To build upon controlled and restricted platforms.

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?

I WANNA SEE SOME PROOF OF THAT.

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…”.

prove me that Novell never compensated this developer for the time he put in “for free”. Prove me he never received any incentives either.

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”.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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)).

- 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

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?

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?

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.

Dum de motherfucking dum.