- Joined
- Dec 6, 2015
I'm going to rate myself :autistic: in advance for this one, but I have an axe to grind...
Miguel de Icaza was already a personal lolcow of mine, but his continuing interactions with Wu could push him over in to global lolcow territory. For anyone who doesn't know who that is, he was one of the founders of the GNOME project, which builds the chief Linux desktop environment. For a good few years, Linux bobbled along as a hobbyist operating system, but then Microsoft had a good 5-7 year stretch of one fuck up after another around the turn of the century, and people began openly talking about Linux as a viable desktop alternative.
Enter Miguel, the useful idiot who decided to derail this momentum. Around that time, Microsoft released what was then called the .NET runtime environment and the C# language. Miguel decided this was the best thing since sliced bread, and set about creating an open source clone of it. Fair enough so far, except that he felt it was so awesome that the GNOME project should basically drop everything and rewrite the world in C# and, because he was still a big wheel in the Open Source world at the time, people actually listened to him. There was like this 3-4 year period after Gnome 2 released that everything ground to a halt while the whole project ran around chasing its tail over C# bindings and new C# applications duplicating already spent effort, all of which are now deader than A-line flairs with pockets in the knees. Any momentum Linux on the desktop had screeched to a halt and we had various internecine wars where people went off to build their own desktops with blackjack and hookers because Gnome wasn't making any progress, and what did change was for the worse.
Miguel then promptly defected to Mac OS X and was given a job at Microsoft in recognition of his services to preserving their desktop monopoly. Now he apparently considers Wu a friend, which tells you something about his judgement. He probably thinks she's a software engineer too.
I guess maybe blaming everything on Miguel is a bit much, since Gnome is now entering phase two of chasing its tail over a language that isn't C. Now all the world must be rewritten in javascript or some shit. Who the fuck cares any more.
Anyway, :autism: over. resume normal service.
Miguel de Icaza was already a personal lolcow of mine, but his continuing interactions with Wu could push him over in to global lolcow territory. For anyone who doesn't know who that is, he was one of the founders of the GNOME project, which builds the chief Linux desktop environment. For a good few years, Linux bobbled along as a hobbyist operating system, but then Microsoft had a good 5-7 year stretch of one fuck up after another around the turn of the century, and people began openly talking about Linux as a viable desktop alternative.
Enter Miguel, the useful idiot who decided to derail this momentum. Around that time, Microsoft released what was then called the .NET runtime environment and the C# language. Miguel decided this was the best thing since sliced bread, and set about creating an open source clone of it. Fair enough so far, except that he felt it was so awesome that the GNOME project should basically drop everything and rewrite the world in C# and, because he was still a big wheel in the Open Source world at the time, people actually listened to him. There was like this 3-4 year period after Gnome 2 released that everything ground to a halt while the whole project ran around chasing its tail over C# bindings and new C# applications duplicating already spent effort, all of which are now deader than A-line flairs with pockets in the knees. Any momentum Linux on the desktop had screeched to a halt and we had various internecine wars where people went off to build their own desktops with blackjack and hookers because Gnome wasn't making any progress, and what did change was for the worse.
Miguel then promptly defected to Mac OS X and was given a job at Microsoft in recognition of his services to preserving their desktop monopoly. Now he apparently considers Wu a friend, which tells you something about his judgement. He probably thinks she's a software engineer too.
I guess maybe blaming everything on Miguel is a bit much, since Gnome is now entering phase two of chasing its tail over a language that isn't C. Now all the world must be rewritten in javascript or some shit. Who the fuck cares any more.
Anyway, :autism: over. resume normal service.