01.23.11
The “Mono Lobby” Explained by Neil Richards
Summary: An alternative, more polite name for the Mono bullies
We have just come across a new term. A news site which is focused on Free software calls the Mono boosters “the Mono lobby”, akin to “Team Mono” or “Monomaniacs” in some other Web sites. Neil Richards explains “How To Erase Mono From Your Ubuntu PC, Forever”:
I am worried that Microsoft will come after Canonical as they went after Novell, Xandros, TurboLinux, TomTom, Amazon and many other GNU/Linux players. Dependency on Mono might pull Ubuntu into a blackhole from which there will be no return.
The Mono lobby is actively pushing the trojan through the gates of two major forts of Free Software — Android and Ubuntu. While Google may not care much about Mono, Canonical must. Canonical doesn’t make 6.x billion dollars in a quarter to fight Microsoft.
If you are a Free Software user and are concerned about this cancerous spread of Mono, you can send a message to Canonical — by uninstalling Mono from your Ubuntu machines and make sure that it won’t recur.
Meanwhile, over at OMG!Ubuntu, Banshee ‘involvee’ David Nielsen [1, 2] carries on advertising Banshee and needless to say, there is no word of caution about Mono (the administrators of OMG!Ubuntu politely told me that they would post an article on this subject). The Mono lobby is not exactly fair and balanced, yet it accuses others of not being fair and balanced. “This is great,” pointed out gnufreex in IRC yesterday, “Notice Banshee and F-Spot got bad names” in this new video:
The person who made this video rants about sexual connotations in Banshee and F-Spot or at least suggests them. A replacement for “Banshee” involves the word “vagina” and F-Spot is seen as too similar to “G-Spot”. Given that the Mono lobby is rather foul-mouthed (telling me “fuck you” and telling my co-host Tim that he is a “cunt”), maybe these application names are suitable after all. Calling these people “Mono lobby” is an understatement. They are Mono bullies. █
The Mad Hatter said,
January 23, 2011 at 11:52 am
Miguel’s Mono Morons is what I call them.
After all, only an idiot would want to install Microsoft technology on a good Linux system.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Many of these people don’t care about Linux. Remember that Mono is NOT a Linux project, it’s a cross-platform project focused on ASP/.NET. Just because Mr. GNOME made it doesn’t mean it’s a Linux project.
twitter Reply:
January 23rd, 2011 at 1:48 pm
If they were not paid to promote Microsoft’s platform, you might call them “convenient idiots”. When there’s money on the table the problem is ethics not native intelligence or talent.
The only thing more futile than running a free implementation of a Microsoft framework on a gnu/linux system is trying to run free software on a Microsoft system. A legitimate use for a free .NET is to port legacy software to freedom. There is little point trying to exercise software freedom in the non free software world of Windows because the underlying restrictions management system will keep users from doing what they want. Microsoft can also break mono and tell people to use, “the real deal.”
twitter said,
January 23, 2011 at 11:53 am
How puerile and misogynist. I’m sure that I don’t want to watch that video in front of my girls. I’d thought F-Spot stood for Foto-spot or was a play of fstop, which has to do with focal ratio.
That’s the kind of culture that Microsoft and Novell would inflict on the free software world. What can you expect from a company that rips people off so that they can have better drug and whore parties on one of the bosses’ big toys? Microsoft’s public pronouncements have always involved crass pop stars who exploit sexuality and their message has aways been that ripping people off to make money, aka “sharp business practices,” is morally acceptable. Unjust power over and exploitation of customers is the founding principle of non free software.
When people tell me they don’t trust free software because it is gratis and “you get what you pay for,” I tell them that sometimes their money just goes to buy an executive a bigger yacht.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Microsoft: developers are a one-night stand. It figures. Remember what Ballmer called Eric Schmidt when he yanked a chair.
Adrian Malacoda said,
January 23, 2011 at 7:01 pm
I honestly didn’t read anything inappropriate in “Banshee.” I thought it was a reference to a banshee, which if I understand it correctly is a creature known for wailing loudly. According to Wikipedia, a banshee is a “female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld” so maybe it’s appropriate
Will said,
January 24, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Yeah, the guy in that video was really stretching for some of those alternate names. I don’t see the problem with Banshee as a name for a music player, like Adrian said.
I’m not really happy with Ubuntu’s continued flirting with Mono, but even though they are putting Banshee in on the next release, they did remove F-Spot in favor of Shotwell. So at least the Mono concentration isn’t increasing.