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De Icaza Regrets Novell/Microsoft Pact
Ian Lamont writes "Novell Vice President and GNOME architect Miguel de Icaza sounded off at a MIX 08 panel on a number of topics. First, he claimed that he was 'not happy' with Novell's cross-patent licensing agreement with Microsoft, saying that if he had his way, the company would have stayed with the open-source community. He also said that neither Windows nor Linux are relevant in the long term, thanks to Web 2.0 business models: 'They might be fantastic products ... but Google has shown itself to be a cash cow. There is a feature beyond selling corporate [software] and patents ... it's going to be owning end users.' He also tangled with Mike Schroepfer, a Mozilla engineering executive, about extending patent protection for Moonlight to third parties. However, de Icaza did say that Novell has 'done the best it could to balance open-source interests with patent indemnification.' We discussed the beginnings of the deal between Microsoft and Novell back in 2006."
Oh, well, that just makes it all better now, doesn't it? Miguel says he's sorry, guys. Will you forgive him?
My blog
.. who?
Fortunatly there is a worls out there and there are people like Miguel and a lot others that are human (and not Stallbots) and are somewhere in the middle, can make mistakes, can change their minds and are not so afraid of being politically correct in the eyes of the "community" (oh, what a horrible word).
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Tag this story 'Quisling'.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
deal with the devil, and you'll be rich-- but you'll lose your soul. Tell Robert Johnson hello, Miguel.
davejenkins.com |
Not sure what he's trying to achieve by saying this.
To people in the OSS camp, this will seem like too little, too late. That ship has already sailed.
To people in Redmond, this isn't exactly inspiring confidence in the reliability of Novell as a partner, and he's bashing their partnership at their own conference, no less.
And the people "above his paygrade" are probably not going to be too happy with him either.
Yeah, sure
First .NET, now Web 2.0 (I hate that phrase). He knows a bandwagon when he sees one.
But I still fail to see how Web 2.0 will make an operating system irrelevant. The browser has to run on something. The server has to run on something too. And with the talk about "local web 2.0 apps", they might even be the same machine. Then you'll really need a good OS to schedule and mediate the needless and vast layers of extra complexity.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I think he expects too much out of "Web 2.0"... just as people expected too much out of the Web in terms of finance and relevance ten years ago.
That's not to say that we didn't see a lot of money out of the dot com era, or that the Web isn't much more relevant to life than it was then... but I'm not really seeing OSes become irrelevant in the near future. There's always a guy out there saying that everything will happen on the Web, and Google Documents or no Google Documents, we're not there yet and I'm not sure we ever will be.
I still don't see what he regrets, Novell only paid the low low price of $350 million and what do they have to show for that? They can put "Microsoft won't sue us and we'll be interoperable with Windows" on their asset sheet. Buyer's remorse? How could that possibly be! Their investors must be please as punch!
My work here is dung.
... it's going to be owning end users.Just as long as they don't whip me and make me pick cotton...
What's all that Google "Web 2.0" stuff running on again?
On the desktop, sure -- and maybe that's all he meant, of course I didn't RTFA -- but in general? No, Linux is going to be relevant for a long time.
The enemies of Democracy are
Let he who has never used proprietary software cast the first stone.
Forgiveness? Pfft. In this day in age, you know how long it took for me to find this pitchfork?
Next time, *I* get the torch.
More Twoson than Cupertino
To me de Icaza was always the leading technologist of GNOME. Sadly he went into a direction that contributed to the loss of focus of what GNOME is. With indemnification or not, many of the main contributors to GNOME will not include anything that uses Mono.
.02$
Sun for certain will not work with a direct competitor to Java. Red Hat will rightfully avoid including something that requires them to go in bed with Microsoft over patents.
Linux kernel development shows that big free software projects need both enthusiast but also corporate contributors. So GNOME, not unlike the kernel, garnered support by companies like Sun, but also countless small guy contributors. With Mono de Icaza put powerful centrifugal forces that work against GNOME.
just my
Sprouts? Miguel is a vegetable? Or is he a fruit?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Oh dear - permit me to laugh at Miguel for having the last laugh on him and his 'company'.
