In what is probably the most Microsoft-fan-boy post so far from Miguel de Icaza – one which he signs off literally “drooling” over Microsoft’s latest Silverlight – Mr. de Icaza has an interesting new mission:

Now that this technology is available, perhaps it is a good time to start a movement to create a suite of Silverlight-based desktop applications.

[...]

For the Moonlight team, this means that there is a lot of work ahead of us to bring every Silverlight 3 and 4 feature. I think I speak for the whole Mono team when I say that this is exciting, fascinating, challenging and feels like we just drank a huge energy boost drink.

I’ve said many times before that Team Mono indirectly promotes Microsoft, but this here is direct and unambigious promotion of closed-source, proprietary Microsoft technology by the head of Team Mono in the name of the “whole Mono Team”.

Team Mono and their apologists can’t hide behind their usual smoke and mirrors here: there is no partial ECMA standardization to quibble over what bits are “safe” – no Silverlight bits are safe; there is no “Community Promises” to worry about if you are “covered” – if it ain’t Microsoft or Novell, it ain’t covered; and there’s no arguing that “at least it is open-source” –  there is nothing Open Source about Silverlight;  nothing to hide behind but base sycophany:

There are many other great features in Silverlight 4, but none as important as Silverlight becoming a universal runtime for the CLR. This is a revolution.

So there you have it, folks. Mr. de Icaza speaks for Team Mono in direct support of the Microsoft Silverlight “Revolution” – encouraging development with Closed Source, Proprietary Software. People have been constantly raising flags that Novell / Mr. de Icaza / Team Mono have lost sight of Free Software as they grow ever closer to Microsoft, and this is a startlingly black mark proving warnings come true.

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!

Word on the Blogs is that RMS sent us up the bomb in no uncertain terms on Miguel de Icaza and the CodePlex Foundation, but I would like to get some transcript or video to be sure exactly what was said.

Here’s one report on RMS’ comments:

Miguel de Icaza “is basically a traitor to the Free Software community” This was in response to my question about the new Microsoft “Open Source” labs. He went on to say that Miguel’s involvement in the project doesn’t give much confidence as he is a Microsoft apologist. The project looks to be concerned with permitting “Open Source” programs to work on the Windows platform and thus divert valuable developer time away from free platforms such as Gnu/Linux. He also went into an interesting story about Miguel and the FSF (as Miguel used to sit on the FSF board), but I’m hoping there is a good transcript of the event thing somewhere online.

Mono framework is not so much of a problem, but C# shouldn’t be used in core apps as legal problems would be hard to work around. Recommends uninstalling any apps using C#.

So yeah. I would like to verify the comments and find out what the “interesting story” was.

A classy announcement

So, Microsoft whips up a Open Source “foundation” called CodePlex Foundation and Miguel de Icaza, Novell VP and Team Mono Head Man is on the interm Board of Directors.

Always a man of class and distinction, and sensitive to how this might appear, he takes this opportunity to graciously reflect on his time with the FSF:

I hope that I can last more on this foundation than I lasted at the FSF, where I was removed by RMS after refusing to be an active part of the campaign to rename Linux as GNU/Linux.

This is just another example of how so many involved in Novell / Mono / Moonlight feel it necessary to take shots at RMS and the FSF. It has become a sort of standard of behavior there.

Already the Foundation is hard at work … stacking the deck.

The CodePlex Foundation claims that it has “worked hard to see that the board has a community voice as well as a partner voice”. Let’s see how the board shapes up:

Sam Ramji (Microsoft) – Note his Microsoft affiliation is not listed on the page nor in the header of his bio.
Bill Staples (Microsoft)
Stephanie Davies Boesch (Microsoft)
Miguel de Icaza (Novell)
D. Britton Johnston (Microsoft)
Shaun Bruce Walker (DotNetNuke)

So, that’s 4 out of 6 being current Microsoft employees.

You have the same composition on the “Advisory Board”, with 6 of 12 being current Microsoft employees, and 3 of the remaining 6 being former Microsoft employees – . That’s 9 out of 12, then, current or former Microsoft employees on the “Advisory Board”.

It must have been real “hard work” indeed to fill 13 of 18 positions with your own people, Microsoft.  Hard work stacking a deck, takes years of practice to make it look smooth and natural.

I’m sure it took some real arm-twisting to get Mr. de Icaza on board, too.

More hard work … spinning the issues.

Having sweated out a team whose integrity can not be questioned, the CodeFlex Foundation is able to seriously and directly address issues that matter to Open Source. Consider this important problem they identify:

We know that commercial software developers are under-represented on open source projects. We know that commercial software companies face very specific challenges in determining how to engage with open source communities. We know that there are misunderstandings on both sides.

