4 ms·

Miguel de Icaza's answer to "Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities?"

31 points by DrJokepu 17y ago

rbanffy 17y ago
I wish this had come earlier in the article: "Microsoft has new management, new employees that know open source, fresh new ideas, is becoming more open and is working actively on interoperability with third parties. They even launched the CodePlex Foundation" It would have spared me reading it. The only reason Microsoft wants to know open-source is to more effectively kill it. They have realized that just bad-mouthing it, calling it a virus, wouldn't do the trick. Now they use a far more sophisticated approach, precise wording (using "non-commercial" instead of "free" or "open-source") and passing a confusing message regarding patents (the "community promise" while announcing patent deals - whose terms are secret - with companies using Linux in their devices). No. They haven't changed. Not a bit.
- cageface 17y ago
  Exactly. I still can't understand why somebody as smart as Miguel doesn't get this. Any free software strategy that depends on the goodwill and good conduct of MS is doomed from the start.
  - drats 17y ago
    Miguel never ceases to amaze me on that front. Given he's not a stupid person I have reduced it down to a psychological explanation regarding his early days - getting denied after an MS interview and it turning into an obsession to prove his worth to them or something. But even that feels weak to me even if it is plausible. But weak is better than nothing, because there seems to be no other reason to be so credulous about their good intentions.
    - viraptor 17y ago
      How about this then: MS does create some nice technologies (yes - .NET's design is quite nice compared to Java). Why not simply use them even if MS spreads some patent FUD. Not everyone believes in those claims and not everyone lives in US.
    - MichaelGG 17y ago
      So someone smart does something you don't understand, and you decide it must be a psychological problem?
      - drats 17y ago
        I said he wasn't stupid, I didn't say he was smart. I do think he is smart in the technical domain. I am not so sure about elsewhere. And "psychological problem" isn't what I said either, I just implied the explanation perhaps lay in his inability to get to Microsoft and then desiring their approval. Tons of people have long lost dreams that they romanticize. For example a lot of programmers, despite the horrific stories that come out of the games industry, still regret not going in that direction. You can see how someone who built up MS in their youth and didn't get there might also have such a longing and ignore the bad stories that come out. I hope I have clarified the not stupid/smart and the psychological explanation/problem differences between the wording of my post and yours for you.
        nkohari 17y ago
        Miguel de Icaza is the foremost expert in the CLR that doesn't work for Microsoft. If he wanted to work for Microsoft in any capacity, I would bet anything that they would roll out the red carpet for him. You're either projecting or you don't know what you're talking about.
        vetinari 17y ago
        He wanted to work for Microsoft, but they didn't employ him (to be fair, he was not US citizen and he didn't fulfil the H1-B requirements). After that, he started Gnome (complete with the CORBA-fiasco) and later Mono.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      > Given he's not a stupid person Your explanations assume good intentions. I wouldn't go as far.
    - uriel 17y ago
      The most intelligent persons are often the best at fooling and deluding themselves. Once a path has been taken, it is very hard for an intelligent person to admit it might have been a mistake, it is too easy to rationalize and justify why you are right than to admit you might have been wrong.
  - tzs 17y ago
    So how do you explain Jim Jagielski joining the board of the CodePlex foundation? Does he also not get it? There comes a point, when you see many smart people doing something that you think is a mistake, that it is time to ask if maybe they know something you don't.
    - jgrant27 17y ago
      > There comes a point, when you see many smart people doing something that you think is a mistake ... This is when you ask : How much are they being paid ?
