Could Mono Kill Gnome? 337
Jrbl writes "NewsForge is running This editorial by Tina Gasperson about the possible implications for GNOME if it gets Mono (which allows patented components.) There's also a reference to this article at The Register in which Miguel de Icaza raves about Microsoft."
It may not kill a Gnome... (Score:2, Funny)
Sure Intel could! (Score:2, Interesting)
Intel could do it
Just a opinion among others.
Re:Sure Intel could! (Score:2)
I predict... (Score:2, Insightful)
Gnome can't die (Score:5, Informative)
We saw those comments from Miguel a long time ago. He's not raving about Microsoft. He just likes .NET. So do a lot of us, and I'm a free software raving lunatic. Some of us even like Java. :) Representing those comments as "raving about Microsoft" is a deliberate misrepresentation.
If you don't want Gnome to be .NET, then fine. Stay with what you've got, and if it ever moves toward .NET, fork. No one will blame you, but you may find that Gnome/.NET outperforms what you've got.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that the question here is if the
The point of the editorial (and of the
Too much money is at stake in the next round of operating systems to leave anything to chance. Microsoft (and Intel for that matter) is setting themselves up for a free shot at Gnome if it ever starts threating the status quo. Thats scary to me.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Am I missing something here? The open source library is still fully usable, and the patent void, because of prior art, I mean it was released to them through that avenue
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why this is a bad scenario.
Miguel DOES NOT GET IT!!! So young and naive (Score:3, Insightful)
But then I saw that the wxWindows call to get the users home directory was not working. So I investigated. It turned out that Microsoft "added" a new call to get the users home directory. Only this shell call will get the right directory. So I had to #ifdef WIN32 to get the right directory.
What is the moral of the story? Without this shell call I cannot write a good app. Since Windows XP requires that I save my data in the user directory. I do not want Win32 approved, I just want my app to work properly. Now imagine this one call was patented or hidden or whatever. At that point mono is left without a single call. What does Mono do? Invent a new call? What happens then? I am back to C++ programming with #ifdef's. To be frank I would rather go back to C++ then start anew to be confronted with that problem yet again.
Sorry folks Miguel has not learned from history and he is doomed to repeat it. Except he may pull down the entire GNOME project. Oh well c'est la vie that is why we have KDE!!!
Re:Miguel DOES NOT GET IT!!! So young and naive (Score:2, Interesting)
As long as the currently submitted spec of CLI is patent free, there is no fear of loss, death, destriction, or the rule of microsoft.
CLI will make it to Linux from Microsoft if you like it or not, but the question reamins, would you rather have it open or closed.
Re:Miguel DOES NOT GET IT!!! So young and naive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Miguel DOES NOT GET IT!!! So young and naive (Score:4, Insightful)
I look at Apache and PERL and LINUX... What do they do? They make sure they build the best applications there are.
Take Apache as an example. To be compatible Apache could have said, wow ISAPI is really cool lets build that and do a good job... What did Apache do? They did a rudimentary ISAPI, but kept focus on their API.
Or take PERL. Sure there are PERL extensions specific to Windows. But the mother ship PERL (Larry Wall) is more concerned about making sure that PERL solves the needs of all its users.
Maybe GNOME will continue since Ximian != GNOME. But with people like Miguel talking the way he does does not bode well. I am curious to see what Sun will say...
And remember track record of anyone building a symbiotic relationship with Microsoft is 0!!! Microsoft is a dictator (their right) and there is no way you can change that.
Re:Miguel DOES NOT GET IT!!! So young and naive (Score:2)
First MS did not leave out that single function call. It was added at a later iteration and hence changed the entire programming model.
Second MS can and may introduce stuff that works best on their platform. And lets say that Mono does not implement those things. We would then have to write applications like in C++. There would be defines specific to the implementation. To be very frank I thought the point of
Re:Miguel DOES NOT GET IT!!! So young and naive (Score:2)
Except he may pull down the entire GNOME project.
How? Didn't you read the license?
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider the following scenario. Intel (they asked for the license change so they get to be the bad guys in this hypothetical example) extends the Mono framework to support a new image compression algorithm and releases their code under the MIT license. GNOME uses this new compression algorithm in their next release. Intel then discloses that they have a patent on the compression method and demands royalty payments. What happens to GNOME?
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
The prior art provision won't help you if the paent filing was made before the release of the library as OSS. It would depend on the license as to whether undeclared patents may later be exercised, and I'm unaware whether the strength of any anti-patent provisions in the (L)GPL have yet been tested in court.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2, Insightful)
This assertion is just as vacuous this time as the last ~20 times it's been thown into Dotnet discussions.
