Um, Excuse me...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dcparris Jun 14, 2007 5:58 PM EDT |
Quoting:Rather than isolating Linux, I believe we need to understand, as Apple did in 1997, that Linux exists in an ecosystem and must work with and interoperate within that ecosystem. But we're not the ones refusing to interoperate. We're the ones who bend over backwards to give people interoperability - in spite of Microsoft's threats (empty though they seem to be). We're the ones who reverse engineer, spend hours upon hours rewriting programs, drivers and codecs because some companies refuse to give us what we need to interoperate. And that's not to speak of certain companies that do everything in their power to keep you trapped in *their* implementations of standards and in *their* software, generally - at least in part by refusing to interoperate and allow others to interoperate. Your statement flies in the face of history. Regardless of my stance toward Microsoft, I consider your statement to be a direct slap in the face to the countless thousands of programmers who have worked so hard for interoperability. We made Linux work with Windows. We made our software read MS Office and other formats. Still, you say *we* need to interoperate? Please, Kevin, do share whatever it is you've been smoking. I gotta try some of that. |
| kozmcrae Jun 14, 2007 6:43 PM EDT |
>Please, Kevin, do share whatever it is you've been smoking. I gotta try some of that. It's the 'Greed Weed' and it kills the brain cells that harbor community spirit, sharing, team work and last but most important, conscience. Don't ever try it Don you're much too important to us. |
| ottawalonndon Jun 14, 2007 10:19 PM EDT |
Quoting:Your statement flies in the face of history. Regardless of my stance toward Microsoft, I consider your statement to be a direct slap in the face to the countless thousands of programmers who have worked so hard for interoperability. We made Linux work with Windows. We made our software read MS Office and other formats.Ay, Capitol ponderings now indeed......... Let us now allow market forces to simply bury Linspire for their dastardly cowardice and current CEO, Mr. Kevin Carmony's, downright conniving spin (oh yes, it is CONNIVING now!). Others will say "Go b*y well right ahead, you Linspire, with your "patent deal" claptrap and be gone with you already! Who else besides maybe Ubuntu really needs your CNR-specialty now anyway?!!!" |
| lcafiero Jun 14, 2007 10:28 PM EDT |
Don -- Right on -- the Linspire statement is a huge insult to those who make GNU/Linux work with Winblows, let alone to all those who make GNU/Linux work, period. After reading what Kevin Carmony (or what one of his PR hacks) wrote, and I keep thinking one of two things: a.) The amount of money Microsoft dangled in front of him must have caused him to write an incredibly drivelous piece masquerading what he feels is "rationale," or b.) He has lost his mind. A better Linux? Give me a freaking break. Ask yourself this: When has Microsoft given the computing public a better ANYTHING? Linspire accepted Microsoft's 30 pieces of silver, and like Xandros, should be considered another Judas in our midst. |
| tracyanne Jun 15, 2007 12:26 AM EDT |
My reply to Kevin Carmony on Linspire Forums, where I have an account Kevin, What a load of self serving rubbish. First Linux won't benefit from this agreement in any way shape or form. Linspire might, provided Microsoft doesn't destroy your company, as they have so many other companies in the past, or the exclusionary patent protection they and you are offering doesn't fall foul of the GLP3 final, but Linux as a community, as a collection of Free and Open software, won't. If Microsoft were truely serious about connectivity, they need only use the same open standards as the Linux developers use, or provide their standards with a free license for anyone to use. This deal, while it may well, from your point of view, be about connectivity, it most definitely is not from Microsoft's. Instead it's about revenue streams and more importantly control. Control of their proprietary standards, not for the good of their customers or yours, Control of their proprietary standards not for the good of Linux or to make a better Linux, or even to make a better Linspire. Control for the benefit of Microsoft and their cash cows Windows OS and Microsoft Office and their "Open" XML document format. In your smarmy self serving open letter, you have managed to insult every Free and Open Source developer that has spent any time at all trying to make Linux better. You have insulted every FOSS developer who has contributed hours to trying to make Linux and Microsoft Windows connect - who has had to reverse engineer every road block Microsoft has placed in their way. The problem has never ever been the Linux developers or the Linux community shunning Microsoft. At every turn Linux developers have attempted to reach out to Microsoft, to gain the necessary information needed to make interoperability possible, and it has always been Microsoft who have shunned us. Indeed even when via reverse engineering a Microsoft connectivity protocol is finally understood, rather than work with the FOSS developers, Microsoft has made changes so that Linux will no longer connect properly to Windows. There is one thing we can be certain of the agreement you have signed with Microsoft has nothing to do with making GNU/Linux better. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 15, 2007 2:59 AM EDT |
Nice reply tracyanne. I wonder if Kevin reacts. |
| hchaudh1 Jun 15, 2007 6:39 AM EDT |
@tracyanne I would like to watch that thread. Link please... |
| Abe Jun 15, 2007 6:40 AM EDT |
Quoting:......Still, you say *we* need to interoperate? Please, Kevin, do share whatever it is you've been smoking. I gotta try some of that. Don! Is that really you?!!! I am shocked and pleasantly surprised! Welcome to my world (in style that is). |
