SEVERAL weeks ago, Canonical's CTO made it clear that he was aware of the Mono/C# problem. This happened around the same time that Canonical called off the Yahoo! mistake (sending Ubuntu users to Microsoft datacentres) and there is another sign of improvement now that F-Spot gets replaced in preparation for 10.10 (October 2010 release).
Although F-Spot currently maintains the comfortable position as the default image management and editing application in Ubuntu 10.04, Maverick will see the much-derided application dethroned in favour of photo management application Shotwell.
The decision, confirmed at the Ubuntu Developer Summit, had long been mooted.
“So, future versions of Ubuntu have no imminent additions of Mono-based applications.”Ubuntu would also need to remove games like gbrainy [1, 2, 3, 4]. It's apparently the last remaining Mono-requiring package, which can be removed without problems or remorse as it is just a game (and it can be installed from restricted repositories instead).
To clarify another thing since some readers have asked, Unity is not Mono based, despite the fact that its main developer has a history with Mono. So, future versions of Ubuntu have no imminent additions of Mono-based applications. That's encouraging.
Ubuntu without Mono would still not be perfect, but it would be somewhat safer and it would not promote programming for Microsoft. Canonical can hopefully do more to promote Ogg Theora and no longer pay the MPEG cartel [1, 2]. It's still a controversial issue. Yes, it would be a tricky situation with OEMs and software patents in H.264, but a bold company (like Red Hat) has found ways to avoid MPEG, promote Theora (e.g. in Fedora), and hopefully help abolish software patents. Fluendo's path is probably counter-productive or at least controversial. It is better to promote adoption of Free software rather than make the #1 goal "market share" and then compromise the very goals of GNU/Linux. A Free software distribution with proprietary codecs (patents tax), C#, and proprietary software like Skype is hardly a victory at all, just misguided assimilation. We were pleased to see Mark Shuttleworth saying "Free software" rather than "open source" in his latest keynote speech. He hopefully intends to make that happen. ⬆
Comments
Charles Oliver
2010-05-14 01:22:24
Vala is a different beast to mono though. No VM for a start, everything is translated to C and compiled to produce a binary and it has some very nice gobject introspection stuff which basically makes it very Gnome (in a very good way).
As regards Shotwell. It's an interesting project but it does seem functionally not where f-spot was last time I used it (over a year ago). I really hope that the inclusion in Ubuntu means that Shotwell devs push the progress button hard because the speed and memory usage might not be what the average user most looks at.
Personally, I use Shotwell when I need a photo management app but often find myself switching to nautilus (which kind of defies the point). It replaced F-Spot for me some time ago and it works better than Solang.
Charles Oliver
2010-05-14 01:24:41
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-05-14 06:08:20
Charles Oliver
2010-05-14 08:27:51
With Microsoft you never know though, all their patent deals are back room. I would expect most of the patents they are touting to be quite mundane. It would be nice to see some court action to clarify what they doing.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-05-14 09:25:41
Charles Oliver
2010-05-14 10:49:22
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-05-14 13:03:03
Another example would be the "Junk PC" case where many E-mails from companies like Microsoft and HP got unsealed. Everyone knew Vista was a mess all along (even internally) and now there is proof to show it.