Yes Gnome is ok, the ooxml feature in the pipe line well thats a mistake but you got to keep Ron (thats his ceo) sweet don't you
Google is open source. If google had to pay microsoft licensing ms would not sell them to Google. So I submit that Novell isn't relevant and if we take his word that the patent fud has not improved that much Novells prospects then the problem lies in the boardroom at Novell.
Miguel please do look forward to becoming a microsoft employee.
I will assume that Microsoft told Miguel once and for all that they weren't going to hire him, so he decided to quit sucking up to them.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Eve will regret that thing about the Apple oh so long ago.
If you're going to deal with the devil, someone's going to get burned. It's not usually the devil either.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
Google has over-extended itself. It's been dominating search for years, and doing it better and more dependable than anyone else. For a long time I wonder how they could continue exist with their minimal marketing -- all they did was show you what you were looking for. It was perfect.
Now, they've introduced dozens of products. A lof of them are popular, some not so much. The one thing they seem to all have in common is that they don't work all that well. From annoying bugs to issues that make some of the features worthless, the quality just isn't there anymore. Ex1 - I used google toolbar for easier searching, autofill and popup blocking, and bookmarks, which I loved since they'd follow me to different computers. Better popup blocking is now built in to browsers, search is there too, and autofill works correctly maybe 25% of the time. The bookmarks hardly work at all because I can't stay logged in for more than a few minutes, and I've found nothing addressing why.
Anyway, google's market penetration in to software has been very weak. Google Apps are used by no one. How can you claim they are going to dominate operating systems?
Whale
> Let he who has never used proprietary software cast the first stone.
Makes no sense. Unless you make it: Let he who has never used proprietary software, given the choice, cast the first stone. If you want the analogy with sin to stand, sins are committed voluntarily or they are not sins.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Call me dim, why has anyone cared about Novell since, well, the mid '90s when anyone who wasn't locked into legacy stuff could just plug a network together?
Seriously, I read the Novell's Wikipedia page, but aside from some fond reminiscing of one-upon-a-times, do they do anything other than collect old buzzwords?
The only thing de Icaza regrets is that open source heavyweights like Red Hat and Mozilla didn't follow him down the Microsoft trap.
A-duh!
Google will not be a cash cow forever. Anybody who has done business with Google via their adWords product--that is, actually paying to place ads--knows that it is a rip off.
.01 cents and $10 per click.
The reason being is you cannot bid what you think something is really worth, but only what Google tells you is the minimum bid--which they decide arbitrarily, with no explanation. So you either expose yourself to HUGE surprise bills (I've seen this happen), or you don't advertise with them at all. But either way you have little control.
If it's not a scam, they why is it that my bizarre, unique keywords--which currently have NO search ads on search results, have a minimum bid of $10 per click? So they will bill you--get this--somewhere between
Over time, their customers will come to realize what a scam this is (as I have) and go with their competition. Google is a cash cow because they control both the horizontal and the vertical--there is nothing wrong with your tv set.
No, you don't HAVE to use Google adwords. Yahoo's program is much more reasonable, and just as effective probably for most businesses.
expandfairuse.org
Nope. He's a nut! Zing! Ha--ha... I'll be going now.
A fool and his lamb are worth two in the bush.
What, exactly, would a Web 2.0 3D solid-modeling CAD program be? Or Web 2.0 3D games? Web 2.0 Medical imaging systems?
People who say operating systems are irrelevant because of the web immediately go into the "non-credible tech pundit" bin for me, because they've already shown, by that statement, that they *don't get it*. There are *many* applications we use computers for, which would not be good fits for the "Web 2.0" model. Sure, basic data storage and retrieval apps (documents, databases) can be made "Web 2.0" applications. But what is a Web 2.0 media player (the closest you get is something like Flash or Silverlight/Moonlight, and those are basically native Apps that display their output embedded in the browser window).
Proprietary software is usually closed-source, and if not will come with a very detailed EULA about how it's source may be distributed. This is an issue about software which is supposed to be free to use, modify, and distribute being under the control of a 3rd-party's patent, and therefore compromising the GPL.
