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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."
Microsoft isn't only a corporation, it's a paradigm. Their memetic tyranny is twofold in attraction of members who have the same beliefs of proprietary software and the indoctrination of new employees to follow the way of the four-color panes.
There's only so many crimes against humanity anyone can commit before they can no longer be redeemed. In the view of Stallman and many, many others, Microsoft crossed the line long before the world really knew who they were.
There's no changing the connotation of Microsoft's name, they must be... supplanted.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
When Stallman started the GNU project, the software he was cloning had been created by a big, litigious, evil monopoly called "AT&T". There was a good chance that they were going to shut him down for copyright and patent infringement. He took that risk, and the rest is history.
The situation surrounding Mono is actually far less serious. Yes, Microsoft is a big, litigious, evil monopoly, but they actually have made a pretty watertight commitment to keeping those portions of .NET that Mono relies on open and free.
Stallman's a fanatic, but on the other hand, Microsoft is Microsoft. Which is to say, it's probably difficult to be too paranoid about their intentions with respect to competition. Stallman's article isn't even particularly paranoid; it boils down to "we've seen similar groups do bad things before, so we should watch this group. Also, we disagree with some of their goals".
BTW, Miguel, George Bush did not invent "Good vs Evil". And while I've never seen anything that approaches pure Good, there's no shortage of "sufficiently evil".
I didn't think it affected me either until I put a new copy of debian on a machine and did an "apt-get install gnome" and found a copy of mono being installed on my machine. What I want to know is WTF was debian even thinking when they did that? It's obvious they weren't thinking very well since they back-pedaled and claimed that mono wasn't in the default install, by which they mean that it's only in the gnome metapackage and not the gnome-core or gnome-desktop. It's also equally obvious that anyone who wants to install gnome will first try apt-get install gnome rather than the non-intuitive gnome-core.
The point is that Mono is creeping into distributions through packages like Tomboy. I think that things like Mono shouldn't be in default packages or a dialog should be asked for things which are clearly offensive to at least some significant portion of the linux community. You don't see them doing that for NVIDIA drivers, I know the licenses are different and Mono at least claims to be open-source but I guess there's a lot more people who want to avoid MS than people who want to avoid NVIDIA.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
If you judge someone by their actions, then there is no need to discuss how we judge Microsoft and their relationship to free software.
But Microsoft is not a "someone", it is an aggregate of "someones", and treating MS like an individual that has already shown its true colours is a mistake, because that is not the nature of the beast. This is why Miguel called this an opportunity, because merely by inserting open source advocates into MS you can alter its aggregate behaviour to a more open source friendly stance. The evidence is already there: MS has already become more open than they used to be, with shared source licenses and CodePlex being the highest profile examples.
Which isn't to say we shouldn't be cautious, but we should not be openly hostile and accusatory either, as that simply undermines those people working to improve the situation.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"Since we only have a limited time on earth, I have decided to spend my time on earth as much as I can trying to be like the second salesman. Looking at opportunities where others see hopelessness"
.. er covenant, I would suspect this as yet another attempt to co-opt and control a technology they don't own. Why not contribute to SourceForge instead of creating and stacking their own organization. Same with the numerous Microsoft 'open source' licenses. It's very telling that GPL 3 is not one of the supported licenses on CodePlex.
Which begs the question as to why expend so much energy in duplicating dotNET onto the Linux platform. Isn't whole the MONO effort diverting developers from developing native Linux applications?
"The creation of the CodePlex foundation was an internal effort of people that believe in open source at Microsoft. They have been working from within the company to change it. Working at CodePlex is a great way of helping steer Microsoft in the right direction"
What was wrong with SourceForge. If I was cynical and recalling Microsoft's past behaviour, including tthe NovoSOFT trojan
And as an 'open source' supporter I fail to understand how you would recommend something called the LinuxHater's Blog
'If you're a freetard, but you need to run Windows at work or something, I've got an idea for a utility that will keep you true to the cause'
'How many hours do I have to waste wading through the monument of shit known as the debian package repository?'
> I think .Net is a platform with technical merit
I have yet to see it. Really. All it seems to do accomplish is to make
your work fit in more with Microsoft and less with the rest of Unix.
Since Linux is "just another Unix". That is a serious problem that needs
to be counterbalanced by considerable new benefits.
Personally I don't see the point of bothering with .NET or getting
particularly excited about it. Perhaps if you told me I would be
able to run the next version of Office on any platform of my choosing
I would be more prone to get excited.
The key here is that if it runs on Linux it should be able to run on .NET
ANYTHING given sufficient interest. That means that it will also run
on MacOS, BeOS, AIX, Solaris and HP/UX given enough interest. If
can't promise that than it is less interesting than Java or POSIX.
"Kind of compatable" doesn't really cut it. Having the Linux version of
Microsoft's standard be clearly inferior will just make Linux seem clearly
inferior (and justifiably so).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The example is particularly ironic, being that there has never been any evidence that shoes are good for peoples feet, and there is ample evidence that shoes are bad for people feet.
Recently, Nike went to visit the Olympic running teams with bags of shoes in tow, and were sent away because the runners did not want them, nor did the coaches. So, they invented the Nike Free, which is designed to be like not wearing a shoe at all. Makes your mind spin.
Turns out, the shoes they've been marketing all these years were hurting the people who bought them. Of course, Nike always knew that their product wasn't good for their customers... they spent years trying to find scientific evidence that shoes are good for you in some fashion, without success. So, they made them fashion accessories and kept things quiet.
http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/
Keep pimping those shoes, Miguel!
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Since he is in Microsoft's employ, literally if not indirectly, the distinction is moot. Yet how did I know someone might make that nit-pick anyway?
I disregard these possibilities as foolish. In the words of others:
Microsoft is pushing software patents and DRM around the world. These are the two main things blocking free software from being compatible, so this is holding back the technical progress and the spread of free software.
MS's policies are getting worse and worse, so I can't see why helping them is in our interest.
I've been documenting Microsoft's patent activity [swpat.org], and I fail to see any change for the better.
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I think that's a bit of a stretch, don't you?
Miguel's argument: RMS attacked me, but he's also famously attacked many of the most important players in bringing parts of his ultimate dream to reality. Conclusion: RMS's has an unproductive penchant for attacking people in his speaking and writing, including his own allies, if they don't subscribe to all of his philosophies.
Your interpretation: People who don't agree with me are mindless zombies.
A bit of a stretch, you must admit.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925