Re: Gnome to be based on .NET?

[Crispin Wellington <crispin iinet net au>]

On Tue, 2002-02-05 at 12:34, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> On Mon, 2002-02-04 at 22:52, Crispin Wellington wrote:
> > On Tue, 2002-02-05 at 02:10, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2002-02-04 at 04:52, Crispin Wellington wrote:
> > > > Theres a thread ATM on gnome-devel-list called "GNOME, .Net and Mono"
> > > > which you should read to get the deveopers position on this.
> > > > 
> > > > I think Miguel's getting free (as in price) and Free (as in freedom)
> > > > confused.
> > > 
> > > How is he doing that?  Neither Mono nor GNOME are, or are going to be,
> > > closed source.
> > 
> > open source != Free
> 
> Well, I can't agree there.  Any license that restricts my freedom is not
> Free, and that's how I look at it.  Sorry.  ^,^
> 
> > 
> > >  X11 license is just as (well, heck, more) free as the
> > > GPL/LGPL GNOME uses now.
> > 
> > I disagree emphatically.
> > 
> > MIT/X
> > -----
--snip--
> > -----
> > 
> > Where is the garuntee of Openness? I take your MIT/X licenced code,
> > modify it substantially, close it up and sell/sublicence it. No source
> > code. Your not allowed to see *my* changes.
> > 
> > Freedom to be enslaved is no freedom at all.
> 
> Yes.  Enslaved.  Mono will be released under the X11 license, Apple will
> make a proprietary version, and magically the Ximian version will be
> eradicated, and we all will stop having the choice to install the
> software we want on our GNU systems, and Apple will enslave us all.
> 
> This is of course just like how FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD are no longer
> used by anyone in the world, because Apple took BSD and make a
> commercial version of it.
> 
> (Note: yes, it's late, and I feel like being a smart-arse.)

Ah. But Apple did not embrace and extend. They don't consider BSD to be
a threat. Have no doubt that if Microsoft saw BSD as a threat to their
desktop dominance, they would have released msBSD, which would have been
BSD with a whole bunch of proprietary extensions. It could run BSD
stuff, but BSD users couldn't run msBSD stuff. Gradually they would kill
BSD by embracing it and then extending it with MS proprietry protocols,
api's etc.

I have no illusions that the only reason Linux has survived is becuase
it uses the GPL so heavily. Its all layed out in the infamous MS
Halloween document. Linux was their number one threat because they
couldn't kill it by embracing it and extending it. Well they could. They
could make 'Linux+' with extensions, but those extensions, being a
derivative work would fall under the GPL and thus they would have to
open them, and then the main Linux could integrate them. If linux was
under MIT/X licence, everyone would be using Microsoft Linux by now.

MS actually spells this out explicitly in the Halloween doc.

> 
> > MIT/X cant even be construed as more 'free' as in price.
> > 
> > >  *And*, adding Mono interfaces/wrappers to
> > > GNOME wont force GNOME to use another license.
> > 
> > True. But maybe well have Mono. And then we'll have IBM's Mono (which
> > doesn't come with source) and Sun's Mono...
> 
> And that hinders us how, exactly?  I mean, I thought Free also included
> the right to choose our software, right?  If IBM's Mono is better than
> the Open Mono, I would rather use that.

Q: hinders us how, exactly? A: Because you cant take IBM's Mono and
change it, reconfigure it and make it work the way you want. Thus you
are *less free*

> > > The only issue I see is getting Mono tied into GNOME - there are lots of
> > > apps and such in GNOME that are GPL only, which can't be linked to
> > > closed source implementations/enhancements of .Net based on Mono.  Geez,
> > > look at that, GNOME is hindering .Net in that case, not the other way
> > > around. ~,^
> > 
> > We have a philosphical imperative to hinder .Net :)
> 
> I *hate* it when that happens. ~,^

LOL :)

--snip--

> Also realize that there are two .Nets: the core technology, which is
> what Mono is, and then the core tech. plus the ten billion services
> Microsoft offers, which is was MS calls .Net.  I don't want to touch
> that second .Net (unless they have a particular service that is really
> killer), but I look forward to the .Net Mono is becomming: the VM,
> compiler, and development tools.

So essentially a whole independant .Net server infrastructure. I have a
feeling the passport/hailstorm/soap will be embrace and extend for any
Free .Net initiative. Like... "Oh. You want to send you data to that
X-box user. You'll need a passport account" Sort of thing.

> > Reading http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23715.html ... In fact
> > read it now if you haven't before. Sounds great hey! Security our
> > customers can trust. Wow I want a OS like that!
> 
> ^,^  I wasn't planning on running Mono on MS Windows, or MS .Net on
> Linux.  I'm using Mono on Linux, which won't suffer from MS's poor
> programming.  Just the usual poor programming the OPen Source world is
> used to... (*cough* sendmail, NIS, etc. *cough*)

Yes. Piles of Openness ;)

> > Now change one thing, and .Net becomes clear. When Bill says "customers"
> > he doesn't mean you and me. No. We are the product. The user of .Net is
> > the comodity he will sell. The "customer" is the media content owner.
> > .Nets customers are Time-Warner, Disney, Sony etc. When he says "a
> > product our customers can trust the security of" he means a system that
> > the content owners can deliver their copyrighted media to without fear
> > of copying.
> 
> Again, we will be using Mono, which is Open Source.  You can quite
> easily modify any such security precautions out.  And yes, a proprietary
> extension can be developed for media that isn't OPen Source.  But how,
> then, is that *any* worse than not having Mono at all?

But if they really do close out the ballgame from the CPU/HDD all the
way to the API, Opensource or not, you're stuck.

>  I'd rather have
> the choice to watch media thru a closed extension than not watch it at
> all.  Not having that option isn't going to make the media open; it's
> just going to make it impossible for users of Open operating systems to
> enjoy the media.

Id rather watch it through an open medium. I'd rather *own* a collection
of DVD's than have to pay per play.

Id rather see a bazzar like model of amateur media creation. If I make a
cheesy kung fu film with my friends, I wanna be able to share it with
the world without having a Passport account, or uploading to some 'movie
.Net service' where the people downloading need passport/money to view
my video. And if the Terms of Service for passport remain unchanged,
when I upload my film to .Net, Im not going to own the copyright anymore
anyway. 

Sure I could just upload it to a web server or something, but then all
those MS .Net users with their closed X-Box DRM machines (and there will
be a *lot* of them no doubt) might not be able to get them.

> And I'm not even going to try to dissect the rest of this message.  What
> any of it has to do with Mono being released under the X11 license I
> can't figure out.  ^,^  You do have some good philosiphical points tho,
> something I hadn't really thought of myself.

I wish I had your confidence that all was going to be alright. I know
things will always be OK as long as we have the GPL. Gnome, ATM is GPL.
So no-one, anywhere, ever can take that away from the *community*. I
wait with baited breath to see this .Net/Mono crazyness unfold.

--snip--

Crispin