That whole Mono entanglement [
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Inspired by something in BoycottNovell, Beranger.org (formerly Beranger on GNOME)
summarises the latest issue fairly well:
Soon, it will be IMPOSSIBLE to "unMonofy" your GNOME, as once you will get rid of Tomboy, F-Spot, Beagle, Banshee, Muine, Telepathy, whatever, you won't be able to remove Mono, as it will be required as a GNOME system library!
Yesterday, before the analysis from Beranger.org, we passed evidence on to a knowledgeable figure arguing that Jeff Waugh had promised this would not happen. We received the following response:
Can you send a link to a public page where Waugh makes that assurance? If so, I can try to make sure it gets some mileage.
It's one thing I never learned as a kid and have no idea how to go about trying: how do deal with bull*****ers like Waugh, who even as they are speaking you know they are lying or have no intent of following through but courtesy and protocol otherwise require accepting the statements at face value.
One solution is to nip the mono and excise all MS tech from GNOME. A second, in parallel, is to low-key, calmly and quietly insist on KDE and Fluxbox, especially in popular distros like Ubuntu and Fedora.
For context, see this
thread in the GNOME Foundation's mailing list. This long discussion was started by Richard Stallman, who happened to be aware of our work. Therein you'll find claims that GNOME does not depend on Mono. Jeff made that claim repeatedly in this site, but it would take
some digging to find several individual examples because he left about a hundred comments.
“GNOME is apparently becoming Mono-dependent, which is a shame.”Our contact later added: "If you come across anything showing the discrepancy between word and deed, that would be very useful."
It is, by this stage, becoming clearer that Jeff Waugh's promise was not trustworthy. GNOME is apparently becoming Mono-dependent, which is a shame. We saw that coming.
Remember that Mono is a Novell project and only Novell customers receive so-called 'protection' for the use Mono (due to expire in January 2012). Need we even start to wonder again why the 'Novell part' part of the GNOME Foundation supports OOXML and even helps it? Remember that Microsoft pays Novell to support OOXML. So, Novell seems to have resorted to fear as a strategy for selling itself and it's poisoning GNOME for everybody else who uses it. The image below is a depiction of Novell. Please address this problem before it becomes truly irreversible.
Unless our assertion is wrong, we deserve some apologies from various people, including Jeff, for smears claiming that we were wrong. ⬆
Comments
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-01 15:48:17
As a part-time GNOME user with history as a developer with GTK, I wish not to go away but to make the problem go away.
Yes, there is. The two intersect. People have dual commitments. GNOME's president for many years was also a vice president at Novell, for starters.
You'll have to give more convincing answers, Jeff.
Jeff Waugh
2008-02-01 14:42:36
But instead of fixing the problem, you're resorting to personal attribution to try to make a point (at no point did I make any kind of promise about projects I do not control -- what a preposterous notion and mistruth!).
Have you considered that informed research and dissemination of actual truths might make your points better? The answer still appears to be "no".
Go away, Roy.
Jeff Waugh
2008-02-01 14:44:27
Ross
2008-02-01 16:25:01
GNOME 2.22 added libndesk-dbus as an external dependency, for use by *Mono applications*. Note *Mono applications*. If you don't build any Mono applications, then you don't need libdesk-dbus. libndesk-dbus is useless if you don't use Mono, because its 100% Mono code. Thats the entire point of libndesk-dbus: it is a pure-Mono implementation of the DBus protocol -- just like libdbus is a pure-C implemention of the DBus protocol -- and makes using DBus easier and simplier in Mono applications.
Béranger
2008-02-01 16:48:32
Generally speaking, why should we believe that you're at the same time:
(1) so very much interested in providing all the back-ends integration for all the possible Mono apps (Tapioca, Landell, VMX Manager, LAT, Babuine, Chatter, Novell Banter, whetever);
(2) so very scrupulous to maintain GNOME's independence of Mono?
At some point, a small dependency will make the whole GNOME dependent of Mono! The question is not "IF", but "WHEN"!
If you wanted to keep GNOME free of reimplementations of Microsoft technologies, you would have developed your Gtk# apps *outside* of the GNOME Project, not *inside*!
BTW, if you wanted to say that all the stuff like NotifySharp, gnome-keyring-sharp, etc. are to be only used with C# apps and under no circumstances would the regular C-based libraries be jeopardized, you could have used "WRAPPER" instead of "REPLACEMENT" in your GUADEC presentation.
Why don't you reimplement the whole GNOME environment as a separate project instead of screwing GNOME?
Béranger
2008-02-01 16:50:24
It was about a reimplementation in Mono, obviously. You could call it Monome.
Ross
2008-02-01 16:55:57
You may have noticed that GNOME is an inclusive project, any project with some relation to GNOME is allowed to use the GNOME svn server, bugzilla, etc. Just because a project has files on the GNOME svn server doesn't make it an official GNOME project. The GNOME Desktop and Platform module sets clearly state what is "officially" GNOME. The Mono apps you dislike so much all use gtk#, so have a reason to use the GNOME resources.
libndesk-dbus isn't a wrapper, libhal-sharp isn't a wrapper, NotifySharp isn't a wrapper. gnome-keyring-sharp isn't a wrapper. The entire point is that they are *not* wrappers. There are existing C# wrappers for the C libraries and they prove to be tricky to integrate and maintain, thus it is easier to write C# ones.