Linux matters, because if Microsoft had succeeded in taking over the server market, all those startups wouldn't have happened. Google wouldn't have happened.
And the reason why people are moving to Web 2.0 is not because the technology is necessarily better than doing stuff on the desktop, it's because Microsoft's desktop dominance has caused the desktop to stagnate and their monopolistic practices have kept innovators out of the market (it's also because Sun screwed up the one promising alternative model).
We still need Linux to run all those servers. We need Linux to run handheld devices. We need Linux for scientific workstations. And we need Linux for Web 2.0 desktops, desktops that provide standards compliant browsers, RSS software, HTML editors, E-mail clients, backup, P2P, etc. at a combined hardware+software cost lower than a Microsoft Vista license.
What, exactly, would a Web 2.0 3D solid-modeling CAD program be?
Probably, the closest thing I can think of is something like mfg.com -- and that's a Web 2.0-ish business that interacts with a program like a Solidworks and the people using it -- not something that tries to replace it.
It'd be unnecessary and a little silly to run a CAD program on that scale in a browser, and it's boggling to me that de Icaza doesn't seem to see that.
People are allowed to change their mind. I still haven't gotten over all of the contributions of Miguel's to open source/society to have ever considered holding a grudge on the guy.
Eric
I'd forgive him if he had anything to do with the decision. While he seems to have initially thought that collaboration would have been a good thing, he didn't have anything to do with the terms of the deal and found out less than a week before the public announcement. Asking for collaboration isn't really the same thing is a cross-patent licensing agreement, which is what happened, and which he didn't have anything to do with.
Actually Microsoft paid Novell the $350 million dollars. Which is why Novell isn't interested in backing out of the deal.
In other words, Microsoft was willing to pay Novell $350 million dollars to put a cloud over Linux and Free Software. Novell, in return has to pay a token amount for each commercial distribution sold. Novell is as happy as can be with the situation. After all, Novell can tell its customers that it has taken care of the Microsoft patent issue. So when Microsoft starts talking trash about Free Software and patents Novell can say that it has the solution.
The real problem is that Novell relies on a lot of hackers that aren't part of Novell, and that, in many cases, actually compete against Novell. Now Novell has a deal with Microsoft that makes it look dangerous to purchase your Free Software from anyone but Novell, and that doesn't make these third party hackers happy.
Make no mistake, Novell made out like a bandit. It received well over a quarter of a billion dollars in cash, it became the "preferred Linux vendor" for Microsoft's sales associates, and SuSE Linux is now differentiated from all of the other Linux vendors because Novell has a patent deal with Microsoft. This differentiation has allowed Novell to snag some big clients that almost certainly would have gone with Red Hat otherwise. Novell doesn't have even a tiny bit of buyer's remorse. Novell just wants to be able to keep the Microsoft deal and not lose the trust of the Free Software community that it relies on for more Free Software.
Do not make everything a web app. Please do not make everything connected. Surely not every application need to be moved onto the browser.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Wow, I totally had that backwards, thank you for pointing out my error!
What about Steve Jobs? :)
The nature of Linux is such that Miguel would have a very hard time "damaging" Linux. Competition is helpful and healthy, but the only way Linux will ever truly die is with competition.
Let us imagine a prey animal and a predator. I don't know if wolves actually eat deer in real life, but that's what I'll use. One sick deer does not hurt the deer species. Predation by wolves hurts individual deer but strengthens the species. Of course, it's possible for wolves to hunt the deer to extinction, truly and ultimately damaging the deer species.
s/bef/beg
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
You always have the *choice* not to use proprietary software, using proprietary software is always *voluntary*. Whether their are alternatives with similar functionality is beside the point and has nothing to do with the use of force or volition.
\u262D = \u5350
Whetstones? Drystones? Gelatenous Cajones stones? Can these stones break windows?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
If you don't know it's proprietary because you never took the time to find out, you're still at fault. If you take a job with an employer that forces you to use proprietary software, aren't you just like a guard at a concentration camp?*
* Godwin's law invoked purposely and is used in a sarcastic manner. Author of this post in no way endorses the view that proprietary software is evil.