Funny how no Mono proponents will go so far as producing a concrete list of requirements that cloning Dotnet (specifically and uniquely) will satisfy, presumably because they either don't exist or they can't guarantee to deliver them.
The fact is that there is precisely zero benefit in cloning Dotnet unless it offers real portability for real applications. All other requirements can better be delivered using existing or emerging platforms.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:3, Informative)
C# is an interisting language, I've read parts of the spec, and it seems to not totatly contridict itself.
In the CLR I'm not too sure how they can trust code, and then not trust code. It seems like the security model is not as strong as everyone seems to say it is. If you compile code to a native level then it seems to be much more dificult to check for security. One advantage doing all interpreted code is that the runtime knows what is being executed better. We'll see how they tackle security. I think that'll be one of the last features to work correctly, on any platform. The only people who seem at all truely concerned with security are Java and Web browser people.
it is amazing to me how many security flaws have been programmed into Mozilla, Netscape and IE over the years. Compare that to the number of security flaws that other 'file browsers' have had.
Managed software (Score:5, Informative)
Given that performance is not a show-stopper anymore and given that Managed Software (class library at OS level, GC, runtime checks) is the Next Thing (hey, there was a time when we though C was too much a layer over assembly language), your choices are Java or CLI/CLR.
Java has some nice stuff to it -- friendly documentation at the Sun site compared to that gibberish that passes for documentation at MS, a nice software-engineered feel instead of that steaming pile of stuff that makes up an MS API (I develop for MS API's). But Java is Java and Sun is Sun, and you have to take the whole thing or leave it.
Since MS has flopped this "CLR/CLI/.NET" standard out there, it really there for the implementing. Oh, the Borg we hear, we are about to get assimilated into the Collective.
My understanding is that the effort is not simply to try to clone .NET but to implement an Open Source managed software thingy, and if it forks from MS, who cares. MS can have all the proprietary extensions it wants and we can have our own extensions.
Why not clone Java? Sun won't let you. Why not invent our own managed software thingy? We could, but there is one already out there.
Re:Managed software (Score:2)
Now we can talk about performance and real-time stuff where performance is always a show stopper. However, I doubt you'll see a CLR type architecture used in an RTOS any time soon. (But, hey, I don't do RT stuff, so what do I know?)
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
[Let me preface this by saying I don't know the difference between .NET and AVaporWareMarketingPloy.]
But it seems like there really are some good ideas in .NET somewhere, my free software zealotry notwithstanding.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Right.
And pre-GNOME, when he was grabbing the torch, he wasn't raving about Microsoft either. No, he sure wasn't. He was just caught up in how cool DCOM was, and was all fired up on how to implement it appropriately in GNOME.
AFAIKT, it is still pretty useless. But it is conceptually "the Microsoft way".
Then there was email. Miguel cloned Outlook in Evolution. Microsoft KNEW how to make a good email app, so Miguel was going to make one too, "the Microsoft way".
There is no person I can think of in Free Software development that likes "the Microsoft way" more than Miguel. No one. In fact, at this point I am beginning to wonder if he is on their payroll. First he was fired up to replicate DCOM under GNOME, then he was fired up to replicate Outlook, and now it is
GNOME should support
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Maybe you're right. But I often think about what would happen if there were a concerted effort to render Microsoft irrelevant -- by producing 100% compatible free-software clones of everything they do. Yeah, I wouldn't want to use it (I was a Mac user before I came to Linux. Still am, a little, since my email is all trapped in, you guessed it, Outlook Express for Mac.), but plenty of people would look at "Hmmm... MS's products, or something identical to MS's products for free," and make a decision that didn't include MS.
RMS set out to duplicate UNIX, even though it wasn't his favorite system. He knew technical improvements to the platform would happen along the way, and it wouldn't be exactly the same when he finished. Sure enough, it's not. And we're starting to see the final effects, as one commercial UNIX after another starts selling Linux (IBM, and now Sun!).
One thing to remember is that Microsoft is the enemy because they are a proprietary company. If (impossible though it may be) Microsoft jumped up tomorrow and released all their code under the GPL and started making their money like RedHat, they wouldn't be the enemy any more. Some of us might even like (parts) of their system and bring it into Linux and/or vice versa.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
I would have ZERO problems with a proprietary company that ATTEMPTED to use well-featured standard formats for exchanging DATA. Data can be interpreted as any format that is displayable only. Like, sound, video, streaming versions, documents, text email, PDF...