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      Are you saying that we should be doing the same thing as the people we think are "smart" without knowing why they are doing these things? Is that what a smart person does? Or are you asking us to accept that we're the dumb masses?
    - cageface 17y ago
      What is it then? If Miguel is so prescient why is he now disappointed at the course MS has taken with .NET over the last 10 years, particularly when so many supposedly less intelligent people predicted this at the very beginning of the Mono project?
  - gte910h 17y ago
    I'm not honestly sure they have the wherewithal to do so anymore. They're not exactly in their acendency at the moment. More and more people are buying macs, linux servers are often just the assumed technology (they had to release a cloud competitor, Azure, to even stand a chance), I mean, they may be doing this OSS push because they think they have to.
  - viraptor 17y ago
    Is that really the case? I'm not saying they're not trying to kill some popular open-source projects, but I've also seen a lot of cases where they did publish some good research cases out of goodwill. Notable examples include (just stuff I already knew about - I'm sure there's lots more in areas I'm not interested in): - all work by http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/simonpj/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/simonpj/ - Haskell ThreadScope: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/threadscope/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/threadscope/ - Singularity, process isolation and language research: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/singularity/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/singularity/ - Hyper-V patches for the kernel (ok - they were ugly, etc. - but they were submitted in a working state, so they tried at least) I really wouldn't be surprised if a lot of bad moves coming from MS were just caused by the legal department not understanding the FOSS issues and writing a new license that is "good enough" for them, then forcing the developers to use it (why would a developer be allowed to question their licensing decision?). There are loads of other projects and papers published by MS which are of a great value to the FOSS community - sometimes they just carry a stupid license. That can be solved by reading the documentation and writing a clean-room implementation where needed. I definitely disagree that any free software strategy connected to MS is doomed.
    - cageface 17y ago
      It's one thing to recognize that MS may have made a few genuine contributions to free software. It's QUITE another to build the entire free software desktop and server stack on a technology that MS sees as the core of its business, as Miguel has been advocating for years. The fact that he's disappointed that MS hasn't allowed the free implementations of .NET to compete on an even footing just shows how naive he is.
      - viraptor 17y ago
        I'm not sure what options you leave him. When he is disappointed, he's wrong. If he wasn't disappointed, it would be even worse. Why not accept what's happening and hope for a change in the future? If MS starts executing their patent rights, apparently the whole Linux is illegal in US (they said so!). Operating systems are also the core of MS business. According to what you say, we're also naïve to use Linux. Is that right?
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    The overall position of Icazas over the years makes me even less willing to trust Mono. When someone says "I can't imagine any problems at all with Microsoft", I look for nearest exit. C# is interesting technology but I refuse to use it.
    - nkohari 17y ago
      Please show me where de Icaza has said that phrase. It's certainly not in this article, and yet you reference it as if you're quoting him.
      - joe_the_user 17y ago
        Sorry if you read it that way. I imagined that most people would read my quotes as a paraphrase, as describing the gist of what Icaza said.
wendroid 17y ago
> I still believe that Microsoft lost a great opportunity of having .NET become the universal runtime of the net Phew, I'm sure glad we dodged that bullet. Imagine that !