De Icaza didn't say that the OS would become unnecessary, only irrelevant, by which he clearly meant that it would become a commodity without the power to lock people in. If the OS you are running makes no different to your apps (which is ideally the case with "Web 2.0" apps, but not really all that much the case given that many "Web 2.0" apps require not only a standards-compliant browser but also require support infrastructure whose availability, quality, and behavior is not consistent across different OS's.)
How critical that flaw is depends on how ubiquitous connectivity is; anyhow, "web 2.0" apps that can operate in an "offline" mode are a big focus and something de Icaza was no doubt considering in making the statement.
And Miguel De Icaza hasn't been relevant for __DIETY__ knows how long. The original microsoftie wannabe shill-boy.
Kevin Smith on Prince
for a moment there i was sure it was RMS...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Saying that MS and Linux are irrelevant because Google and web 2.0 are the thing is missing the boat just as bad.
The real issue is freedom - people want to be able to use software without being treated like criminals. Get rid of cd keys, license terms, eulas, and stop suing your customers!!!
This is where Google has been getting it right so far.... they don't treat their user base as if they are adversaries. It's not so much about the technology as the presentation - any of these technologies *could* get the job done; what people want is the solution with the least hassle, the most dependability, and where they trust the vendor to not screw them over. MS and Novell have both sunk themselves in this regard.
Which bible were you reading? The interpretations I've read say that as long as you know you're sinning it's a sin. In the case of using proprietary software I'd go one further. As long as you're causing the proprietor to profit it is a sin. Whether you wish him to profit or not has no bearing upon whether or not he actually profits if you've already given him your money.
"Which bible were you reading?"
Which denomination of a religion (think Christians nut-jobs) are you talking about? Some say you're going straight to HELL in a hand basket even if you never even heard of Jesus because you didn't repent before you died. Innocents of not knowing about their God, apparently, is no excuse.
Novell can say that it has the solution.
It can say it but it'd be lying; with GPLv3 the pact becomes worthless.
This differentiation has allowed Novell to snag some big clients that almost certainly would have gone with Red Hat otherwise.
It probably lost them quite a few too. And those who'd been dubious about SuSE's not-quite-free history but warmed up to Novell most likely placed SuSE straight back in the don't-touch-with-a-ten-feet-pole pile.
I'd say the deal has lost them any trust the free software community had. Any code coming out of Novell is now suspect; potentially patent encumbered and possibly intended as a trap. Novell now has a monetary interest in poisoning the community software pool; thats reason enough to distrust anything they say or do.
. . . regretted his deal with the Empire too . . .
Of course Google won't come right out and say that they are trying to completely own and capitalize on everything that you do online. On the other hand, De Icaza doesn't seem to have any qualms with spelling it out. It really does make sense and it seems to reenforce something that I've said many times before. It doesn't really matter if you use Linux, or OSX or Windows. They all pretty much do the exact same thing in slightly different ways. There are only so many popular uses for a computer in terms of determining what applications you use. The important thing is the data. Google seems to be really focused on becoming the prominent mechanism that people use to sort, search, index, store and create data with.
"He [Miguel] also said that discussion and haggling over OSes and patents slows the industry as a whole's move to fully take advantage of new Web 2.0 business models"... "The patent piece is such a small piece of it," de Icaza said.
Miguel, get a clue! You can't just ignore patents because you want to run off and write code to quickly take advantage of some great (Web 2) business model. The WHOLE POINT of patents is to keep you from stealing others idea - and you continually treat them like they are some kind of annoying technicality we should just ignore!
I think C# is a great language, and your projects like Mono and Moonlight provide great features for developers which make building great applications easier - but it is exactly that, coupled with your (waning) popularity, which makes you the most dangerous person to the Free Software world! Your naivety in regards to patents is going to get the Free Software community sued into oblivion if you ever manage to get core stuff built using it.