I use linux. Other companies will make and sell software, and I just want to be able to interact with them reasonably.
When a proprietary company makes data available to me only in formats for which they control the displayers, I don't like it so much anymore. When they additionally make NO effort to use interchangeable formats that are well-featured, I recognize that company doesn't care if its users can interact with any users of other software. There is no excuse for that - it is plain anti-competitive for ANY software maker not to make his data displayable using anyone else's software.
This becomes really clear in Microsoft's case, because other people's formats are so widely read in the rest of the world. No one in the linux world has a horrible time reading pdfs (acroread, xpdf, ghostscript), or email, or word processing documents that are not in a Microsoft format.
However, try to read a WMV/ASF file, or a WMA file, or a DOC file, or read a web page served by IIS, and there are LOTS of problems with accurate reading.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
GNOME is free software. If someone wants it to run
You can still CHOOSE not to use them, too. And then for you nothing will have changed.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Well, you can read the docs (somewhere on MS's site; I'm not going to search for it), or you can go check out the mono project [go-mono.com], or you can go check out dotGNU [dotgnu.org], which is somewhat larger in scope than mono but also implementing a .NET runtime, or you can go read O'Reilly's [oreilly.com] books on the subject, some of which are already in their second editions.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Actually, that would be comparable to what has happened with Ghostscript. Aladdin has an almost open-source license for Ghostscript, but there is also a GPL'ed version from GNU. GNU Ghostscript trailed Aladdin's for a long time, although I think it has somewhat caught up now.
I guarantee you that if someone tries any funny business, Gnome will fork. RMS will yell. I'll yell with him. But we won't yell long, because we'll just move our efforts from www.gnome.org to www.gnu.org/software/gnome/gnome.html . Remember, the GPL is an irrevocable license. Even if the copyright holder later comes out with a proprietary version, you have a perpetual right to freely modify and redistribute the GPL'ed versions. And I doubt the copyright holder can keep up with several thousand testers, debuggers, and coders who aren't interested in contributing to their proprietary product but are interested in contributing to something that is free.
Re:Gnome can't die (Score:2)
Pet peave of mine. It's Perl, not PERL.
And actually, to be honest, I'll go on programming in Perl (which is what I spend most of my time doing) and will probably never touch .NET or Gnome programming.
If you're looking for a virtual machine, I hear you'll really like Perl 6!
Sick of this topic already ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ximian is going to develop Mono - that much is clear. It doesn't matter what anyone says, they're going to use it.
Wether 'official' Gnome uses it or not doesn't matter. Enough people hate the idea that that probably won't happen. And if it does happen, they'll either be a fork, or massive exodus away from Gnome.
Let Ximian do what they want to do. Gnome is GPL - what's everyone so scared about? We've got bigger fish to fry.
All this does is provide - "Linux Community divided over
Re:Sick of this topic already ..... (Score:3, Funny)
wether Pronunciation Key (wthr)
n.
A castrated ram.
Wether [dictionary.com]
Boy, I was suprised when I heard they were going to use .net, but involving castrated rams is just going way too far!
Re:Sick of this topic already ..... (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, considering the gnu logo [gnu.org] and the dire predictions in the editorial, it seems strangely appropriate.
Re:Sick of this topic already ..... (Score:3, Insightful)
The second part of that is wrong - they're a company, and they don't have the luxury like non-paid independent free software hackers of not caring what other people think of their project. Since they're going to be using it eventually to either drive revenue, or support something that will drive revenue, they do care what other people think.
It seems that you're saying that they're going to do what they're going to do, so there's no sense complaining about it. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with everything in this article that was posted, but if there are dangers, it DEFINATELY makes sense to complain about it, because ximian CAN be swayed. (They're a company - companies tend to listen to large portions of their customer bases when they have to)
Gnome is GPL - what's everyone so scared about?
Aggregation of software! Your package foo might be GPL'd, and might be a part of GNOME, but if you base it on Mono and components written by Intel that have patent problems, you could quickly find yourself unable to distribute your application depending on what Intel wants to do with their patents.
If a GPL'd application links to a library, or in some other way uses software that's encumbered, problems can spill over. So it's not necessarily safe to say that since Gnome is GPL'd, we'll never have any problems.
The perfect way to avoid problems is to link GPL'd software only with GPL'd software that isn't covered by patents. That's *not* what Ximian is doing, and not what they have in mind for GNOME.