31 points by DrJokepu 17y ago

I wish this had come earlier in the article: "Microsoft has new management, new employees that know open source, fresh new ideas, is becoming more open and is working actively on interoperability with third parties. They even launched the CodePlex Foundation" It would have spared me reading it. The only reason Microsoft wants to know open-source is to more effectively kill it. They have realized that just bad-mouthing it, calling it a virus, wouldn't do the trick. Now they use a far more sophisticated approach, precise wording (using "non-commercial" instead of "free" or "open-source") and passing a confusing message regarding patents (the "community promise" while announcing patent deals - whose terms are secret - with companies using Linux in their devices). No. They haven't changed. Not a bit.

cageface 17y ago
Exactly. I still can't understand why somebody as smart as Miguel doesn't get this. Any free software strategy that depends on the goodwill and good conduct of MS is doomed from the start.
- drats 17y ago
  Miguel never ceases to amaze me on that front. Given he's not a stupid person I have reduced it down to a psychological explanation regarding his early days - getting denied after an MS interview and it turning into an obsession to prove his worth to them or something. But even that feels weak to me even if it is plausible. But weak is better than nothing, because there seems to be no other reason to be so credulous about their good intentions.
  - viraptor 17y ago
    How about this then: MS does create some nice technologies (yes - .NET's design is quite nice compared to Java). Why not simply use them even if MS spreads some patent FUD. Not everyone believes in those claims and not everyone lives in US.
  - MichaelGG 17y ago
    So someone smart does something you don't understand, and you decide it must be a psychological problem?
    - drats 17y ago
      I said he wasn't stupid, I didn't say he was smart. I do think he is smart in the technical domain. I am not so sure about elsewhere. And "psychological problem" isn't what I said either, I just implied the explanation perhaps lay in his inability to get to Microsoft and then desiring their approval. Tons of people have long lost dreams that they romanticize. For example a lot of programmers, despite the horrific stories that come out of the games industry, still regret not going in that direction. You can see how someone who built up MS in their youth and didn't get there might also have such a longing and ignore the bad stories that come out. I hope I have clarified the not stupid/smart and the psychological explanation/problem differences between the wording of my post and yours for you.
      - nkohari 17y ago
        Miguel de Icaza is the foremost expert in the CLR that doesn't work for Microsoft. If he wanted to work for Microsoft in any capacity, I would bet anything that they would roll out the red carpet for him. You're either projecting or you don't know what you're talking about.
        vetinari 17y ago
        He wanted to work for Microsoft, but they didn't employ him (to be fair, he was not US citizen and he didn't fulfil the H1-B requirements). After that, he started Gnome (complete with the CORBA-fiasco) and later Mono.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    > Given he's not a stupid person Your explanations assume good intentions. I wouldn't go as far.
  - uriel 17y ago
    The most intelligent persons are often the best at fooling and deluding themselves. Once a path has been taken, it is very hard for an intelligent person to admit it might have been a mistake, it is too easy to rationalize and justify why you are right than to admit you might have been wrong.
- tzs 17y ago
  So how do you explain Jim Jagielski joining the board of the CodePlex foundation? Does he also not get it? There comes a point, when you see many smart people doing something that you think is a mistake, that it is time to ask if maybe they know something you don't.
  - jgrant27 17y ago
    > There comes a point, when you see many smart people doing something that you think is a mistake ... This is when you ask : How much are they being paid ?
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    Are you saying that we should be doing the same thing as the people we think are "smart" without knowing why they are doing these things? Is that what a smart person does? Or are you asking us to accept that we're the dumb masses?
  - cageface 17y ago
    What is it then? If Miguel is so prescient why is he now disappointed at the course MS has taken with .NET over the last 10 years, particularly when so many supposedly less intelligent people predicted this at the very beginning of the Mono project?
- gte910h 17y ago
  I'm not honestly sure they have the wherewithal to do so anymore. They're not exactly in their acendency at the moment. More and more people are buying macs, linux servers are often just the assumed technology (they had to release a cloud competitor, Azure, to even stand a chance), I mean, they may be doing this OSS push because they think they have to.
- viraptor 17y ago
  Is that really the case? I'm not saying they're not trying to kill some popular open-source projects, but I've also seen a lot of cases where they did publish some good research cases out of goodwill. Notable examples include (just stuff I already knew about - I'm sure there's lots more in areas I'm not interested in): - all work by http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/simonpj/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/simonpj/ - Haskell ThreadScope: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/threadscope/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/threadscope/ - Singularity, process isolation and language research: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/singularity/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/singularity/ - Hyper-V patches for the kernel (ok - they were ugly, etc. - but they were submitted in a working state, so they tried at least) I really wouldn't be surprised if a lot of bad moves coming from MS were just caused by the legal department not understanding the FOSS issues and writing a new license that is "good enough" for them, then forcing the developers to use it (why would a developer be allowed to question their licensing decision?). There are loads of other projects and papers published by MS which are of a great value to the FOSS community - sometimes they just carry a stupid license. That can be solved by reading the documentation and writing a clean-room implementation where needed. I definitely disagree that any free software strategy connected to MS is doomed.
  - cageface 17y ago
    It's one thing to recognize that MS may have made a few genuine contributions to free software. It's QUITE another to build the entire free software desktop and server stack on a technology that MS sees as the core of its business, as Miguel has been advocating for years. The fact that he's disappointed that MS hasn't allowed the free implementations of .NET to compete on an even footing just shows how naive he is.
    - viraptor 17y ago
      I'm not sure what options you leave him. When he is disappointed, he's wrong. If he wasn't disappointed, it would be even worse. Why not accept what's happening and hope for a change in the future? If MS starts executing their patent rights, apparently the whole Linux is illegal in US (they said so!). Operating systems are also the core of MS business. According to what you say, we're also naïve to use Linux. Is that right?
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  The overall position of Icazas over the years makes me even less willing to trust Mono. When someone says "I can't imagine any problems at all with Microsoft", I look for nearest exit. C# is interesting technology but I refuse to use it.
  - nkohari 17y ago
    Please show me where de Icaza has said that phrase. It's certainly not in this article, and yet you reference it as if you're quoting him.
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      Sorry if you read it that way. I imagined that most people would read my quotes as a paraphrase, as describing the gist of what Icaza said.

wendroid 17y ago

> I still believe that Microsoft lost a great opportunity of having .NET become the universal runtime of the net Phew, I'm sure glad we dodged that bullet. Imagine that !