Microsoft man Sam Ramji reveals some of the Codeplex Foundation’s motivations.
In responding to the devastating criticism of the Codeplex Foundation’s fundamentally flawed organization and the high skepticism of its motives, Mr. Ramji revealed a bit of the true motives behind the Codeplex Foundation:
Look at projects related to Mono, you also can look at NUnit, NHibernate, we really feel optimistic that the Foundation could help them gain a higher level of credibility in the open source community. They feel they have been lacking that strong moral support.
Break that down and chew on it a bit!
Mr. Ramji is saying you know those Microsoft-approved “Open Source” projects like Mono? And you know how the Open Source community keeps rejecting them? Well Microsoft is going to create our own playing field and support them!
In fact, Microsoft is going to provide “strong moral support”! Oh, Microsoft. Your “Open Source” people are so often good for a chuckle. Thank you for that, at least. Strong moral support. From Microsoft. In Open Source. Heh.
I like this because it is largely the pro-Novell, pro-Microsoft people who are always trying to argue that ideals and morals don’t matter. It’s all about what the user wants, and being “pragmatic”, and “Microsoft is just a business doing business like any other business”. But here we have talk about needing “credibility” and “moral support”? Knock me down with a feather! The notion that there is an underlying moral and ideologial foundation to Open Source! Why that there is zealot talk!
Microsoft is not new at leveraging its considerable resources into creating a rubber-stamp pre-approved situation, especially when the real and existing community doesn’t want anything to do with Microsoft’s offerings – <cough> OOXML</cough> – and the CodePlex Foundation is just another example of that.
The very idea that Microsoft can even set up an independent Open Source foundation is absolutely ludicrious. Pick any absurd analogy you like: Yankees fans setting up a Red Sox Appreciation Society, the Klan setting up a Civil Rights commission, Nickleback fans setting up a music appreciation group, whatever.
The big defense on Mr. Ramji’s part is that the OpenPlex Foundation is in “beta”. Software is in “beta”, organizations are not. Organizations are founded with a purpose, a mission, and an agenda. Yours is showing, Microsoft. Yours is showing.
This article was cross-posted at The-Source.com.
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#1 by Richard on September 28th, 2009
So,
… translates into …
… right? Right. I’m sure that any reasonable person would interpret those words in exactly the same way. The only other valid interpretation necessitate taking them at face value, and that’s just crazy.
Whilst we’re on the subject …
… please make sure that you don’t include me, or Miguel de Icaza, or Linus Torvalds, or Greg Kroah-Hartmann, or Ayende Rahiem, or Ulrich Drepper, or anyone else on a very long list of experienced, active open-source contributors and developers and supporters, in that community. Oh, and also exclude the PHP devs, the Apache team, and so forth. You can keep RMS, and whoever wants to stay in the 1990s with him.
If you want to take the next step and really stand up for your principles, and let me know how you get along without running any software created by traitorous Microsoft collaborators.
#2 by Jason on September 28th, 2009
Richard,
I’m sad to see you trot out the old “if you object to one aspect of something you must reject the entire thing” fallacy. Not only is it a childish argument, but I have addressed it previously. Suffice it to say that I don’t agree with every action of the US Government, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up my citizenship. It means I speak up about those things I disagree with, while appreciating those things I support.
Anyway, the translation is very much taking it “at face value”. It is plain in the text that the CodePlex Foundation has pre-identified pro-Microsoft projects that it intends to support, specifically to attempt to add “credibility”. That is in Mr. Ramji’s own words – he lists the projects, he mentions the lack of “credibility” and “moral support”, and expresses the CodePlex Foundation’s intent to address the matter.
I don’t see anything surprising there, actually. Of course the CodePlex Foundation is intended to serve Microsoft’s purposes! It is founded, organized, funded and ran by Microsoft.
Furthermore, this is something that always confuses me about pro-Mono / pro-Microsoft defenses. Half the time when someone points out that the action is “evil”, people respond “Oh, come on! That is just how all business is done”. Ok, fine – I understand that. But, why the pretense then that the CodePlex Foundation is something different?
#3 by Richard on September 28th, 2009
Jason,
I’m sad to see you doing exactly the same thing. I get it — you don’t like Microsoft. You think they have a lot to prove. Fine, in a few years, maybe you’ll change your mind, or maybe I’ll change mine. But then you object to one aspect of Microsoft’s behaviour — such as their Best Buy FUD — and automagically reject all aspects, including the worthwhile efforts being made by the CodePlex Foundation, their R&D division, their .Net development division, and others. You can see the obvious fallacy in my argument, and I’m glad. Now, why don’t you see the obvious fallacy in yours?
