Message from discussion Microsoft's Scott Guthrie Lies About/Twists "Cross-platform" to Hijack Web

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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel.de.ic...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microsoft's Scott Guthrie Lies About/Twists "Cross-platform" to 
	Hijack Web
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 08:07:38 -0800 (PST)
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>
> 1) ... What proportion of Mono uses Microsoft's patented technology,
> including that which is is part of the ECMA specifications?

Read our policy on patents (Microsoft or otherwise):

http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing

Which is not different than any other open source project.

> 2) ... To what degree do you trust ECMA and the RAND covenant to not
> sue, for the use of any Microsoft Intellectual Property?

See the above link.

> 3) ... To what degree do you Trust Microsoft, either in terms of their
> promises; their motivations; or their commitment to a competing platform
> like Linux?

This is a question that is suitable for Teen magazine or Cosmo.

Sadly there is no bumper-sticker answer, or I would gladly give you
that.
This is a multi-dimensional question, that requires all the nuances of
a
full blog post.  You might want to read my interviews, my blog and
my position as stated on Slashdot.

> 4) ... Do you foresee a point in the future where access to much of the
> Web might be impossible, or at least extraordinarily difficult, without
> the use of Silverlight, much like Microsoft tried to do with ActiveX and
> other proprietary; encumbered; and non-standard technology during the
> Netscape years?

Another question suitable for Teen magazine.

Replace "Silverlight" with Javascript in the above question.   Can you
browse
the web without Javascript?   You certainly can, but some sites do not
work
without it.

Or replace "Silverlight" with "Flash", you certainly can browse
youtube, but
you will not get much out of it without it.

People will adopt Silverlight when it solves a problem for them, and
each person
will have to evaluate whether Silverlight over another technology is
the right
match for the problem.

> 5) ... Do you further forsee the likelihood that the binary blobs, that
> you speak of, become a hard dependency in order to fully utilise the
> future Web, as it will be reborn in Microsoft's image, given the
> possibility that Microsoft may develop new proprietary and encumbered
> codecs, or enforce their Intellectual Property rights on Free
> implementations of existing codecs, such as those used in FFMPEG?

You are not required to use the binary blobs.   You can build
Moonlight yourself
and use the FFMPEG codecs.

Novell will not be redistributing the FFMPEG based code due to the
conflict that
the LGPL has with the patents owned by MPEGLA (to which we will become
licensors).

> 6) ... Therefore do you concede that it is possible, and indeed likely,
> that the future of the Web (and in other contexts - office documents and
> software development) might end up becoming utterly dependent of
> Microsoft's Intellectual Property, and thus effectively controlled (in
> essence "owned") by Microsoft, just as they have been striving to do for
> so long, and have currently succeeded in other areas, such as the OEM
> channel; games development; hardware support; and elsewhere?

You seem confused, and you seem to be asking questions and answering
those
yourself.

> 7) ... And finally, do you think it is prudent, or even morally right,
> for Free Software developers to essentially help Microsoft in their
> endeavours to dominate the Web; office formats; and software
> development, particularly as Microsoft has continuously expressed so
> much contempt and hatred for the principles of Free Software and Open
> Standards over the years?

I have blogged extensively about this question, you might want to read
my
blog on those subjects.  There are two dimensions to this problem, and
I have addressed both: a) Microsoft providing a tool that people
actually
want to use, with a feature range of things that are genuinely useful
while
nobody else is;   (b) whether its good for Linux to be a second class
citizen
on the web when you are unable to watch content.

Miguel