Until Microsoft ships Mono/Moonlight themselves, providing a direct first party license with a patent grant like the LGPLv3 (just like Sun does with Java), all Free Software developers should STAY AWAY.
Only for the patents used by those projects that have adopted the GPLv3.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Taken from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_goggles
"Beer goggles is a slang term for a phenomenon in which consumption of alcohol lowers sexual inhibitions to the point that very little or no discretion is used when approaching or choosing sexual partners.[citation needed] The term is often humorously applied when an individual is observed making advances towards, later regretting sexual contact with, a partner that is deemed unattractive, unacceptably scandalous, or repulsive when the prospect of sex is considered while sober. The "beer goggles" are considered to have distorted the "wearer's" vision, making unattractive people appear beautiful, or at least passably attractive. Beer goggles are also known as "Stellavision", "Beerglasses" and "The Cider Visor"
Modified slightly
"Patent Indemnification is a term for a phenomenon in which promise of immunity from lawsuit lowers corporate inhibitions to the point that very little or no discretion is used when approaching or choosing corporate partners.The term is often applied when a corporation is observed making advances towards, later regretting contact with, a partner that is deemed unattractive, unacceptably scandalous, or repulsive when the prospect of partnership is considered while sober. Patent indemnification is considered to have distorted the company's vision, making unattractive corporation appear beautiful, or at least passably attractive."
It really sounds like he's regretting a one-night stand.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
More info at:
http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2219
But, two thoughts come to my mind
1. Maybe De Icaza laments that ms is making Office Online not work for Linux users?
2. Maybe ms is intent on gaining ads revenue from companies looking for impressions upon ms Word users?
"Visiting the Microsoft Office Live Workspace promises to allow users to store as many a 1000 documents online and share them with colleagues. Sounds good. Unless you try and sign up for the free service and you're running Linux. If you are running Linux then you'll be greeted with a screen informing you that you'll need to be running a version of Windows or MacOSX and either Internet Explorer or Firefox (good to see Firefox in there)."
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I see.
So I should quit my job because they use MS Windows as their platform?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
De Icaza is the biggest ass kisser in IT history.
If Miguel was a nut, what kind of nut would he be?
Does making .Net cross-platform help anyone but MS?
It helps me; I'm working on a game that I'll be able to roll out on Windows, Mac, and Linux at pretty close to the same time.
(It helps that I'm not tied to DirectX.)
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Do you really think the average user feels comfortable storing, say, bank information online?
Given that our banks all have that information online anyway, I'd say people are generally comfortable with it. It's one of those deals where since we're all in the same boat, we all go along with it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
PS I use linux and I prefer free software over proprietary software.
Yes, just as a good Christian should quit their job if they are required to work on Sunday.
If I think something is funny, I will probably mod it +1 Insightful. "It's funny because it's true."
I love when this comes up... I get to trot out my old "Miguel has misjudged Microsoft" post.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=27589&cid=2962653
Still flamebait? YOU decide.
Precisely, I probably should have mentioned the many downsides of the deal for Novell. Apparently the market has seen through Microsoft's dirty little scheme. The deal certainly hasn't triggered a landslide of clients for Novell. Clearly the deal has been negative enough that high level Novell executives (of which Miguel certainly is a member) can talk out openly against the deal.
However, it is hard to overlook the 350 million upsides, which is why Novell hasn't actually tried to back out.
Yes. If its your choice.
... my choice is clear.
But my choices are not based solely on opensource vs proprietary. My wallet is important too. The work environment too.
So if my choice is "Using Proprietary Software and having a Job that will allow me to buy a new car" vs "Using only open source software and maybe not find a job"
For many the choice does not need to be so drastic. In some domain, its possible to find job in company that only or mostly use open source. Not in every domain though...
It can say it but it'd be lying; with GPLv3 the pact becomes worthless. You may want to check the facts again. The GPLv3 explicitly didn't include provisions that apply retroactively, as would be the case in the Novell patent agreement. The GPLv3 authors did so because of this agreement.
Oh, well, that just makes it all better now, doesn't it? Miguel says he's sorry, guys. Will you forgive him?
