DotGNU Meet-a-thon

Gopal.V writes "It's time for the Quarterly DotGNU IRC Meet-a-thon. As usual, we'll be having it on #dotgnu on irc.openprojects.net. We will be discussing the current state of DotGNU, where we've gone and where we should be headed. Anyone who is interested should join us. In particular, we are not only looking for developers to be involved in this meet, but also potential DotGNU users. We are very interested in addressing any questions/input from anyone who will one day use our framework. So come one, come all. The last meet was a lot of fun and we expect this this IRC meet will be even better than the last. Again, the IRC meet is taking place on: Server: irc.openprojects.net, Channel: #dotgnu. The meeting will run for a 36 hour period from 22:00 UTC Saturday 29 July 2002 until 10:00 UTC Monday 31 July. Every 4 hours will be an official meet time, when the major DotGNU members will be online. Most discussions will revolve round DotGNU projects and other issues concerning freedom in the new MS initiatives like .NET , and Palladium." I think this announcement may be slightly wrong on the times since it disagrees with the post to the email list; but this is posted as submitted.

Comments

For those wondering what dotgnu is...

[User 956]

IIRC, I read that DotGNU will enable you to run your C# programs on the free GNU/Linux operating system using exclusively free software. With DotGNU, you will be able to use C# if you wish, without surrendering your freedom to study, share, change, and generally control all the software that you use.

This is, of course a boon, however it is worthless without some soft of workaround for Microsoft's Palladium scheme:

Microsoft's "Palladium certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances."

Re:oh boy! OpenProjects.net, the spam network!

[Blymie]

I've been upset with this too. I wouldn't put it as above, although there are some valid.. statements, heh ;)

Try this url too for a petition against this silliness.

I'm disappointed with their choice of OPN

[Clue4All]

I'm especially disappointed with Rob Levin, but at the same time, I'm proud of OFTC.net which is turning out to be a worthy replacement for OpenProjects. Once again, people have demonstrated the Internet's abilitity to route around greed the same way it routes around damage.

For those who aren't up to scratch with IRC history, Rob Levin is the founder of OpenProjects, a successful forum for Open Source developers. However, recently he was sacked from his workplace. Despite being offered employment in his area and worldwide, he has refused them on grounds of "being too good" and has instead taken the easy way out and pilfered the OpenProjects funds to maintain his $150,000 per annum income. Levin is now nothing more than an opportunist who is exploiting the goodwill of sponsors and the community, misrepresenting his own personal keep-me-rich charity as an Open Source fund, despite never having contributed a single line of code to any Open project. Recently, he's taken to abusing volunteers and developers on the IRC network, threatening to shut them down or "K-Line" (permanent ban) them from the network unless they conform with his views and contribute to his salary, in effect trying to milk them for money. He also knows exactly what people with resources to donate want to hear and is often able to sweet-talk money out of companies and individuals who want to assist the Open Source community.

Note that I have nothing but respect for the other OpenProjects staff members, particularly their ircd coders. I hope that they will be successful in ejecting LILO from the team before he runs OpenProjects onto the rocks. After all, the network is every bit their property and the property of the bandwidth sponsorors as it is of this corrupt and misguided individual.

In the meantime, I welcome you to #Mandrake and #kernelnewbies on irc.oftc.net!

Re:I'm disappointed with their choice of OPN

[dzym]

Disregarding, once more, the sheer unethicalness of using your special privileges on the network to solicit money from your users. Disregarding, of course, the dubious legal grounds of your actions as related to Open Projects Network as a non-profit entity. How typical.

And disregarding the fact that the group that you label the the trolls, the "vocal minority" as you call us, conveniently enough, just happen to include almost every single one of the former staff that have been with the network since the very beginning, and have been jumping ship precisely because they saw what was coming.

Disregarding the fact that even various server sponsors have been silenced for complaining about your heavy-handed tactics in dealing with dissent.

Disregarding the fact that the administrative channel, once a forum for the open transmission of thought and understanding, has been turned into a police state of staffers who silence users at a whim and k-line the "vocal minority" at the drop of a hat.

Disregarding that the channel itself has been marked moderated (+m) purely because you do not have the guts to stand up to a fair critique of your mistakes.

You, lilo, are out of control. Every last stabilizing factor in the OPN staff have been eliminated. All who remain are little more than cronies who will stand for everything you do or say because they know no better. Just this past weekend you removed the o:lines of 2 staff.opn members for the simple reason that they have been chatting on OFTC, the alternative to your iron-handed rule.

Frankly, we're tired of your bullshit. Take it elsewhere.

Re:I'm disappointed with their choice of OPN

[lpontiac]

I would also like to point out that lilo is not asking for a salary

AFAIK, Lilo's always felt that receiving a significant chunk of income from OPN is an appropriate goal. It's not on the current version of the page (last modified today, according to the footer), but an older copy of an openprojects.net page at archive.org states:

The intent was to find a sponsor to pay his salary so that he could work on the network fulltime ..... OPN will continue to grow. At some point it will become large enough that one or two full-time salaries can be paid out of voluntary contributions by users.