As for Sam Ramji’s comment: what does NHibernate, or NUnit, have to do with Microsoft? For that matter, Mono doesn’t have a lot to do with Microsoft either, for you still need to show that the “lock-in” you claim actually exists (and it seems silly to claim that .Net technologies extend “platform dominance” when they are inherently cross-platform). But let’s give you that one, and say for the sake of amicable discussion that Mono is a “pro-Microsoft” project. The other two aren’t. What they all have in common is that they are large, they are useful, and they (currently) do not have the explicit backing of an open-source foundation. This is the translation that takes his words at face value. Frankly, I think they could live without the last, but others disagree, and they’ve set up a foundation. Fine, let them.
I’m not addressing your point about “this is how all business is done”, because that’s not a point that I’ve raised here, and it seems only tangentially relevant to the matter at hand.
#4 by Jason on September 29th, 2009
I think I’ve addressed and defending the main point here – which is that Mr. Ramji’s comments reveal that a purpose and agenda for the CodePlex Foundation has already been identified. Beyond that we are getting into tangents which I only want to address briefly here.
What does “Project X” have to do with Microsoft?
NHibernate
I link to Wikipedia because I think it’s funny someone went out of their way to put “This article is about the .NET and Mono library. For other uses, see Hibernate.” as the link disambiguation. I guess people think stuff like this is convincing or not noticed? Oh well.
NUnit
So, NHibernate and NUnit both have plenty to do with Microsoft, because they target .NET.
I know Team Mono desperately wants to distinguish Mono from .NET (when it suits them), but the fact is Mono is a “UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform.”
I don’t understand the strange desire for Mono apologists to simultaneously defend Microsoft, and still try to pretend like Project X “has nothing to do” with Microsoft. Yes it does. Mono has virtually everything to do with Microsoft. Its sole purpose of existence is to clone Microsoft’s .NET platform. Period. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have to be defending Microsoft all day long and twice on Sundays.
Objecting to one aspect
Really? I don’t object to one aspect of Microsoft’s behavior. I object to the overwhelming majority of Microsoft’s behavior. I no more think Microsoft is a “good” company for doing one or two “good” things than I think Phillip Morris is a “good” company because it ran a little anti-teen smoking campaign a few years back.
The problem with Microsoft is that for any one thing I might could possibly support, there are a dozen things I object to. At that ratio, it is simpler and saner to reject everything.
I have said this before – if you simply reject and distrust Microsoft out of hand, you will be wrong sometimes. But it will be quite rare, and more often than not you will be correct to do so. That is sad, but it is solely Microsoft’s fault. I am not interested in digging through a pile of manure to find a small bit of jade. True, I might miss out on a small thing of some value. But I don’t come away covered in manure, either.
#5 by Richard on September 29th, 2009
Jason,
Perhaps you do still have a few things to clear up.
1. We already knew that there was a purpose and agenda to the CodePlex Foundation. Sam Ramji’s comments are perfectly in sync with their mission statement. There is nothing “revealed” by his comments that wasn’t plain to see right at the start, on their “About” page.
2. NUnit, NHibernate, and Mono all use .Net technology, originally developed by Microsoft. So? By using C#’s lambda expressions, are you somehow making a statement of belief? Does VB.Net’s optional arguments feature cause your principles to change? If you write LINQ backwards on your bathroom mirror, are you fated to turn into a Servant of Redmond within 7 days? Let’s be real. A language is a language, technology is technology. Using technology doesn’t make you “pro” or “anti” some particular entity. Saying all three projects are “pro-Microsoft” just because they’re built on the .Net framework is silly.
3. Good for Philip Morris for running that anti-smoking stuff. Good for Shell for running environmental ads. Bad Philip Morris for encouraging smoking. Bad Shell for stuffing up entire economies with their greed (and occasionally murdering people). This is called a nuanced view of the world, where you applaud an entity for something good, and chastise them for something bad. I’ll let you fill in the blanks: Good for Microsoft for ______________; bad Microsoft for ______________.
4. Objecting to the whole because of the part can be excused on grounds of ignorance, but not on grounds of simplicity. It would be simpler for me to believe that all Chinese people are godless Commies, or that all Arabs are murderous devil-worshiping scum, or that the FSF is a bunch of radical activists who want to take away any possibility of my making money off my software, or that Microsoft is a company that systematically seeks to destroy all open source projects, or that black people are ignorant loudmouths who need to shut up and listen to the white man when he speaks. Of course, I don’t believe any of these things, though they would certainly be simpler to believe. However, I know people who believe these things, and they all use exactly the same line of reasoning: it’s easier to take the generalised view. Sure, there may be exceptions, and they’ll accept those exceptions when you really push them to, but when faced with a new Chinese guy / Arab / FSF supporter / Microsoft action / black person, they’ll jump right back to using the simple rule that’s served them so well.