“Misunderstandings on both sides”? Could that have anything at all to do with the decade of misinformation and FUD Microsoft has directly and indirectly funded, including the Best Buy disinformation campaign running at this very moment?

The chutzpah it must have taken for the author to actually type out that sentence, knowing full well that his own employer is the overwhelmingly largest single engine of misinformation, lies and destruction aimed at the Open Source community! You almost have to admire a man you can look you right in the eye and lie, knowing that you know that he knows that you know he is lying!

And there we have the fatal flaw of the CodePlex Foundation revealed: because it is a Microsoft mouthpiece, it can not speak directly and honestly about the single biggest challenge Free and Open Source Software faces - the aggressive hostility and lies spread about it by Microsoft.

Nothing we haven’t seen before

Before it changed its name to Altria, Phillip Morris ran “anti-smoking” campaigns in the US ostensibly aimed at stopping youth smoking, while at the same time issuing reports that early smoking deaths have “positive effects”, hiring underage girls overseas to pass out samples and so on.

Microsoft is doing the exact same thing here. Any and all such actions are simply a very small PR budget line item for Microsoft. They spend a relatively miniscule amount of money to be able to point at something like the CodePlex Foundation and say “Check out how new and shiney we are!”

The amazing thing is some people believe it! I guess some people fall for Nigerian scams, order Vigara from links in random email, and franticially dial 1-800 numbers during infomercials so they can get the deal that is ONLY AVAILABLE TO CALLERS IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES!!!

You can fool anyone with enough effort, but it is much easier to fool people that want to be fooled.

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

So, Mono gets a health check and we get a nice de Icaza quote:

I think it’s going to be the next big thing, and I think the GNOME community is going to jump to it, if only because I’m going to make it really simple for them to do it. All of these people are extremely talented, they can see through the bullshit, and they’ll see that Mono is a good thing for them.

Say what you mean

I love it when people say what they mean. And Mr. de Icaza does just that, pulling back curtains and casting light on motivations and thought processes.

First it reinforces the point Mr. de Icaza intends to do everything he can to push Mono into GNOME. Everyone knows this anyway, so I don’t know why some people try to pretend otherwise. I guess they think using code phrases like “best-of-breed” or talking about how “Mono is just another choice” are not transparent euphemisms?

Next, it reinforces the point that Mr. de Icaza was totally serious back when he said that “Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET” – that’s exactly what he thought then, and exactly what he thinks now. It’s dressed up a bit in pseudo-technical rhetoric, but the underlying desire is the same.

(Yes, I’ve read his “long reply” several times, and I think if you bother to actually read it you’ll see he never once refutes or backs away from his desire to build GNOME in .NET. Rather, he plays a few semantic games about the Register’s headline and then basically goes on to argue ”I can’t change GNOME single-handedly, but I’m sure you’ll see that Mono is awesome rocks, so I’m going to need your support to make it happen.”)

I find it interesting that de Icaza thinks people “can see through the bullshit”. The bullshit, sir, is your company striking secretive patent deals with Microsoft. The bullshit, sir, is the demonization and disinformation you and your supporters gleefully engage in. You can bet that people can see right through that bullshit, which is exactly why you are fighting an uphill battle as Microsoft’s champion in FLOSS territory.

Finally it is all topped off with some amazingly arrogant nannying where Mr. de Icaza decides what is a “good thing” and for who. It never ceases to amaze me that Team Mono sees no problems at all in telling people to just shut up and take your medicine, it’s good for you.

Feels Like I’ve Been Here Before

I’d like to tie this article back into a few points I’ve made here in passing, but I haven’t covered in great depth:

Mono PR is Terrible

Not that I really want to see them improve it, of course. But the entire image and positioning of Mono has been bumbled right out of the starting gates. This isn’t because it’s evil – that’s really irrelevant – evil things are successfully promoted and good things fail in PR battles all the time.

The H article calls this “political ineptitude”, and it is probably too late in the game for Novell to change things up.

Textbook example of how not to manage the public image of a controversial project, though: “Here’s some crap I know about 90% of you are going to have at least some reservations about. Well, all the smart people agree with me and plus I know what’s good for you, so get on board already!”

Team Mono is not going to stop

Think back on some of the positions Team Mono took in the past: Winforms was the only non-ECMA bits of Mono, no non-ECMA bits are even needed, Mono isn’t going to be used for anything critical, no one is trying to build GNOME in Mono.

But, now we have people trying to get ever more Mono apps in distros by default. We have people wanting to rewrite parts of those apps, and perhaps even parts of the desktop in Moonlight. The expansion and promotion of Mono grows.

And it will not stop – because people do not give up ground, and they do not remain content with what they have. You can rest assured that whatever limits are outlined today will move tomorrow; whatever assurances and promises once made will be forgotten when Team Mono casts an eye on new territory.

That’s how people are in general. It becomes doubly true when you add in the financial and idealogical drive behind Mono.

