Comments on: Summary of Mono’s Danger to GNU/Linux and the Free Desktop

By: vincent

vincent — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:16:00 +0000

The best thing would be to merge and Mono. Net and then put Mono under LGPL v3.

By: Levi Campbell

Levi Campbell — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 22:36:51 +0000

Oh man, where do I start here?

Roy, I think your post here is a little too one-sided, I think that if we’re going to be talking about mono, it’s important that both sides of the story are heard.

1. The Port 25 blog has an interview with Miguel de Icaza that was posted in 2006:
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2006/08/11/Let_2700_s-talk-Mono_3A00_–Sam-interviews-Miguel-de-Icaza.aspx

2. The patent system in the US is messed up (and currently being discussed by congress.), so even if MS did sue someone over mono, they would have a hard time proving financial damage because they give away mono.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/05/2157209
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/09/1856252

3. Microsoft is starting to give away the source code for the .net framework.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/01/16/net-framework-library-source-code-now-available.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx

In closing, I hope I’ve given people some food for thought about how they see the mono project an it’s relationship with Linux and open-source software as a whole.

Thank You.

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:06:38 +0000

Yes, you’re right. And there I was thinking it wasn’t a just a discussion among males.

Spam removed.

By: Victor Soliz

Victor Soliz — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:53:26 +0000

Roy, I think Lucy is an advert bot, check ‘her homepage’

By: Victor Soliz

Victor Soliz — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:01:06 +0000

Vala is just as potential (and likely more so) a patent minefield as Mono because Vala clones the C# syntax, and, worse yet, because it isn’t true C#, the agreement (as part of being an ECMA spec) not to sue does not apply to it.

Such an irrational condition, yet so many people like MS’ pledge not to sue so much…

I encourage more people to use C# so unique features in new languages away from .net giberish, I had in the past for a language that is compiled to some other game engine language. Anyways I have just installed (and I am using) my first vala app, “dynamicworkspaces” , very useful.

By: mass-carpone

mass-carpone — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:29:56 +0000

Lots of fuzz about nothing; don’t wet’em, aunt Tilly.

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:04:50 +0000

I’ve used GTK and loved it (also Qt). I believe the problem is related to the equivalent of poor hiring that enables people to change the agenda of a company (or project). In private, someone has just told that OpenBSD might be having a similar issue at this very moment.

By: cojii

cojii — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:00:42 +0000

@roy:

http://trolltech.com/downloads

http://www.gtk.org/

I do NOT Like their surface approval of c# rather than java so I wont be useing GTK anymore, but its clear from that page that LGPL ( propreitary apps can use it for free and without royalties thus making it ‘more free’ than qt ) is the preferred route as whether you like it or not, it allows the most freedom.

cya
cojii

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:15:46 +0000

Novell is not “evil”, but its approach towards marketing and developing GNU/Linux is more of a favour to a company that has been trying to extinguish Linux for over a decade. Novell can still try to correct what it has done, so this is not a rant but more of an instructive and gentle suggestion arguing that focus should be taken off Microsoft .NET.

By: Tazman

Tazman — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:33:50 +0000

Firt i dont think Novell is evil and this is my opinion second there are other mono alternatives if you didnt know

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:09:02 +0000

There is an application dependency that is a practical one. People have their data tied to Mono apps, not to mention skills and habits.

By: Victor Soliz

Victor Soliz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:11:44 +0000

Why do you mean by we can always find a replacement? People are distributing mono apps are .exe that are totally tied to Mono, replacing it will mean removing all those apps, and Novell’s plan is clearly to exploit money so these apps remain better featured.

By: Tazman

Tazman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:10:48 +0000

Let’s be serious Mono is no problem for the community.
We can always find a replacement so what is with this buzz?

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:02:37 +0000

Frankly, IMO,Linux community does not have a strong developer productivity tool for C++, which enables
a) Visual GUI builder
b) Cross platform development (at least Linux and Windows)
c) Free

Try Qt.

By: Novice

Novice — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:55:34 +0000

I have been searching for a good free C++ cross-platform IDE with visual GUI builder for quiet an year or more.I should say that I have not been lucky enough. While the Eclipses and Netbeans offer the core development capabilities like debugging, syntax highlighting etc., I really wanted an application where I do the UI programming without much manual intervention, in the drag-an-drop mode.

The repeated searches on the web kept pointing to me to Anjuta (which uses Glade), Code::blocks and Mono finally. Out of these three, I am inclined towards the C::B and Mono.

Frankly, IMO,Linux community does not have a strong developer productivity tool for C++, which enables
a) Visual GUI builder
b) Cross platform development (at least Linux and Windows)
c) Free

I think this is where Mono scored offering all this three in a single platform.

OTOH, I also understand the implications of going with a product which has it internals tightly integrated with M$ products or proprietary technologies.

I am not decided on which one to choose yet….

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:40:08 +0000

Similarity to C# is not a problem because C# is similar to Java, which is in turn similar to many other things (remember the Microsoft/Sun deal which revolved around Java?). It’s complete copying of something (backward-engineering) that becomes an issue.

By: akf

akf — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:35:33 +0000

Miles said,

Vala is just as potential (and likely more so) a patent minefield as Mono because Vala clones the C# syntax

First of all, the syntax of C# is not so very different compared to other languages. So there should be more than enough prior art.

And even in the unlikely event, that tis becomes a problem: Vala produces C code as intermediate language. So it should be relatively easy to switch a project back to pure C.

By: enki

enki — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:54:20 +0000

Yeah…monogamy is really bad thing. But why you refer to this problem as “Mono”? Am I infected by using my favourite apps like f-spot, beagle etc?
Ok, to the case. From my user standpoint its just one thing which really sucks. Java. All java programs runs slow as hell and have usability of troglodyts. I suppose that Mono based OOO will run much better.
And…there is moonlight project which will take web back from real evil – flash. Blame me, I am using linux just because its more stable operating system with near all features I need. I don’t have proprietary nvidia driver, I understand what evil is in this deal. But, wake up..MS is not an enemy, it’s just player on same minefield.

By: Miles

Miles — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:13:25 +0000

Vala is just as potential (and likely more so) a patent minefield as Mono because Vala clones the C# syntax, and, worse yet, because it isn’t true C#, the agreement (as part of being an ECMA spec) not to sue does not apply to it.

If you advocate staying away from Mono because of fear of infringing on patents, then I highly suggest you stay away from Vala as well.

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:48:29 +0000

CoolGuy, what I put there in brackets was intended to ensure you don’t see this as an accusation, just a gentle clarification because I know how angry Aaron Seigo got when Glyn Moody made a subtle incorrect insinuation.

GNOME is not ‘more free’ than KDE. It hasn’t been the case for many years, so it’s really juts a dead horse to kick (the argument, that is).