<Engage flame retardant vestments of the pious>
No. I swear this idiot thinks he is the next Linus or something. He has made one stupid decision after another in regards to Microsoft and pseudo-MS technology, and now its biting him in the ass. His stupid mistakes are the reason I can no longer run SuSE in good conscience. I hope MS ends up shoving it up his ass and Novell takes a hit for their trouble. Thats what they get for screwing up my fave Linux Distro.
OTOH, if it wasn't for their collective ignorance, I'd have never discovered Kubuntu, which totally rocks. So, thanks Miguel for being a sellout. You have been assimilated and I have been freed. Have a nice day.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Richard Stallman, is that you?
(stroking kde desktop) "My precioussssss" "We hates it!!! Hatesss it!....forever!!!
Just beneath Neville Chamberlain.
Have gnu, will travel.
Does anyone know how much Xandros got for their deal? From what I've read the only way that Microsoft would license the APIs that they needed for desktop and server interoperability was to add the "IP Protection" clause into the contracts.Unfortunately most of the pages are dead now,and the only information I could find was this which has a brief recap of a dead page about halfway down that says that Xandros did license server code from Microsoft and is working on an OOXML to ODF converter. Either way I will continue to use Xandros,because it is the only distro that I've never had any trouble with when working with windows AD networks. But I am curious as to how much they got,and which server code they got access to. Anyone know?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So I should quit my job because they use MS Windows as their platform?
Based on this post earlier in the thread, I think the idea is that because you have chosen to use proprietary software for pragmatic reasons (keeping your job) you ought not "cast stones" at others who do the same, not that you have to quit your job.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Don't play stupid, Twitter -- you damn well know I'm talking about the Linux kernel (along with other, less important, projects that are still licensed under GPLv2 without the "or later" clause -- which do exist, I'm sure). And you also damn well know that the GNU toolchain can perfectly well be used to build non-GPLv3 (and even proprietary) applications. Output isn't covered by the GPL unless the program puts it's own code into it (and Bison has an exception for that), glibc is LGPL rather than GPL, etc. Speaking of which, gnu.org's glibc manual still even lists LGPLv2 (not v3) as the license! (I realize it's the COPYING file in the actual source that matters, but I don't have current glibc source available right now and don't feel like bothering to download it to check.)
In other words, I've been around here on Slashdot long enough to know how you can be rather zealous (to put it politely) in your Free Software advocacy, and that means that I can see through your bullshit. But don't misunderstand me: I'm just as big an advocate as you are, and I understand these licensing issues at least as well as you do. I just realize that spreading FUD isn't helpful to the cause, and I look forward to the day that you realize it too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.
I've never heard anyone interpret this, but here goes:
Slavery was common when this was written, so suppose a woman is a slave in Corinth, and becomes Christian. Her master uses her a sex slave to entertain guests, contrary to Christian morality. She faces harsh punishments, even death, if she refuses or escapes. What should she do, from a Christian perspective? My opinion, based on this verse, is that she can perform her 'duties' as a slave without sin. If she was free, she would be obligated (by her own conscience) to follow the moral code of Christianity.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Is there a corporate accountant, manager, or CEO who doesn't know business is all about owning customers? Yet, de Icaza speaks as if it's something new and unique to Web 2.0. Has he no concept of business valuation? Clearly, de Icaza is not someone others should be following.
Oh, you spelled Microsoft with a dollar sign, that's original.
I'd ignore the verse altogether. Treat is as some old Jewish folklore. Problems solved.
Stallman has no need for stones, he has his katana
Nobody needs his ridiculous self-serving pro-MS bullshit. He, Mono, Silverlight, and every other perverse abomination in the lock-in parade can go down with that ship for all the "community" cares.
you had me at #!
.. it needs a *fucking* citation. How wonderfully precisely expressed.
:-).
ROFL
Insert
Why would I want to forgive him? He made gnome which sucks horribly, and he liked OOXML more than ODF, this guy is a poser now.
RMS used proprietary software, and even wrote some for LMI.