Unity is a proprietary project that Mr. de Icaza is forever going on about in his blog. It is pure awesome rocks, of course. Here is a Windows screenshot:

Windows: The Mono Standard

Now, check out the Linux version and realize the true power of cross-platform development with Mono:

Linux: The Mono Alternative

Hmmm. That wasn’t as impressive as one hoped.

Just desserts

Do not worry, though, because since bringing Windows developers over to Linux is one-half of the whole point of Mono, and because the mono project is really promoting Unity, you can see the rewards when Unity is asked about Linux support:

The only decision we made so far is that “someday we will support it”. Nothing more concrete is decided yet.

Hooray! That and 30 pieces of silver will get you a Team Mono t-shirt! They have lots of nice things to say about Mono though:

Unity now enjoys a rapidly growing user base on both Windows and Mac OSX, and powers many types of game development, architecture visualization, advertising and educational solutions. “Looking back”, says Ante, “without Mono Unity wouldn’t have been possible.”

I for one am glad that Novell has torn the community apart to deliver a platform that delivers for the Windows and OSX and iPhone platforms. I think we can all agree it represents a major win for Linux; without Mono it wouldn’t have been possible.

But Microsoft technology is the best

If only there were some GPL cross-platform non-Microsoft tool that could develop 3D games and apps. I don’t expect FLOSS could deliver something like that without slavishly copying Microsoft. After all, C# and .NET represent the absolute pinnacle of technology.

We’d probably only end up with something that looked like this:

Not-mono: Not best-of-breed

Yeah, not much value in all that hippie GPL junk.

New Slogan Time

Mono: Extending Redmond’s Reach into Proprietary Platforms on the backs of “Open Source” developers since 2001. Also some Linux apps in there somewhere too.

Jo Shields responded by saying, in part, “The majority of us just don’t care about Microsoft” and that “The ones who obsess about Microsoft day in and day out are the critics.”

I thought this was a point worth some consideration, because the underlying message is something like this:

Me: “You guys sure do love Microsoft. You are infatuated with Microsoft.”

Them: “You just see Microsoft behind every corner. You are obsessed with Microsoft.”

So, is that true? Are mono critics obsessed with Microsoft? Is it reading something into the debate that doesn’t need to be there?

A bit of meta before we get started

One of the things I want to try to do on this blog is respond to comments from pro-Mono people - as I did here, for example. What’s strange to me is some of the things I’m being challenged on:

• Does Novell promote Mono in GNOME?
• Does Team Mono give off a we-love-Microsoft vibe?

These seem so self-evident to me that I wonder how anyone cognizant of the debate can question them. In one way, I welcome them, because – to be quite frank – I think they represent an easy point to prove. In another way, I don’t like them because they require a lot of time to search out quotations and link references and so on. One feels if one only provides a single example, then someone will say “Oh, you are  just cherry-picking quotes.” But, if you provide a ton of quotes, well that’s not a very exciting blog post, is it?

In the interest of brevity and to display ever more of my sparkling wit, I am going to lean to the side of focusing on just one example. I welcome feedback on that aspect of things. The last one was more link heavy if you like that sort of thing. I can go either way. I’m bi-linkual.

A bit of justification

As I have said time and time again, mono apologists love to portray mono critics as raving lunatics, howling at the moon and slinging feces wild-eyed into space. It’s offensive and insulting, but it never lets up. Perhaps this point is something that is not so controversial and I can at least illustrate why I think what I do and have a chance of it being understood.

I’m not expecting agreement, but I would appreciate understanding.

And now, on with the quotes:

Let’s hear from Miguel de Icaza himself:

So [Microsoft is] providing us with specifications, they are providing us with tech contacts, so whenever any specification is not clear, we have access to their engineers.
[...]

I find Silverlight incredibly appealing – you get C#, you get a DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime), you get a fantastic graphics engine with a fantastic animation framework, you get video, you get audio, multi-language compatibility and so on and so forth. And I get a JITted language also, and a static language with dynamic features that beats Javascript out of the water.

[...]

So if I would have my choice today I would probably rewrite the gnome panel completely with Moonlight.

- 2008 derStandard interview

I picked this one because I think in 4 short sentences it illustrates most of the points that I see over and over again:

1. It is a representative quote – it’s given as part of an interview, not a twitter, blog entry, or part of a flame war on Slashdot. So it comes across as “official” Team Mono/Novell stuff.
2. It boasts of the “exclusivity” that Novell/Team Mono enjoys with Microsoft. Even if you don’t think this is a problem, I hope you can see how it could be perceived as offensive.
3. It constantly and unconditionally praises the technology. Everything is always “fantastic” or “superb” or “awesome” or “brilliant”. It comes across as worshipful, fanboy stuff.
4. It insults alternatives. Team Mono is not only always singing the praises of Mono/Moonlight/Microsoft, but it is a rare opportunity to degrade an alternative that passes by.
5. It promotes Mono/Moonlight as absolutely the right choice and ready for the most key parts of major projects.

