someone demanded an explanation for something that I've been working twards for a year, I think I'd be looking to a new licensing model.
After this, it is kind of easy to reach to the conclusion that the ECMA standard has major deficiencies, that there is no way (apart from custom tool support) to tell if the code you are writing conforms to that standard and that Microsoft is most likely just paying lip service to the standards process, at least as far as the core .NET API's go. Java and Sun do a much more complete job of defining and sticking to specifications if the ECMA work is any sign.
Personally, I don't plan to touch .NET API's to develop open source software after this. My opinion is that Mono would be much better off if they develop their own cross-platform class libraries instead of using .NET API's. There is nothing preventing them from using CLI VM and multiple language support with their own class libraries. They are already writing everything from scratch, they might as well use their own design rather than playing catch-up to proprietary Microsoft API's.
"The deluded are always filled with absolutes. The rest of us have to live with ambiguity." - Aristoi, Walter Jon Willia
gee, how TERRIBLE of miguel to re-architect Gnome by embracing modern open standards like SOAP, XML and Web Services in place of an antiquated remote object interface like Corba.
.NET is just microsofts' packaging and marketing of OPEN STANDARDS.
people forget that
This type of
But...
You want a VM? um, more difficult, but I'm sure a couple of postgrad students could manage. a cross-language VM with an actually usable object oriented class library? ask the glibc folks (some of the finest brains in the business) how long it takes to develop something that makes sense. Then you have a JIT to consider...
It would take pretty large team if nothing else. and you will get ego clashes -- common among prima donnas. and it will move so slowly that ms/sun will rule the space before it ever takes off.
And yeah, did I mention that Sun (definitely) and MS (undoubtedly) have beacoup patents in this space? Welcome to the party, pal, and remember -- you're playing with the big boys now. (and don't even speak about IBM's coattails -- they have an agenda every bit as selfish as sun's or ms', they aren't the friends you think 'em to be.)