By the way, you’ll be interested to note that you can apply exactly the same reasoning that you use to black people in South Africa, where I am located. Most of them are rural, and poor, and uneducated. They speak loudly, and they drink heavily, and most violent crime is done by black people. They think that you can cure AIDS by having sex with an underage virgin, and they speak in their native tongue when they want to say something nasty and not have you understand it. Oh, yes, the overwhelming majority (to use your phrase) of them are like that. One of the reasons that your reply strikes a particular chord with me is that not three days ago, I had a discussion on this matter with (let’s face it) a racist. Replace the nouns in your response appropriately, and you’ll have the reasoning that she used.
No, I don’t excuse perspectives on the grounds that they are “simpler” or “saner” to believe. If you know enough about the nuances — and, Jason, you have certainly gone deeply enough into the issues to know enough — then there isn’t any excuse.
#6 by Jason on September 29th, 2009
1. The orginal language surrounding the CodePlex Foundation was generalized and vague, helping “companies contribute to Open Source”-type stuff. Mr. Ramji’s comments – as they begin to touch on specifics – reveal that the projects that the CodePlex Foundation intends to “support” will be .NET projects.
This is not surprising, but it seems that some people want to promote the idea that the CodePlex Foundation is somehow independent of Microsoft. I do not think it is. I think it is much more along the lines of a PR effort.
2. I disagree, but what’s more telling is that Microsoft itself disagrees:
That’s official approved Microsoft training right there. Recommended by Mr. Gates himself.
Mindshare is very important. If it were not so Microsoft would not go through such great lengths to do things like subvert the standardization process to get its standards approved.
So, I flatly reject any claims that “language is language” or “technology is technology”.
3. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it seems to take the view that things are overall balanced out or that some “good” actions offset or compensate for some “bad” actions.
I reject this because in the case of Microsoft, the “bad” actions far outweigh, outnumber and outlast the “good” actions.
Furthermore, I assign less value to “good” actions that are forced upon a company. For example, despite some apologists’ brave attempts Microsoft does not get any sort of credit for “working with” Samba, because they were forced by a court to do so.
To a lesser degree, this is why Microsoft gets diminished credit for its so-called “interoperability” efforts. For one thing, they are the cause of the problem. For another, they are being forced by the market to change. So any credit given to them is tempered by these circumstances.
4. Your analogies are false. For example, you say it “would be simpler for me to believe that all Chinese people are godless Commies”. But I am not judging individuals, I am judging a single corporation.
Just as it would be wrong for me to judge individual Microsoft employees based on the actions of the company, it is likewise wrong to judge the company based on the virtues of individual employees. If I were condeming employees of Microsoft as individuals, then you might have a point. But I am not, so you do not.
Your Arab analogy is even more offensively falacious, because while Chinese may be officially “godless Commies”, no Arab nation is officially “murderous devil-worshiping scum”. Nor is there decades of impartial history, court records, or public documentation of Arabs in general being “murderous devil-worshiping scum”.
I’m not even going to touch your “black people in South Africa” analogy except to say it’s false and offensive.
In summary
This line of argument is not productive. I have said before that the best argument that could be made in Microsoft’s defense is that the “change” is genuine. I have no reason to believe it is – though I will not reject the notion out of hand.
If that can be accepted, then there comes the matter of convincing people that the genuine good deeds begin to outweigh past history. Then you can argue that people are “holding grudges” too long i guess – but that’s really not a very interesting area of discussion.
#7 by Richard on September 29th, 2009
Jason,
You misunderstand me.
2. Does it matter what Microsoft thinks? You can flatly reject the idea that technology is just technology, but that doesn’t make it less true. You’re the one claiming that it’s something more, that somehow syntax leads to mental contamination, and I’d really like to see any evidence whatsoever of a connection.
3. No, a nuanced view doesn’t offset good actions against bad. It looks at the good actions, and praises them. It looks at the bad actions, and condemns them. That is all. There is no need to assign “x% good, y% evil” percentages or proportions. There is no need for anything to “outweigh” anything else. Frankly, you can’t split up anything in the world like that. It’s more accurate to say “John is a great dad; John is a lazy worker” than it is to say “John is 63.78% evil”. Similarly, “Sun makes a great virtualisation environment; Solaris sucks a bit in comparison to other Unices” is more accurate than “Sun software is mostly OK”.
