Bonum Certa Men Certa

GNOME-Mono Dependency Revisited (Updated)

Here is an interesting nugget of information. Slated, a reader of this Web site, wishes to share his new discovery with us.




I was horrified to discover the following, just moments ago:

~]# yum update [snip] --> Processing Dependency: libbeagle.so.0 for package: yelp

”Therefore the core of Gnome is now Mono dependent, just as I predicted it would eventually become.“As you may or may not know, Novell's Beagle search tool is built on Mono technology, and Yelp is Gnome's built-in help system (i.e. a core part of Gnome). Therefore the core of Gnome is now Mono dependent, just as I predicted it would eventually become.

It's hardly surprising that this infestation comes to us via Novell, since Miguel de Icaza is deeply connected to all three entities; Novell, Gnome and Mono. And again as you may or may not know, Icaza is a hair's breadth away from being a Microsoft MVP in his activities, regularly attending Microsoft developer conferences and private meetings. Indeed, it would not at all surprise me if de Icaza had MSCE certification by now.

I'm going to blog this, but before I do, I'll need some confirmation. Specifically: Every build is unique to the build host, and this version of Yelp is built by a third party who maintains recent versions of Firefox for Fedora Core 6 (Fedora's /official/ Firefox release on FC6 is stuck on the 1.x branch. They only maintain Firefox 2.x for Fedora 7 and above).

Since Yelp is also dependent on Firefox (it uses Gecko) then a Firefox update pulls in a Yelp update by dependency, and the version of Yelp required to utilise Firefox 2.x support libraries is different from the official 1.x release for FC6. Thus the maintainer must also rebuild and release newer versions of Yelp on his repo, to satisfy that dependency.

The only Fedora 7 system that I have is a headless server, and thus devoid of many things like Firefox and Yelp, but I might easily assume that the official Fedora 7 builds of Firefox and Yelp do also pull in libbeagle as a dependency. I'll have to verify.

It is possible that this third party has enabled a configure option that is not the default. Even so, I am deeply troubled by this discovery, since it is at least suggestive of the future direction that Gnome intends to follow - just as I suspected - with Mono fully integrated into Gnome. The mere fact that such a configure option is even there at all, would suggest that there is a concerted effort to poison Gnome with Mono at the core developer level.

FYI: The third party repo is here:

http://dribble.org.uk

I'll be contacting the repo maintainer today, to ask him what's going on, but I suspect he'll be blissfully ignorant of the problem, if he's running an automated buildsystem. I'll also check the SRPM; the spec file may have comments that reveal the truth.

As a side note; I would just add that this repo maintainer is also in violation of Mozilla Corporation's trademark policy, since he is distributing a modified build of Firefox that retains the Firefox€® trademarked name and logo. Between encumbered components like Mozilla products and Mono, the so-called Free Software tree is being slowly poisoned, and there doesn't seem to be many who care this is happening.

My instincts tell me that this is a very sad day for the Gnome project; the turning point at which Gnome essentially became Microsoft property.




This seems to shatter Jeff's argument, after he requested a correction. For all it seems, GNOME is indeed becoming dependent on Mono.

Mono is Novell



Update: mind the following ongoing discussion (ignore the trolls too)

It seems like it's getting harder and harder to avoid Microsoft IP, thanks to people like you and de Icaza. Thankfully there are those who are prepared to do the work to undo the damage you're doing.

And even if Gnome /does/ become infested with Mono, that's no big deal, right? After all, Mono /is/ "Free Software", isn't it? And it has /nothing/ whatever to do with Microsoft, and I'm sure Microsoft /will/ keep their non-legally binding "Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory" "promise", right Jeff. Microsoft would /never/ dream of using their IP claims to undermine Free Software, now would they? Nor would they ever make exclusionary deals to "protect" /one/ GNU/Linux vendor from .NET patent litigation, but not others ... right?

Oh wait...

So once you've finished poisoning the Free Software tree with encumbered Microsoft technology, just make sure to send me the invoice, so I know who to write the cheque out to. I wouldn't want to be caught running an "illegal" GNU/Linux distribution without paying Microsoft the correct "protection" fee, now would I?

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
 
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025