Interesting bit of spin out of Team Mono today.
It’s not what you think, baby.
In a numbers-heavy blog post, Bertrand Loretz tries to make the argument that “Banshee is a GNOME Project” and not a ”Novell project”. While I understand why one might want to distance themselves from Novell, you’re going to have a rough time trying that with Banshee.
For starters Novell owns the Banshee name, logo and icon. One might think that pretty much seals the deal?
Another point of interest is that “one of the purposes building Banshee was to showcase building an application on Mono.”
There’s also this bit right there on the Banshee “About” Page:
Novell employs Aaron and Gabriel Burt to work on Banshee.
So, just going by Mr. Loretz’s own numbers, at least 70.4% of the code contributions came from the 2 developers Novell is paying to work on Banshee.
So, Novell owns the project name and likeness, and pays for the overwhelming majority of the actual code, but it’s not a “Novell project”?
I guess this is similar logic to how the CodePlex Foundation is not a Microsoft organization?
Here’s your fries, sir. By the way, I really like to think of myself as an actor.
As far as Banshee being a “GNOME project” – Mr. Loretz’s other prong of argument - Banshee is not on the list of GNOME projects, although I’m sure Team Mono is doing everything they can to get that damned Rhythmbox off the list and replace it with Banshee.
Two for one special
There’s another nice bit of irony I ran across while visiting the Banshee page. They link to the FSF’s essay, “The Free Software Definition“. I find this ironic because Team Mono has nearly surpassed Microsoft as the most vocal and vicious source of criticism against the FSF and “Free Software”.
Predictions
Behold my crystal ball: there will be an upsurge in talk of Banshee as a “GNOME project”, “part of GNOME” and so forth. Team Mono has expressed that GNOME should be built on Mono numerous times, and they will continue to push that effort from every angle. Banshee is just another vector – not only serving as displacing a non-Mono part of GNOME (rhythmbox), but also rolling Moonlight into GNOME.
#1 by anthony on October 22nd, 2009
The list of GNOME projects seems to be a seldom updated wiki page, certainly not any sort of authoritative list. Why are you treating it as such?
Also, why would “Team Mono” want to remove Rhythmbox from the list?
#2 by Jason on October 22nd, 2009
Anthony,
Thank you for your comments.
Are you arguing, then, that Banshee is an official GNOME project? Or do you just want to point out that a wiki page is not absolute proof? Because the latter – while true – does not imply the former.
Perhaps you have a list of official GNOME applications that includes Banshee? Or a pointer to an email thread where Banshee was accepted into the official GNOME distribution?
No? Didn’t think so. Know why I didn’t think so? Because Banshee is not an official GNOME project. Not yet, anyway.
As to why Team Mono wants Rhythmbox “off the list”: people using Rhythmbox means people aren’t using Banshee. So Rhythmbox has to go. It is just that simple.
If the anti-Rhythmbox messages coming out of Team Mono weren’t such blatant lies, and if one of the express purposes of Banshee wasn’t to showcase Mono, I might be willing to entertain a more generous interpretation of motives.
#3 by Richard on October 22nd, 2009
I think there’s plenty of room for both. What evidence do you have of “Team Mono” (an ambiguous group of people … who, exactly, are “Team Mono”??) wanting Rhythmbox to not be used by GNOME users? To paraphrase yourself:
Are you arguing that this group of people want Rhythmbox “off the list”? Or do you just want to point out that they have made statements about Banshee being a better candidate for default use? Because the latter — while true — does not imply the former.
Which messages? (I’m not saying that such messages don’t exist, but I don’t know about them; could you post some examples of lies, with attribution?)
#4 by Jason on October 23rd, 2009
Richard,
I have covered the distortions used to promote Banshee and smear Rhythmbox before. [1]
Among the most egragious are the so-called “space savings” of Banshee over Rhythmbox – which don’t exist, have been recanted by the orginator of the point, but continue to be spread.
Another is the continued smear that Rhythmbox development is “dead” or “has been abandoned”. Another point, which despite many attempts at correction, still continues to be spread.
