For what else could it be, if not pure-as-the-driven-snow coincidence?

Perhaps we will see some private correspondance revealed and some third-hand gossip in blog comments about RMS and college girls working on the GNU Project next? Perhaps someone might call RMS a “fascistic extremist“?

Now that’s The Spirit of Fauxpen Source™ in action!

Apple Rejects Mono

Apparently, the Unity engine – which is built on Mono – uses some API calls that Apple disapproves of, cause apps to be rejected left and right.

Here’s the story on Touch Arcade, and here’s a thread on the Unity forums about it.

Part of the problem is because the Unity engine appears to allow some naughty behavior:

Storm8, developers of iMobsters and Vampires Live were recently accused of harvesting players phone numbers using private API’s and uploading them to their servers– A gross violation of the iPhone developer SDK agreement. The Unity engine currently uses the two private API calls that Storm8 allegedly exploited to steal user data, _NSGetEnviron and exc_server.

Moonlight Marching Orders

Look for ever more of this sort of thing as Team Mono attempts to expand Mono and Moonlight. Team Mono is already getting marching orders to start pushing Moonlight harder, the first plan being a video editor.

A video editor is a beautiful infection vector for Moonlight, because:

1. Moonlight itself only safe to use for direct Novell customers,
2. All those nice proprietary video codecs that Novell has licensed from Microsoft are only safe for direct Novell customers as well.

So, Novell sees a great opportunity to spread Moonlight and the fruits of its Microsoft collaboration, while pretending to develop a “Linux” application.

So long as your “Linux” comes directly via Microsoft-approved Novell-only channels, of course – other Linux flavors need not apply – or redistribute.

Mono For Microsoft

What we have here is a MonoTouch application for the iPhone covering a Microsoft conference and advertising Team Mono’s booth at the same conference for those that “don’t have a Mac”.

Why exactly is this garbage on Planet GNOME and Planet SUSE? (I can understand Planet GNOME, since GNOME seems to have largely adopted the Venerable Ostrich Position on Mono) Do people not get tired of the pro-Mono / pro-Microsoft messaging that has nothing to do with Linux?

At least Team Mono used to pretend there was some benefit for Linux from Mono, lately much/most of the messaging has absolutely nothing to do with Linux.

Part of the reason, of course, is because Mono is making very poor inroads into Linux; so Team Mono must turn towards greener non-Linux fronts for positive news. Everything can’t be about Banshee and F-Spot or whatever other GNOME application space Team Mono decides needs replacing .

The other part of the reason, I would argue, is that Team Mono cares less and less about maintaining the facade that Mono is significantly driven by pro-Linux motivations. If you go back through the Mono apologetics, you’ll see that upon initial introduction much effort was made on how Linux would benefit from Mono – and lately? Not so much.

Microsoft for Mono

Of course, Microsoft rewards its collaborators when it suits them, so Peter Galli has written “Microsoft and Novell: Three Years and Going Strong” where he gives the lapdog a small treat, and doesn’t miss a chance to talk up intellectual “peace of mind” . This is a disgustingly popular code phrase for “Use Microsoft-approved software or we just might sue you”. Microsoft and Novell love to brandish a bit of IP FUD about, especially if they can wield it against Red Hat.

I like to point out another way of looking at “Three Years and Going Strong”: the Novell-Microsoft deal is just as offensive and anti-community today as it was the day it was signed. The reasons for opposing the deal are just as valid today as they were three years ago. The people that walked away from Novell three years ago were right to do so, and anyone that chooses to do so today is equally justified.

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.

Almost exactly one year ago, Glyn Moody wrote a nice article “Why Mono and Samba Are Patently Different“, explaining some of the differences between Mono and Samba. Of course, that didn’t stop most of the mindless repetition of the talking point, but it does serve to illustrate a common tactic of Mono apologists:

Come up with a superficial argument and just keep repeating it.

You’ll see this tactic time and time again with the Top 10 list of poor Mono arguments. For this specific example of attempting to equate Mono with Samba we have a special treat, because the founder of the Samba project has recently taken to speaking out on Mono!

We’ll take the parts we need, thanks very much

One of the things I always found offensive and ironic at the same time was Team Mono’s attempts to co-opt the goodwill of the Samba project, when the founder of Samba - Jeremy Allison – had quit Novell specifically because of the ”covenant” with Microsoft!

It seems to me to be an especially offensive combination of arrogance and distortion to attempt to not just ignore one man’s principled actions, but also attempt to co-opt his project’s good name in support of a situation he explicitly rejected! I don’t know if that particular aspect bothered Mr. Allison – I don’t know of him mentioning it anywhere – but it sure would bother me.

