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KodiacZiller
join:2008-09-04
73368 | Thoughts on Mono?
What are your thoughts on Mono? Should it stay or should it go away? | |
SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
3 edits | It never was, and won't be, on my box.
The elusive, royalty-free patent licence for Mono
Mono, Moonlight: Patent Encumbered, Or Not?
Mono (software) From Wikipedia | |
donoreo
Premium
join:2002-05-30
North York, ON
| reply to KodiacZiller
It is actually a decent development environment. I was doing a programming tutorial earlier this year in C# and mono. It is pretty slick.
--
The irony of common sense, it is not that common
I cannot deny anything I did not say | |
Santa Fe
Visit www.ALZ.ORG
Premium,ExMod 2002-7
join:2000-08-22
Freight Yard
clubs:  | reply to KodiacZiller
Can't really say much on this subject. I always practiced Safe S....computing!  | |
SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
| reply to KodiacZiller
An interesting read...
From ITWire
22 June 2009 - said by Sam Varghese :
Mono: Shielding the facts
Should FOSS users be concerned about the software they use, in case it opens them up to copyright, trademark or patent claims? Or should such concerns be left exclusively to developers?
One would think that in the case of FOSS, the user is as much a player as the developer. After all, when Richard Matthew Stallman kicked off the whole free software movement in the 1980s, he had the user at the centre of his movement.
But if one were to believe Jo Shields, a Mono advocate, the user should merely shut his or her mouth and just use whatever is created.
In what one can only term breathtaking arrogance, Shields had this to say in an essay advocating the use of Mono: "... the vast majority of the anti-Mono crowd are not developers or packagers - they are back-seat drivers. They make proclamations about how other developers (who are surrendering their time to developer Free Software) should instead use the framework of THEIR choice, not the developer's. This is another reason why anti-Mono arguments are given so little respect - the sheer cheek, the PRESUMPTION that they somehow are in a position to make demands of other developers, is galling. Free Software is a meritocracy - those who do things earn respect. Until the anti-Mono crowd actually make a contribution to Free Software, they will continue to be treated as cranks - and their questions left unanswered."
(Before I go any further, for the uninitiated, Mono is an attempt by Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza to create an open source clone of Microsoft's .NET development environment.)
So, according to Shields, users, who by their very utilisation of FOSS serve as a testing ground for the efforts of FOSS creators, should button their lips and just use any software that is provided with a GNU/Linux distribution.
More at ITWire. | |
Drunkula
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join:2000-06-12
Denton, TX
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to KodiacZiller
I'm not sure what to make of it. Being somewhat of a programmer (okay so it's only Coldfusion and Oracle PL/SQL and friends) I can appreciate the robust environment. I'm just not sold on the idea of using a recreation of an MS architecture in a *nix environment.
--
There are 10 types of people that understand binary numbers. Those that do - and those that do not... | |
LinuxPenquin
@rr.com
| reply to KodiacZiller
said by KodiacZiller  :
What are your thoughts on Mono? Should it stay or should it go away?
GO AWAY, FAR AWAY!
Thats about the most I can say politely in a public form. Second, post pretty much sums it up.
I have two large projects in the works, and some of the rules:
NO ASP
NO ASP.NET
NO VB
NO VB.NET
NO MONO, Silverlight
NO C#
NO Flash
NO AIR
NO FLEX
You can pretty much use any other Linux based technology that works on a standard LAMP server, but if its anything from redmond, you can not and will not be allowed to us it.
two development companies have been rejected for their "we have ASP and were here to solve your problems" attitude..... NO THERES THE DOOR! What part of the above did you not get/understand. NO ASP, PERIOD. NO form, shape of it is allowed.
Same goes for an upcoming software package that will be custom built it 100% MUST run on Linux and MAC, win, and preferably ports to Palm, Blackberry, and other mobile devices EXCEPT iphones.
These two projects combined are probably easily worth $1.5MILLION dollars, and guess what? . . . ms crap will not be considered for it.
I take great effort to ensure that we support and embrace open standards and do not lock into proprietary data exchange formats. Given a choice bettween proprietary format and CSV. CSV will be chosen each and every time. I'll even ask for an ODS before I will submit to proprietary formats.
I am doing every thing I can at any point to go? What ms product/format/technology can be replaced by a Linux supported product/format/technology
Same crap with novell.... Suse and OpenSuse would be big contenders, but novell chose to make a deal with the devil, see ya! No thanks.
So mono is going no where with me. | |
yazdzik
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-26
Honesdale, PA
 ·New York Connect
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Dear Pen and friends,
I am amused that the endocrinal/viral disease and the programme have the same name.
I feel that, while the medical problem is more severe, both are better eradicated than tolerated.