These are anti-Rhythmbox messages. They directly and explictly attack aspects of Rhythmbox and do so erroneously. They are lies. Beyond that, they tickle my funny bone because Mono apologists so love to construe any non-positive endorsement of Mono as zealot spittle, while gleefully engaging in the exact behavior they condemn.
For even more examples, you can look to the reaction to GNote, where the developer was directly accused of copyright infringement, license violations, “bad motives”, and a wide bevy of other such lies and slander.[2]
[1]
Here is one such post: http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/14/banshee-not-good-enough-gomer-pyle-reacts/
There are links in that post for attribution.
[2]
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/05/on-apples-and-how-they-do-not-fall-far-from-the-trees/
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/06/livejournal-debian-fail/
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/28/the-why-behind-gnote/
In the future, please do me the favor of at least searching or clicking on the cloud tag the blog provides if you doubt there is any factual basis for something I am claiming. I don’t want to replow ground well tilled, and I don’t want to turn this into the amazing self-linking blog either.
Thank you.
#5 by Richard on October 23rd, 2009
Jason,
Heh, sorry about that. ’twas written before I started checking in on this weblog, and I didn’t even think of the tag-cloud, for some reason. Thanks for posting the context.
By Hanlon’s Law, I’m not sure that I’d categorise it as much more than the usual “$CHOICE_A is better than $CHOICE_B” stuff that one sees around the internet, though, for any given set of $CHOICE_A and $CHOICE_B (such as (Amarok, Rhythmbox), (KDE, Gnome), (Firefox, Opera)).
#6 by anthony on October 22nd, 2009
I’m not arguing that Banshee is an “official” GNOME package (you rightly state that it is not), but instead questioning the usefulness of such a distinction. Users generally start out with the applications that are packaged with their distribution, then find and install additional applications as needs arise. Whether or not a project is “official” doesn’t really factor into the decision making process at either of those two levels.
“it’s just that simple” isn’t much of an argument. As a developer I realize that people using software that you’ve written is a gratifying experience. I also realize that other software will exist that will perform some or all of the features as the software that I’m writing, and some users will choose, for whatever reason, to use an alternative. Seeing different solutions to the same problem allows developers to reevaluate their approach, learn, and improve their software.
I’m sure if Banshee were a for-profit product, having competitors within a similar market space would be undesirable, but that’s certainly not the case here. And if it was just that simple, wouldn’t “Team Mono” want XMMS to be off of that list as well?
You also seem confused about the usage of “showcase”. Mono is a framework. This means that by itself, it does nothing. Often when developing frameworks, beginning an ambitious project that uses that framework allows developers to discover gaps, bugs, or other issues with that framework. It’s often difficult to continue developing a framework, after a certain point, without having a concrete application built upon the framework.
You, on the other hand, seem to think that the word showcase means “to forcibly ram down people’s throats”.
#7 by Jason on October 23rd, 2009
Anthony,
I would argue that not only is it a useful distinction, but also that the very attempt here by Mr. Loretz is evidence the distinction is both useful and desired.
A “Novell project” does not have the same connontations a “GNOME project” does. To my mind, this is quite in line with the overall effort to tighten the relationship between Mono and GNOME – GNOME is Mono’s best hope at becoming a standard part of the Linux desktop.
Profit-in-cash is not the only reason for competition. Although there is an element of that in anything related to Mono – ever-growing as Novell attempts to commercialize Mono – the far larger “prize” of the competition right now is user acceptance and mindshare for Mono.
Rhythmbox presents a special challenge that XMMS does not, because Rhythmbox is directly comparable to Banshee and is generally the audio player installed by default on most GNOME-based distributions. This is why we have seen the attacks on Rhythmbox. XMMS does not present the same challenge.
So, while it is true that different solutions allow developers to re-evaluate things and so forth, this is not the path we have seen travelled by Banshee and some of its supporters. This is why I ascribe deeper motives than simple re-implementation and experimentation.
#8 by Lex on October 23rd, 2009
I do not know where you get the patience to repeat your arguments over and over again, while providing links and evidence upon request.
It seems to be a reoccurring theme for mono apologists: provide no proof yourself, instead deny everything and ask opposition to prove every single point to have them lost in details. And doing it over and over again, conveniently ignoring everything that was covered to the present point.
