Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Unleashes the Death Trap to Mono (Updated)

There you have it.

Microsoft has just moved its chess piece (or "cheese trap") by supposedly opening up .NET. .NET is bound to become shared source. The OSI debate is not very relevant here (shared source isn't acceptable as "Open Source", yet), but the 'SCO factor' now comes into play. In an excellent new article, Steven Vaughan-Nichols explains why the cat is out of the bag.

Mono is sponsored by Novell. It's led by noted open-source developer Miguel de Icaza. The Mono code is covered by three different real open-source licenses. The C# Compiler and tools are released under the terms of the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License); the runtime libraries are under the LGPL 2.0 (GNU Library GPL 2); and the class libraries are released under the terms of the MIT 11 license.

[...]

Microsoft, however, is baiting its trap for Mono programmers with .NET cheese. They'll claim, come that day, about how open it was in letting people look, but not touch, their code. With the combination of "proof" that some Mono code has been stolen from Microsoft and its attempt to muddy the waters about what open source really means, it can look forward to having a much better chance of killing off an open-source project than SCO ever had with Linux

If you ever, and I mean ever, want to write open-source code, I recommend you not come within a mile of Microsoft's .NET Framework code or any other similar projects that the boys from Redmond "open" up.

If you do, you're nibbling on the cheese of a trap that will eventually snap shut on you and kill up your program and quite possibly your job and finances.


While Novell is betting on Mono, it would be dangerous to bet on Novell.

Nomo
No mo', Novell



Update: Miguel de Icaza praises Microsoft about the move but cannot hide his disappointment with the choice of licence. It is subtle, yet transparent.

Does this disruptive development finally show everyone why Novell's love affair with Mono isn't such a great idea? Does it teach us just why Novell, which fosters this project and makes its desktop more Mono-oriented, doing it for selfish interests? Only Novell is 'protected' for the use of Mono (this protection will last for another 4 years and then expire). Even Xandros and Linspire are not 'protected' (Mon is excluded explicitly in their deal with Microsoft).

Microsoft is fooling everyone and works with Novell on poisoning the well we all drink from.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft GitHub Exposé — In the Alex Graveley Case, His Lawyer, Rick Cofer, Appears to Have Bribed the DA to Keep Graveley (and Others) Out of Prison
Is this how one gets out of prison? Hire the person who bribes the DA?
 
The Debian Project Leader said the main thing Debian lacked was more contributors
The Debian Project Leader said the main thing Debian lacked was more contributors
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 28, 2023
IRC logs for Thursday, September 28, 2023
Links 28/09/2023: Openwashing and Patent Spam as 'News'
Links for the day
Links 28/09/2023: Preparing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.9 and 9.3 Beta
Links for the day
We Need to Liberate the Client Side and Userspace Too
Lots of work remains to be done
Recent IRC Logs (Since Site Upgrade)
better late than never
Techrights Videos Will be Back Soon
We want do publish video without any of the underlying complexity and this means changing some code
Microsoft is Faking Its Financial Performance, Buying Companies Helps Perpetuate the Big Lies (or Pass the Debt Around)
Our guess is that Microsoft will keep pretending to be huge, even as the market share of Windows (and other things) continues to decrease
Techrights Will Tell the Story (Until Next Year!) of How Since 2022 It Has Been Under a Coordinated Attack by a Horde of Vandals and Nutcases
People like these belong in handcuffs and behind bars (sometimes they are) and our readers still deserve to know the full story. It's a cautionary tale for other groups and sites
Why It Became Essential to Split GNU/Linux Stories from the Rest
These sites aren't babies anymore. In terms of age, they're already adults.
Losses and Gains in an Age of Oligarchy - A Techrights Perspective
If you don't even try to fix something, there's not even a chance it'll get fixed
Google (and the Likes Of It) Will Cause Catastrophic Information Loss Rather Than Organise the World's Information
Informational and cultural losses due to technological plunder
Links 28/09/2023: GNOME 45 Release Party, 'Smart' Homes Orphaned
Links for the day
Security Leftovers
Xen, breaches, and more
GNOME Console Won’t Support Color Palettes or Profiles; Will Support Esperanto
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Let's Hope GNU Makes it to 100
Can GNU still be in active use in 2083? Maybe.
GNU is 40, Linux is Just 32
Today it's exactly 40 years since Richard Stallman sent a message regarding GNU
GNU/Linux and Free Software News Mostly in Tux Machines Now
We've split the coverage
Links 27/09/2023: GNOME Raves and Firefox 118
Links for the day
Links 27/09/2023: 3G Phase-Out, Monopolies, and Exit of Rupert Murdoch
Links for the day
IBM Took a Man’s Voice, Pitting Him Against His Own Work, While Companies Profit from Low-Effort Garbage Generated by Bots and “Self-Service”
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer