A little hint: Don't use M$ in our posts or no one will take you seriously, even if you make a good point.

Clearly you never read the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

"Mono is the death of Linux."

Mono WOULD be the death of Linux if serious amounts of serious developers actually uses it. So far the biggest app I've seen Mono implemented on in Linux is Banshee. Hardly a boon to the intended purpose of Mono to kill Linux through wrecking its reputation or bring it down with patent traps.

I trust that, in general, the Linux development community isnt trusting Mono, or at least simply sees no point in using it.

I read a few years ago de Icaza tried and failed to convince the rest of the GNOME club to hook GNOME up to Mono.

"There is the little matter of potential patent time bombs. I won't use Mono for that reason alone. I have absolutely no faith in Microsoft's largesse, or in the moles like Icaza who seem hell bent on selling everyone up the river."

Amen. I always like to say when someone defends Mono for being an ECMA standard: "Standardization does not mean indemnification." The worst a standards organization could do to Microsoft for patent trolling .NET through Mono would be to abolish the standard, something I imagine wouldn't even remotely bother Microsoft at that point.

As for de Icaza, it should have been blatantly obvious that he was a traitor when he:

- Applied for a job at Microsoft. I don't know how he responded to being rejected, assuming he actually was rejected.

- Actually wanted to bring .NET to Linux despite the fact that very few developers saw real value in it. Notice how few big projects outside of his umbrella actually use Mono or even want to use Mono. Note also that the only Mono-using apps I've seen on Linux are aimed directly at GNOME, de Icaza's little "love child."

- I think a real red flag should have been raised when he started calling OOXML "superb" and blindly thinking it was being "FUD'd." I doubt he ever actually read the standard.

To me, CodePlex is just abother ploy on MS's part to try to control code. That's also why I think they were so unusually interested in proliferating Mono with de Icaza.

Yes, finally we get to see what a traitor de Icaza actually is. And I never trusted Mono from the start.

I don't see CodePlex getting much attention except from developers who happen to be Micropologists. That or incredibly gullible.

Not only that, but de Icaza could go work for Microsoft, his lifelong dream.

For me, three things have to happen before I buy Microsoft's pro-FOSS bullshit:

1. They gotta open something substantial (Windows? Officer? Internet Explorer?) under a license NOT of their making and NOT because they got busted violating said license (The GPL virtualization drivers they recently opened are an example of "getting busted," not that they were substantial in the first place).

2. They have to genuinely help an open source project directly without conditions such as having to use .NET or the like.

3. They have to MAINTAIN this course for at least five years, a decade being preferable.

Technically they did "open" .NET by making it an ECMA standard, however since the OOXML fasco showed ECMA to be in their pocket, and the fact that standardization does not magically indemnify everyone, AND the fact that legally Mono is only allowable under Novell FOSS projects I wouldn't really treat .NET as an open standard.

As for SQL Server, there's already a superior open source SQL implementation out there.

I'm not surprised. Every so-called "pro-open source" move in Microsoft can too easily be seen as a way to lull gullible fools into a false sense of security.

No, I just direct all of Microsofts "warm fuzzy" PR directed at the FOSS community with a sizable boulder of salt. I saw no sign that Ramji was anything but a pretender int he first place. If Microsoft were truly pro open source, they wouldn't FUD it so much.

Look, another Micropologist buying the "we like open source" bullshit used as a cover for Microsoft's EEE approach to FOSS!

Have you even READ the shared source licenses?

No kidding. To be rid of the two biggest proponents of the two worst extremes of software philosophy.

Paranoia? Sure. However, your implication that its uncalled for is off the mark. Microsoft's history is way too littered with bad acts for me to trust them now just because they make warm fuzzy PR stunts. Perhaps you're just being a troll, but I'll bite

I'm not anarcho-communist. And I am *not* an FSF supporter. And I'm far from being a Stallmanist, too. In fact, I really despise the man. I use Linux because it is superior, not purely because it is FOSS. I support FOSS because my experience thus far is a higher quality, if at the sacrifice for quality.

I'm Linux camp, not GNU camp. It's "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux." Are you done trolling?

Why are we even surprised Microsoft is only half-assing their GPL'd virtualization drivers for Linux?

After all, the ONLY reason we got them opened in the first place was someone busted them for violating the GPL in the first place, and they were never interested in releasing real FOSS anything in the first place. How they got the OSI approval for one of their licenses is a mystery to me. I would have rejected it outright simply on grounds of principle. Here we have a company that has internally and publicly declared FOSS its enemy, after all.

Thus, I don't feel warm fuzzies when Microsoft does stuff like release GPL drivers, establish an "open" source license, supports projects like Mono or Moonlight, or opens sites like CodePlex. Their history is enough, in fact, for me to stand back and look for the ulterior motive and wonder when Microsoft is going to pull the rug out from under and screw those gullible folks who actually think Microsoft turned over a new leaf purely for the reasons stated above. I'm too familiar with their history for me to think they've actually changed, especially when their faux-friendly behavior towards FOSS doesn't look like a change from any other case of EEE or "partner and screw," two of Microsoft's favorite tactics.

Ha ha! If I hadn't replied to this article and I had mod points, you'd get modded up by me.

Indeed, it is hard to find alternatives to Exhanche/AD, and even harder to convince PHBs to use them.