No. The EU has hammer Microsoft twice and demanded they open their standards and protocols or they would be hammered again. The EU also made it clear they would halt the sales of all Microsoft products in the EU.
Why do you think Microsoft is playing nice now?
And how will Microsoft win a case in court when they didn't enforce the patent initially the moment a distro shipped a Mono product? Or the fact that they let the Mono team claim completely copyright on all Mono code and then license it GPLv3?
Microsoft worked hand-in-hand with the developers and helped them in that goal. They will have a real hard time convincing a jury they are suddenly a victim just because Ubuntu ships Mono.
No, if you try to make a commercial spin of that open software, you don't get the protection. But people usually don't sell GPL software. They sell support for GPL software.
And again, it doesn't matter because the EU has threatened them, and proven they will enforce that threat with the two fines they already levied.
On top of that, the Mono team fully owns the copyright to the Mono code and released it as GPLv3.
If Microsoft wanted to assert patent rights, they would have had to do so immediately. By letting the Mono project ship with a GPLv3 license and not objecting, Microsoft basically gave them their blessing.
In fact, Microsoft explicitly gave them their blessing by working with the Mono team.
What jury is going to listen to that trial and side with Microsoft that Microsoft was somehow wronged by people using Mono software?
That is the thing. The Mono team owns the copyright to the code and they released it GPLv3. Microsoft would have a hard time claiming patent infringement when Microsoft worked with the Mono team and gave them their blessing.
Everyone is so convinced this is a massive trap, and it is actually insanely implausible.
Novell extended the patent protection to anyone who uses their software. And again, if Microsoft tried to sue a company merely for using Mono software, the EU could come down again.
And I don't care who you are, a half billion dollar fine hurts. And stopping all sales of your products in the EU hurts.
The EU demanded that Microsoft open several of their standards and protocols, or else. The EU can stop the sale of Microsoft products in the EU and levy more fines.
Bethesda was also in charge of QA for the product as the publisher. So they bear ultimate responsibility for how buggy it is.
The sad thing is that Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 still have massive bugs ever after the Game of the Year editions and final patches.
There are fans in the community still actively fixing bugs for all three. Yes, even Morrowind. It isn't uncommon for a percentage of users to run into bugs with a new release, but Bethesda products ship with massive show stopped bugs with every game. And they don't fix them either.
Like Flock, most of these features can be accomplished as extentions to Chrome as opposed to a completely seperate browser. Like the Flock project, if they released their changes as extensions rather than a completley different browser then it would reach a larger audience. And it might help Chrome reach a larger browser share rather than splinter the Chrome user market.
This looks better than Flock admittedly, but again I'd like to see some of these features just get pushed to the upstream Chrome/Chromium project or get released as extensions.
There are nice Chrome extensions with Chromed Bird that allow you to easily pull down a menu of Tweets, and have new tweets pop-up. There are entire existing browser projects like Flock designed for this purpose.
Ubuntu was the first to push PulseAudio, KDE 4, Grub2, and things like that. In each case they were criticized for shipping something that wasn't ready for primetime, but trying to be the first ones to push for the change.
Ubuntu will still ship X. Unity will run on X. No definitive decisions have been made. Shuttleworth is considering a transition to Wayland, which he estimates will be 4 years down the road. He assumes at that time that KDE and Gnome apps should be able to run natively on Wayland at that time, but you can run a rootless X server alongside Wayland either way.
But it really is more fun to make non-sensical statements, such as suggesting that Gnome and X are intrinsically tied, and that wanting to replace X four years in the future is some massive insult to Gnome.
Ubuntu has repeatedly tried to be as bleeding edge as possible, which is why I don't recommend it to people who want a stable system that just works, and why I never recommend it in the enterprise.
Why are people shocked that Ubuntu is trying to push for change here?
My only concern is that last time I looked Wayland wasn't ready for primetime, and the intent with Wayland wasn't to be a full replacement for X for most users.
