Miguel de Icaza, Microsoft MVP

[Samuel Thurston, III]

Oops.  Darn tricky reply button.

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Samuel Thurston, III
<sam.thurston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Conrad I've snipped a lot of your citations out because I really don't
> disagree with a lot of your points, I just don't think that it paints
> the same picture for me that you see.  I earnestly hope in doing so I
> haven't destroyed any critical context.
>
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Conrad Knauer <atheoi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Samuel Thurston, III
>> <sam.thurston at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> Some of the things he started have turned out nicely, but he has
>>>> always had an... exceptional fondness for Microsoft, shall we say;
>>>> things went really bad though when Novell signed their patent deal
>>>> with Microsoft.
>>>
>>> That doesn't really answer my question.  Are you eschewing gnome
>>> because it has UI features which are most definitely covered by
>>> microsoft patents and was developed by a known MS apologist?
>>
>
>> Microsoft basically tries to patent everything
>> and anything
>> With any luck a good number of them will be invalidated soon based on
>> court rulings.
>> And do remember that Europe for example does not have software patents...
>
> Not disagreeing with you, how is this relevant? I mean, are patent
> protections part of what you fear about Mono or aren't they?
>
>>
>> Gnome is a group effort; that he was involved in its foundation does
>> not mean he's running the show now (and my impression has been that
>> he's considered something of a 'black sheep' in the Gnome community
>> these days)
>
> I don't assert that he's running the show now, I only say that he has
> clearly made significant contribution to the community outside of
> mono.
>
>> What I personally object to the most is that Mono is basically a
>> Microsoft project being hosted at Novell and that it's slowly becoming
>> rooted in Linux distros such that the longer it's allowed to be part
>> of the default install the harder it will be to remove if and when we
>> need to.  I simply do not trust Microsoft to let this do others good.
>
>> It is part of the Microsoft mindset to be monopoly-oriented (consider
>> that's what patents literally are).  Mono is a Microsoft step-child
>> and Microsoft is ultimately in charge of it.
>
> Publicly traded US companies are obligated by securities law to
> maximize shareholder value.  It's gotta be a tough balancing act.
>
>>
>>>>> You don't have to be careful.  The closed drivers work fine regardless
>>>>> of how you feel about them from an ideological standpoint. This has
>>>>> nothing to do with hardware optimization and only to do with ideology.
>>>>
>>>> Not necessarily true and I have a good example of why:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810#nVidia%20%22legacy%22%20video%20support
>>>>
>>>> "The 71 and 96 series of proprietary nVidia drivers, as provided by
>>>> the nvidia-glx-legacy and nvidia-glx packages in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, are
>>>> not compatible with the X.Org included in Ubuntu 8.10. Users with the
>>>> nVidia TNT, TNT2, TNT Ultra, GeForce, GeForce2, GeForce3, and GeForce4
>>>> chipsets are affected and will be transitioned on upgrade to the free
>>>> nv driver instead. This driver does not support 3D acceleration."
>>>
>>> excellent work pulling out a two-year old bug to prove a point about
>>> how things aren't improving.
>>
>> ???  I just showed you how proprietary software can end up becoming
>> useless; it literally then is a choice between proprietary or
>> innovation.  If you don't run proprietary drivers in Ubuntu you will
>> have smooth sailing.
>
> This is where I'm confused.  I understand that proprietary software
> can become useless, but we're not talking about propietary software.
> mono runtime and the mono c# complier are LGPL and GPL licensed
> respectively.
>
> Remember when I brought up Java? Your answer to that was that it's GPL
> now.  Where is the fundamental difference between this and mono?  is
> it simply that Microsoft is involved and Microsoft is not to be
> trusted?
>
>> I don't use GIMP enough to comment thoughtfully on this; what
>> specifically is the problem?  The UI?  How does something like
>> GIMPshop feel?
>
> It's not only the UI.  it's also the stuff under the hood.
>
>> Another area has been video editing...  But it seems that suddenly
>> there's been a LOT of activity on that front; Pitivi is going into
>> Lucid and I've heard all sorts of buzz around Lives and Openshot and
>> there's even going to be a VLC-based one called Vlmc soon.
>
> I haven't used Lives or Openshot but from experience, Pitivi is
> neither powerful enough to be comparable to professional packages, nor
> easy enough to use to be compared favorably to the hobbyist stuff.
> Worst of both worlds.
>
> In any case I'm not saying the gimp or video stuff won't "get there,"
> but "there" is a benchmark set by proprietary software.  Without it we
> might have settled for 'good enough' long ago.
>
>>
>> Back in 2006 Robert Scoble said that *fonts* (of all things!) were
>> what was holding Linux back:
>> http://scobleizer.com/2006/08/17/linux-achilles-heel-fonts/
>>
>> There's always going to be *something* the matter with an OS, but at
>> what point do you think Ubuntu is 'good enough' for general use?  At
>> what point does simple userbase size cause a tipping point towards
>> work on the substandard components?
>>
>
> I think Ubuntu is good enough for general use.. I use it *almost*
> exclusively.  But here's part of the problem with the community
> model... the userbase size doesn't ever cause that tipping point.  The
> tipping point is reached only when the right developer fires up his or
> her text editor.
>
>>
>> Nvidia is using the same excuses ATI did before they got bought by
>> AMD; even if they can't/won't open their drivers, they can certainly
>> release their specs so that drivers can be written without
>> reverse-engineering (e.g. nouveau).
>
> I don't know what sort of confidentiality agreements they may be
> involved in, do you?  Whether or not those agreements are a wise
> choice is up for debate I suppose.
>
>>
>> When I used Windows, I didn't really care about licensing issues, but
>> upon entering the realm of Linux I noticed how important it is.  First
>> learning that Ubuntu is fully redistributable is definitely a "WOW"
>> moment; avoiding proprietary software lets us escape the 'do not make
>> illegal copies of this disk' threats that we find in the Windows
>> world.
>
> I guess if you're new to the notion it can seem pretty exciting.  Some
> of us have been around the fully-re-distributable stuff since
> slackware in the early '90s. Its a question of balance.   I do care
> about licensing issues, they're just not the overriding factor in my
> decision making.
>
>> But regardless, this is a bit besides the point of the actual
>> difficulty proprietary software imposes; the other day I helped a
>> fellow whose XP computer got TRASHED by malware.  For some reason the
>> recovery disk didn't reinstall certain drivers...
>>
>
> You're not going to catch me arguing that reinstalling XP is a treat. :)
>
>>
>> The answer is to vote with your wallet and not buy hardware that
>> requires proprietary drivers ;)
>
> I understand why that's _your_ answer.  I have a binary driver that
> works well for the nVidia card I have now, and I don't expect that
> nVidia is going to go belly up before I tire of this card and get a
> new one.  Even if they do, the open drivers (however imperfect) are
> working their way into the mainstream and will only continue to
> improve over time.  I vote with my wallet to buy the best product for
> my purposes.  If it's proprietary, that's a point against it, but it's
> not the whole equation.  This is why I think your position is
> ideological... because proprietary does not mean "not open" and a
> hardware product's position on the openness continuum isn't the only
> factor in its selection.
>
>>
>>> I think there's a pretty vast
>>> gulf between accepting libmono and buying windows 7 preloaded,
>>> wouldn't you agree?
>>
>> Oh yes, certainly.  But I think we can still do a little better than that ;)
>
> Better than what? I mean look, I understand dislike and or distrust of
> Microsoft, including (especially?) their products.  But I don't want
> to live in a world where FOSS is the only choice any more than I want
> to live in a world where Microsoft is.
>