Re:Sick of this topic already ..... (Score:2)
You write as though Mono were the only software component that could be threatened by patent problems. Any piece of Gnome, or KDE, or whatever, can be so threatened, forcing you to stop distributing code.
If Microsoft asserts a patent covering part of .Net, that may or may not affect Mono. Mono might
have to rip out a piece of functionality, but it
would not kill the project as a whole, because there is nothing patentable about the basic concept .
Re:Sick of this topic already ..... (Score:2)
anytime anything has a negative impact in free software, it will reflect back to Linux bacause people don't understand that Linux is not the desk top. Like it or not,but Linux has become the Free software/ Open Source flagship.
SlashFUD (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing to accuse Microsoft of FUD, it's another to do their job for them by fragmenting the open-source/FSF/Linux community by posting this type of crap.
Re:You are an idiot (Score:2, Funny)
Getting OT (Score:2)
It's "Hear Hear", as in you hear what he's saying....
Somewhat Reactionary (Score:5, Informative)
The license here, would override the patent claims: "to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions"
It could be argued, that contributing code to MONO implies acceptance of the license. There is prior knowledge of the licensing terms. In fact, if someone contributed patented code to MONO, they would likely be relinquishing certain rights they would have been granted by the PTO.
I'm not a lawyer, but if, say, Intel contributes code here, they are entering a contract between the end user and themselves, which guarantees those rights. Since the license is the "last" contract between them and the user, it would hence, override any prior agreements.
All about Mono (Score:5, Informative)
All about this interesting project at the official Mono Project website [go-mono.com].
From the FAQ:
"The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Ximian that is working to develop an open source, Linux-based version of the Microsoft
Totally lacking (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, has anyone seen the sweeping immersion of CORBA based proprietary software on Linux?
I haven't. In fact, there has been little if anything along those lines. The whole thing was a story of the death of open source Linux, but not enough depth to realize how empty the threat was.
I would say that I wouldn't use a proprietary tool on linux that used such techniques as CORBA wrappers, unless there was 100% chance that I couldn't find an aternative in a reasonable timeframe.
The same thing is happening with CLI, and the Mono front, just the same sheep in different clothes.
So, what does this tell me about the Slashdot editorial process? They choose their articles to get a rise out of their audience? They are not informed enough to see the hollowness of the threat? They think it is up to the reader to tell the validity? I am not sure, but I would say there are much too many Linux-is-dead or Open-source-is-dead articles floating through the cracks, os please, take a breather.
PS: CORBA has been a vital part of GNOME for a long time now. How could they survive?
Tina is Karma Whoring (Score:4, Insightful)
I also love the way she's trying to implicate Microsoft as "pulling Intel's strings". I don't doubt that they'd love to do such a thing, but I honestly don't believe this is the real reason behind Intel's request to use an X11 license. Besides, XFree86 (y'know, that software we all have that uses the X11 license?) doesn't seem to have any trouble of this sort. If M$ was going to exploit the "weaknesses" in the BSD/X11 license, why not start with trying to "knock out" (as Tina puts it) XFree? This would be a MUCH bigger blow to Free software. Once again, I think this is all just scare mongering to drive hits to NewsForge. Shame on you, Tina.
Licensing confusion... (Score:2, Insightful)
I Think The Paranoia is Sinking In (Score:2, Informative)
dotGNU? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:dotGNU? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure the free software community could produce far better software (feature, stability, usability, and security-wise) than Microsoft... IF YOU ALL WORKED ON THE SAME DAMN THING.
Why is there both Gnome and KDE? They look virtually the same, try to do the same stuff, and have similar failures. Hell, both of them are (mostly) GPL now, so why keep duplicating work?
"A nice free alternative for Gnome"
Gnome is the "nice free alternative" for KDE, which is a "nice free alternative" for Windows. How many nice free alternatives do we need before we realize that we're not getting ahead, only sideways?
At least a managed company like Microsoft or Ximian or others are capable of fast, co-ordinated moves in a specific direction. Look at how fast Microsoft moved into the Internet market.... embrace and extend it may be, but why can't Free Software move this fast? Oh that's right, because free software likes to endlessly do the same thing over and over, like a GOTO with no exit point.
In fact, this site seems to be more and more about software licensing dilemmas every day. We should call it "LicenseDot" or something...
Re:dotGNU? (Score:2)
Because we like choice and choice is GOOD... Lack of choice is bad!!!