In any case, I first started noticing Mr. Allison’s responses directly addressing the fallacy of comparing Mono and Samba in the comments to an error-filled attack rant against RMS by Jason Perlow for ZD Net. Although it is certainly “pearls before swine” to attempt to correct Mr. Perlow, Mr. Allison does make his point:

Comparing Mono to Samba is incorrect. Samba has the PFIF agreements, see here for details:

http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.html

To my knowledge Mono has nothing like this.

This is a very good point for a number of different reasons:

1. Shows the comparison between Samba and Mono is superficial at best.
2. The PFIF was the direct result of the European Commission forcing Microsoft to cooperate. Mono and Microsoft apologists tend to gloss over that fact, and pretend like Microsoft is “cooperating” with Samba as part of Microsoft’s “open source initiative”.
3. Shows the fundamental philosophical difference between the projects in this area. Namely, Samba insisted on clear and unambiguous protection, while Mono continues to trumpet half-measures that can not withstand legal scrutiny.
4. Shows that you can instantly realize anyone arguing “Well Mono is just like Samba” can be ignored out-of-hand, because they are either too ignorant or willfully deceitful to be worth engaging.

In that same vein, it’s worthwhile to take a look at a bit of the commentary on that PFIF:

I should also mention that Microsoft made a separate pledge (not as part of this agreement) to not assert any patents directly against non-commercial open source projects. Please be assured that we did not ask for that pledge, and we will not in any way rely upon it. That pledge is an example of the sort of divisive patent covenant which does not cover all users and distributors of free software. For a patent pledge to be useful it must cover all users and distributors of a piece of free software, not just a subset of the community.

Contrast this to Novell and Miguel de Icaza’s attitude where they constantly promote software like Moonlight that is only covered for Novell’s customers.

It’s also interesting to me that a “non-Microsoft friendly” project like Samba has a much better foundation for the community than a “Microsoft friendly” project like Mono / Moonlight. If Microsoft were as “changed for the better” as Team Apology likes to say, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Especially since the PFIF agreement is older than the Mono “promise”?

The Final Word?

I’m sure it’s not.

Mr. Allison has now taken the time to address Mono in more detail with a blog entry “Monomania“. I encourage you to read it.

I also encourage you to consider all the hoops that Team Mono insists critics people must jump through to criticize Mono, and how Mr. Allison surely meets or exceeds all that I have seen. Yet, I do not see Team Mono accepting his criticism, nor do I see my mailbox filling with acknowledgement that it’s not just crazy zealots that have a problem with Mono.

Why am I not seeing these things? Because Mono apologists are not honest in their arguments. They like Mono, and will make any argument they think supports it, and ignore or attack anything that they think weakens it.

It’s a song I’ve sung many times, and this latest wrinkle on Mono == Samba is just one more example of the sloppy reasoning and poor logic behind Team Mono’s defenses.

This article was also posted at The Source.com!

In this corner…

So, RMS has a new blog entry “Lest CodePlex Perplex“, where he insightfully analyzes the CodePlex situation. Among the clear points he makes:

1. There is reason to be wary, but we can not know at this time that the Microsoft CodePlex Foundation will be “bad”.
2. One day we can judge the Microsoft CodePlex Foundation by its actions, but right now all we can do is anticipate based on best available information

He also lays out concerns about how Microsoft may intend to subvert Free Software to the greatest degree possible through actions such as:

1. Emphasizing Open Source “practicalities” over Free Software ethics. This is quite a success already, with many  Fauxpen Source supporters gleefully assisting Microsoft efforts directly or indirectly to downplay any “Freedom talk” at all when discussing FLOSS.
2. Restricting FLOSS to Open Source additions/extras to a Proprietary and Closed Source core – increasing dependence on the Closed base, and greatly limiting the real value of such FLOSS.
3. Making sure Microsoft Windows or other Microsoft platforms are the preferred/only platforms for development.

This is illustrates not only some of the problems with the Microsoft CodePlex Foundation and the current debate in the community, but it also shows RMS is perfectly “in touch” and still foresightful about Free Software issues (refuting a common baseless attack that he is a “dinosaur”, “out of touch”, etc.)

There is a bit that will get all the attention though, and I predict it will not only overshadow the deft summary RMS plots, but also will spur a new round of the same old ad hominems against RMS and the more generalized fallacious arguments against Free Software supporters.

RMS calls Miguel de Icaza an “apologist”. Presumably a Microsoft apologist, although he didn’t explictly use that phrase.

And, In This Corner ….

Now, Mr. de Icaza has posted his reaction. As always, it is good reading because you can really see where the dangerous mindset is coming from; not only from the “top”, but also from the “ground troops”. Just read the blog entry and see – it’s right there for anyone who cares.

For example, you ask?

Mr. de Icaza leads off with:

Richard Stallman does not seem to have anything better to do than launch personal attacks against me.

This is a light ad hominem, and hints at the common theme that any criticism is invalid because there are better things to be doing, or the critic makes no other contributions, or that criticism in general is without worth. This is an extremely common theme for Team Mono.

Continuing we have this:

In his last piece he has decided to call me a Microsoft apologist because I do not participate in his witch hunt.

Um, no. He called you an “apologist”, because you are one. An apologist is ”one who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something“. Mr. de Icaza has an enormous output of spoken and written defenses of his actions. To go further than RMS explictly did, I will state that Mr. de Icaza has an enourmous output of defenses of Microsoft specifically. He does it in the very response under discussion, when he talks about how ”great people” inside Microsoft are steering the company into becoming a “community citizen”.

Disapproval is not Fear

This is a bit of a funny point. Mr. de Icaza loves to imply or outright state that those people critical of Microsoft are afraid of Microsoft.

This is so foolish I can scarcely understand why Mr. de Icaza loves this line of argument so. Understand this, when I criticize Nickelback, it’s not because I am afraid of them. It is because they suck.

When people criticize Microsoft, it is not because of fear. It is because they are tired of vendor lock-in, overpriced and insecure software, hindering the industry, illegal behavior, lies and slander against projects they devote time and effort to, and so many — many — other offenses that Microsoft has committed, and continues to commit.

“Fear” is not even a factor.     

But, I guess the desire to attack the opponent by hinting he is a coward (or fear-monger) is too strong to overcome.   

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything” – Mark Twain

One thing you will notice if you pay attention to Team Mono rhetoric like I do, is that it is rarely even logically consistent with itself.

For example, one of the big defense points that came out when the Microsoft CodePlex Foundation was announced is that it was an independent body, it was only because things needed to be set up so quickly that it was so heavily staffed by Microsoft people, and so forth.

But, in his blog entry, Mr. de Icaza defends — dare I say apologizes — for his participation by saying:

Working at CodePlex is a great way of helping steer Microsoft in the right direction.

Eh? If it is an independent Foundation, then how will it be “steering” Microsoft? Lots of multi-billion dollar international monopolist corporations being steered around by independent foundations that I’m not aware of out there? Who knew?

Disregarding Intent

Finally – because this is already too long – Mr. de Icaza reveals his naive disregard for intent by casually dismissing Microsoft’s recent patent sell:

As for the patent sale, they are now in good hands: the OIN, so they are not a problem.

This absolutely ignores the fact that Microsoft locked OIN out of the orginal bidding, that Red Hat (among others) expressed concerns about Microsoft targeting patent trolls as buyers, and that the general agreement is that OIN simply “outmaneuvered” Microsoft.

The director of the OIN himself said that “the open source community lucked out“. (My emphasis).

But, Mr. de Icaza breezily passes this off in a footnote, as if saying “Well, he may have shot at you, but he missed, so why all the concern?”

Summary

I’m sure this is far from over, but I think it is worth it to carefully read both RMS’ and Mr. de Icaza’s statements here, and for color pay attention to the comments on Mr. de Icaza’s blogs. Not only will you be ahead of the talking points power curve – but more importantly I think the clear contrast between then rational analysis based on fundamental principles and historical actions by RMS and the logical fallacies and wide-eyed naivety of Mr. de Icaza’s defense is quite striking!

This article was also posted at The Source.com!

I’m just wondering when Team Mono is going to comment on Microsoft bringing Silverlight to Moblin?

I’d also be interested in why a .NET developer would target Moonlight if developing for Windows/Moblin, rather than Genuine Microsoft Advantage Silverlight?

I know it’s easier to compose fact-deficient rants, attack RMS (again), or plan your appearance at the next Microsoft-sponsored conference (or two), but I sorta thought the Moblin development might at least rate a brief comment?

Just a bit odd the noise machine that absolutely leaps into action at the smallest criticism of yon holy artifact hasn’t been cranked up yet. Talking points not finalized, I suppose.

One of the most interesting points is how absolutely baseless and inane Mr. Perlow’s hit piece on Stallman for ZDNet is – no great surprise to anyone who has actually read it, filled as it is with factual errors, torturted interpretations and logical fallacies – but I always find a point-by-point dismantling of disinformation good reading.

Indeed, it’s nice to see Groklaw bringing their brand of exacting inspection to this issue, even though this surely means we will soon begin to see attacks on Groklaw. They will no doubt follow the same pattern of other pro-Mono attacks – such as those on Stallman and the FSF – but I think Groklaw will be a much less attractive target.

For one thing, PJ has a bit of experience dealing with such nastiness. The irony of course is that she gained it while investigating SCOs attacks on Linux, and will probably be using it for Team Mono and Friends attacks on Freedom now! There’s a certain symmetry to that, I think.

