RMS Asks Miguel to Explain Himself

phaze3000 writes "RMS, responding to questions from the audience at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil last week, has asked Miguel de Icaza to explain himself to the Free software community about comments made last week that Gnome should be based on .NET in the future. More details at Brazillian site Hotbits and in The Register." I find this amusing.

Re:News?

I'm fairly suprised. If the free version of .NET is licensed as free software, who gives a damn?

Yes, but he didn't say that GNOME would be based on MONO technology. He said it would be based on ".NET" technology. While we all know that it would have to be MONO to run on Linux, his statement becomes an extremely powerful marketing tool for Microsoft. As such, RMS would rightly be opposed to such a statement.

Re:RMS needs to be hit with a cluebat

that's the point. Miguel can speak for Ximian and say "I plan to base Ximian Gnome 4.0 on .NET and hope other Gnome developers will follow suit) but he can't declare what path Gnome will take.

While its true that many key Gnome developers do happen to work for Ximian, not all do. Also, there has been financial support for the Gnome Foundation from other companies and individuals.

Also, by using the GPL on their code they relinquished the right to withdraw it. By accepting the contributions of others (not employed by Ximian) they have agreed to the terms of the GPL and can't just steal other people's code, however insignificant they feel those contributions to be. They can request permission from those other contributors or extract the "tainted" GPL code, or all Gnome developers may choose to develop on the Microsoft.NET framework, but it's not a pronouncement Miguel should make without even discussing it with the community.

The "Gnome" trademark may be owned by the FSF, as well, which complicates things.

Re:RMS needs to be hit with a cluebat

Okay, for the sake of the arguement, suppose that .NET's architecture is the technically the best way for Gnome to go. There is still the 'poison pill' issue to think about. Will using Microsoft's technology this way give Microsoft any kind of legal, technical, or competitive power of the Gnome project? Will it allow Microsoft to shut down the Gnome project or marginalize/cripple Gnome in some other sneaky way if they decide Gnome is a problem for them?

Keep in mind that Microsoft has unheard-of amounts of money and lawyers to throw at the problem, and that they have demonstrated time and again that they have no scruples about doing whatever it takes to eliminate their competition.

If I was Miguel, I would tread very, very carefully when considering the adoption of Microsoft's "Open" APIs...

Can't sell part of your soul to the devil

I am sorry, but I must respecfully disagree. I am not a "Microsoft hater" - I have been using their products for 18 years, and I continue to use them when to do so makes busines sense. But neither am I blind to Microsoft's actions. Nor do I think Microsoft's actions are in my best interests. Nor can Microsoft's actions be in my best interests as long as Microsoft is a joint stock corporation.

What is in my best interests is to have multiple, robust, "genetically isolated" choices for the critical technology my business needs to use. "Cross-pollinating" two of those choices so that they are no longer separate is not a good idea.

And have we already forgotten Microsoft's attempt to ban non-IE browsers from "their" web? Although I often do not agree with RMS' more extreme positions, I think he understands quite well that you can't be a little bit pregnant, nor can you sell a fraction of your soul to the devil.

sPh

Reality check for RMS

I think this is the crucial moment for RMS where he either becomes more flexible or risk alienating the remaining few developers who still rally around him and his ideas. I mean for crying out loud the Ximian team is not even suggesting using non free code. They just want to base the next version on a spec that also has a nonfree implementation. There is no reason why there needs to be even a single line of non-free code in the Ximian implementation of dotNET.

The man is getting old and it shows.

Actually, the opposite is true

I think this is the crucial moment for RMS where he either becomes more flexible or risk alienating the remaining few developers who still rally around him and his ideas.

I believe you've got it backwards.

Keep in mind the number of GPL evangelists in the world. Not many, hey? Certainly not enough, and definitely none with the power that Microsoft's PR department has.

We should be thankful that there's a guy out there who risks mockery on a regular basis in order to try to ensure some balance. His role isn't to represent the average coder, it's to give us an extreme point of view opposite of what's normally given out there in the world of software -- corporate corporate corporate.

The man is getting old and it shows.

Look, if you don't like him, tune him out. But don't underestimate his importance. He gives us balance where the Microsoft monopoly would like us to believe it's their right to bleed us dry of every penny we've got. You might as well criticize the Yin Yang symbol for not being all gray.

