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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 should ask for its money back. de Icaza is a terrible troll.
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. It's also widely known that this is only one of a multi-prong strategy that includes coopting competing projects, through many means, including hiring key team members, and PR efforts, including hiring astroturfing firms - some of which patronize this very site, and you will meet some of their employees (or contractors) today. :)
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.
If you judge someone by their actions, then there is no need to discuss how we judge Microsoft and their relationship to free software. It is easy to understand the lense through which we see codeplex even if they were to say nothing controversial. But apparently one of their goals is already clear - to throw another line of men at the front of the rhetorical "war" between free as in beer and free as in speech.
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 Miguel. His rant may have virtually zero actual content, but at least he gets points for plugging "The Power of Nightmares." Just a few years too late, alas. From that and his Bush-based name calling, he may lose the conservative portion of the audience he is supposed to be reaching, but as I said, MS should get a refund.
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I agree wholeheartedly that it is highly unlikely that Microsoft will seize any opportunity it gets to do annoying things specially to break open projects. Again.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Richard - "The first thing we see is that the organization ducks the issue of users' freedom; it uses the term "open source" and does not speak of "free software"."
Miguel - "The creation of the CodePlex foundation was an internal effort of people that believe in open source at Microsoft. "
Open source on whose terms?
He and others written a useful, complex and (hopefully) well implemented set of software components through much in the way of blood, seat and tears.
So of course he's not going to agree that what he did was either a waste of time or evil. I'm not exactly sure which side of this debate I fall on. Doesn't affect me too much as a C programmer...
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090927151401988
Here is an article that goes in-depth about the entire situation
It's GNU/Fearmongering. Let's at least give credit where credit is due ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A lot of people dislike Stallman and his positions, but even his biggest detractors have to admit that he's a principled man. You know where RMS stands on issues before he even comments on them because he's had a consistent message for a few decades now.
De Icaza's position seems to be that short-term convenience wins. Period. I just can't credit him with the same credibility or integrity as RMS. I mean, I guess he's at least consistent with his position, but I'm also consistent in liking the taste of peanut butter, and that doesn't win me any points.
If I had to pick a side - and I think it's becoming apparent that we do - then I'd have to go with RMS. Some of his conclusions are a bit... out there... but he solidly argues them from solid principles and it's kind of hard to disagree with him. Finally, he has a track record of making some pretty bold predictions that turn out to be dead on many years later. The Right to Read, anyone? When de Icaza has a couple of decades of predictive accuracy behind him, I'll start paying more attention to his words.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Stallman does seem to only see the world in black and white (or not-free and free in this case). That's why I tend to dismiss most of what I hear from him. His fear mongering is no better that the stuff people complain about companies like Microsoft doing. Microsoft is just a company. They may have many business practices I disagree with. They may even have leadership I more consistently disagree with, but that doesn't mean everything they do is wrong. Just like De Icaza says, "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." Now I don't personally know people inside Microsoft as De Icaza does, but it's not a stretch to believe that out of those thousands of employees, at least some of them would rather play nice and put out great products. You can't just dismiss everything based on past behavior. Especially for a corporate entity which changes directions more frequently than people do.
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".
Stallman and de Icaza have completely different goals, as do the larger Free Software and Open Source movements they are part of. There is unfortunately a tendency on the Open Source side to obscure this difference by claiming that Free Software is a subset of Open Source, often through the use of equivocation with the ambiguous English word "free", but Free Software is not a subset of Open Source.
The Free Software movement's position is essentially ideological, based on the philosophy that closed source is ethically and morally wrong. The Open Source position is essentially pragmatic, based on the theory that closed source (the cathedral) is less efficient than open source (the bazaar). Free Software is an ethical stance; Open Source is a high-level development methodology. The two sides end up shouting over each other's heads more often than not, as they are today, because they are using much of the same terminology to describe completely different things.
As such, de Icaza is wrong when he says that Stallman is missing an opportunity here. From the perspective of Free Software, especially given Microsoft's well-documented past behavior, cooperation with Microsoft is not an opportunity, it's a trap with a flashing neon TRAP sign above it. Conversely, it might well be an opportunity for Open Source, at least insofar as the literal issue of "open source" is concerned, though probably only in the short term.
Closed source software vendors ultimately make their money from artificial scarcity. Yes, it is possible to make money with open source, but the kind of money that Microsoft and most of its peers rake in comes only from closed source. To the extent that they are publicly-owned businesses, and therefore exist to make as much money as possible, they will only expend their assets -- including opening some of their source -- if they believe that it will lead to greater profits. Stallman is entirely correct to be wary of Microsoft here. Microsoft views the Free Software and Open Source movements as competitors, just as they view other conventional closed source companies as competitors. To expect them to behave in a genuinely cooperative fashion with groups that are, in an increasing number of areas, eating into their profits is to live in a utopian fantasy world.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Stallman has never programmed in either Mono or .NET.
Neither have I, but I know what they are.
He has no idea what the relationship between C#, CLR, .NET, and Mono is.