Another thing is that I’ve noticed that the pro-Mono attacks are looking a bit faded lately.

I guess that’s what happens when you keep attacking honest people truly interested in Freedom and your basic weapons are ad hominem and disinformation.

This article was cross-posted to The-Source.com.

So, there has been a lot of “chatter” around the Microsoft CodePlex Foundation. Let’s hit on a few of those issues here!

Miguel de Traitor

Assuming that the reports are true, RMS referred to Miguel de Icaza as “basically a traitor” to Free Software. I don’t know Mr. de Icaza personally, nor am I familiar with the internals of his past interactions with Free Software, nor am I a leading figure in the Free Software movement, so I can’t say the same thing.

Here is one point that I have seen made, and would like to emphasize. The “spectacular factor” of being a traitor is because of one’s past history. So, it doesn’t address the situation to bring up Mr. de Icaza’s past contributions, because if he were not at one time a notable figure in Free Software, there would be reason at all to call the man a traitor.

No one would call Steve Ballmer a traitor to Free Software.

That point out of the way, I’ve often said I think Team Mono is far more on the “misguided” end of the spectrum than the “evil” end. I just don’t ascribe Mr. de Icaza’s (or his supporters’) actions to malice or wickedness. I am in agreement with Goethe in this area, at least.

Halo Ain’t Just a Game

One problem with using provocative language – like calling someone a “traitor” – is you run the risk of losing the moral high ground. RMS has been under constant attack from Mono and Microsoft apologists, from PR spinmeisters with strong commercial interests, and anyone that doesn’t like the idea of Free Software.

These attacks have been almost entirely personal attacks, but that same noise machine will now attempt to paint RMS’ comments as some Rubicon crossing that sets a new low in the discourse. That is the sad nature of a large portion of this “debate” – it is not intellectually honest.

Microsoft Hatred

Picking up traction is the idea that “Microsoft Hatred” is driving Mono/Moonlight/CodePlex/Miguel criticism, and perhaps is even the real ideological foundation of the Free Software movement.

Of course, this is absurd and insulting, but I suppose I should take a moment to point out that RMS and the FSF also object to Apple, Amazon, DRM, and Software Patents. It is a very consistent and principled stand for end-user freedom and against those actors trying to control and restrict freedom. It just so happens that Microsoft is one of the largest offenders in this area. So they get a lot (but proportionately appropriate) amount of criticism.

Further the idea that objection and criticism == hatred is false. The intent is to discredit the critic by portraying is message as emotionally driven and irrational. But pointing out that some companies are working very hard to remove freedom through DRM, patents, proprietary formats, price dumping, illegal practices, bribery, vote-stacking, or other offensive practices is fact-based, rational, and grounded in documented evidence.

“Freedom is the issue, the whole issue, and the only issue.” – FSF Essay

Capitalism Hatred

Not as popular, but still trotted out from time to time is the insinuation that the Free Software movement is Communist, anti-Capitalist, or even downright un-American!

The fact is the Free Software Foundation has no problem with capitalism, profiting from distributing software, or apple pie and baseball.

“Freedom is the issue, the whole issue, and the only issue.” – FSF Essay

Zealotry

The all time most popular canard is that Free Software supports, especially RMS and the FSF are zealots. Again, the intent is to discredit by portraying the messenger as emotionally driven and irrational.

But, you might have heard: “Freedom is the issue, the whole issue, and the only issue.”

Complaining that the Free Software Foundation is too focused on freedom is like complaining that the NRA is too focused on guns, the ACLU too focused on Civil Libarties, the NAACP too focused on African-American issues, or the AARP too focused on retired people.

These organizations have a guiding goal. That is their reason for existing! That’s not zealotry, that’s an effective organization.

There will be times where Freedom and Capitalism clash. In those cases, every time, the FSF will come down on the side of Freedom. If  there is no clash, there is no problem.

There will be times where Freedom and Pragmatism clash. In those cases, every time, the FSF will come down on the side of Freedom. That is what they do.

If you disagree with the FSF on an issue, it is because you value so other consideration more and Freedom less in that particular instance. That’s understandable, because you are probably not an organization set up with the sole purpose of promoting Free Software. But it doesn’t make the FSF “zealots” any more than it makes you “anti-freedom”.

Hypocrisy, part Roswell 47

Which makes this a good place for me to point out another of my favorite examples of hypocrisy!

Here is a very common defense of Microsoft: “Microsoft is just doing business like any other company. That’s just how business is done!”

Even if we accept this as truthful, and even if we further accept it as indemnifying Microsoft – two major concessions – then how is it OK for Microsoft to do its business, and not OK for the FSF to do its business?

If it is OK for a corporation to act as Microsoft does, then surely it must be OK for an organization to act as the FSF does!

This article was cross-posted at The Source.com!

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.