Let’s go back to the history of this very blog and count the following for both pro mono and anti mono camps:
How often a proof of statements was provided with the statement itself?
How often a proof was provided upon request?
How often claims were denied and a proof was requested?
How often claims were denied with a counter proof provided?
#9 by anthony on October 23rd, 2009
Lex,
I think points are stronger when backed up by proof, don’t you? In fact, Jason readily admits that he does _not_ have proof, but instead that he’s “ascribing” these motives, seemingly out of the blue.
The thread linked from http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/14/banshee-not-good-enough-gomer-pyle-reacts/ contains absolutely no evidence of “promoting” Banshee or “smearing” Rhythmbox. It’s a link to a mailing list message with someone saying “ultimately it’s ubuntu’s decision. They should ship whatever software they feel best satisfies the goals of the ubuntu desktop.”
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you want to accept Jason’s assertions at face value, you’re certainly free to do so. Accusing developers of “smearing” another project is a reasonably serious charge and I’m interested in seeing the source of the accusation. So far I have not.
Also, what points have I made that you feel require proof?
#10 by Jason on October 23rd, 2009
anthony,
I do not “readily admit” I do not have proof. The links in the post go far beyond the first quote. Please look at the 4 other links.
I linked to at least one example of what I consider the 3 big (and 1 small) lies against Rhythmbox:
1. Space savings
2. Stopped Development
3. Scaling
4. What users want (the small one)
It is right there. Did you read the entire post? It seems you only stopped at the reaction of the Rhythmbox developer, which is there (among other reasons) to show how classy he has remained in the face of pure distortions of his work.
So, you are incorrect that it “contains absolutely no evidence of ‘promoting’ Banshee or ’smearing’ Rhythmbox”, because you obviously did not read the entire post, nor the accompanying links.
This is disappointing.
On Gnote there are links to the exact quotes in my past blog entries:
These are quotes from other developers, packagers, and their “hangers-on” in various forums.
Do these not pass the “smearing” test for you? They do for me.
You do not need to accept my assertions at face value, because they are documented facts. You can, of course, disagree with my conclusions and commentary. Perhaps you do not understand the distinction?
#11 by anthony on October 23rd, 2009
Jason,
Here’s what I see in the links you’ve supplied for those 4 points:
1) “the space advantage vanishes to 0 when you add in documentation”. Poster seems to be doing quite the opposite of making the argument that Rhythmbox needs to be banished due to space concerns. Smear?
2) Poster is saying that he read something to the effect that Rhythmbox development might slow or stop on Wikipedia. This seems pretty nebulous. Ubuntu Brainstorm seems to host informal polls to drive discussion. Anyone can just post one for whatever subject pops into their head. Are these votes binding in any way? Do you honestly believe that high level Novell and Microsoft executives are sitting in a war room, posting to Ubuntu Brainstorm while cackling and rubbing their hands together with glee?
3) Poster makes a valid point that Banshee handles large music libraries better.
4) People can install/uninstall whatever they want.
Not really sure where you’re going with the GNote/Tomboy derail since we’re talking about Banshee/Rhythmbox.
#12 by Jason on October 23rd, 2009
Anthony,
First off, each link is just one example. If I wanted to, I could post a dozen links for each example.
1. The poster was the first person to raise the issue of Banshee saving space over Rhythmbox in his personal blog. This talking point spread until several other people pointed out it was not true.
I originally chose that one specific quote because it covered so much:
a.people were still spreading the original talking point after corrected information was put out there
b.the admission of who was “responsible” for its “coverage”
c.the backpeddling that although it was false, no biggie because “it was never really my main argument”
d.other people had to come along and point out there is no such space advantage.
Again, I could post a dozen links of people making the “size savings” assertion as justification to replace Rhythmbox with Banshee – after corrected information was available.
2. This post is one of many in Brainstorm that mention Rhythmbox is dead or dying. I chose it to link to because it also contains the space savings tidbit. Again, it is just one example (one of the earliest).
