Comments

• Needs Sunlight

  2011-07-20 07:58:48

  Use of the vague term "intellectual property", instead of specifying copyright or trademark or patents explicitly, is a sure sign that they are bullshitting. It's cliche but using the term "intellectual property" means that they are either confused themselves or intentionally trying to confuse others.

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2011-07-20 08:11:31

  They try to make something glorified out of a monopoly. According to Wayne Borean, it's about copyrights: "Consider the position that Miguel was in. Because of the change of ownership of the company, he was no longer working for the company that held the copyright to his work. This is why he had to go to such lengths, to regain control to his own creation. Was that right?"

• twitter

  2011-07-20 17:04:11

  Mono opponents are apparently incapable of understanding that the US patent systems is fubarred enough that ‘code without patent issues’ does not exist in ths USA

  
  
  I'm not sure what mono opponents Weikusat is talking about. Techrights, the FSF and every one else I've read understands both that the USPTO is insane and that Mono poses a special problem. I'm glad to see Weikusat slamming Mono for performance issues that .NET had but he should do a better job of understanding Microsoft's propaganda and the patent issue.
  
  The sad state of the US patent system is a problem that Microsoft has both created and exploits. Mono is a Trojan horse that promotes Microsoft's second rate java replacement in a way that both harms performance and puts people at special risk of Microsoft judicial extortion. Microsoft's propaganda is that free software is that the free software world does nothing but copy Microsoft, the world's one true innovator. Mono is one instance where this is half true. .NET is poor copy of Java and there is nothing innovative about it. Mono was a Microsoft funded trap. Any distro that tries to use Mono without a Microsoft license is, as Richard Stallman put it, putting their head into the lion's mouth.
  
  Now that Microsoft's license for Novell is ending, Attachmate's blessing of Xamarin means even less than Novell's blessing once did. This is a real change that should be noted.

• Needs Sunlight

  2011-07-20 17:09:03

  Which logical fallacy does this "‘code without patent issues’ does not exist in ths USA" quote embody? It's one of the "appeals".
  
  Anyway, there are enough reasons on the technical side of things that Mono can be banned from the distros. It's slow and unreliable.

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2011-07-20 17:13:07

  It also leads developers to Visual Studio and the rest of the Microsoft universe.

• Needs Sunlight

  2011-07-20 17:17:33

  Indeed. Bradley Kuhn and others posit that mono should lead people out of the Microsoft pit. However, that's an indefensibly naive position: As much as some folks wish that to be true, the reality is that it has been used to spread M$.NOT to Linux. This is seen in the number of new .NOT applications. Has there been todate even a single case where Mono lead to a migration away from either M$ in general or more specifically .NOT ?

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2011-07-20 17:31:28

  IMHO, Kuhn was trying to portray himself as "reasonable" (or "good cop"). I disagree with him sometimes.

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2011-07-20 17:13:47

  Indeed. The Novell-Microsoft deal expires in January 1st.

• Needs Sunlight

  2011-07-20 17:19:00

  Soon it is time for a retrospective. There was a lot written when the contract was signed, some of it by Novell's own departing staff.

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2011-07-20 17:32:25

  All the management which was involved in this has left, AFAIK.