The-Source.com

Now that there is some explanation out there, we can examine two interesting aspects to the Disappearing Article Mystery.

Be warned: this will be long and ranty.

Aspect the First: The Disappearance

The “disappearance” is explained by Mr. Worthington (the article author) on Twitter as so:

on my recent .net evolution stories – nothing was pulled. they were just merged into one. http://www.sdtimes.com/link/34183

Mr. Alan Zeichick, the editorial director of BZ Media explains it here on this blog in a comment as so:

My apologies — the story is not “taken down” from sdtimes.com, and there’s nothing nefarious going on.
The story had been erroneously posted in several small pieces. When we saw the error, we reassembled it on Mar. 23. The entire piece, including that complete section (about hallway down), is at http://www.sdtimes.com/link/34183

I don’t know the workings of a media empire. I only know when I tried to verify the quotes, they were not to be found in any article.

There’s some strange things to me about the SD Times article:

• It’s strange timing that the article “disappeared”, a lot of people noticed, and then it “re-appeared”.
• It’s strange the article dates are 7 days apart and the Mar. 17 article was “rolled back” into the Mar. 10 article.
• It’s strange that the “entire piece” is the longest thing by far Mr. Worthington has ever written for SD Times.[1]
• It’s strange that the whole “out of context” defense popped up – more on that in a bit.

But strange things do happen sometimes – so let’s move on.

Aspect the Second: The Quotes

Since Mr. de Icaza has claimed ownership of the quotes, we can dig into the juicy stuff! That’s all I wanted to do anyway!

In his blog, Mr. de Icaza starts off his explanation:

It seems that David’s article on Windows strategy tax on .NET lacked enough context for my actual quotes in there.

But on Twitter, Mr. de Icaza seems to think the article was excellent:

@dcworthington I am in whole agreement with you there; Btw I loved the article, good balance.

So did the article lack enough context or was it a good balance? That’s what’s funny to me about Mr. de Icaza, he always seems to assume that if you find what he says objectionable you must either need more context, or you are a “hater”.

Let’s look at what Mr. de Icaza deems “not major issues”:

The most important part is that Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant thread of patent infringement that they have cast on the ecosystem.

Mr. de Icaza admits that Microsoft has constantly waved patent infringement around; exactly what Mono critics have been saying too – yet Mr. de Icaza has been quick to paint critics as “haters” or “fear mongers” when they mention patents.

Unlike the Java world that is blossoming with dozens of vibrant Java virtual machine implementations, the .NET world has suffered by this meme spread by Ballmer that they would come after people that do not license patents from them.

Point of fact: it is not just Ballmer. There are lots and lots of people at Microsoft spreading (or spread when they worked there) that meme – like Bill Gates, Jim Allchin, Craig Mundie, Bill Hilf, Sam Ramji, Brad Smith, Horatio Guiterrez, and many more. These are/were top people at Microsoft.

Here’s a partial list of current Microsoft executives that have disparaged Linux and/or Open Source:

• Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer
• Brad Smith, General Counsel and Senior VP
• Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer
• Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer
• Eric Rudder, Senior VP
• Bob Muglia, President

If only someone kept a record of Microsoft’s comments on Linux and Open Source! What a help that would be!

Google could have used .NET, Rails could have been built on .NET, the Wikipedia and Facebook could have been built using ASP.NET.

To be honest, when I first read this I thought that someone was pulling a prank on SD Times and pretending to be Mr. de Icaza, and that’s why the article was pulled.

Mr. de Icaza honestly wants to see every bit of software development done on top of .NET.  Don’t think so? Here, read this from his blog:

I still believe that Microsoft lost a great opportunity of having .NET become the universal runtime of the net, and they could still have the best implementation.

Notice the lamentation that Microsoft lost a great opportunity? Personally, I think it’s a fantastic thing that Microsoft lost out — if Mr. de Icaza had said that users or developers lost a “great opportunity” that would be different – but he regrets Microsoft‘s loss!

To me, that is very telling indeed.

Furthermore, you now how Team Mono is always arguing they aren’t “chasing taillights” and otherwise dismissing critics that accuse them of catch-up? Well, here is Mr. de Icaza on that:

I still believe that they should put the rest of .NET under the Community Promise or OSP and even with Mono as an open source implementation, they would retain their edge.

Ummm … if Microsoft “retains an edge” with respect to Mono – it means you are chasing taillights.

Read on for some Most Definitely Not Apologetics from Mr. de Icaza:

Had Microsoft been an open company in 2001 and had embraced diversity we would live in a different world. The awesome Mono team would probably be bigger, and the existing team members would have longer vacations.

But for everyone that missed the point, luckily, 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.

“Had Microsoft been an open company in 2001“? I adore the implication that Microsoft is an open company in 2010! Microsoft has no great new management – some people have retired and moved on (and still partner with Microsoft) and some have stayed.  Already listed a half-dozen examples earlier of those who have attacking Linux and Open Source and still proudly serve Microsoft.

Let’s move on to a few of Mr. de Icaza’s more casual comments:

But you are missing the point, as fascinating as the story of Lucene and Mono was at the time, the bigger issue was that Microsoft’s attacks on Linux in 2001 had a chilling effect on Mono’s use and Mono’s contributions.

What’s this? Microsoft attacked Linux and so Linux people didn’t want to use Microsoft technology? WHY THAT’S INSANE!!!!one!!!

Now, step away from the implication that Microsoft’s attacks on Linux stopped in 2001, acknowledge the reality that Microsoft has never stopped attacking Linux and perhaps you too can grok why lots of people still don’t want anything to do with Mono!

Look. We just don’t want the same things anymore…

…and I think it’s time we moved on:

I can quote cute uses of Mono all day long, but it wont make up for the fact that .NET-based technologies could have been the entire core that drove the internet.

I honestly have a very hard time keeping my bile down. Who on God’s Green Earth would want Microsoft at the “entire core that drove the internet”? Does no one remember the stagnation and retardation that IE6 wrought upon mankind? The very shackles of which we are only now starting to shed?

And yet, Mr. de Icaza laments another missed opportunity of Microsoft?

We dodge a bullet and he cries about Microsoft’s marksmanship!

Blaming the victim

Here’s a nice bit of the old Linux-was-asking-for-it:

I would only add that Microsoft’s 2001 animosity towards open source stemmed from the entire business press stating that Windows had only a few years of life left as this was “The year of the Linux desktop”.

What about Microsoft’s 2000 animosity? Its 1999 animosity? Its 2002 animosity? Its 2005 animosity? Its 2010 animosity?

Why must Team Apologista try so hard to pretend that there’s this one anomalous year, 2001, where Microsoft didn’t want to — oh no! — but was forced against its will to (for a limited time only) have the smallest bit of “animosity” towards Linux?

Cherry Picking

Let me just address one more comment from Mr. de Icaza in response to Mr. Worthington:

I had no issue with the article myself. I just woke up to another flame fest over someone that cherry picked some quote from your article and tried to make a scene.

Yeah, here’s the thing about that: I’ve addressed almost every bit of your words here and  this is very long and tedious even for a word-smith of my enormous girth talent.

And, even given that, your “context” changes nothing. You aren’t being “taken out of context”. No one needs to take you out of context. There is no need to mis-represent anything you say.

Understand this: the interesting part of this news is not the factual criticism of Microsoft and how it impacted .NET and Mono adoption — everyone paying attention already knew that — the interesting part is that it was Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza, staunch not-Microsoft-Apologist, that leveled it.

[1] The “entire piece” is 2,494 words. Other pieces average ~165 words. I only went back about 20 articles or so, but it’s clear this is a magnum opus for Mr. Worthington.