Yeah, the anti-mono people aren’t coders. OK, I’m a coder. My prefered license is the GPL V3.0 and later, though I think that the BSD/MIT licenses are useful for some things.

I don’t think Mono is legally safe to use. I also think based on what I’ve seen that it’s pretty damned useless. If this is what Microsoft thinks is a great programming paradigm, then Microsoft is in deep trouble (note that since I don’t have Windows on any computers, I haven’t seen Microsoft’s own version, it might be better. However based on the Microsoft products that I used to use, I doubt it).

At least I think that is irony – after that Alanis song, I’m not sure anymore.

>> It’s just a bit ironic that one of the groups that is currently waging a
>> most vile war of character assassination against the very founder of the
>> Free Software movement would appear to want his validation at the
>> same time.

Please. You’ve been running a personal war against several figures of the same Free Software movement, just because they happen to work with a language you don’t like. Don’t talk about irony.

I’m also not sure you can re-license the image that way – so I will accuse under the pretext that it is not possible, rather than actually look up the license.

Furthermore, I will be spreading the word that you have not handled the copyright assignment correctly in some vague way.

Finally, I call into your question your motivation for even doing such a thing – as far as I can tell the very idea of playing with someone else’s work is 180 degrees opposed to the very concept of Free Software.

Bad form, Mr. Goode. Tut tut.

The licensing scheme for the script is as follows:

1) Background and gradient rendering is under the Sleepycat Software Product License
2) Polygon compositing is released under the NASA Open Source Agreement, except for such components that are covered by the Sleepycat license described in 1); which are then dual-licensed under the BSD two-clause and BSD three-clause licenses (in addition to the Sleepycat SPL).
3) Text rendering is covered by the BISON General Public License
4) All other components fall under the SG Vanity Public License, unless explicitly specified as failing under the CeCILL v. 2.0 license (or being dual licensed under BSD three-clause and the BISON GPL).

Of course, commercial licensing is also available for those intimidated by the confusing nature inherent to all Free Software licensing schemes.

Here is the script:

#/bin/bash
convert -size 600×150 xc:none -tile gradient:#204a87-#729fcf -draw “polygon 0,15 50,25 50,50″ -draw “roundrectangle 50,5 595,145 15,15″ png:- | convert -stroke none -font DejaVu-Sans-Mono-Bold -pointsize 44 -gravity NorthWest -draw “fill white text 79,20 ‘I AM NOT AFRAID OF’” -draw “fill white text 70,80 ‘PEOPLE WRITING CODE’” -draw “fill black rectangle 60,103 575,107″ -pointsize 40 -stroke black -draw “text 55,81 ‘CHARACTER ASSASINATION’” – meme-mage.png

Ever noticed how the so-called “pro-Mono people” are Free Software coders, while the vocal anti-Mono crowd only consists in people who just talk?

I feel quite insulted by the idiocy here contained.

Well I, too, am not afraid of character assassination.

To which your replied in an extraordinarily satisfactory manner.

Thank you.

However, there is this littlest of bits that didn’t fit just so right as the rest.

>> 5. There is no reason to use any more, any less, or any variation of my image. That is a silly idea.

Please don’t be offended by this. I just think you don’t have artistic taste when forced to judge with my eyes.

The picture does have some interesting areas.

So….

I wanted to use a *little* piece of it.

If I could get the full patent protection for ordinary uses of the large chunk, then — surely — it would be less trouble to give me full protection for only that little bit?

Aside from this, I don’t want to infringe on your “use a picture with properties X, Y, and Z on a webpage to communicate a message that…” patent.

I can bypass that patent by avoiding putting your picture on webpages — how convenient!!

However, I can also bypass that patent by just using a *little* piece of your picture (only property X) on the webpage.

I must confess that between relinquishing participation in the Internet revolution

.. or else killing two large ugly birds with one little stone

.. I think I will have to go with

.. the latter.

So please.. pretty please.. can I have a partial implementation license. Please.

I want the full protection you are offering.. but when I use only a little bit.

PS: Are you sure you still own or control any relevant patents? Forgive me, but I think it is a little suspicious that two major patent troll companies are run by two of your best friends.

You raise some interesting questions. Well, allow me to retort:

1. Show me your image. If you haven’t made one you can’t comment on mine.
2. Since users don’t care about patents or antiquated concepts like “Freedom”, the very concepts are irrelevant.
3. My image is best-of-breed, because best-of-breed images are what I create. Q.E.D.
4. Someone who asked me similar questions once may have been a loon, nazi, sexist, or fan of Celine Dion. Therefore, you must be a loony nazi sexist fan of Celine Dion.
5. There is no reason to use any more, any less, or any variation of my image. That is a silly idea.

I hope that resolves any doubts you might have had.

What about the patents that you do not currently own or control but which you are aware exist (eg, from partners) and possibly created yourself and later sold (eg, to patent trolls)?

If I want to use that image for a common purpose (like displaying it on a webpage), where I would also be violating other patents you have (on inventions using that image for webpage use), then can I instead use a partial implementation of that image so that I don’t violate your other patents? Or do I lose patent protections to this image if I only do a partial implementation of it?

Is it true that you have many many patents for inventions that use that image specifically to do otherwise ordinary things like opening it in a paint program?

I do not believe it is in my best interest to use your image AT ALL until I get satisfactory answers to these questions.

Thank you very much.

PS: software patents may be dealt a convincing death blow by the courts. If so, I may consider using some of the interesting ideas from your picture but with an eye towards a better implementation of it and in ways where my huge investment in existing artwork and themes won’t go to waste.

I know you are smarter than this, based on your blog at least, so I’m not sure why you are setting up such fallacious one-liners here?

In any case, you know as well as I that there are coders in the mono critics camp – you yourself accused Gnote of being specifically anti-mono – and I think there is a strong argument to be made that the vast majority of “pro-Mono people” are much, much closer to the “Open Source” side of the tent than the “Free Software” side. In fact, some of them are not under the tent at all – they are pro-Mono because it is no-dollars, and they want to code for the iPhone or XBox or whatever closed up device thier closed-source program needs to run on.

Which is fine – it’s not like anyone has to pledge allegience to the FSF flag. And it’s not like creating proprietary software using FLOSS tools is some new evil mono has wrought.

It’s just a bit ironic that one of the groups that is currently waging a most vile war of character assassination against the very founder of the Free Software movement would appear to want his validation at the same time.