Random Thoughts... (Score:2, Interesting)
OTOH, I'm not opposed to fighting fire with fire. I certainly don't think Microsoft can complain much if, say, the Mono folks end up providing extensions to the standard in *their* implementation that won't necessarily work on Microsoft products. After all, how long do you expect it will take Microsoft to do the same to Mono?
(Okay, the last bit really wouldn't be a good thing, but after MS's constant misapplication of the term "standard" I had to vent).
Why is it so difficult... (Score:2)
Mono is using gnome - the same way any other app does - as its infrastructure. It's not going to become the foundation of Gnome. Yes, you will be able to implement applications for gnome using Mono. You can already do that with other tools like C/C++, Perl, Python etc. If Perl (say) suddenly was no longer available for some reason, would that impact Gnome? No.
In fact, nothing would stop anybody from reimplementing the relevant mono libs using KDE instead - and we'd have a desktop-agnostic development environment as well.
/Janne
Could it? (Score:4, Interesting)
I sure as hell don't know but I'm pretty sick of watching the redundancy in Linux. Sure, most of it has a purpose but I might be able to use the damn software if people made sacrifices for the sake of getting a desktop product out. I'm not trying to start a flame war about whether it is good enough for *your* desktop or not so please don't start.
What I would love to see is everyone who is working on anything remotely redundant to drop what they are doing, put their collective heads together and come up with a real competitor for Microsoft in something *other* than the server market. I don't care if it is a desktop product or an TV/entertainment product.
There are too many unfinished products and not enough of One Good Thing.
BTW - I mentioned the TV thing because I am currently building a home theater PC that has caused me much grief. I see that both Microsoft [microsoft.com] and the Linux community [linuxtv.org] are addressing the market.
10 to 1 odds that Microsoft finishes a product that everyone buys and bitches about while the Linux product stays in beta stage for years to come.
Sigh...
This message has been brought to you by the department of the redundancy department.
Re:Could it? (Score:2)
To some extent, redundant projects are a good thing. If two projects are competing, they can spur each other on to better results. Look at GNOME and KDE, for example.
Also, when there are two projects, the potential downside is reduced for trying something new. If GNOME bets on Mono, and KDE steers clear of it, then if Mono turns out to be a bad idea, we can all switch to KDE. (But note that it might be easier just to fork GNOME and switch to the non-mono fork, especially for those of us already using GNOME.)
But it's moot anyway. People work on whatever they want to work on. I think the world has enough text editors, but no one cares what I think; if some guy wants to write a text editor, he's going to do it. Free software, freedom. Nothing you can do about it, so why worry about it?
steveha
Re:Could it? (Score:2)
If I, and everyone else wasted thier time making their own text editors just to use my new keyboard layout, or variable color scheme, or minimal memory requirement, or whatever, you overlap in projects by 90% of the work. That work could have come together to make a truly innovative project instead of just a half assed attempt to clone the existing norm.
We need something like SourceForge on steroids, which seriously needs enhanced collaboration tools which will encourage outsider lone codes to work together. One of the things I hate the most about sourceforge is the lack of collaboration tools, which I think in Open source, that is one of the most important tools, that, direction, and standards.
One Windows to rule them all. (Score:2)
Monocultures *do* have lower costs, they can reproduce with less effort, but WTF do you think that sexual reproduction evolved? It happened because species without diversity get *wiped out* very easily. You show me an environment where all the code is the same and I'll show you an environment that can be taken out in one fell swoop.
Just look at the world around you, all the interesting life forms use sexual reproduction to increase diversity. Life tells me that monocultures are the wrong way to go.
Got it?
Utter rubbish (Score:3, Insightful)
What will you be suggesting next? That humanity should take up wholesale cloning?
Monocultures are evolutionary dead ends. Inevitably something comes along that devastates everything in the monoculture because it's all based on the same code. If you want to be taken down when that devastation is unleashed, be my guest. I'll take the other path.
More rubbish (Score:2)
Kword -> Gnumeric -> Whatever.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Utter rubbish (Score:2)
Re:Utter rubbish (Score:2)
Re:Could it? (Score:2)
What I would love to see is everyone who is working on anything remotely redundant to drop what they are doing, put their collective heads together and come up with a real competitor for Microsoft in something *other* than the server market.
You know, RedHat 7.1 converted me away from Mac OS. And that was before Sun's Gnome usability study. I'm looking forward to reaping the benefits of the work that's happened since then.
