The first fruit of the recently announced Novell/Microsoft interoperability agreement arrived on Dec. 4, with Novell's announcement that its version of the OpenOffice productivity suite will now support the Microsoft Office Open XML format. The release candidate of Novell's modified version of OpenOffice.org 2.02 is now available for Windows for free download by registered Novell users.
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Member since:2006-04-21
Member since:2005-07-24
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>>WTF do you call Mono, then?
> "a project by a renegade OSS developer or Microsoft mole with which an increasing amount of bona fide OSS developers are increasingly unhappy with".
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Well...
Miguel is, indeed, a bit of a renegade. He's always did have a fancy for MS technologies.
"Unhappy with" is probably accurate but not precise. "Uncomfortable" would probably be a good word.
We all borrow from each other. It's stupid not to. If Entity A has a good idea and implements it, Entity B would be silly not to consider using it if the idea is a good one.
(Let's forget the whole "We innovate and you don't" argument. 95% of what the greatest innovators do is copying from others and adding that 5% of innovation in the form of putting the copied stuff together in a novel way.)
To disregard technologies out of hand is as paralyzing as a bad patent; Both forbid Entity B from acting freely.
Unfortunately, in the Real World, we have to be concerned about the (legal) actions of the original IP holder. (I use that phrase as it is used in the real world.)
MS could sue the Linux OS vendors for for patent infringement or whatever. They wouldn't. But you can sue anyone for anything. You might not win. But if you have a remotely plausible case, and enough money, you can do it and make the public drama endure for quite a long time.
Best not to hand a remotely plausible case over, on a silver platter as it were, if an alternative is available. And we have at least one, in the form of a trio:
'C'
Java
Python
in descending order of speed, and in ascending order of development speed and ease of development.
We could actually live with just C and Python. But the Java trade-off would fill a badly needed niche.
I don't advocate dumping Beagle, F-Spot, or other Mono-based apps if they are currently superior to the competition.
But I would as soon see us not depend upon Mono for new projects. And I would be in favor of a bias against Mono-based apps when the contest is a close one.
Member since:2006-01-06
"a project by a renegade OSS developer or Microsoft mole with which an increasing amount of bona fide OSS developers are increasingly unhappy with".
LMAO! I see. So Miguel's a "renegade OSS developer" or a "Microsoft mole". Nice attempt at backtracking. A couple of posts ago, here's what you wrote:
OSS fundies don't "co-opt" or "steal" anything, let alone "call it something else"
Clearly, you were wrong when you posted that comment. And now you want to justify your mistake by labeling others as "renegades" and "unhappy developers".
My humble advice: Let go of your blinding hatred of anything which isn't OSS. You may actually win an argument or two.
Member since:
2006-01-06
Erm, I think you are confusing us with Microsoft. OSS fundies don't "co-opt" or "steal" anything, let alone "call it something else"; the utter failure of the SCO suit so far has proved that, and the case hasn't even gone to trial yet.
WTF do you call Mono, then?