

Miguel de Icaza: The Right Spirit - nnutter
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Apr-03.html

======
kprobst
This seems to be directed at the gaggle of ideological extremists that have
hounded and insulted de Icaza for years because he dared suggest that
Microsoft had a pretty good idea with .NET and C#. Sadly though, it's
precisely those people who will pay the least attention to this.

~~~
hga
Perhaps, but it doesn't address my two big issues:

1) I fully accept that .NET/C#/most especially the CLR are great ideas. Which
I care not a whit about because Microsoft's ownership of them makes them
things I cannot trust. For me the technical line of demarcation was in fact
the orphaning of VB6, see Joel for more on this. Legally, at about the same
time, see #2:

2) When he says " _For open source to win, we do not need Microsoft, Apple or
proprietary software to lose._ " he's leaving open a terrible logical hole,
since it is not at all clear that the reverse is true.

Maybe Microsoft can't win without open source losing. Microsoft's war to the
knife against Linux, by proxy (e.g. SCO) and otherwise, argues that _it_
doesn't see the world in the way de Icaza implies.

~~~
mkramlich
My own take on C#/.NET, and I bet a lot of others had this take as well, came
down to 2 elements:

1\. when it appeared, it looked a lot like somebody within Microsoft said to
some other guys, "Hey, go make us a Java. Like Java, but our baby." And they
basically approached it by cloning it and then making several superficial
tweaks and changes -- JUST enough, especially at a superficial level, so they
could say with a straight face to people who were none to observant that this
indeed was the product of internal R&D -- true innovation -- rather than being
what it actually was. In short, it looked awfully like a student who turned in
a paper which was a pretty blatant copy of another student's paper, except
with some superficial textual changes made to make it look different and
original. I know that both languages have drifted and evolved since C#'s
debut, but I remember looking at programs written in the current dialects of
Java and C# at C#'s debut and it was hilarious just how much it looked like
the C# version was just a functional/semantic clone of Java, only with
arbitrary syntax differences (keywords, case, etc.) Life is complex and
they've both evolved since then, but there's no doubt in mind that C# started
life with a "clone Java, change it's name/keywords" design strategy.

2\. Microsoft's whole business model appears, to me anyway, and to other
folks, as being basically about just copying what other folks are doing,
putting their logo on it, offering it up for sale, and then once people are
using it, to design features and systems in such a way as to create lock-in.
Lure them in, then close the door. Or least, slowly start closing that door,
so slowly and with enough distraction that the unwitting victim is not smart
enough or quick enough to see it.

~~~
torial
Regarding your #1 element: When I was coding w/ .Net PDC (e.g. pre- 1st beta)
I would use the java reference docs to get some idea as to what to do because
MS didn't have any real documentation for .Net at that time.

Regarding your #2 element: A perfect example of this is their attempt to take
Adobe on with Silverlight (e.g. vs Flash), and also with XPS (e.g. vs
PDF/Acrobat).

I'd be curious as to what you (or anyone else) see WPF as copying from as an
example for that does not readily come to mind.

~~~
mkramlich
1\. funny! but doesn't surprise me :)

2\. I like how even the name Silverlight pretty much tells you it's their
Flash knock-off: silver + light = bright light or lightning = flash. It's like
they're thumbing their nose and saying " _neener-neener!_ " to Adobe.

Quick Wikipedia read on WPF made me think of similarities to Flash and Apple
stacks. But there can be non-malevolent explanations for this, and I don't
know a lot about WPF (since I now try to keep my brain non-Microsoft, for
efficiency's sake), so take with grain of salt.

------
nnutter
Subtley different than Torvalds (pragmatism) vs. Stallman (idealism) in that I
think the main point is about how people react to others' with different
opinions. Should I hate a friend because he disagrees with my ideals?
Certainly not. Yet people act as though anyone with a differing opinion is
their enemy.

~~~
failquicker
I couldn't agree more.

"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in
philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. " - Thomas Jefferson

Unfortunately, the Us vs. THEM mentality seems to be propagating more and more
these days. "Divide and Conquer" isn't just a military strategy. It's a highly
successful way for keeping a population from moving forward in many ways. I
live in the DC metro area and have seen a "Democrats need not apply" sign up
in a store front. I think it was meant to be humorous, but it's still fairly
screwed up.

"Disliking or hating something conditions you to (1) ignore virtues in the
disliked, (2) dislike people, products, and actions associated with the
disliked, and (3) distort other facts to facilitate hatred.

Startups should focus on their customers, not their competition—whom they may
dislike." -This is #3 on VentureHacks cheat sheet of point from "The
Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment"

~~~
hga
Unless Jefferson wrote that after the denouncement of the French Revolution
and the appreciation of how it changed the game, I can't consider it to be
useful advice today.