4. Y’know, you’ve totally missed the point, which is that taking the “simpler” view is a silly thing to do when you know better.
Why not address the example of the FSF? That is
- an organization (just as Microsoft is an organisation)
- which is reviled by a certain section of the population (“they want to take away any possibility of my making money off my software”)
- and such revulsion is silly (their licensing is a bit outdated, their insistence on “pure” open-source is silly at the BIOS level, their inability to understand the point of Trusted Computing is laughable, their mangling of terminology needs to stop, but their enforcement arm and software indexing and community support is quite good)
… or is it equally OK for people to condemn the FSF as a whole, because they disagree with the overwhelming majority of what the FSF does?
#8 by Jason on September 29th, 2009
2. This is called “mind-share”. It is vitally important to companies. It’s not something I made up in my basement as my beard grows. Microsoft understands it well – so well in fact, they (used to?) have a whole program called ….. wait for it …. Mindshare.
If you do not think that the success of .NET reflects favorably on Microsoft, and that Microsoft promotes .NET as one way to increase its mindshare among developers and program managers….well, there’s not really much point in continuing.
3. This interpretation does not match my reality. I know lots of people that I roughly “weigh” and decide if I want to hang out with them. They have good points and bad points, and sometimes one outweighs the other. If that person is “more trouble than they are worth”, I don’t associate with them casually.
Microsoft is more trouble than they are worth.
There is a whole separate problem with your “John analogy”: I don’t care that John is a great dad. He’s not my dad. I do care that John is a lazy worker, because we work together. So John is a goldbricker, and to hell with what a family man he might be. Or it could be the other way around.
4.
Yes.
Not to cut things off, please feel free to have the last word, but I honestly don’t see much point in going into this in more detail. Either I am doing a pitiful job at explaining myself, or there is simply too great a divergence in world views here.
For example, I can entertain the possibility that someone might consider engaging Microsoft “worth the trouble” – I don’t, but I can see how someone might. However, I do not accept the argument that people do not or should not make such judgments.
Similarly, I can entertain the possibility that the mind-share that Mono creates is a net gain for Linux and FLOSS – I don’t, but I can see how someone might. However, I do not accept the argument that mind-share does not exist, that a technology in general is “just a technology”, devoid of any marketing, political or other consideration; or that .NET/Mono in specific does not have a very strong interest in increasing mind-share.
The inverse – the arguments you are making – are unrealistic. You are trying to argue that companies just put a technology out there, pure altruism, there is no marketing or promotion needed or desired, because a “technology is just a technology”, that advertisement and promotion does not have a mental effect or social connection, and so forth. That is not realistic. Most things in the world are not “just what they are”, they have connections and connotations beyond their basic composition. A word is not just a grouping of letters, a poem not just a grouping of words. A technology promotes the company that has its name on it.
You are arguing that people do (or should) judge each aspect of an entity, rather than the entire entity itself. In general, that is not realistic. Perhaps the closer one is to an entity, the more nuanced the judgment, but in general people weigh the pros and cons and come to a thumbs up/thumbs down decision on most things. There are counterexamples, to be sure, but in general that is how people operate. That is how people must operate, because no one in the world has the time, ability, expertise, or desire to come to some all encompassing purely objective judgment.
In any case, this is a far far tanget from the original post and I have spent way way way too much time on it.
#9 by none on September 30th, 2009
Sorry to enter this personal flame fest, but I think I can shed some light:
.NET is a tool for power-playing, much like Internet Explorer. You can chose to ignore the man behind the curtain if you wish, but it will not make him go away. You’re being used by MS as much as you’re using them. And now that you realize that you’re a pawn in the hands of Microsoft, wouldn’t it be wise to question what their objectives are? And what consequences will your actions have?
More important, what you really have to consider is not if some technology is good or bad, but if you need it or not.
My own conclusions are this: I don’t want to support MS objectives, and more importantly, there are plenty of better technologies (in so many aspects) that I don’t need anything coming from 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA. USA.
#10 by Richard on September 30th, 2009
None,
No, I don’t think so. In the case of mindshare, if you ignore the man behind the curtain, he does go away. (More importantly, have you been reading much Michel Foucault lately?)
. But for the sake of the discussion, let’s say that he doesn’t go away; in that case, you are influenced, but hardly a pawn. You can ignore marketing, you can ignore peer pressure, you can ignore just about anything as long as you know that it exists and actively try to think critically about it. I see no reason that you cannot ignore an insubstantial thing like mindshare.