So you disagree with RMS: fine. But you're doing yourself a grave disservice by dismissing him as someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Love him or hate him, he's a sharp guy who knows his stuff.
And he has no idea of what the legal situation is.
I'm sure the founder of the FSF and the author of the first GPL is wholly ignorant of legal issues in software development.
Don't be stupid. Again, it's OK to disagree with the man. Just don't do it on the grounds of "he's old and doesn't know anything", because it's possible (in fact, certain) that he knows more about it than you do.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Stallman has never programmed in either Mono or .NET. He has no idea what the relationship between C#, CLR, .NET, and Mono is...
That's preposterous -- it's like saying someone is in no position to judge whether or not the Nazis were evil... unless he speaks German.
Stallman's position is that anything built on Mono is built on a foundation of trust in Microsoft, which means a foundation made of sand.
You don't need to write any Mono code to judge whether or not his contention is true. All you need to know is that, time after time after time, Microsoft have demonstrated that they are not to be trusted.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"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'm sick and tired of the attacks on everyone who might go against the juvenile group-think on this website and actually feel some of the things microsoft produce have something to offer the world and would like to extend it."
Sorry, but after years of trying to undermine and bring an end to the free software and open source software movements, Microsoft needs to make the first move. Thus far, all they have done is contributed some drivers to Linux that make it easier to run Windows in a VM, and made it slightly easier for open source developers to develop software for Windows. Note their emphasis on running Windows. Note that Windows is more proprietary, more shackled than ever before.
Call me when Windows and/or MS Office have been GPLv3'ed.
Palm trees and 8
apologist: a person who makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, etc.
That's not a personal attack.
Regards.
Is there some 'sane' reason to include languages like C# for purpose of installing GNOME and other vital parts of the system ? I could not agree more with RMS here.
No, Stallman's objection to C# is based on history.
If I open my arms to give you a hug and then, when you get close, slap you, how many times will we repeat this exercise before you stop accepting my "free hugs"?
Such words might be effective against someone who doesn't read both articles, but it seems fairly clear RMS has important content, namely that codeplex's positioning seems designed to add confusion on software freedom issues, which is both dangerous and consistent with Microsoft's notorious predatory policies towards free software and its developers.
Only those without principles or with friends in perfect agreement all the time have the benefit of never "attacking their friends." Perhaps you are more concerned with relationships than principles.
If in your own post you pointed out all of the places where codeplex and Microsoft clearly do understand the open source and free software distinction, and make a clear effort to avoid confusion... If you had some possible explanation for Microsoft's massively ugly behavior towards linux, or open document standards bodies, etc...
But you have none. You seem to find the incidental, but correct observation of your widely-known status as a Microsoft apologist to be the greater issue, and you devote most of your words to denying that, along with some vague name calling, a few appeals to emotion by metaphor, and (probably ill-advised) political sniping.
It is your own writing that is quite clearly without content, and it's my professional opinion that you know it. Thus, the term "cynical hypocrisy."
I find your suggestion that Microsoft could be an ally (however much you deny you've made it, or if you even choose to) to be laughable.
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As a fellow Debian user, I too am incensed that Debian developers, without consulting the user base have taken a monumental leap away from the projects original stated goals and ideals.
What leap? Mono isn't DFSG compliant?
What else do you want from Debian - follow your personal agenda where it doesn't matter whether something is FLOSS or not, but so long as it has any relation to Microsoft, it's automatically evil?
Miguel de Icaza is indeed a Microsoft apologist. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself, but as far as it goes, Stallman has him pegged.
As to the article itself, the reasons for the open-source community not to trust Microsoft are many and varied. The attacks they have repeatedly launched on the community are well-documented, with many more that were not actually launched but were known planned. They continue to espouse models which are antithetical to the OSS mindset, often with an eye toward undermining important infrastructure on which the community is built. Their actions speak a lot louder than their words.
Perhaps someday, Microsoft will prove to my satisfaction (and that of many others in the community) that they can be trusted. It could happen; the small overtures they have made are indeed steps in the right direction, and should be encouraged. But they have a very long way to go, and if de Icaza wants to gain any more traction in the community he is first going to have to accept that Microsoft is not in the position of an accused on trial; it is in the position of an ex-con trying to reintegrate. If de Icaza can start arguing from that position, he might find that he begins to hold more traction.
As a possible suggestion for a place to start, perhaps he could tell us of his own experiences with beginning to trust Microsoft. How did MS manage to win de Icaza's trust back in 2004?
The first two sentences were my favorite, in which he called RMS' referral to him as a "Microsoft apologist" a "personal attack," then proceeded to launch into his apology for Microsoft.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Stallman and the FSF have a history of just making shit up when they decide they don't like something. Look at some of the stuff they've written about trusted computing for examples of this. Miguel is right - the guy plays fast and loose with the facts repeatedly. I see lots of people praising his consistency in this discussion. Well guess what - it's easy to have a consistent position over a long period of time when you flatly refuse to accept factual reality.