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Signs of Mono Unrest, Legal Issues

"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



Summary: The Mono discussion awakens, Mono-hostile assessments outweigh the rest

THE matter broke loose a couple of days after Fedora had said that it was concerned about Mono. More and more bloggers are starting to write about the subject. Béranger, for example, argues that he is fed up with Mono. He writes:

Of course I’m fed with Mono. I am so annoyed by the public passion for this technology that I won’t bother anymore to blog against it. A tiny mention though, in this short post.

First of all, I was exceedingly pissed off by a long pro-Mono plea by Jo Shields, which I have read as posted by Carla Schroder. I can’t comment on it, as I don’t want to read it again. It hurts my guts.

The only thing I can say: we don’t need Mono, the same way we don’t need Java. It’s not just about Microsoft. It’s about stupid people who try to force some technologies there where they’re not needed.


Other sources of opposition suggest that defense of Mono proponents is very weak and a detailed breakdown is offered to explain why Mono critics are right.

Also, sharing pearls for wisdom such as “Double click is patented”, “They’re just doing FUD” does not really help people think you’re serious. DOSsing BoycottNovell also doesn’t help (nor to claim they did it to themselves), nor helps claiming that Fedora included Gnote just for space saving (weird how what make Fedora lose space apparently makes Ubuntu save it, uh ?): I’ve got a nice news for you:

“We do have some serious concerns about Mono and we’ll continue to look at it with our legal counsel to see what if any steps are needed on our part,” Frields said.

“We haven’t come to a legal conclusion that is pat enough for us to make the decision to take mono out,” Frields said. “Right now we’re in a status quo. Gnote is a relatively recent development and unfortunately was too late in the Fedora 11 development cycle to include by default.”

That conclusion was probably drew after some consulting with RedHat’s “oh-so-sophisticated anti-Mono lawyers”.

It’s not that Mono is that bad. Let’s move it to Medibuntu and everyone is fine.


Whether Ubuntu likes it or not, Mononono is now on Launchpad. It is an entry which someone describes as what "seems like a collection of legal issues related to Mono & Moonlight, each well documented."

For practical reasons too, Mono is not suitable for users (developers aside). Tony Manco has obtained proof that Gnote, for example, can take up less than one megabyte of RAM. See the screenshot below. Compare that to Tomboy, which is a lot heavier.

Other than Microsoft and Novell, who does Mono actually serve? And if OOP is a must, why not Java?

Gnote memory



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