Re:Reality check for RMS

I hope they don't go the .NET direction. I haven't gotten to read the hotbits column yet because it's Slashdoted aleady, but I see several problems with his statement.
First I think his statement was more political than technical. I think he see the money that is possible through the .NET framework. You can charge just about everybody to develop it. Microsoft is charging developers fees to develop on .NET. Why you Ximian be different? Look at the place Ximian will be in it GNome 4.0 does tie into .NET. They will be the ones that control code because they control the only NON-Microsoft version of .NET. The stand to make big bucks off this if they pull it off.
I don't see how buying into Microsoft's vision of .NET as the future will help Linux on the Desktop. We will be playing even more of a catchup game. Look at the companies that have had to rely on Microsoft releasing key information for the products of these companies to work on Windows. Microsoft has a history of withholding key information until they have the edge by already having a product out that supports there "standard".
I think Miguel has become a follower--especially of Microsoft. I think he has lost his forward vision. I think he should step back from all leadership positions he has on Gnome (if any) and let others take over. His statements in the interview smell of someone buying into marketing hype because they lost their independant thought and no longer truely see a goal.

With that said, the is one thing I like about the .NET framework. The ability of all the compilers in Visual Studio to compile/translated down to a common language before compiling. That could definately be use to build APIs for multiple languages at once! It would need to be well thought out, but I think that would be a good goal to aim for in the long run. If I remember correctly, Borland C++ Builder compiled into a Pascal derivative first. There are a lot of possibilities with this design of compilers.

Re:Reality check for RMS

Whether or not 'a few developers still rally around him', he does stand for his principals over material gain, which is more than just about anyone can say these days.

If RMS 'alienates' developers because he sees the 'killer app' that will put undoubtly make Microsoft's interests a more powerful force behind future technology and information legislation than social and governmental (although the Bush administration is less of a government, and more of a door greaser for the Microsofts of the world) interests, good for him. Developers that abandon his 'radical' prinicipals will undoubtly find themselves on the wrong side of a swing that history prooves has already swung to far. The guy spends his time looking furthur, knowing more, rather than protecting his own interests. Those developers who are 'alienated' by his views are only thinking about their own interests, given the Vegas numbers on MS's chances with .NET entrenching their monopoly. What do you think the chances are of proponants of .NET seeing as some sort of salvation for the human condition?

Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that in the past few years, this has become less about 'business' per se, and more of a religion. MS is a church for market pricing (a state enforced system, very evident under the Bush administration, natch). RMS is a church for decentralized social pricing (which is to say that nothing is 'free', but that the cost/worth of software simply gets entwined with social values under his system, as goods and services were before the 16th and 17th century .. in which people only make, distribute, fix, document software for the sole purpose of bettering their society or community).

makes you wonder...

KDE probably isn't looking so bad to RMS right now.....

Re:makes you wonder...

Yeah, and vi isn't looking so bad to Miguel right now...

This is turning into a Monty Python skit...

MIGUEL: ... and this is the sample of GNOME 3.0 I made using Mono, and this is my picture of the GNU Inquisition.

HAVOC: I didn't expect the GNU Inquisition.

MIGUEL: Neither did I.

*door blasts open*

RMS: NOOOOOOOOObody expects the GNU Inquisition! Confess! Confess! Confess!

blah, don't have my funny legs on today...

Re:This is turning into a Monty Python skit...

I suppose next your going to tell us that amongst your weapons are fear, suprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to Linus.

Re:Why must Miguel explain himself to RMS?

Did you read the article? RMS was asked about how he felt about Miguel's moving Gnome to .NET, he reponding saying he(RMS) found that hard to belive, anf if it was true he asked Migual to explain the move to the free software community. Thats all.
And gnome is not Miguels.

disclaimer-- I have recieved a very nasty email from Ximian basically telling me where to put, afer I emailed them looking for how I could contribute to the project, so I pretty much hate those guys. Ilike Gnome, I just think they're assholes.

Miguel's response

Miguel has now responded. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-devel-list/20 02-February/msg00042.html

Re:Why must Miguel explain himself to RMS?