True, given resource constraints in an organisation. However, on my personal time, I don’t need Twitter, and I don’t need OCaml, and I certainly don’t need the idiosyncrasies of Vim-script, but I happen to use all of these things. .Net is a fun platform to code for, and I like to have fun in my personal time
.
#11 by Ed on September 28th, 2009
“Oh, come on! That is just how all business is done”. Correct the way Capone and his crew run business by racketeering and eliminating rivals. MS get is place NOT by competing but by extinguishing rivals by force. MS NEVER has delivered a high quality product but just marketed theirs, destroying opposition, and forcing the consumer to buy their projects colluded with companies like Intel and corrupt authorities who have looked to the other side even after being CONVICTED as MONOPOLIST!
Trolls always complain when people raise up against this behavior. “Communist”, zealot just because someones mentions Microsoft NOT hidden agenda. Microsoft NEVER have ben NEVER will be a friend of OPEN SOURCE doing so will accelerate its demise.
“how you get along without running any software created by traitorous Microsoft collaborators.” For over the years the Internet runs on *nix machines. For serven years I have not used MS products either at work, home or scholl, and I do NOT need it as million of users worldwide. That’s what scares MS and now they’re trying to counteract appearing “Open”, “Community”, yes community of self-serving people committed to destroy the FREEDOM more users are experiencing.
Finally if the NYSE, (1 million transactions per second), International Securities Exchange, trust LINUX I can trust my desktop, workstations and servers to Linux!
Thanks for NOT giving up FREEDOM and standing up against the convicted Monopolist!
#12 by TGM on September 30th, 2009
The really, really sad thing with this whole thing, and responses, is that if Microsoft ever did (or has) changed it’s spots, we’d never believe it because of their history.
It’s the boy who cried wolf, but in reverse somewhat.
What goes around comes around, Microsoft.
#13 by paul on September 30th, 2009
I’ve been interpreting MS’s PR talk the same way starting back in the mid-nineties. And that’s because I watched MS gobble up small businesses and eliminate any good ideas that the small business might have had. I’ve watched MS constantly do spin-selling when comparing their products to others. To look at MS now and think they no longer are given to predatory behavior is phenomenally naive.
Jason, you are SO on target. I’ve been expecting this play from MS for some time now. They see F/OSS taking market share. They started by trying to usurp the term “open” (as if their proprietary products ever were or will be) and now they’re trying to appear as though they “get it.” So here comes the “we want to share with everyone too” ploy.
Again, you are SO spot on with your perception, Jason.
You’re also spot on with the comparison of Nickelback fans starting a music appreciation group. Yeah, baby!!!
#14 by Jose_X on September 30th, 2009
See the comment I wrote here
http://www.linux-magazine.com/content/view/full/40163
For example:
>> This already happens, and, no, Microsoft adopting mono as a “first class project” doesn’t solve anything.
>> The problems are at least two.
>> One is that Microsoft salespeople (with the help of proxy trolls, FUD, and orgs like the BSA), addressing the user, point out the IP threats and that serious liabilities might ensue if the user doesn’t reconsider this new discount being offered of an easypeasy wholesale migration to MSware. [easypeasy migration to Windows when the software is already based on mono]
>> The second problem (besides the IP risks) is that Microsoft adds proprietary extensions as an obvious part of doing business as a closed source company. So them “supporting” mono might lower IP threats a little (Microsoft likely has deals with patent trolls to use as proxies, either by letting the proxy define and patent API and what not under terms positive to Microsoft, or by selling Microsoft patents to these proxies).. but we still have a one-way bridge to MSware since open mono will be a weak subset of the Real Thing (TM). You will need the real thing to get the interesting apps sent by others to work.
And..
>> When mono cannot run msdotnet but msdotnet can run mono trivially (since it is FOSS), then the ports we are talking about are not the ones that help Linux (-> Linux) but the ones that help Windows (-> Windows).
>> I think Microsoft *needs* to have function well on Windows all the $0 FOSS apps that might be interesting and which attract developer attention to improve Linux. This way Microsoft leverages all the work of FOSS applied to Linux to also build up Windows so as to keep Linux as offering nothing new.
One main point wrt mindshare is that Microsoft has built up a huge lead in the technology (dotnet) used within a huge biased playing field that they built (MS platforms plus integrated apps). They need people to come in and play. The first step to playing is to learn the rules of the game (learn dotnet). If some interesting people don’t come in and play (ie, if Linux has interesting superior apps not ported well to Windows), then the spectators will have elsewhere to go and this breaks their monopolies which destroys monopoly levers like forced upgrades, monopoly pricing, forced deals on OEMs and third parties that otherwise feel they might need to play ball in just that one arena. Mono apps lowers the costs for ports to Windows while almost ensuring these apps will run their best on Windows (since Windows is king of dotnet).
