Bonum Certa Men Certa

Linux Mint Founder Does Not Follow Ubuntu's Banshee Travesty

Clement Lefebvre
Photo from DisroWatch



Summary: Linux Mint Founder Clement Lefebvre is not interested in Banshee, unlike Ubuntu; Canonical promotes a former Microsoft employee to Engineering Director

FREE SOFTWARE news site Muktware is quickly becoming a favourite and it is also shrewd enough to realise that Mono means danger. According to this Muktware interview with Clement Lefebvre, Ubuntu derivative Linux Mint will not pick Banshee as its media player, not because of Mono/patents though. To quote parts of it:



Linux Mint currently uses Rhythmbox as the default music player, what will happen when Natty comes with Banshee pre-installed? Clement said, "Rhythmbox is our default player and we're quite happy with it. If Ubuntu switches to Banshee, we'll of course give it a close look and assess whether the migration is a good move for us too, but as it is now there isn't any plan to change anything."


This has also been noted by webupd8.org;

Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint founder, recently talked to Muktware about Banshee - which has replaced Rhythmbox in the recent Ubuntu 11.04 development builds -, and Mono. Banshee is an amazing application but it uses Mono which many consider risky because Microsoft could one day assert its patents against all the free applications that use Mono.


For a little bit of background see:



"David Neilson may like Mono," wrote Sebastian last night in IRC, "and used to try and get it in Fedora yes, and now does whatever with Ubuntu yes ... did you read the stuff about him leaving Fedora at all? ... what he had to say on his blog? ... anyway I thought that was an interesting read, and so on"

For those who did not pay attention, Neilson was marginalised/pushed out of Fedora after he had promoted Mono in there and he is now doing more or less the same thing in Ubuntu. There appears to be a person acting as the Ubuntu Desktop Manager and in this new report he fails to address the Mono patent issue, the Banshee licence, dependence on Novell/AttachMSFT, etc.

Warner says that one of the first requests, he received was from users, after beginning his role as the Ubuntu Desktop Manager, was to include Banshee as the default music player. Warner also noted that Banshee has been the number one requested application inclusion into Ubuntu.


But who voted for it and based on what understanding of the ramifications? Vote-stuffing is not so uncommon, either. In 2009, despite popular support, a former Microsoft employee that Canonical had hired decided to remove the GIMP and instead rely on an inferior .NET/C# program. He was an Engineering Manager for the Ubuntu Desktop and he was apparently promoted 8 months ago, becoming Engineering Director in the company.

As one reader told us, "Why switch [away] from Rhythmbox, anyway? It has most the same features and less bugs."

Muktware previously published the article "Banshee May Put Ubuntu, Canonical At Risk!" That was two days ago:

Banshee is going to be the default music player for Ubuntu which makes me worry. Banshee is based on the controversial Mono technologies developed by Novell employees.

Richard M Stallman has warned against Mono and C# which applies to Banshee as well. He wrote, “The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue. The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. (See http://swpat.org and http://progfree.org.) This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it until the day it actually happens. We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this future danger."

Even Canonical's CTO once remarked, “With regard to Mono, I think it is a valuable piece of free software for us to have. However, there are risks involved in choosing the .NET platform to develop free software, because it is under the ultimate control of Microsoft. Microsoft could take advantage of this to attack free software in various ways. This would be a logical act of self-preservation, and consistent with their previous actions and statements of intent."


We wrote about this at the time. The CTO comes from Debian. Now that Canonical's Engineering Director is the former Lead Program Manager and User Experience Manager at Microsoft, we are left ever more concerned. On the other hand, one person who defended Mono inside Ubuntu has just left Canonical. Mark Shuttleworth told us how he felt about Mono back in 2008, yet things have changed for the worse since then. Banshee is a Novell project and Novell patents are moving to Microsoft, adding to the .NET warchest that we already know is problematic. With the CPTN situation considered carefully in light of the latest developments [1, 2] (Richi Jennings has somewhat of an overview and the president of the FFII says that the list of patents to be acquired by CPTN Holdings is not public), Canonical would be irresponsible to let this be. Canonical puts not just itself at risk; it also puts its clients at risk, which is hardly excusable given what they already know.

In other news, Microsoft's exploitation of Free software is made more apparent and security issues are found in Mono, which gives yet another reason to abandon this Trojan horse.

Mono ASP.NET source code disclosure vulnerability



A vulnerability has been reported in Mono, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information, according to Secunia.