Note that it is from Mar of 09. Here is someone on this very blog trying the same “Rhythmbox is dying” line in Aug of 09: http://mono-nono.com/2009/08/04/is-the-mono-war-unproductive/#comment-969
Again, I could post a dozen links of people making the “Rhythmbox is dead” assertion as justification to replace Rhythmbox with Banshe – after corrected information was available.
3. This is just not true. I personally use Rhythmbox on a music library of over 20 thousand songs (I posted up an image somewhere, but can’t find it right now). There is no load or scrolling delays in Rhythmbox because it doesn’t bother with any “very clever custom widget”, which in fact is the likely cause of many complaints that “Banshee is slow”.
Instead we just get a flat assertion that Rhythmbox doesn’t scale, with a sprinkling of jargon that people that don’t know shit about code to add the aroma of crediblity.
It’s laughable, not only because many of the original “scaling” arguments were accompanied by image of people displaying libraries one-tenth the size I use every freaking day, but also because there are lots of complaints about Banshee’s performace with large libraries!
4. This is why this is a “minor” lie. One, because polls and stats can be shaped to pretty much favor or disfavor whatever end result you like, especially if you want to reflect “what users want”. And two, because I think it’s ironic how the “pragmatists” love to preach “the only thing that matters is what users want”, while simultaneously ignoring what users want.
I put in the GNote/Tomboy stuff because I said it was “even more examples” of “lies and slander”, and then you tried to pretend like it was a “reasonably serious charge” and I had not provided the “source of the accusation”. Of course, now that I have, you complain it is a “derailing”.
This is a common situation – which Lex was noting – someone comes along and does not seem to have a handle on the history of the debate. They begin questioning things long discussed and documented, derailing and miring the debate down in long-ago provided citations.
If I do not follow up on the questions, I am accused of dodging the point. If I do, I am “derailing” the original message.
If I don’t provided citations, I “admit I have no proof”. If I do, they aren’t read or they are picked over as abberations or insufficient or so on. Or if I present a side note of support (exactly as I did with showing Gnote was attacked more viciously than Rhythmbox), instead of it showing a pattern or supporting my point, it is a tanget or “derailment”.
In any case, I think we’ve covered these points well enough here. This isn’t intended to cut you off or declare victory or anything like that , just I generally limit myself to a couple of rounds of argument on any single point.
As the guest, you are quite welcome to have the last word.
#13 by anthony on October 23rd, 2009
There’s no last word here. I’m glad you’ve found music playing software that you enjoy using.
I was confused by the quotes regarding GNote because as someone who administers a blog that delivers a steady stream of highly opinionated, negative remarks about software that you don’t like, you don’t really seem to have any moral authority to condemn other people’s highly opinionated, negative remarks about software that they don’t like.
#14 by Jo Shields on October 23rd, 2009
http://git.gnome.org/cgit/
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?classification=__all
Dum de motherfucking dum.
#15 by Jason on October 23rd, 2009
Jo,
So the git repository means Banshee is not a “Novell project”?
Or, it means Banshee is an official part of GNOME?
Of course, I have a funny feeling that any FLOSS project that uses GTK/GNOME can have a git.gnome repository.
Wait, it’s more than a funny feeling: could it be because I read how to get one and I know that using git.gnome doesn’t mean anything special – and it sure doesn’t mean Banshee is not a “Novell project”.
Oh, and I also read how to become an offical part of GNOME, so I know I’m not talking out of my ass here, unless I missed a proposal on desktop-devel-list?
Dum de motherfucking dum? Srsly?
#16 by Jo Shields on October 23rd, 2009
Your usual arbitrary and intentionally skewed definitions aside, most people would expect a “Novell Project” to be housed on Novell’s servers, using Novell’s bug-tracking facilities – the way Mono or iFolder or MonoDevelop do, for example.
If anything, your illustration of how easy it is to set up a project via GNOME’s hosting goes AGAINST your argument – Sonance was started as a project with heavy GNOME leanings, by an independent community developer with a src.gnome.org address, and has been maintained there ever since. Perhaps you’re merely upset that it hasn’t been evicted and hidden behind Forge or iChain or somesuch novell.com nonsense?
Bertrand’s blog post was written specifically to counter the widely held belief that only Novell people can (or do) contribute to Banshee. Your carefully deceptive cherry-picking of his numbers doesn’t show this, of course, but heaven forbid you show some objectivity on the matter.
Oh, and let’s not forget the carefully omitted detail that given Aaron wasn’t a Novell employee when he started work on his scratch-an-itch personal project, the numbers skew the first thousand or two commits to Novell when they were in reality 100% community-derived. But that wouldn’t fit the party line, would it?
#17 by Jason on October 23rd, 2009
Hmmm, I would expect a “Novell Project” to be:
- Funded by Novell
- Contributed to by Novell Employees, both on and off the clock
- Have a name and logo owned by Novell
- On a web site hosted by Novell with Novell logos all over it
- Feature Novell technology
- Featured in Novell events
- Integrated with other Novell projects
- Have a copyright notice specifically listing Novell
- Promoted on the Novell web site
- Be listed as a “Innovation Area” in an official Novell presentation under the “How is Novell Invovled” section.
- Be listed as a “Innovation in Open Source” in that same presentation which takes care to mention that Banshee is “all legal and indemnified by Novell for our users”[1]
I guess my expectations are just crazy. I mean Novell owns the name and logo, pays the main developers, promotes the project, indemifies the users, and it’s not even one of their projects! Wow! Thanks Novell! Imagine what support a real “Novell Project” must get!
I’m not sure how the ease of setting up repository at GNOME goes AGAINST my argument? Nor the “carefully omitted detail” that Mr Bockover wasn’t a Novell employee when he started work?
The former seems irrelevant, save perhaps to use with the latter point to show that Novell “bought up” Banshee. Mono didn’t start out as a “Novell Project” either … by your criteria, is Mono not a “Novell Project”?
Lots of people contribute to Open Office, but I am comfortable calling it a “Sun Project”. Just like I would call go-oo a “Novell Project”. Lots of people contribute to Ubuntu, but I am comfortable calling it a “Canonical Project” (bit strange way to put that last bit, though.)
Of course, in the erudite discussion here the funny point is lost: it appears that even people working on a Novell project want to distance themselves from Novell!
[1] Here’s that since people seem to be in a citation demanding mood today: http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/past/2006/presentations/ted_haeger_scale4x.pdf
#18 by Lex on October 23rd, 2009
So to become a Novell employee all you have to do is start a serious C# project?
On a separate note. The blog in question (and you yourself?) are saying that anyone can contribute to banshee, never mind the fact it depends on restricted Mono parts which only Novel is authorized to distribute. So this is the true open source then. To build upon controlled and restricted platforms.
And everyone is welcomed to join. Well, of course. This is the whole point behind Mono and projects like banshee: to have developers working for free on restricted platforms! That is why both Mono and banshee exist.
So Jason missed this angle. Well, thank you for bringing it up. It makes a lot more sense now.
You know what, using the line of mono defenders:
I WANNA SEE SOME PROOF OF THAT.
How about you come up with some proof for a change. And prove me that Novell never compensated this developer for the time he put in “for free”. Prove me he never received any incentives either.
Taking another line of mono defenders:
Until you do come up with a viable proof, I chose to believe whatever looks most reasonable explanation to me. And seeing as this developer is compensated NOW, well that’s a pretty good incentive to start a project, isn’t it?
I think it’s about time you people had a taste of your way or arguing. Jason has a patience to be polite. I don’t. So here is your dogfood. Eat it!
#19 by Richard on October 23rd, 2009
I’m given to understand that in the legal sense, parts of the .Net Framework might — or might not — be “controlled and restricted”. It’s an open question. In the technical sense, in which way is the platform controlled and/or restricted?
OK. Aaron announces project (December 2004). He discovers .Net, and decides to code Sonance in it (January 2005). First public release. (February 2005). From here: “Since joining Novell in May, 2005…”.
In the absence of 24-hour surveillance (and sometimes, even with 24-hour surveillance), it’s impossible to prove a negative. To put it another way: prove to me that you’ve never used the made-up word “miscombobulamanational”.
#20 by max stirner on October 23rd, 2009
I smell another round of free software versus corporates-trying-to-get-into-new-era babble!