If they're winning Mac users, how long do you think it'll be before the Microsoft exodus begins? (Hint, consider software license fee structures in your answer. :) )
I'm optimistic. It's coming.
I know the redundancy pains a lot of people, but it has given us competition that enables us to pick the best solutions. Sometimes there's more than one best and we hit a stable point with multiple alternatives instead of a monopoly. And that's (mostly) a good thing.
Re:Could it? (Score:2)
If that's what you want, feel free to work on it, or to pay someone to work on it. Don't feel free to tell volunteers where they can and cannot put their time and effort. It's rude and stupid.
Don't like a product? Don't use it. Simple as that.
Trying to tell someone that doesn't give a crap about "Desktops" that they must work on one only works when you are willing to pay them a salary.
MS advertising on ./ (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a Visual Studio .Net banner ad atop the front page at 4:59 pm Eastern.
Shall we expect more open and Slashdot now? :D
[Granted, it is served through Double-Click. Does MS outsource advertising?]
.NET Framework and WINE (Score:2)
And it's been said a million times, but GNOME has not decided to incorporate Mono. Mono could very well stand on its own legs in any "desktop environment". It could fail miserably (doubtful). Why do people care about it suceeding? Because the Open Source and Free Software communities will be pawns to big business? But I thought we couldn't be controlled or coerced
Re:.NET Framework and WINE (Score:2)
In that respect it's not. I've long considered WINE a non-starter for that reason.
So don't use it (Score:4, Insightful)
1 Mono exists
2 Gnome adopts Mono (a reach, but ok)
3 Intel writes proprietary (non-MIT-licensed) components for Mono
4 Intel enforces patentson those components and shuts down Gnome!
Ok... so we come to the obvious solution. Assuming that #2 happens (no pun intended), #4 can only happen if #3 is followed by:
3.4 Gnome adopts Intel proprietary components via Mono
Um... *WHY*?!
Of course, if Gnome implements these features using Bonobo and Orbit guess what Intel can do? That's right... enforce their patents!
This is, AFAIKT, junk reporting. If I'm wrong, please show me specifically what timeline you see occuring.
Re:So don't use it (Score:4, Interesting)
I think what she's trying to say, in a rather roundabout, "let me adjust my tin foil hat" sort of way, is that there's no legal precedent for this situation. Is there an implicit patent license when patented material is contributed to an Open Source project by the patent holder? Look at it this way:
It is a valid concern, and I would hate to see projects as significant as Mono and Gnome be taken down by it. But I think Tina is being a bit too alarmist.
OT: This is what Slashdot's email auto-obfuscator generated for my email address:
Hey, Taco! I do not work for Jar-Jar Binks!Re:So don't use it (Score:2)
Sure thing Intel, will give you 99% royalties on all the profits we get from these gnome binaries we sell. Here you go, here's your 99% of nothing... Aw what the heck, we'll even double that since we like you so much.
Re:So don't use it (Score:2)
1. If Intel writes code for Mono that infringes on a patent or Richard Stallman writes the code for CORBA that infringes on a patent, it's still patent infringing.
2. Once Intel notifies you that you're infringing, if you strip that functionality, you're not infringing. If you can't strip it, and have Mono still work, then I suggest to you that CORBA won't work either. In that case, the idea of an open source component model is pretty much dead until the patent expires or is contributed to the public.
3. When you own a patent, you can license it any way you wish. If you choose to write reference code and distribute it under the GPL, that's a very valid option. Intel would be free to change the license, but anyone with their hands on previous, GPL-licensed code would... well, have a license. It really is that simple (IANAL). Could this be a test for the GPL? Sure, and that's a seperate topic, but one I'm not too concerned about. Why? Because it's in the direction that the GPL is strongest. The GPL is weakest in defending the code owner (potentially) not the user.
4. I think she was not so much concerned about Intel contributing code as writing components that were proprietary and patented. Again, if they did this, we should all carefully avoid using Intel's proprietary components. Again, this comes down to sloppy reporting.
I think this whole thing is a no-brainer.
Rather paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, sun is never going to develop software that requres
Other then that, what exactly about the MIT license makes it more prone to patent problems? Is it that MIT'd code can be patented or what? How is it that an official GNU project (as GNOME is) not use the GPL or LGPL?
Been here done this.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hrmmm.. I wonder what's on Jerry Springer...
Why can't people see what MS is really up to? (Score:4, Interesting)
Follow me on this.