Its Miguel's company, and in the free market he's free to make whatever strategic decisions he likes.

Ximian is Miguel's company - Gnome is not.

If RMS doesn't like it, he can either make an equity investment in Ximian, or he can shut his cake hole.

1. One need not have an investment to comment or have an opinion on a subject.
2. The "G" in Gnome stands for GNU, which RMS very much does have a legitimate interest in.

This man is becoming increasingly irritating, a modern day Rasputin (in looks as well as deeds).

I'm sorry - when did a dresscode get implimented? Please submit an 8x10 glossy of yourself for us to comment upon before you make another such clueless posting.

I think it's funny too!

Because it's part of the GNU (or was) Gee, here and I thought GNU was about freedom, not an RMS autocracy? Silly me. I guess it was that attempt to clone Unix that distracted me...

Seriously, folks. RMS gets blindsided in a Q&A and makes the best of the situation "Uh, I hope what you are saying is not true, if it is, I'd like Miguel to explain rather than listen to your hearsay". Yawn Yawn, wait for the 11:00 roundup.

--Charlie

Improving usablility

This is a *little* disconcerting for some, but I applaud Miguel's willingness to embrace the technologies he feels are best, regardless of the political fallout. Given the amount of XML stuff in Ximian Gnome / Nautilus etc, it only seems natural to move towards more RPC based standards. The fact that one of them is being developed by Microsoft should not IMHO be an obstacle to progress. Now if they would just fix the fonts! ; )

Re:Improving usablility

This is a *little* disconcerting for some, but I applaud Miguel's willingness to embrace the technologies he feels are best, regardless of the political fallout.

Then you're a useless applauding moron. There are more than "political fallout" issues at stake here. It's senseless to "applaud" one dimension of a decision that can have such multi-dimensional consequences.

I agree with RMS - Miguel, you got some 'splainin' to do.

Poor Miguel

I think people have misunderstood Miguel. What he has done here is to use MS as an R&D dept. MS spent millions researching .NET and built a comprehensive set of tools. GNU (and the rest of us) can benefit from this research, they can take the best ideas from .NET and implement them in MONO. This is a GoodThing.

There could be a problem if MS shifts the spec or extends the spec. At that point if Miguel decides to chase MS he loses. If he decides to "fork" .NET and stick with the standards he wins because .NET will become fragmented.

I think Miguel knows what he is doing. I say give him a chance if history is any indicator he will kick ass.

In essence .NET and C# are full of ideas borrowed from JAVA, DELPHI, DCOM etc. Why not pull an MS here and embrace your enemies. Take their ideas and run with them!

Re:Poor Miguel

Of course they will extend it. I'm sure they're not presumptuous enough to thing that it's 'finished' after the first release.

On the other hand it would be short-sighted of them to make v2 incompatible with v1 for no other reason than it would piss off their loyal developer following immensely. They'll add new features, but I'm pretty sure that old .NET assemblies will still run on the new system. Microsoft has been very careful to continue their binary compatibility up the operating system line (DOS apps ran on win31/win9x, most dos/win31 apps run on NT/2K/XP, etc...) They would lose far more than they could possibly gain by changing this.

Re:Poor Miguel

Very few DOS apps ran correctly on win95. Many win95 apps didn't run on Win98. Microsoft changed their Word format between Office 95 and Office 98 (or 2000, whatever) in a gratuitous manner which prevented old office from reading new office documents. Microsoft repeatedly changed the Win32 spec in trivial ways to introduce incompatibilities with OS/2's Win32 implementation. Visual basic programmers have face repeated forward and backward compatibility problems (some noted VB book authors even quit recommending VB because of this).

Microsoft has no qualms about pissing off their (locked-in) developer community. They've repeatedly broke compatibility in every possible way. Why anyone trusts Microsoft, I'll never know. Microsoft's history (the real history, not Bill Gate's rewritten version) should scare anyone away. I'm guessing that you're either extremely young, extrememly naive, extremely forgetful, or paid by Microsoft (the last one was a joke).

-Paul Komarek

Re:Poor Miguel

well I was paid by Microsoft. I worked in the Visual C++ & Visual J++ teams for some time. I know 1st hand the length that the libraries and SDK teams went to to balance updates to the API and compatibility with existing code.