Yeah, yeah, we know. Corporations suck. Whatever, I'm just describing the facts of the matter -- value judgments on the results they lead to are something else entirely. This is why unrestrained capitalism is probably a bad thing -- the invisible hand does need a slap on the wrist every so often to keep it in line.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
Actually the Sabbath is on Saturday.
Checked for Novell Enterprise Linux jobs vs. Redhat enterprise jobs lately?
There are fewer now than there were before the agreement.
Operating systems irrelevant, hardly. Amazing what a small world some people live in.
Another one: a CAD program, ooooohhh that would suck like a vacuum cleaner.
I think it was Marc Andreessen who talked about operating systems being reduced to "bags of device drivers" -- that does seem to be the direction we're headed. And as a sidebar, TCPA/Palladium locked-down glorified terminals to web apps and consumer media that don't store data locally for the vast majority would suit TPTB just fine.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
What you should do in that case depends on your value, but ultimately it's your choice. Although I love free software, I wouldn't turn down a job offer because I have to use windows, I know some people who definitely would though.
\u262D = \u5350
So I should quit my job because they use MS Windows as their platform?
Unless you live under slavery, YES IT IS YOUR CHOICE.
Geez.
If you're in IT you're like a dishwasher at a concentration camp.
IT are the janitors. Someone else, likely Finance, decides which brand of floor sweeper they use.
A device driver is a low level interface that provides an API to a piece of hardware.
If the controlling software needs any kind of timing critical, high bandwidth or low latency connection to the device, a web(like) interface is complete nonsense.
Marc Andreessen is the browser guy, and apparently doesn't look much further than what he knows.
Bart
After watching Microsoft stumble around trying to make unsandboxed execution of untrusted code work for over a decade, and failing, I think it's pretty clear that this is an unsound model, whether it's called ActiveX, .NET, Silverlight, or Moonlight.
From ESR's HH FAQ:
Of course it's always *your* choice, how will you use your energy, but I don't need it wasted on hating someone.
Ah, my sig, "This statement is false" - it refers only to itself.
I thought gnome was the desktop Red Hat always touted. They sold it hard in opposition to KDE for a long, long while.
Image loss of Novell and Icaza are more than billions of dollars. Novell was a tough Microsoft rival who are _very_ serious in their business and services and had products showing MS offerings like joke before the deal.
.Net 2.x and 3.x compatibility documents/support for Mono threatening to cancel the project. Same deal in upcoming Silverlight 2.0 too, I am near sure. Silverlight 2.0 will be somehow "late" to OS X and Linux, especially Linux. They may also do some tricks like putting mandatory DRM to standard to create excuse. Just remember I said it.
.NET 2.x or 3.x installed, companies ship .NET requiring products but we don't see anything on OS X or Linux. Where is the ground breaking standard technology he spoke about?
Now? People even reject to use Gnome because Icaza was involved at its startup.
For IT managers, if they are feeling really paranoid about Linux and MS Patents, they won't get Novell/Suse, they will go for Solaris, *BSD and AIX. Also losing the "nerd support" is big deal too. At the end, they ask the slashdot poster guy "What should we upgrade/buy?". Guy can really ignore Novell at that point. I am afraid they already do as the guy is "sorry" now.
I would believe his regret if he demanded
Everyone on Windows got
Last time I checked his blog he was wondering whether to buy a PS/3 or XBox 360 for himself.
Lets compare PS3 to XBox
PS3: Uses Cell CPU, got actually working Linux which comes with Gnome as default environment (YDL etc), everything is somehow tied to standards like OpenGL
XBox360: A Power variant CPU running Direct3d/Windows thing.
That is the guy you deal with and who says he is sorry for the deal.
What's stopping the timing critical part from being handled by the "bag of device drivers" while the presentation is handled by a browser? Granted, this won't work for applications where real-time display is of paramount importance, such as in your aircraft example or in a controller for a surgical laser, but it will work just fine for Grandma printing pictures of her grandkids out from her storage in the cloud. And it'll have the added bonus (I know I never let this go) of end-to-end DRM and surveillance of any data being processed (the device driver for the printer printer could even refuse to print images not signed by the cloud application, preventing its use in "counter-government propaganda").