On top of that, running on about Silverlight is a quadruple offense:

1. It has all the negative baggage that Mono has.
2. Plus, there is no ECMA/ISO standard to hide behind.
3. Plus, there is the incredibly offensive and anti-community Covenant.
4. Plus, de Icaza often talks about the exclusive help the Mono Project is getting from Microsoft. So good I mention this one twice.

Now, I’m sure yourself or Mr. de Icaza can justify and explain these sort of quotes – or maybe you don’t see anything wrong with them at all – but from my lights they are pretty close to the “infatuation” side of the relationship chart.

Now take dozen of quotes like this, about numerous Microsoft technologies. Add a dash of  defense of Microsoft some mono apologists engage in. Stir in a pinch of  the attacks/snide remarks on the GPL and Stallman and Free Software ideology in general. Blend with Novell stressing they are not “open source”, they are a “mixed source”. Splash reports of Mono developers jet-setting it around Redmond and interviewing on Microsoft media outlets. Top it off with over $400 Million dollars from Microsoft to Novell and I think you can see – I hope you can see – how outsiders might think there’s a bit of infatuation indeed for Microsoft in Camp Mono.

Another note

Also in that same comment, Mr. Shields says:

Is there some Microsoft connection there if you trace it back far enough? Sure. But the same applies for plenty of stuff, e.g. Javascript (especially AJAX) and people aren’t remotely as obsessive about the links there. No really, check the names on ECMA262 and ECMA357.

I think the casual down playing of the relationship between Microsoft and Mono here is another thing that sets off warning bells. “Trace it back far enough”? Come on, man, that’s like me saying if I trace my family tree back far enough, I’ll run into my father and mother. It’s not some byzatine, ancient relationship. It seems an attempt to decieve – I am willing to accept that might not be the intent – but the point of this whole post is to try to get across how things are perceived. I’m not trying to get mono proponents to necessarily agree I am right in my thinking, only that it isn’t as crazy as Tom Cruise On A Couch.

I bring this up because the downplaying of the relationship that Microsoft has with the project is another factor that adds to the perception that Mono and Microsoft are buddy-buddy. Like you are “covering” for a friend: “No no, Ubuntu-chan, Microsoft was over at my house last night, that couldn’t have been him Fedora-chan saw down at the juicy bar with those “technical evangelists” and patent lawyers bribing government officials. He may have cheated on you in the past, but he pinkie swore he wouldn’t do it again. And I for one, believe him!”

Well there you have it

Render your verdicts!  Did I make a convincing case, or did I just fling feces into the sky? Should I have just given 3 dozen links and insulted someone instead? Should I have went to bed two hours ago? Only after I wake and read your replies will we have the answers to these questions and more…

This isn’t very informative, it’s really only 3 Q&A with Miguel de Icaza.

What’s interesting to me is the entire first question is basically another defense of Microsoft that has almost nothing to do directly with mono, and ends up with a little shot at the crazies. I just covered the oddness of always defending Microsoft in my last post, so no need to re-hash it again.

The last two questions are solid, even if they don’t add any new information.

A lot of people have been playing fast and loose with the details of the latest Microsoft Community Promise announcement. Here’s a perfect example from Reddit: “Miguel de Icaza: Microsoft promises to never sue anyone regarding Mono.”

The very first response is from Miguel:

Respect for not taking the easy way out and letting fanbois spread misinformation. I’m going to keep hitting the point that mono advocacy has always bothered me a lot – but if key mono people are going to be out there putting out the truth they deserve credit for that.Especially because it would be much easier to just turn those ignorant fanbois loose.

I would like to see the “database access” question resolved for Banshee and F-Spot. I’m seeing a lot of people saying all those mono apps are safe, and I’m not sure that’s true.

Also, you should stop reading after the first post – because it pretty much turns into a tard fight after that.

Here is the most relevant bits (in my opinion):

Astute readers will point out that Mono contains much more than the ECMA standards, and they will be correct.

In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others

This is probably the best solution. Right now, unless I am missing something - I don’t think you can work up a strong argument against the standard parts.

Clearly separating mono into standard and non-standard parts further removes a lot of the valid criticism – assuming that we don’t get in a situation where mono gets popular and the non-standard parts start getting “required by necessity” or something like that.

Wow. Sure you can hate on Microsoft and think mono is dumb or inferior to other approaches or whatever, but that’s not productive if the product is on safe legal ground. Mark my words, this will separate valid mono critics from nutbars and, by extension show at least some of the past mono criticism was valid (though I doubt it will be acknowledged as such).