Peace,
M
--
Life is a series of return dates. There is but one final argument, its eloquence determines who we were, and whether who we were had meaning. | |
GILXA1226
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join:2000-12-29
London, OH
clubs:
| reply to KodiacZiller
said by KodiacZiller :What are your thoughts on Mono? Should it stay or should it go away? Let it stay. When has having a choice ever been bad? If people don't like it or don't want to use it, then they have the choice not too.
I've played with it a little and really was neutral on it. Most of my work these days is java/c/c++ with the occasional ml,perl,python thrown in for good measure.
--
We don't give a d@mn for the whole state of Michigan... we're from OHIO! O!H! ... I!O! | |
KodiacZiller
join:2008-09-04
73368
| I am not a developer and I have no technical grounds to base an argument for or against Mono. All I know is I don't like the idea of having anything from Redmond entangled in Linux.
At any rate, here's an argument from a Debian developer (Jo Shields) in favor of Mono.
»blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/06···des.html
It's a long essay, but here are the pertinent parts regarding potential Mono legalities of which the author claims are not a threat:
Mono is not a threat because it is not special in any legal regard. Many people have spent hours if not days and weeks attempting to explain this. I'll try to do so again. There are a whole smattering of reasons why it's not an issue, covering a wide range of topics. I'll present these points individually.
* Mono is not the result of any deals between Novell and Microsoft. Mono was started 4 years before that unfortunate deal took place. Mono gets no special treatment under that deal. It is not mentioned in the deal (as with other apps). This is important to note.
* Mono is covered by the OIN, as with most other major Free apps. Patent attacks against Mono carry the same risk to attackers as attacks against any other OIN entrant. Attacks against Mono would risk patent "world war", which Microsoft cannot win. Such an action would harm their business - and lose them money.
* Mono implements an international standard - albeit one from a convicted monopolist. If this is a problem, why do people use C, the standard from convicted monopolist AT&T? Mono implements an improved, Free replacement for a proprietary offering. If this is a problem, why do people use GNU (which provided an improved, Free replacement for proprietary UNIX)?
* Regardless of whether or not any specific patent licenses over ECMA 334 and 335 cover Mono's implementation of those standards, if indeed such agreements are available (ITWire's curlish "attempt" to secure such an arrangement aside), the fact that statements have been made in public supporting the idea of royalty-free licensing essentially reduces the financial impact of such infringement to zero. If Foocorp has a license to use patents, under a "non-discriminatory" license, and did not pay for them - then it would be discriminatory to change anyone else for them (breaking the signed terms regarding patent licensing), and as such, those patents lose any financial value. They may, however, still hold non-financial value (such as their use in defending against patent-related attacks), hence not making the patents "free for all" in any understood sense.
* Mono cannot be "disabled" via an incompatible change to Microsoft.NET, for two reasons. Firstly, such a change would also break every single existing app for Microsoft.NET (in fact, if it were to happen, then the best option for those users would be to run their apps with Mono instead). Secondly, support for Microsoft.NET is a secondary goal for Mono - if Microsoft change something in .NET 5.0, then so what? It doesn't prevent Banshee or GNOME Do from compiling and running fine on non-legacy systems like Ubuntu.
* Absence of "patent protection" is not the same thing as "patent violation". If I offer to sell somebody a promise not to sue them using any of my patents, their taking me up on my offer is no guarantee that I even have anything valid to sell them - merely that they are willing to buy it. If Jim buys protection from any patents I hold, it does not mean that Jim is infringing on anything specific - nor that if Ted does the same thing, that Ted is violating anything either. If a house insurance policy includes flood protection, it does not mean that your house will be flooded - and not buying flood protection does not mean that you will be flooded either.
* Patents covering a specific implementation detail of a project cannot kill it dead - the example here is Freetype. Apple made some patent threats against the Freetype developers, for using their proprietary hinting data stored in TrueType fonts. You'll notice that Freetype still exists today - this is because the specific METHOD that apple laid claim to was worked around, and auto-generated hinting data used instead. Apple's threat was diffused, and the project went on. Suggestions have been made by FUD vendors that the Linux kernel contains a number of patent infringements - if specific details are ever provided, then those specific infringements can be worked around. A patent infringed in the Linux kernel would not cause all GNU/Linux distributions to be shut down overnight - and it's disingenuous to suggest that any other Free Software is any different on that front. Even if a fundamental patent is infringed in Free Software, it's no big deal - as a core change can be made, and applications etc which expect the "old" way can be modified to work with the "new" way, easily. Only proprietary applications cannot be fixed in the event of radical change - and proprietary apps are a secondary concern.
