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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."
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090927151401988
Here is an article that goes in-depth about the entire situation
He never said nor suggested that Microsoft as a whole is your ally.
"I merely happen to have a different perspective on Microsoft than he has. I know that there are great people working for the company, and I know many people inside Microsoft that are steering the company towards being a community citizen. I have blogged about this for the last few years.
At the end of the day, we both want to see free software succeed. But Richard, instead of opening new fronts to promote his causes, attacks his own allies for not being replicas of himself."
He suggested that either himself, or Microsoft, or both, was his "ally."
No. He said that Richard Stallman attacks his allies. The very next sentence of TFA reads: To him, ridiculous statements like Linus "does not believe in Freedom" are somewhat normal. He is clearly referring to Linus Torvalds as Richard Stallman's ally.
Please don't deliberately misinterpret people that you don't agree with.
The allies I refer to are folks like Linus, Eric Raymond, Tim O'Reilly and everyone else that advocates the same ideas, but does not take marching orders from him.
The reason is very simple: I am not responding to RMS's opinions on Mono.
I am responding to RMS's last post which is pretty much content free, but does contain another personal attack against me.
I work on Mono, because I like it. If you want to learn more about my goals, you can read this old post:
http://www.mono-project.com/Mailpost:longreply
As for CodePlex: it turns out that there are two entities: CodePlex.ORG (owned by the Foundation) and CodePlex.Com (Owned by Microsoft, and has no affiliation with the foundation).
It is beyond unfortunate that the Foundation adopted the name from the hosting site. The logic apparently was "It is already a known brand". In my opinion, moving ahead with this name was a terrible decision as it is incredibly confusing, a point that I have raised with the board of directors.
The CodePlex foundation has no control over the contents of CodePlex.com.
apologist: a person who makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, etc.
That's not a personal attack.
Regards.
Yes, Stallman is a principled man. The problem with Stallman and Mono, however, is that his objections are based on fear and innuendo, not on principles or reason.
Wrong. Microsoft has offered a patent covenant that covers compatible re-implementations of .Net. If you want to make your own cut down or otherwise incompatible version of .Net - for whatever reason - then MS can still sue you. It also only covers the core .Net libraries and not all the libraries that actual real world .Net applications use.
Given those facts, it's easy to see how Mono / .Net remain incompatible with the principles of Free Software.
Nick
WRONG. Mixing GPL code and non-GPL code results in GPL code.
You are incorrect.
Mixing GPL code and non-GPL code results in code that cannot be distributed at all. One remedy is for the owner of the non-free code to GPL it. Another is for the owner of the GPL code to license it for distribution with the non-free code.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
But why was this attack needed when Mono is trying to split itself into "Guaranteed, patent free components" and "Gray areas"?
The Patent Free parts are covered by the legally Binding Microsoft Community Promise
Some parts of it:
Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation, to the extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications, and is complian....
To clarify, "Microsoft Necessary Claims" are those claims of Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement the required portions (which also include the required elements of optional portions) of the Covered Specification that are described in detail and not those merely referenced in the Covered Specification.
Is this Community Promise legally binding on Microsoft and will it be available in the future to me and to others?
A: Yes, the CP is legally binding upon Microsoft. The CP is a unilateral promise from Microsoft and in these circumstances unilateral promises may be enforced against the party making such a promise. Because the CP states that the promise is irrevocable, it may not be withdrawn by Microsoft. The CP is, and will be, available to everyone now and in the future for the specifications to which it applies.
Life is just a conviction.
The Microsoft Community Promise is not good enough. See this legal analysis for details:
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html
Microsoft lawyers are good enough to produce a better document than this, they just chose not to. See this document:
http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.html
for a better agreement and an analysis on why all the terms in it are needed (especially the "Patents" section).
Jeremy.
Actually the Tom Tom case is rather ambiguous. If I didn't already distrust MS, that wouldn't cause me to distrust them. In that case they WERE using the patents in a basically defensive manner. (Tom Tom may not have initiated the lawsuit, but they made clear threats.)
This, however, does not excuse their actions in many other cases. Before you even THINK about CodePlex, read their agreements...preferably get a lawyer to analyze it for you. It's as bad as any EULA you might encounter.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.