| dcparris Jun 15, 2007 6:45 AM EDT |
Abe, I try to be somewhat objective, but I don't hide my biases - never have. I also try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you missed the Steven Titch debate last year, but I ain't afraid to call anyone when I really see the need. |
| tuxchick Jun 15, 2007 10:49 AM EDT |
Yeah, you should have smoked that Titch troll on the grill instead of the pig. |
| dcparris Jun 15, 2007 12:38 PM EDT |
I'll go along with that, TC! :-) |
| tracyanne Jun 15, 2007 1:54 PM EDT |
http://forum.freespire.org/showthread.php?p=64722#post64722 I doubt that Kevin will reply to me, He's above the likes of people like me. |
| jdixon Jun 15, 2007 2:01 PM EDT |
> He's above the likes of people like me. Well, he thinks he is, at any rate. I hope it won't hurt his feelings too much if we disagree. |
| tracyanne Jun 15, 2007 2:34 PM EDT |
In fact I've never actually seen him interact on the forums, even in response to the thread that his "letters" are posted on. He's a very important man, you know. After all, it seems, he was the one initiated the contact with Microsoft, not the other way around. I thing the CNR is his trading piece. In the end I think Microsoft may get a really good piece if Linux (not FOSS) technology rather cheaply, and anothe Linux distributor will eventually find themselves locked in to Redmond, and like so many of Microsoft's "partners" in the past, be slowly sidelined. My thinking is that Microsoft will try to lock in all of the commercial American Linux vendors - that probably includes Ubuntu, before GPL3. One way or another they will either end up with a bunch of Linux vendors locked in to Microsoft, through connectivity deals, who they can eventually discard, by developing some new protocol, or some other unimagined means of side lining them. One thing I'm certain of, is there is far more value to Microsoft, in the immediate future - FUD, refutation of anti competition claims, proprietary technologies these Linux vendors are using. In the long haul, the ability to control those Linux vendors through the connectivity agreements, and the patent covenents, possible fall out from the GPL3 making those companies either more dependant on Microsoft, or breaking those companies. I think Microsoft sees this as a win win for them. One thing these agreements will not do is pull Microsoft into the Open fold - causing Microsoft to open up it's technologies.Rather it will enable Microsoft to continue with closed technologies for longer, and enable them to continue business as normal. Microsoft will rape those commercial Linuxes, mining them, where it can (the small ones are especially in danger of this), for useful technologies and ideas. On the other hand this is not necessarily bad for Linux, I see it as being neutral where Linux and FOSS is concerned - none of the dangers have gone away, but i don't see any new ones. It will be bad for those companies, in the long run, in the short term they may even do rather well, but given Microsoft's history, I can't see anything but them being slowly destroyed, as happened with too many small companies Microsoft got too pally with. Novell may well continue doing fine, Linux is not a major part of their business, so any fallout from GPL3, assuming there is any, won't particularly hurt Novell, inconvenience yes, hurt no. And I think in the long term, they a re a little too big for Microsoft to hurt in the way they can the smaller Linux vendors. The Linux vendors i see getting involved with Microsoft are those who want the American desktop market, which are all the US and Canadian based commercial Linux vendors and Cannonical, but not Red Hat. |
| jdixon Jun 15, 2007 3:18 PM EDT |
> Microsoft will rape those commercial Linuxes, mining them, where it can (the small ones are especially in danger of this), for useful technologies and ideas. Well, one could argue that Microsoft has changed then. At least they're offering something in return for those technologies and ideas. In the past they would simply have stolen them and been done with it. |
| dcparris Jun 15, 2007 5:13 PM EDT |
> I think Microsoft sees this as a win win for them. One thing these agreements will not do is pull Microsoft into the Open fold - causing Microsoft to open up it's technologies.Rather it will enable Microsoft to continue with closed technologies for longer, and enable them to continue business as normal. Microsoft will rape those commercial Linuxes, mining them, where it can (the small ones are especially in danger of this), for useful technologies and ideas. That ties in - sort of, anyway - with what I said previously on the fool's gold article - these companies could have refused to deal. That would have forced Microsoft's hand. I still doubt they would have sued. Well, o.k. They probably would have gone after some mid-sized company that can't afford to defend itself. That would have lined up quite a few folks right there. But I think, ultimately, they would have had to open up. And that may be exactly what they want from these deals - to stay closed up. |
| tracyanne Jun 15, 2007 7:26 PM EDT |
Quoting:Well, one could argue that Microsoft has changed then. At least they're offering something in return for those technologies and ideas. What Microsoft is offering these small Linux desktop vendors is very similar to what the Greeks offered the Trojans, a horse of sorts. |
| jdixon Jun 15, 2007 9:17 PM EDT |
> What Microsoft is offering these small Linux desktop vendors is very similar to what the Greeks offered the Trojans... I agree, and another type of Trojan comes to mind, but I don't think they see it that way. And that fact that Microsoft thinks they have to appear to offer anything at all is a significant change. Perhaps it's merely the more careful scrutiny they're under, but the Microsoft of the 1990 would simply have stolen any technologies they were interested in, the way they did with Stacker. |
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