* The layering of escape routes is extensive in Mono, especially Mono in Debian/Ubuntu. In the first instance, the contentious Microsoft-sourced non-ISO libraries such as System.Windows.Forms are not included by default, and are rarely used in Free applications anyway (because WinForms looks like ass, amongst other things). If a reason is found to remove these non-standardised libraries, then bam, they're gone - without harming Free apps. Secondly, if a more severe change is required, then the Mono packages can be patched to remove the infringement. If more drastic changes are required, as mentioned above, then the applications can also be patched to support any core changes. And, taking it one step further, if the whole of Mono needs to be pulled, then applications can be ported. The porting process would potentially be slow and painful, and cause great harm to an application's future rate of development (although no worse than if the app was written in the target language from day one), but nobody who has written an app they care about would simply throw their hands in the air and say "never mind, it was fun, but the Man says I have to stop now". | |
SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21 | LOL. Same link to 'Jo Shields' that I included 5 posts above yours. | |
SirMeowmixIII
join:2009-06-15
Birmingham, AL | reply to KodiacZiller
"Do not want". There is nothing written in .NET that would entice me to adopt Mono or Silverblight. | |
PToN
join:2001-10-04
Houston, TX
| reply to KodiacZiller
I think it is a waste of time. They should have used that time to develop an innovative framework for *nix systems instead of shadowing a MS product and bring it to *nix.
I am truly disappointed that SuSE, one of my favorite distros, decided to develop rug or zenworks linux agent under mono.. | |
SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
2 edits | reply to KodiacZiller
Ubuntu May Increase Mono-Dependent Apps
From iTWire
25 June 2009 - quote:
The next release of the popular Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution may include a third Mono-dependent application by default, a spokesman for Canonical, the parent company for Ubuntu, told iTWire today.
Responding to an inquiry about the Canonical policy on Mono, Gerry Carr said: "That's an interesting question. Really, it is Ubuntu's board of governance, not Canonical whose policy you want as they decide what goes in the distro. The board have been asked the same thing recently and are considering it but I do not have a timeline for a decision but I will track and push as far as I can."
Mono is a software project begun some years ago by current Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza to create an open source clone of Microsoft's .NET development environment.
Until version 9.04, which was released in April, Ubuntu had two Mono-dependent applications - F-Spot and Tomboy. The former is a picture viewer and the latter a note-taking application.
A Mono-free port of Tomboy called Gnote was recently created by former Novell developer Hubert using C++/Gtkmm.
Asked whether there were any plans to include more Mono-dependent applications in future releases, Carr said: "We are not deliberately looking for Mono-based applications but nor are we excluding them because they have that dependency. I think we will add one more (Banshee) in 9.10."
Banshee is an audio player. The current default for audio on Ubuntu is Rhythmbox while Totem is used for video playback.
According to the Ubuntu specifications for default media choice, the choice of Banshee has been made, in part, because it "has people working full time on it, is moving faster and has feature users expect from a modern music playing applications which Rhythmbox doesn't have yet."
The push to include Banshee has been going on for a while. Back in April, the Debian and Ubuntu Mono packager Jo Shields, who advocates the use of Mono on many forums, argued for its inclusion based both on its smaller size compared to Rhythmbox and its "active and vibrant" development community.
Carr added: "However, that is as much of an answer I can get to you until the Ubuntu board decides on a position on Mono. As Canonical we simply do not have a position ready to go on Mono. I think the Banshee exercise will likely see a harder position formed (for or against)."
According to information available elsewhere, there has also been a proposal for the Ubuntu live CD to remove the well-known image manipulation program, Gimp, with the reasoning apparently beign that F-Spot can handle what the Gimp does.
However, this appears to have been put on hold and the next release, Karmic Koala, or 9.10. will include the Gimp.
Red Hat's community Linux distribution, Fedora, recently decided to jettison Mono altogether from its default install, and replace Tomboy with Gnote. There are fears in many sections of the FOSS community that Mono may prove to be a patent trap down the line as .NET is totally Microsoft technology.
While some claim that it is possible to obtain a royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory licence for the use of Microsoft patents which may be part of Mono, in reality, it is extremely difficult to even find out how one can do so.
[some emphasis added]
From iTWire
03 June 2009 - quote:
Even OpenSUSE recognises drawbacks of Mono
Mention Mono in a story and you are certain to draw two kinds of readers - the followers, those who have drunk the kool-aid ladled out by Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza, and the detractors, who realise that it could cause them patent headaches a few years hence.
Now it looks like the people who run the OpenSUSE project - that's the community GNU/Linux distribution sponsored by Novell - have themselves realised that Mono can be a stumbling block.
Nothing else can account for the fact that OpenSUSE has decided to create a port of Easy-LTSP, an application used for configuring thin clients.
