EARLIER this morning we mentioned Alan's latest post about Mono, which led to some feedback that we received by E-mail. Titled "Mail order", it strives to explain why what Novell and Microsoft do with Mono may be illegal. To quote:
In many countries it is a federal offense to commit mail order fraud. Sending someone, unasked for, and then asking for payment later falls in that category. A bank cannot, for example, send you an un-asked for credit card that is free for the first two years and thereafter 200 EUR per year.
What Miguel and the other Microsoft, anti-technology attack force have going looks like fraud: They have been peddling Microsoft technology under just that model. Free for the end user, for now, while Novell pays on behalf of the end user, but at a future date, the end user may pick up the payments. Either way, it is the end user that is on the hook for the payments, though Novell is, for the moment paying.
Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Let's call it a duck. Or in this case, fraud.
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It's that time of the year again and hats off to Alan for a timely write up on cleaning Ubuntu, titled as expected "How to remove Mono from Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala"
It's also a chance to point out that FOSS is about quality as much as it is about freedom and there's no reason to join the race to the bottom just because the Microsoft fanbois say there is no other Way than the One Microsoft Way and Miguel is his prophet.
Here is a sample of really top-class , established applications which may not get the attention they deserve because of all the noise from the Microsoft boosters:
Torrents: * Transmission * Deluge * KTorrent
Notes: * Zim * Basket * Knotes * Gnote
Audio / Video: * Rythmbox * Amarok