Operating System wars are over. Linux is making headway, and the courts are ruling that you have to open the source code. Microsoft has seen that revenue is not going to increase with the rapid OS upgrades. They want a month to month revenue stream. So they *invent* software renting. But this is not 'hey I am going to check out MS Office for a couple hours at 19.95 an hour', it is more like this as I read it. I need a new resume, so I start a wizard in Windows 2002 that helps me write one. So while the wizard is going through each part (like spellcheck, cover letter) the wizard automagically downloads the proper
When upgrades happen, then you automagically download the latest version of the
Everything I have read is that Microsoft want to push this everywhere. They want this on every computer, every PDA, even right down to your cell phone. So I do not believe that they care that it is on Gnome. If the passport stuff is in there, then it just adds to the revenue stream. That is what they are really after.
Plus, I see Gnome trying to implement the
The only interesting thing is if MS wants the passport/hailstorm added in. Then things could get interesting.
Mono only wants to do the software development side, and there are a lot of nice things in there. It is the passport side that makes us cringe.
Re:Why can't people see what MS is really up to? (Score:2)
Secondly, as far as OS Wars being over, nothing has really changed that much. The market changes the same way it did a few years ago. Systems come and go, just because MS is dominant on the desktop doesn't mean there is little change in the market. If you would qualify the market before as a war, it still is, but I would say any supposed OS "war" is a misnomer in any time..
Why we should not support closed standarts (Score:2, Insightful)
I think something like this might happen to every Linux Software. Therefore it is unwise to support closed standarts.
The real danger (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one thing to support what could eventually be a necessary "embrace and extend" standard, but to focus everything on
So it seems to me that supporting
Let me re-emphasize: We do NOT need ANY proprietary software. We do NOT need Microsoft or ANY of their products. All we need is a stable user-developer community. In a word: consultants. That is the future of Open Source in the business world. And it is a good future both for business and free software developers.
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/. pattern (Score:3, Informative)
The Mono controversy (with some RMS thrown in):
Etc. Almost half of the past 30 news posts on GNOME involve a political controversy. Is this news-site bias or simply GNOME's ability to stir controversy?
Re:/. pattern (Score:4, Insightful)
GNOME's GPL-ness and RMS-ness have been the subject of attacks and discussion and "I'm taking my ball and going home" for years now. Only KDE, with its former questionable-GPL-ness and non-RMS-ness comes close in terms of controversy.
I would suggest that there has never been either a GNOME or KDE story on Slashdot or most any other site that did not start a flame war on the related forum. It's the nature of GNOME and KDE... because they are the "desktops of Linux" people have the perception that whichever eventually becomes more popular will essentially be Linux (for the average user) for the rest of time... that kind of perception of finality brings out all the GPL-crazies, anti-GPL-crazies, make-Linux-like-Windows-for-the-user crazies and I-am-anti-Windows-don't-do-it crazies.
(Meanwhile, WindowMaker on the desktop has been silently winning in terms of actual usability almost since its inception.)
Dude... (Score:2)
...even Jar-Jar could kill a Gnome.
Whos this Tina Gasperson person and why judge Mono (Score:2)
My point is this, just because mono the source is being made, doesnt tell you how the community will use the code once its written.
Ximian does not have the authority to ruin Gnome, if people dont like Mono Gnome will fork or Mono wont be implenmented at all.
Re:Whos this Tina Gasperson person and why judge M (Score:3, Informative)
Can the patents really be used in this way? (Score:3, Interesting)
I seriously doubt this could actually happen, though. As I see it, there are four possible scenarios:
1) Intel unknowingly places patented code into the Mono source tree.
This, of course, could happen at just about any time to any open source project in existence, so I don't see any reason to worry more that Intel would do it. In fact, it's less likely, since Intel has a lot of lawyers who will work very hard to make sure this doesn't happen.
2) Intel knowingly places patented code for which it doesn't have an explicit license into the Mono source tree.
Again, this is unlikely, because Intel would be in a whole lot of trouble. At the very least, Intel would be required by the courts to pay the licensing fees for the patented code in Mono.
3) Intel knowingly places patented code for which it owns the license into the Mono source tree without providing Mono with the proper licensing.
This is also unlikely. Just because you own the patent on something doesn't mean that you can use it to subversively extort money (or code) from someone. Patents don't have to be actively protected in all cases in order for them to remain viable, but a company that provides someone else with a product patented by a patent they own is implicitly licensing it to them. IANAL, but I know enough to know that there is just no way the courts are going to allow Intel to knowingly place patented code they own into Mono and then try to use that to gain control over Mono at some point down the road.