Ballmer has been a bit of a patent bully in his speeches, but I believe the TomTom case was the first in history when Microsoft went after someone for patents. They have a massive portfolio and could be a nasty patent bully, but they haven't really acted the part so far.
Someone modded this as funny, but I'm not sure if they realize but Adobe does offer 64-bit builds for their major platforms now, and updates these builds.
Google does pay guys like Andrew Morton to do nothing but help maintain the kernel. You could argue that Morton is one of the five most influence kernel devs on the planet. But his name isn't on much of the code as he is more of a maintainer than a developer.
They already play nice together. OOo/LibreOffice already has extensions that allow you to save, sync, export, and import to Google Docs. So you can have the full OOo fat-client, but keep your documents in the cloud and have them wherever you go.
You can also edit ODF files in Google Docs, and then take them right back to OOo/LibreOffice later.
Google could help clean up the OOo/LibreOffice interface, etc.
LibreOffice is already taking the go-oo patches. And many people weren't even aware that go-oo has existed for years, and was already the preferred product. Many Linux distros ship go-oo and call it OpenOffice. End users don't even know the difference.
Isn't IBM a OpenOffice contributer? What would happen if IBM decided to back LibreOffice instead? Oracle would have paid the coin for Sun and OpenOffice, but IBM could largely direct and help control LibreOffice development without spending a dime to "own" it.
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No. The EU has hammer Microsoft twice and demanded they open their standards and protocols or they would be hammered again. The EU also made it clear they would halt the sales of all Microsoft products in the EU.
Why do you think Microsoft is playing nice now?
And how will Microsoft win a case in court when they didn't enforce the patent initially the moment a distro shipped a Mono product? Or the fact that they let the Mono team claim completely copyright on all Mono code and then license it GPLv3?
Microsoft worked hand-in-hand with the developers and helped them in that goal. They will have a real hard time convincing a jury they are suddenly a victim just because Ubuntu ships Mono.
Please stop spreading FUD.
No, if you try to make a commercial spin of that open software, you don't get the protection. But people usually don't sell GPL software. They sell support for GPL software.
And again, it doesn't matter because the EU has threatened them, and proven they will enforce that threat with the two fines they already levied.
On top of that, the Mono team fully owns the copyright to the Mono code and released it as GPLv3.
If Microsoft wanted to assert patent rights, they would have had to do so immediately. By letting the Mono project ship with a GPLv3 license and not objecting, Microsoft basically gave them their blessing.
In fact, Microsoft explicitly gave them their blessing by working with the Mono team.
What jury is going to listen to that trial and side with Microsoft that Microsoft was somehow wronged by people using Mono software?
That is the thing. The Mono team owns the copyright to the code and they released it GPLv3. Microsoft would have a hard time claiming patent infringement when Microsoft worked with the Mono team and gave them their blessing.
Everyone is so convinced this is a massive trap, and it is actually insanely implausible.
Novell extended the patent protection to anyone who uses their software. And again, if Microsoft tried to sue a company merely for using Mono software, the EU could come down again.
And I don't care who you are, a half billion dollar fine hurts. And stopping all sales of your products in the EU hurts.
The are a couple problems with this theory.
The EU demanded that Microsoft open several of their standards and protocols, or else. The EU can stop the sale of Microsoft products in the EU and levy more fines.
And Microsoft has made an open patent pledge.
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/osspatentpledge.mspx
If they go back on that pledge and tell the EU they refuse to cooperate with their demands on interoperability, then the EU hammer drops again.
Microsoft isn't going to do that. It makes zero sense.
Bethesda was also in charge of QA for the product as the publisher. So they bear ultimate responsibility for how buggy it is.
The sad thing is that Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 still have massive bugs ever after the Game of the Year editions and final patches.
There are fans in the community still actively fixing bugs for all three. Yes, even Morrowind. It isn't uncommon for a percentage of users to run into bugs with a new release, but Bethesda products ship with massive show stopped bugs with every game. And they don't fix them either.