Very few DOS apps ran correctly? Bullshit. Before win95 shipped, the win95 QA team went to Egghead and bought a copy of every title on the shelves and either made sure that they ran or informed the authors of the bad assumptions they had made in their code and how to patch them. Sometimes the application was directly patched at runtime by the OS. For example some applications would make use of undocumented behavior (like the burgermaster table in win13) that wasn't available on the new system.

No "if" about it

There could be a problem if MS shifts the spec or extends the spec. At that point if Miguel decides to chase MS he loses. If he decides to "fork" .NET and stick with the standards he wins because .NET will become fragmented.

No one who's been paying attention has any doubt whether MS will extend the standard. All they have to do is require a (patented) process to access a single part of the system.

Remember, .NET requires interaction with a server somewhere. If the service you're trying to use is a Microsoft one, that server will be inside Microsoft. Now, if Gnome can't use that service, why would anyone choose to use it.

With Microsoft being the defacto standard, Gnome needs a compelling reason for people to switch. Aiming for where Microsoft was two months ago doesn't provide that. More importantly, if Miguel were to attempt to fork .NET what exactly would be the incentive to stick with his version? Forks are always resolved by market share. Guess who's got it.

Oi the irony...

Now wouldn't it be funny if GNOME started basing itself heavily on Microsoft's architecture? I mean if I recall my history, KDE came into existence but it was based on the closed QT libraries. So then the GNOME project was founded to be a more free software purist environment. Now it seems that things are getting reversed now that you can get an open version of QT.

he ALREADY explained himself - RTF article, RMS!

quote:

"What's important to keep in mind is that you do not actually use the Windows API in .NET - you use the .NET API - the classes [sic.] they have defined."

hello, what exactly needs further explanation? its brilliant.

"Freedom"

You're Free to do whatever you want in GNU land, as long as it's exactly what RMS wants you to do.

Miguel's vision is better than RMS's

It would be very, very unfortunate if this debate just focused on the politics of Mono following Microsoft Dotnet. Miguel might be misguided in this aspect, but his strategic vision of what is critical for the future growth of Linux-the-platform is far more attuned to current trends than anything RMS, ER or LT have articulated.

He realizes that without a VM and the cross-(hardware)-platform capabilities it gives, Linux apps are going to be very hard to distribute in future. Normal consumers simply aren't going to run C compilers, yet the Linux "architecture" takes absolutely no account of this.

By the way, it is customary for the 'strategic VM' debate to be ignored in /. - of 27 postings on this topic (see my user info), only one was ever moderated up, and that was promptly moderated down again ('overrated'). Draw your own conclusions!

Did you start computing in 1999?

Windows, at present, only supports a single platform. Because of this they have no cross platform instalation issues. You must be thinking of some other operating system.

Rewind the clock. The AIM alliance (Apple, IBM, Motorola) are cranking out faster PPC chips, the Alpha research project is bearing fruit, and Intel can't get the Pentium to move. They start playing tricks like they did at the end of the 486 era with faster processors then busses, but they can't really get the speed up.

Intel looks like a dead end.

Microsoft's NT project looks like it will divorce them from Intel. Their NTVDM, based on an old OS/2 VDM (IBM's later version was better) can emulate the entire 286 instruction set, so you can run DOS apps inside of it. They develop NT on a non-Intel architecture (rumored to be MIPS) to avoid any Intel specific shortcuts.

NT 3.51 supports the MIPS (there was a project with several companies to build a desktop PC on the MIPS line, NT was the OS, and Intel pulled tech specs for their stuff from everyone involved ).

NT 3.51 supports the PPC. They are scared of Taligent Pink, the Apple/IBM project to build two OSes on the same core system. PC Users would run OS/2, Apple users their Macs, run the same applications with the different environments.

NT 3.51 supports the Alpha. The Alpha looks like it is going to be awesome and could carry Microsoft into the server rooms. It looks like a screamer. The AlphaPC, the cheap version of the chip, looks like a great processor. NT 3.51 and the AlphaPC could turn Microsoft into a workstation player and compete in the engineering space.

