Can GNOME 3.0 Avoid Mono Despite GNOME Foundation Director Being Novell Employee?

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-11-12 17:58:46 UTC
Modified: 2009-11-12 17:58:46 UTC

Mono strings GNOME
Image contributed by Beranger

Summary: Novell still controls GNOME's direction using staff appointments

LAST week we showed evidence of intent to saturate GNOME 3.0 with Mono, Novell's crown jewel and "added value" that only Novell customers can use "safely". GNOME 3.0 is scheduled to be released in September and yesterday we mentioned Zonker's audiocast with his colleague Vincent Untz, who is also GNOME Foundation Director (Miguel de Icaza stepped down 2 years ago).

“As long as Novell depends on Microsoft for cash, its agenda remains suspect.”Considering the fact that this nonsense is what keeps Novell busy nowadays, what can possibly prevent Microsoft from using Novell to make GNU/Linux desktops dependent on "promises" and conditions from Microsoft while they also advance Microsoft APIs?

Microsoft already uses SUSE as a back door into HPC, with similar new deals showing that it is a consistent strategy of piggybacking. As long as Novell depends on Microsoft for cash, its agenda remains suspect.

So again, what prevents Novell from influencing GNOME into becoming more dependent on Mono? ⬆

"There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers."

--Bob Muglia, Microsoft President

Comments

Dylan McCall

2009-11-12 21:54:24

Well, Roy, given that there is nothing on the GNOME 3.0 roadmap[1] with regards to Mono, your question is completely off base. For what it's worth, though, the answer would be yes: GNOME has not built a dependency on Mono. (This isn't intentional either way; it's simply the reality that the GNOME platform likes C, with the newest languages on the block being Vala and Javascript + cool Gobject stuff).

[1] http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/Plan

GNOME, as I am sure you know, is liked for being rather language-agnostic. For example, panel applets at the moment can be written in whatever language a developer likes and gtk+ is available practically anywhere. That attitude isn't changing; it's what makes GNOME a powerful platform and one of the reasons for its strong standing on the free software desktop market.

Also, being the GNOME foundation director does not mean that somebody commands the technical direction of the project in the slightest. This is free software; it isn't like being captain of a ship.

Of course, you would know that if you actually followed the project you are trying to attack instead of posting sensationalist garble.

Roy Schestowitz

2009-11-13 01:34:00

No, there are some people who want a tighter integration with Mono. If you examine the evidence, you will see it.

You don't need to wait for the camel's nose to enter the tent before responding. Many of our predictions about Mono became true.
your_friend

2009-11-13 08:55:21

there is nothing on the GNOME 3.0 roadmap[1] with regards to Mono ... being the GNOME foundation director does not mean that somebody commands the technical direction of the project in the slightest. This is free software; it isn’t like being captain of a ship.

Thank you for the good news about the road map but the virtues and resilience of free software do not excuse Novell and others who advocate mono. That the Gnome community is rejecting the advice of Novell tainted "leaders" is good evidence that Roy has been right all along. It is interesting that you would try to turn this defeat into an insult for someone responsible for leading the community away from Microsoft's trap.

Congratulations, BN, you are winning.

Can GNOME 3.0 Avoid Mono Despite GNOME Foundation Director Being Novell Employee?

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