Bonum Certa Men Certa

Mono Boosters in Ubuntu Have Conflicts of Interest, LibreOffice Under Similar Threat

Unwanted intrusions

The end of times



Summary: Banshee booster has history trying to put Mono inside Fedora and a new file format, 'LOOXML', is said to be pushed into LibreOffice possibly because of Novell's influence

A FEW DAYS ago we wrote about OMG!Ubuntu! announcing that Banshee had been added to Ubuntu after a lot of insistence from Mono boosters. Over at Groklaw, Pamela Jones spotted the news and wrote, "Can Canonical find any more ways to stuff Mono into Ubuntu?"



Jones and Groklaw members -- like many others including the FSF -- have repeatedly warned that Mono should be avoided, and to quote one such opinion on it, "Banshee is just being pushed now in the latest Ubuntu Natty downloads, bad news."

If one checks where the immense promotion of Banshee came from to OMG!Ubuntu!, it's this person who says in his profile that he is "maintaining primarily Mono packages including Banshee." He was to Fedora what Shields et al. are to Ubuntu -- Mono pushforce. To quote a mail message sent to him from Matthew Woehlke and posted in his blog:

I’m going to guess a lot of that “disrespectful personal mail” revolves around the use of mono? And why shouldn’t it? Lots of people (myself included) have a special hatred of Microsoft’s Trojan Horse, and good reason to question the honesty and motives of people that push it. (Which is not to say I don’t believe there are honest people that are either deluded or simply don’t care.)

If you’re going to promote the technology of a Linux-hostile, GPL-hating, monopolistic bully of a company that regularly engages in racketeering, encourages people to violate the GPL, and is currently suing against Linux… well, some people aren’t going to like that :-) .

Personally, the only thing I would want to do with mono code would be to port it to !mono. YMMV.


This came around the time Fedora leaders were discouraging his lobbying for Mono inside Fedora by putting it more gently: "Red Hat Enterprise Linux continues to not ship mono. Draw your own conclusions."

Another source of Mono advocacy is Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza, whose promotion of Mono extends to CES and it's not surprising that anti-Linux trolls support de Icaza. Microsoft advocates who for years troll and harass people in Linux forums are celebrating news about Mono for Android because they know it's bad for GNU/Linux (there is only who person there who is a GNU/Linux advocate, others are rude trolls who thrive in an unmoderated forum, one is a Microsoft MVP).

The inclusion of Banshee in Ubuntu extends further into the panels, which are always running and usually within sight. They is increasing dependency on Mono at more levels, as this post helps show:

An update today finally sets Banshee as the default music player in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. Since Banshee is now default, it has replaced Rhythmbox in the Ubuntu Sound Menu...


Mono is of course property of Novell (to be AttachMSFT), which received a lot of money from Microsoft in order to advance Microsoft's agenda. Mono is part of this agenda and the relationship to Novell's SLES can be watched in this new video. Novell helps Microsoft in turning GNU/Linux servers into .NET hosts and one of the main people from the FFII seems concerned about LibreOffice, perhaps because of the Go-OO connection. We are currently investigating just how much influence Novell has in this fork because Novell staff (including one whom the OpenOffice.org team rejected repeatedly) dominates the IRC channel/s and the gentleman from the FFII, who fought against OOXML, is concerned that LibreOffice is going to support LOOXML in spite of spin. He wrote: "Expect a fresh format flavour would then be named LOOXML, that’s a perfectly silly silly silly nerd pun on LOL (laugh out loud), XML (extensible markup language), LO (libreoffice) and OOXML (office open XML) and possible other British phrases of general interest. LOOXML is an OOXML-inspired format intended to approximate the OOXML-O10 which eventually is known as ISO/ECMA OOXML transitional. LibreOffice 3.3. will be released January 10. Feel free to put to popular vote if LOOXML or LOOOXML or LO-OOXML suits you best."

Ubuntu was alleged to have adopted LibreOffice, but Canonical denied this later. All in all, yet again we see the toxic poison from Novell (paid by Microsoft) having a bad effect on Ubuntu and other projects. Boycott Novell to defend GNU/Linux.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
 
Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter
When You Turn Web Sites About Tech Into Political Sites
A lot of people fall into the trap of catering only for particular groups
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH 2025 and Lagrange 1.19 Released
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago