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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?
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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.
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
Miguel "OOXML is a great standard" De Icaza
Its virtual servers all the way down...
This isn't about someone who's neutral to the whole Microsoft/Linux thing. This is about a guy who has consistently attempted to push Microsoft-controlled technologies into the core of the Linux desktop. Anyone who's been around for the past 10-20 years knows that Microsoft has a really bad habit of perverting standards to screw competitors in the most unethical way imaginable. Miguel's insistence on pushing .NET and OOXML has been at best confusing, and at worst damn suspicious.
And now, after years of being abused for this, he's putting the icing on the cake of making an ass of himself by finally admitting that, yes, it really is a damn stupid idea.
Well, not to mention that true web "applications" suck ass. Why would I run a browser that opens a file on my computer which loads an application in a VM sandbox... why? What's the point? And talk about lock-in.. why would I want my personal data on some else's server, only able to retrieve it at thier whim? It's not like we even have reliable internet connections.
This whole "desktop will be irrlevent" is stupid. We were there, did that, it sucked on a LAN, I can't see how it wouldn't suck more on the internet.
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.
And Miguel De Icaza hasn't been relevant for __DIETY__ knows how long. The original microsoftie wannabe shill-boy.
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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.
Do you realize that you just stated a polarized viewpoint of a polarized viewpoint? You took a web site full of participants of every background and perspective, and reduced them to a single characteristic -- that of bipolarity.
[ponders carefully with an analytic memory, having been a long time slashdotter] ...Seriously, everyone does that. :/