ITWire is reporting that rms has made a preliminary statement that “Microsoft’s ‘Community Promise’ is quite inadequate”.
It also notes that a FSF statement will be forthcoming.
If rms and the FSF won’t get behind – or at least won’t withdraw opposition to – mono, then the community will remain divided. The level of flat distrust for Microsoft and the level of flat trust for rms are obstacles to big to overcome by any argument I’ve ever heard Team Mono make.
If I were on Team Mono or Novell and wanted to put things to bed, I would try to get an statement from the FSF on what they want to see that would be satisfactory, instead of straight negative criticism on how the Community Promise is unsatisfactory. A rejection without suggestions is hard to overcome; but a “checklist” of things that need to happen provides an opportunity to at least do something constructive with.
I doubt this is going to happen, though. I think we had a chance here to move this thing closer to a resolution, but it seems like it is slipping away.
Team Mono + Novell + Microsoft simply do not have the credibility to overcome a rejection by rms + FSF.
Also: watch the knives come out for rms big time after the statement. I am predicting a blind rage from mono apologists attacking rms every way possible – and a ratio of 1 valid address of his points : 250 personal attacks.
#1 by Johnny Stavros on July 14th, 2009
Nothing short of full compliance to his ideals and releasing .NET itself under the GPLv3 will appease rms. Microsoft has shown that they’re willing to at least meet half-way.
I’d say team Mono + Novell + Microsoft has the upper hand in credibility over rms on this one.
Let’s not forget about dotGNU, either.
#2 by Jason on July 14th, 2009
Johnny,
Thanks for the comments!
You are probably right about not being able to appease rms. I happen to think that is a good thing – we need some people that will stand the moral ground come what may – so we have a measurement for how far off the path we are. I can understand why not everyone thinks that is such a great position, though. So, fair enough point I think.
What is there not to forget about dotGNU, though?