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Could Mono Kill Gnome?
Jrbl writes "NewsForge is running This editorial by Tina Gasperson about the possible implications for GNOME if it gets Mono (which allows patented components.) There's also a reference to this article at The Register in which Miguel de Icaza raves about Microsoft."
You say Intel wouldn't do that to Mono, one of the Open Source answers to Microsoft's .NET technology. ... they're fine with MS, and I'm sure MS puts Intel under a lot of pressure. Intel won't resist because it's (again) all about the money ...
Intel could do it
Just a opinion among others.
Life sucks.
If you get a map showing you how to get to Grandma's house faster (but it happens to go by the wolf's den), do you follow it without caution, or do you grab a shotgun first?
.NET architecture is a good idea (it is), and if we should implement it (we should).
/. post), is to wonder if we are setting ourselves up to be eaten by Microsoft (or indeed, anyone who may lay claim to the Mono libraries). It has become clear that Gnome could be effectively taken out through the current licencing. Microsoft would love to beat us at our own game - and use its influence on other companies to pull rank on Gnome and kill it, especially if Gnome/Mono does becomes a huge success.
I don't think that the question here is if the
The point of the editorial (and of the
Too much money is at stake in the next round of operating systems to leave anything to chance. Microsoft (and Intel for that matter) is setting themselves up for a free shot at Gnome if it ever starts threating the status quo. Thats scary to me.
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Could Mono kill Gnome
I sure as hell don't know but I'm pretty sick of watching the redundancy in Linux. Sure, most of it has a purpose but I might be able to use the damn software if people made sacrifices for the sake of getting a desktop product out. I'm not trying to start a flame war about whether it is good enough for *your* desktop or not so please don't start.
What I would love to see is everyone who is working on anything remotely redundant to drop what they are doing, put their collective heads together and come up with a real competitor for Microsoft in something *other* than the server market. I don't care if it is a desktop product or an TV/entertainment product.
There are too many unfinished products and not enough of One Good Thing.
BTW - I mentioned the TV thing because I am currently building a home theater PC that has caused me much grief. I see that both Microsoft and the Linux community are addressing the market.
10 to 1 odds that Microsoft finishes a product that everyone buys and bitches about while the Linux product stays in beta stage for years to come.
Sigh...
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Life is the leading cause of death in America.
There's a Visual Studio .Net banner ad atop the front page at 4:59 pm Eastern.
Shall we expect more open and Slashdot now? :D
[Granted, it is served through Double-Click. Does MS outsource advertising?]
Maybe I am missing something, but I don't think that MS cares whether or not there is an Open Source version of dotNet.
.Net pieces to handle each. All the while, your passport account is getting billed a small amout for each use of each different function. So instead of paying $200 for Office, you pay a small amount (say .10) for each use of the spell checker. So maybe this month, your passport bill is 19.00 for use of .Net services. Instant revenue stream.
.Net function.
.Net Development part, not the .Net Framework. And, why would MS be porting it to FreeBSD if they did not want Linux to have it as well.
Follow me on this.
Operating System wars are over. Linux is making headway, and the courts are ruling that you have to open the source code. Microsoft has seen that revenue is not going to increase with the rapid OS upgrades. They want a month to month revenue stream. So they *invent* software renting. But this is not 'hey I am going to check out MS Office for a couple hours at 19.95 an hour', it is more like this as I read it. I need a new resume, so I start a wizard in Windows 2002 that helps me write one. So while the wizard is going through each part (like spellcheck, cover letter) the wizard automagically downloads the proper
When upgrades happen, then you automagically download the latest version of the
Everything I have read is that Microsoft want to push this everywhere. They want this on every computer, every PDA, even right down to your cell phone. So I do not believe that they care that it is on Gnome. If the passport stuff is in there, then it just adds to the revenue stream. That is what they are really after.
Plus, I see Gnome trying to implement the
The only interesting thing is if MS wants the passport/hailstorm added in. Then things could get interesting.
Mono only wants to do the software development side, and there are a lot of nice things in there. It is the passport side that makes us cringe.
Intel sends you a cease & desist. They also tell your ISP that you're violating their patents, and your ISP pulls the plug. So yes, there's prior art, but until your case gets to court (k$s and years later) Intel still has a patent. FSF may be able to fight that, but I can't.
