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De Icaza Responds To Stallman
ndogg writes "It's no secret that Stallman doesn't like Mono. Miguel, however, has been pretty quiet about those criticisms, until now. It seems he'll no longer be quiet. He's responded strongly to an article by Stallman that criticizes Codeplex about its aims due to its origin at Microsoft. Miguel says Stallman is fearmongering, and is missing an opportunity by his criticism."
RMS is out line. Point blank, no ifs, ands or buts.
>Stallman is of course right to point out that he is a Microsoft apologist - he is a notorious one. It is beyond argument that Microsoft spends significant dollars in direct and "personal" attempts to crush free software development projects such as Linux through the most indefensible barratry.
Just like any other software company. IBM likes Linux because it allows them to sell more boxes, as they don't have an operating system bias. The question is if Microsoft is acting differently than other companies, and that answer is no. If open source were producing free pop-tarts and Microsoft were selling pop-tarts then Microsoft would come out swinging.
>Miguel must chuckle at himself when he writes things like "Fear mongering is a vibrant industry." It is too rich in irony for him not to know it. Yes, he suggests Microsoft is our "ally." A hilarious notion that, when he writes it, makes it clear what contempt he has for you, the reader.
Did you even bother to look at his reference? The video, from the BBC. Fear mongering is a vibrant industry. Watch the six hour video and you will be surprised.
>Just keep in mind that this is pure wasted time. RMS correctly points out that the war was won long ago - by a recognition of the value of the GPL and of free software. It's quite easy to understand - most people, when they give away their work, have a common moral compass, and they share certain values about how they would like to see that work go out into the world. i.e. They would rather some 3rd party not get paid for what they did for free. And they would rather others have the freedom to tinker, just as they did. Most ("important, widely used, active") open source software is free software for this reason. Of course, the "debate" will never end, either. But let's just keep it in perspective.
Ah this is such crap, a large number of projects are GPL, but the successful ones, the ones that popular are in fact GPL library, BSD, Mozilla, or Apache. So to do a bait and switch (from GPL to free software) is clever, but you should be clear about your facts.
I personally wish RMS would go away. Sure he was the one who raised the flag pole at the beginning, but now we need people to build businesses and get people to make money. As much as I like Open Source we do need to pay bills. People like Miguel are trying to build business models where programmers can get paid, and yet produce open source. Whereas people like RMS charge to the waazoo to hear their rants. Where is the business model there?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Yes, but it's the first post that doesn't say "first post", therefore it must be insightful instead of nonsense! That's how moderation works! You can't expect mods to read or understand a post before rating it, that's just crazytalk.
Comment of the year
"I work on Mono, because I like it. If you want to learn more about my goals, you can read this old post:"
Well, I guess you are in a bit of a bind, working in co-operation with the Evil dot Empire. I do believe Stallman and you sparring in public is counter productive.