Intel is still moving chips cheaply (in the $400-$1000 range) so they are involved.

Microsoft has another project, Chicago AKA Windows 4.0 AKA Windows 93, released as Windows 95. It brings the Win32 API to the lowend world. Get your apps moved to Win32 from Win16, and you can move to Windows NT (but not OS/2). Stick to Win32s and IBM can still fight on with OS/2.

At that point in history, there was no Microsoft monopoly.

What happened?

Intel gets the Pentium Pro to perform well on 32-bit operations (though the 16-bit code in Win95 made it a dog there) and announces the Pentium II, a PPro without the expensive on-chip cache. Quad-PPros do okay as workgroup servers. The MIPS PC initiative dies out (taking one of the top graphics card makers with it, who couldn't compete without Intel's PCI specs early... and Vesa Local Bus wasn't keeping up).

IBM refuses to ship PPC computers (to run Windows NT) until they have OS/2 running there. Well, the OS/2 port couldn't make it. Sure their were dozens of machines build in Boca Raton, FL, they rocked. The PPC 620 was promissed with the 486 core integrated. Wow, OS/2 on a PPC with your old DOS/Win apps running on the 486 core? Never shipped...

NT drops to just the Alpha and x86. With no support for the other ports, Microsoft lets the development tools for non-x86 lapse. Visual Studio RISC was usually at least 1 rev back.

Alpha support drops out later.

Microsoft is now stuck with x86.

Itanium/IA-64 is on the way. Microsoft needs a 64-bit system to carry them up the food chain, and the Alpha is dead.

AMD's x86-64 is on the way, and while there is no official plans for Microsoft to support it, I'm sure that they will.

Microsoft is back to pushing cross platform.

J++ didn't get them there. The CLR may.

The CLR is part of .NET. The XML services are another part. The tech is separate (though plays nicely together), but all part of .NET.

Microsoft HATES sharing their monopoly with Intel. Intel may be the junior partner, but they are there. Microsoft needs to increase its leverage. The CLR makes Intel a junior partner... VERY junior.

They can talk to IBM about PPCs, or AMD about x86-64.

Microsoft certainly has cross-hardware issues. Because of them, they are only on 1 platform.

NT is extremely portable.

x86 assembly code is not.

Alex

Re:Did you start computing in 1999?

Thank you for such a detail chroncle but since I worked for IBM I've heard a different version than yours. (and since I worked for IBM I may be biased, be warned. ^_^)

It was not IBM refused to ship PPC with NT, it's Microsoft who refused to developed NT on PPC. In fact DOS/Win32 running on 486 core wasn't so bad at that time, may be due to some architectural difficulties Microsoft did not port their NT to PPC.(you are right NT is portable and asm is not, but PPC's asm is open enough for them, at least as far as I know)

NT can run on Alpha. I'm not sure whether NT5(aka W2K) can run on Alpha, but previous versions can. It's Microsoft who left Alpha, not vice versa. :)

OS/2 lost to Windows mainly due to the fact that Windows do not allow OS/2 ship with many Win32 components - that almost drove OS/2 out of Win-compatibility business. In fact IBM did strike back by releasing 'OS/2 for Windows' version, but lost is lost.

Microsoft then further extended their monopolization by penalizing PC vendors if their line of products ship with OS other than Windows. That's what you've been hearing in the trial.

We, at that time, always wondered "Can they do that?", but hell, IBM did that during 70's(in other market) so why couldn't they! Now we know it's illegal, heh, oh well. :)

but it's too late.

In conclusion, Microsoft chose the path of monopolization. Your post sounds like Microsoft was forced to do so, may be I'm wrong. :)

Not just RMS but Sun as well

Given that Sun has publically stated they are going to move to using Gnome as their desktop (not that i believe it given their last support of the OpenStep UI) -- I believe they would have some serious issues with this as well

Its no secret the position Sun takes as it relates to Microsoft

This may be hard to take...

But .NET is actually a pretty well thought out and designed plan. If you take off the blinders and look at it, .NET really makes sense.

What should open source do? Should it push forward a political agenda, or strive to provide people with the best possible products? Personally I could care less about RMS' agenda. To me open source is about options, and I applaud Miguel for working to provide people another option.