Easy-LTSP was originally written in C# but, according to the OpenSUSE project "Easy-LTSP was designed to work on any distribution, but unfortunately it is not integrated anywhere other than openSUSE, discussing with the upstream LTSP developers suggested the slight reservation could be due to it being written in C#."
Easy-LTSP is being rewritten to include new features and OpenSUSE has now decided to use Python instead, "which would be easier to attract more contributors and increase possibility that users of all distributions running LTSP server can benefit from it inclusion in their preferred distro."
Miguel, looks like there are traitors to the Mono cause within your own ranks. Or is it that, just for once, commonsense and logic has asserted itself at Novell and its associates?
| |
disturbed1
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Columbus, OH
clubs:
| reply to KodiacZiller
Re: Thoughts on Mono?
said by KodiacZiller :What are your thoughts on Mono? Unprotected sex with a hooker. | |
SUMware
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join:2002-05-21
| reply to KodiacZiller
Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#
From The Free Software Foundation
2009-06-26 - said by Richard M. Stallman :
Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#
Debian's decision to include Mono in the default installation, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction. It is dangerous to depend on C#, so we need to discourage its use.
The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue. The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. (See »swpat.org and »progfree.org .) This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it until the day it actually happens. We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this future danger.
This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C# implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called Portable.NET.) Ideally we want to provide free implementations for all languages that programmers have used.
The problem is not in the C# implementations, but rather in Tomboy and other applications written in C#. If we lose the use of C#, we will lose them too. That doesn't make them unethical, but it means that writing them and using them is taking a gratuitous risk.
We should systematically arrange to depend on the free C# implementations as little as possible. In other words, we should discourage people from writing programs in C#. Therefore, we should not include C# implementations in the default installation of GNU/Linux distributions, and we should distribute and recommend non-C# applications rather than comparable C# applications whenever possible.
From iTWire
28 June 2009 - quote:
Red Hat's community Linux distribution, Fedora, recently decided to throw out Mono altogether from its default install, and replaced Tomboy with Gnote.
While pro-Mono zealots often claim that it is possible to obtain a royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory licence for the use of Microsoft patents which may be part of Mono, in reality, it is extremely difficult to even find out how one can do so.
What one finds is things like this statement from 2004: "Importantly, Miguel (de Icaza, the Novell vice-president who started the Mono project) also said that Ximian had a letter from Microsoft, Intel and HP stating that they would offer *royalty-free* RAND licensing to the ECMA-submitted components of .NET."
Of course, nobody else has ever been shown that letter. One doubts that anybody ever will get to see it, either. One doubts if it even exists.
| |
firephoto
KDE
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·Verizon west (ex G..
| I saw this earlier about RMS and thought it was kind of ironic since the GNOME and GTK camp have been pushing the 'we're more free' line for ages with the backing of RMS even yet now they're fulling embracing something just because of their devotion to one individual, Mr. Mono Miguel. They're shooting themselves in that big odoreater foot more and more everyday and I kind of like it actually. 
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~~This is not The Greatest Sig in the World without annoying urls, no. This is just a tribute.~~ | |
SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
2 edits |  For the benefit of the community in general, let's hope that all eventually see the error of their ways. Sooner rather than later. The warnings are out there.
The OP of an interesting thread...
GNOME dependent on Mono
28 Nov 2007 - said by Richard Stallman :
I read »boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gno···no-yelp/ with great concern.
Since I am not an expert, I cannot tell on my own if that description of the situation is accurate. If part of it is not accurate, I hope someone will explain. However, if it is accurate, GNOME has a serious problem.
I have always supported the development of free platforms for C#, just as I've supported the development of free platforms for any language that users use. I also wouldn't argue that people should not use C# with a free platform for secondary applications.
However, making GNOME depend on Mono is running a grave risk, and a grave mistake.
| |
LinuxPenquin
@rr.com
| reply to SUMware
said by SUMware :
From The Free Software Foundation
2009-06-26 - said by Richard M. Stallman :
Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#
For once I agree (which is very rare) with RMS on this..... mono's got to go!
I like Debian and Debian based distros, but Debian needs to pitch, ban, burn, torch, nuke any thing related to mono & silverblight.
I can't stand gnome and Mono Miguel (long before this disease came along) is one reason... now that he's in bed with the enemy I think its time to pitch that WM out too. | |
SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
| reply to KodiacZiller
Re: Thoughts on Mono?
Summary of Mono's Danger to GNU/Linux and the Free Desktop
03.24.08
Exploring the reality behind exclusionary deals with Microsoft and their subtle (yet severe) implications
"A look back at evidence may be more compelling a proof than yet another explanation" | |
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