Of course, if the devs and users are using mono, and then are pursuaded to move to msdotnet and ms build tools in order to avoid problems and reduce friction and gain functionality, then the apps will evolve into strangers to Linux. The apps won’t just be less efficient when compared to Windows, but they will now be msdotnet-ized so that on Linux they will be more buggy and less featureful. At this point we are back to the “wine project” trying to reverse engineer MSware (bugs and all).
The mono people roughly say or have said at some point they want to “keep up” with Microsoft so that Linux “doesn’t lag”. On the surface that is a noble goal except for one thing: The practical end result when you look at how mono was applied is that those supporting it are helping move a game that was on Linux over to Windows so that in fact we go *from leading* to *needing to worry about keeping up*. By now, I don’t think any of the key folks are diluting themselves of this fact if they ever were. Growing mono helps Microsoft.
There is also the patent question. The way patents work in the US, it’s very straightforward to patent interfaces (ie, API). All mono apps, even if converted to C++ fairly directly, will still have an internal organization that could run afoul of dotnet patents. To use an analogy.. say you patent a mechanical device that works a particular way. Well, an app is currently treated the same way in the US. You can patent a particular way it behaves. API defined the precise semantics of how that part of the app will function. Changing source code language without changing API semantics does not solve the problem. Of course, there are other things that can be patented that might disappear if you convert to C++, but even in these cases, we have to deal with bug hunting and the mere fact the app won’t be legal for a while means the BSA and others will pressure income and conversions towards MS and their wares.
An argument against the patent question is that we can take out patents to hurt Microsoft, so Microsoft better not use them against us. This is still not good enough for me because playing the patent game is costly on dev time; the law might change to make the originator of the technology (API) have priority of some sort over add-on patents — thus neutralizing this defensive check; very useful “FUD” will always exist if Microsoft can readily point to a suitcase of dotnet patents. Just look at the leverage the BSA has in getting people to pay money (see this discussion http://blog.eracc.com/2009/09/26/gnulinux-and-foss-versus-software-piracy/ ). Patents are a very powerful arsenal to keeping FOSS down, especially if a Microsoft patent proxy troll company files a suit against you because you use mono. Oh, yes, Microsoft’s promise is useless if they don’t “own” or “control” the dotnet patents in question. Major loophole, I’d say, especially since Microsoft knows they can’t be seen as suing since that would annoy antitrust groups and make them an even bigger target for counter troll attacks (thus they were going to use proxies anyway). Gates and Myhrvold are major patent troll players. What a coincidence! Worse, Microsoft might fold, but the IP pieces be sold off. There will be lots of groups that will be able to come after you for money.
Keep in mind that mono is a laggard in terms of easy support for a wide variety of API and does not lead to the most speedy apps. There is a reason most top apps are written in something like C/C++ with assembly language as necessary (Microsoft doesn’t support a very limited number of architectures by accident).
I don’t want to keep “fighting” with people that want to use mono. I simply don’t support mono and periodically try to explain why I don’t. Most of those who do support it, I suspect, see FOSS as a complement to proprietary. [This helps the paychecks of insiders.] And then you have many that don’t care too much about what others do.
Recently, I have seen articles with the theme that a Windows (or Wintel) monopoly is a good idea, for the industry and for FOSS. Well, I disagree about it being the best for FOSS or for most users or for competitors that want a crack at some of these markets. I see intellectual goods being produced in greater quantities by “ordinary” folks instead of by a privileged few. This doesn’t cut down on the number of jobs but instead reduces friction (faster progress and new jobs get created faster). Another result is that it’s more difficult for a minority to make zillions; however, the total world output will grow and this will benefit just about everyone except those that get their highs, not by what they can do, but by what they can do that you can’t. [These are the folks that would still have us moving around from cave to cave with a low lifespan, just as long as they held a very high position within the clan.]
Some employees (including FOSS developers) and businesses don’t appreciate the FSF very much, but the majority of end users recognize who it is that is working in their best interest.
#15 by YetAnotherBob on September 30th, 2009
You folks seem to know more about this than I do. I would appreciate some questions answered, if you could.
Question 1 for me is: Will Mono support the architecture of autoexecuting code with certain early commands? Microsoft seems quite enamored with this unfortunate architectural decision. If so, is there protection from autoexecuting malware, and if there is, is it adequate?
