Bruce Byfield braves the mono whirlwind again with Open Source Landmark: Mono Freed at Last.
There are some interesting tidbits in this article. For once, I’m happy to see Mr. de Icaza acknowledge there was some justification for being wary of the RAND-Z promise.
I’m also shocked to see an open admission that the desired promise was the Open Specification Promise, which I think would have made a substantial difference to critics. I say this because one of the first things I noticed about the difference was that the OSP has an endorsement from Red Hat’s General Counsel, and the Community Promise does not. Right away, it set me to wondering why the CP was chosen.
I also note that de Icaza admits another party may have a claim. This is true enough, but I don’t think anyone is too worried about some 3rd party. Microsoft hates Linux, and that’s who everyone is worried about. If you clear that up, you are pretty much home free. Nobody is worried about Jolly Fats Weehawken’s Computing Emporeum shutting down Linux.
The article also reveals that Stallman recognizes the Community Promise as a step in the right direction, but that there is some distance left to go. It’s important to note that, because when the official FSF statement is made and the knives come out, keep in mind that Stallman did give some credit to Microsoft for this move. He is not refusing to acknowledge Microsoft’s efforts. (I predict you will hear lots and lots of “No matter what Microsoft does, the zealots won’t accept it”.)
Oh and that vile phrase “best-of-breed” software pops up again. Damn that irks me. There’s an implication that mono applications are so freaking awesome and only patent FUD is keeping everyone from rushing to install them. Dude, they aren’t all that. Some have some nice features and all, sure, but so do a lot of other applications, and people have different criteria on what they want in an application. If you’d tone done the “omg awesome rocks” about 3 notches that would be nice – it might be motivation for insiders, but it looks like obnoxiousness to outsiders.
There are other developers out there working hard on thier applications and might not like hearing how utter shite it is compared to the mono alternative, ya know?