Many people defend Mono for idealogical reasons. Unless Canonical gets its act together, entryism will take its toll.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: Portugal, Midnightpub, and "Tech Right Admins"
Links for the day
Almost 2026 Already (When We Turn Twenty)
In just over a year the site will turn 20
When "Sponsored Feature" in The Register MS Means Ponzi Scheme Promotion From the Communist Party of China (CPC)
the promotion of a financial scam
Week of EPO Leaks: Workers of the EPO Are Getting a Pay Cut While Prices Rise Fast
More to come in the next few days
Microsoft is Finally Giving Up on XBox, The Chief Says the Grapes Are Sour Anyway
Microsoft loses hundreds of dollars on each XBox that it sells
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Various Slopfarms Propped up by Google News
Why can't Google News do better than this?
Links 25/10/2025: Two New Smokescreens for Scam Altman and ‘TikTok USA’ Remains in Limbo
Links for the day
Bad faith: can't change Debian Social Contract (DSC) without unanimous consent of every joint author
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Confirmed: Very Close Friend of Bill Gates and Microsoft's Biggest Patent Troll Nathan Myhrvold Flew the Lolita Express (a Gateway to Pedophilia), According to Bill Gates-Sponsored Seattle Times
There is no speculation or any "conspiracy theories" here;' those are verified facts
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: "The Highest Leader of The Global Civil Society Community", SSL Certificates Causing Bitrot
Links for the day
Links 25/10/2025: Target Layoffs and "Shutdown Sparks 85% Increase in US Government Cyberattacks"
Links for the day
"Big Data" Was a Big Lie
Remember "Big Data"? Remember "Data Scientists"...?
statCounter Has Been Broken for a Long Time
Considering the huge proportion of Web requests that come from LLM bots (more so this past year or two), statCounter may struggle to justify the operating costs
Techrights Anniversary Party on November 7th
Let us know if you need any accommodation-related arrangements
Trends That Must Alarm Microsoft and Mozilla
Expect Firefox to no longer be supported by various sites in the US
Why Microsoft Became the Layoffs Leader
The corporate media is projecting or signalling its own dishonesty when it tells us that Microsoft is a very "valuable" company while the data shows Microsoft is also a "market leader" in layoffs
Speaking for Ourselves and Letting the Facts Speak for Themselves
we've already published over 50,000 pages
For Second Time in a Day The Register MS Takes Money From Private Companies to Sell a Ponzi Scheme
Do not have empathy for those who have zero empathy towards you
IBM is Misleading IBM Shareholders
IBM is still all about vapourware and buzzwords
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 24, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 24, 2025
The Serial Slopper Starts Up - or Restarts - His Plagiarism Machine (LLMs)
Serial Sloppers like these don't belong in news sites. That's why he got sacked by BetaNews.
Links 24/10/2025: Esperanto Music History, Anxiety, and New Portals
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Sweden, Attended by Nearly 700 People, is Now Online
The Web page is in Swedish, but the talk is in English
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com, Linux Journal, and Pet Slopfarms of Google News
Why does Google News still advance these fake sites to the top of search results?
Links 24/10/2025: Inequality Grows, Billion-Dollar Scam Center Industry
Links for the day
Links 24/10/2025: "Independent Media in Cambodia is Collapsing" and Serious F5 Breach
Links for the day
Coping With the Site Going More Mainstream
Fame is no laughing matter
They Never 'Put Down' Corporations
There are "pests" that are traded in Wall Street
21 Pages in Less Than 7 Hours is No Joking Matter
We've become a lot more effective and efficient
Correct Information is a Valued Asset in the Age of Slopfarms and Public Relations (PR) or Spin
Publishing suppressed facts is never easy
The Register MS Continues to Bag Money to Promote a Ponzi Scheme, Even Money From China
Today in the front page
analytics.usa.gov: The Only Supported Version of Windows (This Past Week) is Only Used by About 13.9% of People in the US, the Home Base of Windows
Even Vista 7 is still used more
Rust is Very Secure
If only Rust itself is secure
Who Will be Held Accountable for Breaking Ubuntu by Imposing Rust on Otherwise-Functional Programs, in Effect Replacing GNU With Proprietary Microsoft (GitHub)?
they're practical people who merely point out that a bunch of buffoons not only ruin Ubuntu but also every future distro based on Ubuntu
Generation Chaff - Phase VIII: In Summary
Like "Science" with a capital "S", what we see here commercial interests usurping everything
Generation Chaff - Phase VII: Curtailing Alternative Media
There was always an obligation - a collective duty of sorts - to uphold independent journalism
Generation Chaff - Phase VI: Centralisation of Information (X, Cheetok/Fentanylware)
Would you trust information when controlled by such people?
Generation Chaff - Phase V: Censorship of Dissent (Painted as Harassment or Terrorism)
Censorship is all around us now
Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security"
Generation Chaff - Phase III: Slop and Plagiarism
A lot of the current so-called 'economy' is built upon false valuations
Generation Chaff - Phase II: "Cloud", Blockchains and Other Hype
For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
Generation Chaff - Phase I: Social Control Media
IRC predates the Web
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 23, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 23, 2025
More Clues Shed on Collapse of Microsoft XBox
XBox is basically circling down the drain as Microsoft implements 2-3 waves of layoffs each month
'Vibe Coding' Doesn't Work
In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
Links 24/10/2025: Microsoft's Killing of XBox Connected to Revenue/Profit Problems, "How Elon Musk Ruined Twitter"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/10/2025: 86,400 Seconds and "Society's Task"
Links for the day