I read this quote from Linus Torvalds a long time ago but I fully disagree with him. It wasn’t until setting up my blog where I could refute him. I have a lot of respect for Linus, but that doesn’t mean a little healthy criticism isn’t deserved. While nobody loves politics sometimes it is a necessity. I don’t find anything wrong with Microsoft submitting drivers to the Linux kernel. This just helps Linux by having support for it in Hyper-V. This is the part of free software where I don’t mind Microsoft contributing.
However I don’t want Microsoft in my User-land (User applications, frameworks and libraries). Such software like MONO (a free software implementation of c#). I would say this gives Microsoft nothing but a “foothold situation”. I don’t care if it allows crappy developers an easy way to port their code to Linux. I don’t want to see all the bullshit software I see on Windows to penetrate into Linux. I don’t want ad-ridden software infecting my OS. I don’t want to have to purchase anti virus software. I also don’t feel comfortable running programs by people who think of C++ as a barrier and that it’s “too hard”. Such programmers who think that way should just keep developing for Windows. I do know people who write C# that aren’t stupid, but they don’t use those reasons for embracing it (in fact they embrace it only for their job). MONO and C# are there for businesses to save money by not having to write quality software, giving them more time to market and sell. Why are system requirements going up so high in the Windows world? Well Vista’s was written in .NET that’s why. No wonder it’s slow in comparison to XP, with little improvement in the included applications and features.
I hope my prediction of the future is also false: I can see Novell (who owns gnome) putting a lot of effort converting everything over to C# because then they are the only ones legally protected to distribute MONO and Gnome at that point due to their agreements with Microsoft. This would put Novell in the position of being the only distro with Gnome. A lot of businesses have heavily invested in Novell and would be forced to buy SLED or get OpenSUSE (free) and it would kill off Fedora/Redhat (which is probably Novell and Microsoft’s goal). Microsoft’s shared promise sucks according to the Free Software Foundation and needs changes if we want to feel safe writing C# code.
I think we should start investing in resources to push the KDE desktop, QT or perhaps fork Gnome and put it into the hands of the community instead of Novell who can steer their development to their own ends.
“Oh, I’m a big believer in “technology over politics”. I don’t care who it comes from, as long as there are solid reasons for the code, and as long as we don’t have to worry about licensing etc issues.
In fact, to some degree, I’d be more likely to include it because it’s from a new member of the community rather than less (again, I’d like to point out that drivers are special. They don’t impact other things, so they get merged much more easily than some core changes).
I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other
people and companies out.There are ‘extremists’ in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.”