E.g. to update a bit (to Marxism or Marxist/Leninism), Jefferson's potential
and actual friends didn't include ones who considered him to be a class enemy
with all that that implies.

Things like a sign that says "Democrats need not apply" are merely an
indication of the continuation of this eliminationist civil war in Western
society (well, more likely who it has been heating up in the last year and a
quarter; I never saw such in the 1991-2004 period when I lived there).

Anyway, I "dislike" people who want to put me and mine into concentration
camps, plus or minus (i.e. less and more severe examples of the same thing).
There are no virtues in such people that can cause me to "like" them.

------
faragon
The right spirit... for him. I do not share his view. I agree that it is not a
"zero-sum game", however, Microsoft identifies Open Source as the "enemy" (add
your favourite Ballmer's quote here).

I respect Miguel's opinion, but I will not follow his C#/Mono "vision", as I
prefer vanilla C, or in case of needing higher abstraction, use Lisp, Perl,
Python, or Bash.

~~~
jf
I have yet to find someone at Microsoft that views Open Source as "the enemy".

~~~
bootload
_"... I have yet to find someone at Microsoft that views Open Source as 'the
enemy'. ..."_

Maybe all the players have left MS now? But I remember Bill didn't like open
source ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists> James Allchin
wasn't that keen ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Allchin#Controversies>
neither was Paul Maritz ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Maritz> and Vinod
Valloppillil wrote the book ~ <http://www.vinod.com/blog/NavLinks/FAQ.html>
You can get a better view of these MS players reading through the Halloween
documents at <http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/> None of that matters much
as it once did. MS is spent as a force, at least in the eyes of developers.

There are bigger problems. [0]

[0] Eben Moglen, _"Interview: Eben Moglen - Freedom vs. The Cloud Log"_

[http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Eben-
Moglen-...](http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Eben-Moglen-
Freedom-vs-the-Cloud-Log-955421.html)

~~~
sid0
What does the open letter to hobbyists have to do with open source?

~~~
hga
Agreed, that was about theft pure and simple.

------
biehl
<i>For open source to win, we do not need Microsoft, Apple or proprietary
software to lose.</i>

Hrm. Actually we need Microsoft to lose. A lot of things. We need them to lose
the embrace, extend, extinguish attitude. We need them to lose the criminal
abuse of monopoly tendencies. And we need them to lose the creepy unspecified
claims of Linux infringing their software patents.

Alternatively if we dont actually believe Microsoft, the coorporation, will
change behavior - then we need them to lose the dominant position that they
abuse to hurt competitors and Free Software.

------
papachito
There's a difference between accepting MS software being ported to Mac or
Linux such as Office or... I think that's it and what he wants. But Miguel
wants big parts of the linux desktop to be built on .Net and C# some parts of
which are patented. Why take that risk when we already have gtk/C etc and Qt?
Even Steve Jobs wouldn't drop Cocoa and build the whole OSX on top of C#, and
he'd be right not to do so.

------
lucyfor
Seems like he's trying to rationalize the position that he has had for the
last 10+ years. One can imagine that those M$ contracts are brutal, I hope the
cash was worth it for his sake.

~~~
Locke1689
God, what an ignorant statement. This is the kind of reasoning I would expect
on Reddit but not Hacker News. Agree or disagree, but please base your
argument on the article and not just some ad hominem attack on the person.

Note: This also applies to anyone who uses the term "M$".

~~~
lucyfor
When someone fronts their own PRIVATE struggles(by attempting to rationalize
the way that they earn a living) as PUBLIC philosophy regarding open-source
then counter observations will be made. Nothing unusual really.

Once you graduate from your insulated world in academia and spend some time in
industry you will realize just how "ignorant" the previous comment is. Profit
determines many decisions. The quicker you learn this the better. Or just stay
in Academia forever.

Welcome to the desert of the real ...

~~~
tbrownaw
On the off chance that you're serious and not just intentionally trolling...

I think you forget that he is employed by Novell, rather than Microsoft.

This article is consistent with statements I've seen in the past, and past
actions. It doesn't look like a philosophy made up after the fact to
rationalize actions, it looks like an existing philosophy that drove those
actions. Do you have any actual, um, _evidence_ that this is a rationalization
rather than an explanation of a long-standing viewpoint?

Note that the quote comes from Steve Jobs, was he also trying to rationalize
how he made a living?

I feel about the same way as is expressed in the article despite it having
_no_ financial impact on me and not being relevant to any projects I have (ie,
there's nothing for me to rationalize about).

