Bonum Certa Men Certa

With Mono Clearly on Microsoft's Side, Another Call for Ubuntu to Move Mono to 'Restricted'



Summary: Now that Microsoft formally recognises the contribution of Miguel de Icaza to Microsoft, there is no longer any reason to think of Mono as beneficial to GNU/Linux

Microsoft MVP Novell's de Icaza [1, 2] has put GNU/Linux at risk and this risk is infectious. Here are the responses in Linux Today to the news about the MVP award. It's overwhelmingly negative and it was probably intentionally posted by the editor right next to an item about Microsoft's attacks on GNU/Linux, as shown by Comes vs Microsoft exhibits.



Any attempt to promote Microsoft APIs and frameworks (SharpDevelop for example) is a disservice to GNU/Linux, based on Microsoft's own documents [PDF]. A reader of ours is concerned about the effects Mono has on Ubuntu for example. Yesterday he wrote to us:

Bradley Kuhn had an interesting discussion of desktops.

I like the effort that Canonical has made with raising the popularity of Debian-based distros. I abhor the fact that it and related services, like Ubuntu One, are starting to be used as a vehicle to spread Microsoft products. With the strong integtration of services, like Ubuntu One mentioned there, into the desktop for Lucid Lynx, there are some real conflicts.

No one and no company can be promoting Microsoft products without knowing the one single possible outcome. Ubuntu has spent a lot of time creating a good brand. It is a shame for a bait-and-switch type scam just as things are getting good. Quality suffers as much from Microsoft products as other areas do.

Obviously the Mono problem is at the middle of all that, even though it itself is only the symptom of some staffing problems. If the staffing problems are not cleared up, it has bad repercussions for all of Free Software operating systems, especially upstream in Debian.

Another one of the lower-profile things that Ubuntu hurts with is that it is constantly steering those who don't know better into proprietary formats, drivers and codecs. There used to be proper warnings about what users were losing if they installed proprietary extras. There used to be a clear distinction between 'main' and 'restricted' I have to point out that the things Bradley wrote about and the things mentioned above were in place and made Ubuntu as popular as it is today.


As Jeremy Allison suggested some months ago, Mono and Mono-based applications should be put in Ubuntu's 'restricted' repositories [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
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