Question 2 for me is: Are there sufficient binding legal assurances that companies and individuals will face no hazard to development or use of Mono based products due to any existing or future Microsoft patents, or other ‘intellectual’ property?
Richard Stallman seems to think that Question 2 has an answer of “NO!” This concerns be because he has a long track record of being right. Often strident, but still right. PJ at Groklaw who has a legal background seems to agree with him.
Can you answer this for me, or is this just a place for marketing nullspeak?
#16 by Richard on September 30th, 2009
On question 1 …
As far as I know, the closest that .Net comes to this sort of “feature” is as follows:
- If a static constructor exists for a class, that constructor is guaranteed to be called before any object of that class is instantiated — whether the instantiation occurs normally or via reflected-constructor call. Java and C++ do similar things, though the timing of the calls is not necessarily the same, and the code constructs differ.
- Loading an assembly without specifying a reflection-only context will probably run some code in that assembly when it is being loaded. That’s sort of the point of loading an assembly in that manner, though.
That’s all that I can think of, off the top of my head.
If you are asking whether .Net or Mono support automagically running things like “autorun.inf” from a CD, the answer is “No”. That’s something that the OS chooses to do; it’s got little to do with either .Net or Mono.
On Question 2 …
Probably not. However, doing so would mean dropping an entire developer ecosystem, handing the cross-platform trophy over to Sun/Oracle, facing a few lawsuits about estoppel and breach of contract, losing parts of its own stack that it has licensed differently (e.g. WPF, MVC), and ensuring that Windows becomes functionally irrelevant as a development platform. I doubt that they’re that stupid.
RMS has been incorrect about legalities before; a lot of people (myself included) don’t see why the GPLv3 is an improvement on GPLv2, and I don’t recall anyone being sued for GIF infringement. Oh, and he was wrong about Java … and then there are his weird concerns about Javascript… no, he’s got a great track record about being opinionated, but I can’t say that he’s been right most of the time.
#17 by Jason on September 30th, 2009
Your inability to see or agree that the GPLv3 is an improvement is hardly evidence that RMS is incorrect.
So this is not an example of RMS being incorrect.
No one would have been sued for “GIF Infringement”, since it was the LZW Compression algorithm that was patented by Unisys.
Which Unisys sued Corel over. (http://ww2.itweb.co.za/office/unisys/9809071211.htm)
Unisys had a very long and confusing history of trying to impose license fees on anyone who wanted to use / modify / save for profit / non-profit, and often threatened legal action. (http://www.cloanto.com/users/mcb/19950127giflzw.html)
So this is not an example of RMS being incorrect.
How so? The problem was resolved by Sun re-releasing Java under the GPL, as it noted in bolded text at the top of the very link you provide.
It seems strange to call RMS wrong when the situation he was critical of changed to meet his standards, at which point he noted the change and stopped criticizing.
So this is not an example of RMS being incorrect.
What is “weird” about his concerns? The fact of the matter is when you run obfusucated, complex JavaScript programs through a web browser, you run into many of the same issues that you do when running regular old closed-source programs.
Since RMS has concerns with the latter, it is perfectly rational to have concerns with the former. I don’t see anything “weird” about that at all.
So this is not an example of being incorrect.
Perhaps, but solely based on the evidence you have chosen to present, you can not say he has ever been incorrect.
#18 by Richard on September 30th, 2009
Nope. See, the claim was that RMS “has a long track record of being right”. With Java, he claimed that developing using Sun’s implementation could lead to your program being unusable as Free software. This didn’t happen, and the text at the top shows how unfounded his worries were. With LZW, Unisys didn’t threaten any free software at all, and (in fact) gave away plenty of free licenses, and RMS’s prediction didn’t come true. With Javascript, I have no idea at all what his issue is: the only change that he wants to make is to bloat JS size by including license text. I suppose that’s due to all the Javascript-related lawsuits that I haven’t heard anything about: it’s a solution in desperate search of a problem (and we seem to have done just fine without it for the past decade).
In all these cases, he pointed out issues that either didn’t exist (Javascript) or turned out to be overhyped (LZW) or didn’t come true (Java). So much for his foresight.
#19 by Jo Shields on September 30th, 2009
A far better example to use for Stallman launching an opinionated, wrongheaded attack on something because he simply doesn’t like it is the attacks against (Free) Tcl: http://www.vanderburg.org/OldPages/Tcl/war/
#20 by Jason on September 30th, 2009
I love it when this gets brought up because it is full of fail on so many levels:
1. RMS lays out his reasoning, and whether you agree with it or not, there is nothing irrational or crazy-eyed about his thinking. Quite the contrary, almost every rebuttal acknowledges he at least makes some points, while discussing where opinions differ on other points.
