Bullying of Mono critics in sites like Reddit is the modus operandi of some Novell employees, who got it under control as far as disinformation and misdirection are concerned (they have big numbers and a paycheque). Novell is now AttachMSFT, with even many of its own patents sold to Microsoft.

• Banshee (MCP-Excluded Mono Trap) is Not Yet in Next Ubuntu, There is Still Time to Stop It
• Canonical Probably to Put in Next Ubuntu GNU/Linux Mono Parts Which Microsoft Disallows Free of Lawsuits/Charge
• Ubuntu Users Plead to Keep Novell's Banshee Out (and Other Miscellaneous Mono News)
• Microsoft-funded Media Player to Become Ubuntu's Default?
• Mono Warning: Fresh Attempts to Inject Banshee Into Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10
• Novell/Microsoft Mono Poison (Banshee) Put in Ubuntu 10.10 NBE by Default
• Patent Threat Banshee Gets Hooks Into Ubuntu 10.10
• Banshee is Novell, Mono, and 'Forbidden' Microsoft Software Patents
• OpenSUSE 11.3 Users Sensitive to Microsoft Lawsuit Due to Banshee Bundling
• Fedora 13 Replaces F-Spot (Mono) With Shotwell (Vala), MeeGo Still Mono Encumbered
• What Alfresco and Android Can Teach About Ubuntu
• Mono Advocacy is Deluded, Avoids the Facts and Personally Attacks Critics Instead
• Bad Decision Made at Canonical Regarding Media Player

That’s right 281 files use non-standardized .NET namespaces not covered by ECMA or the Microsoft Community Promise. Out of 1240 C# source files. 22%, just short of a quarter, of all the C# source files in Banshee require non-standardized .NET namespaces.

When Team Apologista tries to talk down the importance of the non-ECMA namespaces, or when they try to suggest that while the Mono project proper might not split into safe and un-safe portions, but packagers for most major distributions do, keep Banshee in mind as an example.

A final note

The rest of Mr. Peko’s response and his many other responses in that Reddit thread are filled with a veritable cornucopia of factual and logical errors, I won’t bother with tediously dissecting them here (mainly because I think they are transparent to any honest reader), but I did want to mention it lest someone think this gross factual inaccuracy be the only failing.

A final final note

I guess I need to specifically point out that I am using the latest public release of code at the time of writing (1.8.0) as available from the Banshee “download” page. Apparently, the git version of Banshee has removed System.Data dependencies.

If Banshee is able to remove all non-standardized namespaces, then that does remove one point of criticism against it. We will see how it looks whenever a new public release is made.

Just a follow up expanding on the recent Banshee/ECMA stuff. Warning: long stretches of file lists within!

You’ll often hear Team Apologista (when cornered) say something like: “Maybe not all of Mono is covered by the ECMA standard, but all the bits used in Linux programs are.” (Here’s just one example from the recent Reddit thread, but like all Team Apologista arguments, you’ll see a similar talking point repeatedly.)

Now of course, we know that is simply not true – System.Data was used in Banshee at least until very recently, but let’s dive deeper.

[...]

Summary

* Banshee: 165 refs (and 1 Microsoft refs for giggles) * Tomboy: 36 refs * F-Spot: 131 refs * Do: 56 refs * Gbrainy: 31 refs

So, that’s the 5 most popular (give-or-take) Mono applications for Linux. Not a single one of which doesn’t have a significant amount of references to non-ECMA namespaces. As the Microsoft Community Promise covering any implementation is limited to the “extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications”, we can reject the claim that “All of the pieces of Mono that are used in Linux apps are covered by the MCP.”