But *suppose* for example that all the major (GNOME-using) distributions embrace Mono (kudos to Fedora which seems to be shying away from Mono making this scenario entirely hypothetical), replacing common apps with Mono-based ones (as its use spreads), maybe even tying Mono to OpenOffice.

Where will you move away? What will you use if removing Mono in the worst case removed your whole desktop?

So far the answer of course would be a KDE-using major distro with KOffice or Google Docs (of course there are plenty of good minor non-derivative distros but while those may be fine for personal use they may be a tougher sell for corporations/governments)

So there’s little danger, per se.

My (mostly rhetorical) question was, what kind of a community will we be left with?

One with mostly private freedom-loving users using minor free distros with major ones using Mono, paying (hypothetically!) license-money to MS and the same going for businesses trying to earn a profit while using Linux (assuming development is done w/ Mono)

Or one where only Novell is trying to pedle an increasingly Mono-based distro, whereas all the others (major and minor) have moved away from Mono (and Portable .NET just to be on the safe side)

Most probably this current ‘tug of war’ will continue until MS either gives an all-out, all-covering, written, legal, etc. promise not sue…or just starts suing.

Mostly I was just wondering aloud, remembering the OSS/FSS-split in the late 90′s, early 00′s (which *seems* to be doing better these days)

Some distro’s may include Mono by default, and conscious users will either uninstall it or move away from the distro.

To an extent, that’s already happening.

Either we’ll have a future with a community divided (Free against Mono (almost like back to the ‘good’ old bad times Free/Open-division…) or a community that has gotten its act together, stands on its own two feet and rejects all attempts to spread discord.

Chani’s comment actually highlights what I’ve been wondering; Don’t people know of catholicism anymore? (or Google for that matter: 390 000 links to ‘cult of virgin mary’)

Personally, my immediate reaction was to see RMS parodying christianity but if people say I’m too dense to see the sexism beneath, fine.

Bing is not dying.

Data, please.

Even his closest allies and supporters criticise RMS very openly.

But: The sexism argument and flame war sounded to me like a moronic joke of Schlesinger. I can’t believe he was honest about that. And if he was, then he has to understand that by all European standards of interpretation the problem is him, and his perception.

Various other people have commented on RMS’ behavior who have no particular concern with his position on Mono, including (unsurprisingly) women.

http://mjg59.livejournal.com/113408.html
http://chani.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/rms-emacs-virgins/

For my part, I am less interested in RMS’ behavior in this specific instance (which is sadly typical in the community) than in the pattern of backlash against the criticism, including attempts to discredit it as being Mono-related.

Mono is a trivial concern, compared to the way that women are treated in our community, and yet Mono is seen to be so important that it must be the “real agenda” rather than sexism. This seems telling indeed.

It’s a pretty typical political-style attempt to discredit RMS, is what he’s saying.

>Bing is dying

What planet do you live on ATM? You been smoking something weird?

Everyone has a right to their view on whether Mono is a good technology. There are differing opinions over whether it is a good idea to adopt it in light of the questions around its intellectual property. However, sexism is an issue entirely distinct from either of these, and is only related to Mono incidentally through the coincidence of RMS’ speech at GCDS.