4) Intel places patented code into the Mono source tree, and explicitly provides a license for it.
This is the most likely scenario. Since I doubt the Mono developers will accept code that is explicitly licensed with a license that does not last throughout the lifetime of the patent, this won't be a problem. If Intel signs an agreement, they are bound by it, patent or no patent. Just because they own a patent doesn't mean that they can renig on deals that they have signed. It is possible (likely?) that the patent license will apply only to Mono and its direct derivitives, but that only poses a risk to people who take the code from Mono and put it into another project.
Personally, I don't think there is anything to worry about here. The Mono project should, of course, make sure all of their i's are dotted and all or their t's are crossed, but if that is the case nothing as devestating as what has been proposed could reasonably happen.
patents are unrelated to Mono/Gnome (Score:3, Interesting)
The only time anything changes with respect to Intel and patents is if Intel explicitly signs their rights away. I believe that if you distribute your software under a GNU license, that means you give others the right to use your patented invention. That's a nice safeguard, to be sure, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to protect Mono or Gnome from Intel.
If Intel were duplicitous enough to contribute a patented invention under an X11-style copyright and then, two years later, turn around, mention that they have a patent, and sue for infringement, Mono and Gnome might have to stop using that part of the software, but I seriously doubt any judge would award damages. And the affected parts of the software could be easily replaced, since patents are not like copyrights or trade secrets--there is no risk of "contamination".
Altogether, the article strikes me as being as the grumblings of someone who is just overly zealous about GNU-style licenses. Yes, GNU-style licenses are nice, but the sky isn't falling if something is distributed under some other license. The X11 license is perfectly fine for open source software and has been used for many projects (including X11 itself) that are a much more dangerous minefield of patents than a 1970's style object oriented language.
Re:patents are unrelated to Mono/Gnome (Score:2)
FUD (Score:2)
Further Comments from Miguel (Score:2, Informative)
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002
If you're a reasonable and logical person like I hope to be, you reserve judgement until you hear all sides of the case. So, instead of declaring that MS == Evil, perhaps there are reasons why someone who is clearly is an Open Source fan likes
I realize his post is long, so if you're not going to read it, I see his key points as being:
1) Increased productivity for Gnome/Mono development.
2) Language independence, allowing programmers to continue to use their favorite coding.
3) Better portability for open-source applications.
"My experience so far has been positive, and I have first hand experience on the productivity benefits that these technologies bring to the table. For instance, our C# compiler is written in C#. A beautiful piece of code."
Hands on experience! I think that unless you have had this with this technology, you may not be qualified to judge this decision path. Let's give this a chance, and try to be both passionate and reasonable in creating Windows alternatives.
Thought I Had Mono For A Whole Year... (Score:2)
Schwing!
Dealing with Mono (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Dealing with Mono (Score:2)
Very Bad Mono Joke (Score:2)
Gnome should be safe so long as they don't go around kissing too many people. Of course, who has ever heard of somebody dying from Mono, anyway?
*duck*
Go join the other team and shut up (Score:2)
Miguel go join the other team so I don't have to read about you anymore!
Have respect for Miguel. (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh brother, now he's true evil...
Get a life, zealots. If Mono kills Gnome (or better: makes Gnome obsolete), why would that be something bad? If Mono lets you run the applications you need, makes you use your Linuxbox the way you want and the way you need it, would you miss Gnome? I don't think so.
Mono is a hell of a project to complete, a lot of subprojects of Mono still need completion. If you want Linux to survive in the new era of computing, stop whining and start coding.
Re:Tina? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:People in the know don't trust .net (Score:2)
Again, you try to spread an optimistic viewpoint about how Mono WILL BE; not how it is and you tend to neglect what we here at slashdot and the internet community in general already know about Microsoft, including the DOJ and just about anyone that reads a paper.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Well, it's certainly limiting applicability... (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to think
Re:Platform independence (Score:3, Insightful)
I call bullshit on that. Linux works on more archs than windows does, linux is inteoperable with just about close to everything out there, we even try to read NTFS partitions.
The biggest obstacle to Linux is nothing.. an obstacle that this community has been trying to get over however, has been inteoperability with Windows(tm) by Microsoft. THEY are the ones that don't want interoperability. Now that ties are seemingly broken as projects like Samba and Wine come along (because of Microsoft these projects exist, my deepest gratitude to the developers of these projects) here this
Re:I don't think so! (Score:3, Funny)
You'd be a broke fucker on
Jaysyn