In fact, the entire debate is largely centered around very nerdy syntactical and technical issues – a very common happening in programming circles and therefore a very poor attempt to discredit RMS.
2. A super common Team Mono / Microsoft apologist defense is that “Microsoft might have done some bad things, but that was a long time ago!” Or, perhaps they might even get on me about repeating a quote from a dusty old interview in the Register.
But, of course, it is fine and dandy to point to a 15 year old debate on the technical and syntactical merits of TCL as some sort of evidence that RMS was a nutter back then, and so must be a nutter now?
3. Of course, we all know today – 15 years later – how dominant TCL became, where now almost everyone uses it for common scripting tasks. Oh wait, that’s not what happened at all, is it?
This is very – very – weak sauce indeed.
#21 by Jo Shields on October 1st, 2009
Stallman’s anti-Tcl statements are in order to elevate GNU Guile. Tcl is in use today, here & there (I know I’ve needed it at work). Ever heard of a Guile app?
#22 by Richard on October 1st, 2009
Not sure that that’s the most charitable interpretation. After all, Tcl did apparently have most of the problems that he points out; it would be better to take his statements at face value, and leave speculation about underlying motivation aside.
Now, if his technical arguments were flimsy, that would be a reason to suspect that there was something going on. That’s not the case here.
#23 by Jo Shields on October 1st, 2009
If you have (and let’s not pretend he doesn’t know he has) an awful lot of clout in the community, then some might say it’s pretty appalling to attack and denigrate a particular piece of Free Software to promote something which at the time was barely more than vapourware. Urging developers not to use a language not due to issues with Freedom, but personal issues with design, is a horrible move to make for someone of his standing – and it calls into question any “he only cares about Freedom” labels attached to the man – when clearly he has no worries about attacking other Free Software in an extremely negative effort to promote tangentially related GNU software instead.
#24 by Richard on October 1st, 2009
I think you’ve got it exactly the wrong way around. Urging developers to not use a language because that language is badly designed is a good thing. We should do more of that. Urging developers to use (or not use) a language because your personal opinion is that it is (or is not) sufficiently “Free” is a stupid thing: not only are you imposing your values on people, you are also helping to ensure that the language developers never see enough open-source adoption to make it worth their while to support open-source-centric development.
Frankly, we could use more people discussing things on technical merit, and fewer people spending potentially-productive-time arguing back and forth about license clauses and who’s got which stamp of approval.
#25 by Jo Shields on October 1st, 2009
You can promote something without demoting something else
His message wasn’t “Use GNU GUILE, it’ll make your life great”, it was “Don’t use Tcl”
Technical discussion is all well & good, but at the point that Stallman sent his message, GUILE didn’t even exist – it was purely an attack on Tcl, with zero useful suggestions. Frankly, the “don’t use this but I won’t suggest a better alternative” strategy is one I expect from people like Roy
#26 by Jason on September 30th, 2009
@TGM
Exactly so. This is so fundamental and obvious – and perfectly natural – that it astounds me people try to argue about it.
@paul,
Thank you!
@YetAnotherBob,
I can’t speak with technical authority on Question 1.
On Question 2, that is a good question from which you will get 2 different answers. The Community Promise that Microsoft has extended has limitations, among them incomplete, specialized, and future implementations are not covered. You are right that RMS and Groklaw would answer this “NO”, as do I.
The text of the promise can be found on Microsoft’s website (http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx), but here are the specific bits that raise the issue above:
The first section clearly omits partial or specialized implementations. You either comply with all required parts or the Promise does not apply to you.
The second section states that only required portions and and required portions of optional portions are covered. What of optional portions of optional portions?
The third section clearly omits future versions. Each time there is a refinement, it is at Microsoft’s leisure to extend the promise.
Of course, Microsoft has never withdrawn or discontinued support to commercial corporate partners, so I’m not sure why anyone would be concerned with Microsoft pulling the rug out from under them.
#27 by john on October 1st, 2009
Richard:
“.Net is a fun platform to code for, and I like to have fun in my personal time
”
This is barely an excuse for your constant shilling and misrepresentation
of other people’s thoughts and actions. This whole situation is not ‘fun’
nor ‘amusing’. Get your facts straight and either admit when you are proven
wrong (everywhere in this thread) or come up with something more intelligent
than the usual Mono/.NET drivel.