That's why this is a bad scenario.
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E_NOSIG
I think what she's trying to say, in a rather roundabout, "let me adjust my tin foil hat" sort of way, is that there's no legal precedent for this situation. Is there an implicit patent license when patented material is contributed to an Open Source project by the patent holder? Look at it this way:
- Ximian adopts X11 license for parts of Mono
- Intel contributes to X11-licensed parts, including Intel-patented code
- Gnome 4.0 is converted completely to Mono
- Gnome acheives World Domination
- Intel calls in its marker on Ximian and Gnome, demanding royalties for that Intel-patented code
- Everyone gets dragged into court
- Miguel stands up in court and says, "Of course, there's Intel-patented code in Mono. Intel put it there in the first place!"
- Intel responds, "Yep. We did."
So what happens now? Will the judge have a sudden flash of common sense and tell Intel where to stick it's legal briefs? Or will Intel's high-priced landsharks invoke some strange combination of DMCA, SSSCA, the Patriot Act, and a rider on some farm subsidy legislation to swing the case their way?It is a valid concern, and I would hate to see projects as significant as Mono and Gnome be taken down by it. But I think Tina is being a bit too alarmist.
OT: This is what Slashdot's email auto-obfuscator generated for my email address:
Hey, Taco! I do not work for Jar-Jar Binks!This sig intentionally left blank.
Well, when you submit standards, you generally don't leave out a single system call to screw people over. The one way that I could see CLI screwing people over is the same way that java can, by tieing through the VM into the OS, making specific calls that are runtime determined, and cannot be pre-determined. So, yeah, it -is- possible to to screw over the 100% platform compatibility issue, but even without it, you still have a cross platform language to develop software from in an open source environment if you want to. Whatever Microsoft changes down the road could hurt portability, but it can never break GNOME as they have said here.
As long as the currently submitted spec of CLI is patent free, there is no fear of loss, death, destriction, or the rule of microsoft.
CLI will make it to Linux from Microsoft if you like it or not, but the question reamins, would you rather have it open or closed.
Bye!
The only time anything changes with respect to Intel and patents is if Intel explicitly signs their rights away. I believe that if you distribute your software under a GNU license, that means you give others the right to use your patented invention. That's a nice safeguard, to be sure, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to protect Mono or Gnome from Intel.
If Intel were duplicitous enough to contribute a patented invention under an X11-style copyright and then, two years later, turn around, mention that they have a patent, and sue for infringement, Mono and Gnome might have to stop using that part of the software, but I seriously doubt any judge would award damages. And the affected parts of the software could be easily replaced, since patents are not like copyrights or trade secrets--there is no risk of "contamination".
Altogether, the article strikes me as being as the grumblings of someone who is just overly zealous about GNU-style licenses. Yes, GNU-style licenses are nice, but the sky isn't falling if something is distributed under some other license. The X11 license is perfectly fine for open source software and has been used for many projects (including X11 itself) that are a much more dangerous minefield of patents than a 1970's style object oriented language.
The GPL and LGPL contain language with the goal that "any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all", while the MIT license does not contain similar language.
Consider the following scenario. Intel (they asked for the license change so they get to be the bad guys in this hypothetical example) extends the Mono framework to support a new image compression algorithm and releases their code under the MIT license. GNOME uses this new compression algorithm in their next release. Intel then discloses that they have a patent on the compression method and demands royalty payments. What happens to GNOME?
I'm a developer on win32 platforms, so perhaps I shouldn't care, but I find it irritating at best that a person who put in so much effort to give the Open Source community the stuff they wanted, is critizised as if he's the lamest n00b in the world. And why is this? Because he's one of the very FEW on Linux platforms who has realized that today's way of computing is doomed and will be taken over by a new, more distributed way. Miguel took the brave stand to decide to implement a Microsoft based technique.
Oh brother, now he's true evil...
Get a life, zealots. If Mono kills Gnome (or better: makes Gnome obsolete), why would that be something bad? If Mono lets you run the applications you need, makes you use your Linuxbox the way you want and the way you need it, would you miss Gnome? I don't think so.
Mono is a hell of a project to complete, a lot of subprojects of Mono still need completion. If you want Linux to survive in the new era of computing, stop whining and start coding.
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