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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."
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