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
You really think Novell hiring Icaza right before/after MS deal is a co-incidence? If there is one day I will defend Novell is this day. He is acting very dirty now even more dirtier than the day he started Mono. "Forgive me guys, those evil Novell guys gave the orders, I have nothing to do with it".
He owes a great apology to Gnome people, Mono developers, soon Silverlight developers and the original, real Suse people.
"Miguel De Icaza" is spanish for "Microsoft's Lap Monkey"
Maybe Miguel is finally realising that Novell seems to have lost large amounts of its open source talent since the Microsoft deal.
Since then, there's been a number of people quitting including Jeremy Allison, Joe Shaw, Walter Knapp, Guenther Deschner, Dave Camp, Robert Love...
Why was it not as beneficial to Microsoft as he hoped it would be?
-a.d.-
I'm Erwin Schrodinger and I approve of this message, and I do not approve of this message!
Which, if Christians were commanded to observe the Sabbath, might mean something.
>> What's stopping the timing critical part from being handled by the "bag of device drivers" while the presentation is handled by a browser?
If you call all the software that makes various parts of for instance a photocopier work together a "device driver" then you're correct.
It's a nonsense definition though. All the realtime activity inside that photocopier will typically be controlled and synchronized by an operating system, using its thread, i/o and other primitives. So unless you decide to call an operating system a device driver, there will remain a large category of (mostly embedded) applications where the web 2.0 paradigm is non applicable.
Bart
Of course Novell bought Ximian before (not before/after) the MS deal for the express reason of acquiring a desktop and .NET company. They get someone that's worked on the desktop, and more specifically, the only company really pushing for MS interoperability through .NET at the time. It was years before the deal, btw. I would hardly call it right "before/after" in any sense of the word.
So, his company was bought before the deal, a years before the deal, his new overlords made a decision about cross-licensing patents and made a deal, and he's at fault? Regardless of what you think of the whole Mono project, you can't really blame someone that didn't have any part in the deal itself for the deal that was made. Novell didn't give him orders to make a deal, because he never made it. Other people at Novell did.
Now, there are a lot of reasons to dislike the Mono project. Legally, it's a bit scary. While I think it will probably be fine, I don't pretend that it's unrealistic for some people to be hesitant on or maybe dislike the direction of the project.
Because he is pulling the trojan horse that may cripple Linux-Troy...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
De Icaza has been pushing with all his might to get stuff into Linux that is, sure as hell, covered by MS patents.
One thing is to write software and then find a submarine patent, another is to use technology most likely patent encumbered, and champion it in the knowledge that the "owner" of the patents may sue you (and if you don't know about Ballmer comments on this regard then please tell me where the rock you have been hiding under is, I need a quiet place for meditation).
De Icaza contends that one can't write software that is not encumbered anyway, so you may do it as well, but I don't concur with that, the least you can do is to use your own ideas so at least your work can be continued in places with less asinine patent laws (Europe, Russia).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is not FOSS people threatening to sue MS for "stolen" ideas.
/. people is irrational. Well, I think the irrational people are the ones insisting in placating and cajoling with a company that has a track record of screwing up business partners, consumers and the law.
It is MS doing so.
And it is not FOSS found guilty of all kind of shoddy practices, it is MS.
You make it appear like if the attitude of most
So allow me my partisanship, because it is an insurance against being screwed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Umm, no that's totally false. Novell bought Ximian in August, 2003. That isn't anywhere near the MS deal if you can't do the arithmetic.
Novell faltering really started when Jack Messman was pushed aside by the shareholders for trying to focus too heavily on Linux on the desktop. IMO the MS deal was more about leveraging Novell's extensive IP to make some nice hard cash than anything else from the Novell side of things. That is why Miguel and presumably other technical people weren't particularly involved in it, just the lawyers and accountants. Novell is a technology company but is ruled by HR and the accountants a bit too much (one of the reasons I left).
It's nice to hear Miguel say it probably wasn't the wisest of moves, actually.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.