Like Flock, most of these features can be accomplished as extentions to Chrome as opposed to a completely seperate browser. Like the Flock project, if they released their changes as extensions rather than a completley different browser then it would reach a larger audience. And it might help Chrome reach a larger browser share rather than splinter the Chrome user market.
This looks better than Flock admittedly, but again I'd like to see some of these features just get pushed to the upstream Chrome/Chromium project or get released as extensions.
There are nice Chrome extensions with Chromed Bird that allow you to easily pull down a menu of Tweets, and have new tweets pop-up. There are entire existing browser projects like Flock designed for this purpose.
Why do we need this?
Sadly that isn't the case. You'd have to turn off javascript and Flash as well, and then still you're not entirely safe.
If you're using a Windows machine without anti-spyware or anti-virus protection, there is a good chance you're infected and don't realize it.
This is only being suggested to people with no anti-virus solution on Windows. Those people likely don't know what they're doing.
And actually, I'd recommend Microsoft Security Essentials over Symantec, McAffee, etc.
Ubuntu was the first to push PulseAudio, KDE 4, Grub2, and things like that. In each case they were criticized for shipping something that wasn't ready for primetime, but trying to be the first ones to push for the change.
Ubuntu will still ship X. Unity will run on X. No definitive decisions have been made. Shuttleworth is considering a transition to Wayland, which he estimates will be 4 years down the road. He assumes at that time that KDE and Gnome apps should be able to run natively on Wayland at that time, but you can run a rootless X server alongside Wayland either way.
But it really is more fun to make non-sensical statements, such as suggesting that Gnome and X are intrinsically tied, and that wanting to replace X four years in the future is some massive insult to Gnome.
We don't allow sensible comments here. You need to change your post to "Shuttleworth kicks Gnome developers square in the nuts".
Ubuntu has repeatedly tried to be as bleeding edge as possible, which is why I don't recommend it to people who want a stable system that just works, and why I never recommend it in the enterprise.
Why are people shocked that Ubuntu is trying to push for change here?
My only concern is that last time I looked Wayland wasn't ready for primetime, and the intent with Wayland wasn't to be a full replacement for X for most users.
Ballmer has been a bit of a patent bully in his speeches, but I believe the TomTom case was the first in history when Microsoft went after someone for patents. They have a massive portfolio and could be a nasty patent bully, but they haven't really acted the part so far.
...but there is no need for criticism of back-handed compliments here. Regardless of their history, this is a good move.
Kudos on another open source release.
I suspect Rambo.
Why would a CEO be at work? That is just a silly assumption.
Someone modded this as funny, but I'm not sure if they realize but Adobe does offer 64-bit builds for their major platforms now, and updates these builds.
I believe the Chinese government puts out their own build of Linux and their own build of OpenOffice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux
http://www.redoffice.com/
Even better, Oracle paid big to buy Sun primarily to compete with IBM, and their mishandling of OpenOffice might just benefit IBM.
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html
Google does pay guys like Andrew Morton to do nothing but help maintain the kernel. You could argue that Morton is one of the five most influence kernel devs on the planet. But his name isn't on much of the code as he is more of a maintainer than a developer.
They already play nice together. OOo/LibreOffice already has extensions that allow you to save, sync, export, and import to Google Docs. So you can have the full OOo fat-client, but keep your documents in the cloud and have them wherever you go.
You can also edit ODF files in Google Docs, and then take them right back to OOo/LibreOffice later.
Google could help clean up the OOo/LibreOffice interface, etc.
LibreOffice is already taking the go-oo patches. And many people weren't even aware that go-oo has existed for years, and was already the preferred product. Many Linux distros ship go-oo and call it OpenOffice. End users don't even know the difference.
Isn't IBM a OpenOffice contributer? What would happen if IBM decided to back LibreOffice instead? Oracle would have paid the coin for Sun and OpenOffice, but IBM could largely direct and help control LibreOffice development without spending a dime to "own" it.