● 06.28.09
●● Responses to Richard Stallman’s Verdict on Mono
Posted in FSF, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 5:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Mono developments to be aware of
Richard Stallman’s advice against Mono (by default) has made the front page of Slashdot where it received over 700 comments, which is exceptional even for Slashdot. The updated summary also links to an overview of Gnote, which concludes with:
To me, this is a huge victory for Anti-Mono supporters. Users get just as much functionality out of their old apps, and are rewarded a freedom from code patents at the very same time! It’s a win-win situation!
One of our readers, Toros, writes:
“!fsf !gnu @rms – http://fsf.org/: Why free software shouldn’t depend on #Mono or C# – http://ur1.ca/6d0x”
Brad Kunn from the SFLC passed on this message:
“c.f. Tomboy C++ rewrite effort as well ♻ @toros: !fsf !gnu @rms: Why free software shouldnt depend on #Mono or C# – http://ur1.ca/6d0x”
John Sullivan (FSF) adds:
“!fsf rms warning about !debian and others depending on Mono: http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono”
Other core people in Identica remark as follows:
[1]:
“@gnufs He’s talking talking about the risks faced by including mono by default. He never says not to use it. Just don’t depend on it. !fsf”
[2]:
“We know #Microsoft plans to attack free software with patents because they’ve said so. Implementing MS tech carries special risks. !fsf”
[3]:
“Should the !GNU system support #NTFS? Yes. Should the GNU system _depend_ on NTFS? No. Same with #Mono or any other #Microsoft tech. !fsf”
[4]:
“It’s not a matter of “here @rms supports inclusion of patented software, and here he doesn’t”. !fsf”
Over at LinuxToday, Rainer Weikusat correctly points out that the pro-Microsoft/pro-Mono crowd goes to great lengths to characterise Mono opposition as “crackpots”. We wrote about this before. The only thing worse than this is personal abuse from Novell employees.
As an added bonus, it doesn’t even work: Helping ‘dubious comrades’, like LinuxInsider, with painting all people who are critical of Mono as crackpots by virtue of drowning any attempt at a serious discussion of the associated issues, eg Microsoft-controlled APIs, especially, bad Microsoft-controlled APIs in, in “Patents! Patents! Patents!”-shrieks is likely to rather help than hinder the proliferation of C#/.NET. . But this is certainly entirely coincidental …
It has become abundantly clear that Mono advances Windows [1, 2, 3]. We published something about this yesterday and this new post may serve as further evidence.
How to build MonoDevelop with Visual Studio in five easy steps…
The above post is not so innocent. The author says he works as a developer for Novell as part of the Mono team where he leads the MonoDevelop project. They sure spend a lot of time improving the Mono experience for Windows and integrating it with Microsoft’s .NET, which won’t be available for GNU/Linux. █
“The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us.
“Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there’s no way to avoid this danger. But that’s no reason to put our head inside Microsoft’s jaws.”
–Richard Stallman, 2007
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