I'll re-iterate my point again. The C# implementations of these utility libraries are 100% entirely totally useless outside of a C# application. Really, this is such a non-issue its amazing.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-01 17:07:29
Saying that GNOME does not depend on Mono is becoming somewhat similar to saying you don't depend on water because you are not thirsty at the moment. Tell me something: do you reckon that Yahoo will feature Silverlight everywhere, just like microsoft.com is intended to be? Don't have your head buried in the sand. I, for one, know what is going on. Your spin won't stop this.
Ross
2008-02-01 17:10:54
Béranger
2008-02-01 17:10:55
Really? I can't see Anjuta there.
Let me tell you how things work with you, the new generation of GNOME guys:
-- Atomix was born in 2001 or earlier. It was proposed to enter as an official GNOME game for GNOME 2.13.2 (see http://www.osnews.com/thread?61146, http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-91334.html, http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/teams/releng/2.13.2/gnome-2.13.2.modules). Instead, it was *refused*, and in the meantime the page that existed at http://www.gnome.org/projects/atomix was removed!
-- Anjuta was born in 2000. We're now in 2008 and there are still discussions on whether it should be part of the GNOME project or not.
-- Mono was born... oh, no. You know better.
> The Mono apps you dislike so much all use gtk#, so have a reason to use the GNOME resources.
No, they don't. Gtk# is not part of GNOME, and its homepage is at the Mono Project: http://www.mono-project.com/GtkSharp
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-01 17:17:32
Brilliant. The anarchy that comes from .NET developers taking over GNU/Linux (or at least a desktop environment) and bending it to suit their own conveniences, regardless of the needs of many users, some of whom know nothing about Mono and patents (they just use it obliviously). What will be the future?
Victor Soliz
2008-02-01 22:33:37
Right now it looks like although you don't need MONO to run gnome, you need MONO to use gnome to its full default capabilities, and this looks as harmful to me.
Jeff Waugh
2008-02-01 23:00:24
Sure, there are plenty of applications coming out that have been written in C#, with Mono's GTK+/GNOME bindings. Similarly, there are plenty of applications being written in Python with its GTK+/GNOME bindings. Developers hack with what they like and know. That's not surprising at all.
There is only one Mono-based application included in the regular GNOME release: Tomboy. This has been the case for a few releases now. Nothing has changed on that front, nor on the "repeated, misinformed reporting from Boycott Novell" front. :-)
And, as has always been the case, you can fully use GNOME (as released by upstream) without Mono installed at all. While some distributions might wedge Mono stuff into their system utilities, certainly Ubuntu and Fedora do not. So on popular, modern distros, you can also remove Mono completely and continue to use GNOME without interruption.
Those who say otherwise are either lying to you, are fundamentally misinformed, unable to do their own research, or have no interest in admitting that their bizarre claims are in fact wrong. :-)
If Roy prefers to cite irrelevancies (that have already been very clearly dealt with) such as "Miguel was the GNOME Foundation president" instead of actually doing useful research, then his readers suffer for it. I've tried to help in many different ways and on many occasions, but ultimately only Roy can fix his problem with truth and paranoia.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-02 00:47:31
Since when is presidency a case of irrelevance? Since you called Miguel an embarrassment (or something along those lines)? For all I can tell, I can trust your word as much as some others in GNOME do. Last month, in this Web site, Rodney Dawes said:
"Jeff. Please. You aren’t GNOME. You’re just one of the “people” in it. Plenty of people appreciate my commentary. While you aren’t one of them, please do not go slandering like you are speaking for the entire community. There are just as many people who don’t appreciate your input, output, or anything else about you either.
But whatever. You know the truth. Those who see short, fall far. But have fun trying to mock me some more. I’m sure your insults will be very professional and appear in other blog comments across the internet as well."
Had it came from an anonymous poster. I'd ignore, but it seems to me like I ought to take your word with a grain of salt. Two separate people independently advised me to.
IIRC, in Windows 98, it was still somehow possible to remove Internet Explorer. How many people did this?
Jeff Waugh
2008-02-02 02:55:05
I'm not concerned about what Rodney says about me. I am entirely comfortable with my position in GNOME, and the respect that I have earned among a very broad majority of members of the project. Those who work in public roles get a lot of crap from time to time, and I'm used to it.
Finally, you compare GNOME/Mono with Windows/IE, which demonstrates your inability to understand the technology, or embrace the facts of the matter. I really do wish you'd grow up and stop promoting such divisive misinformation and crap.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-02 03:23:45
Woods
2008-02-04 06:25:15
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the whole point of eg. libbeagle to offer a C/Python API to a C# application (Beagle)?
Granted, it is only a single C library to a single Mono application but it raises a nasty spectre of a future where core Gnome components would be written with Mono and a small C-lib would be provided for legacy apps/libs.
Béranger
2008-02-04 10:01:41
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-04 10:21:26
The direction of this concerns the mind. Let's see how long for de Icaza can claim that this infatuation with Mono is nothing to worry about ( http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/6232/1/ ).I hope that I'm wrong and that GNOME will never become MONOME. At the moment, most people receive Mono _out of the box_. They actually have to actively remove it if they do not want it (kind of like Windows Media Player in Windows).
Victor Soliz
2008-02-04 12:26:53
But the jewel here is:
An MS-technology/patents dependent framework is NOT the best tool for the job when the job is to make open source applications for the default gnome desktop.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-04 12:41:22
Yes, indeed. I've just checked the links in here and it's pretty safe to say that a few weeks/months ago, Miguel or somebody else from GNOME told the editors to change the headline (maybe the body as well) of this article. It used to say something about GNOME being rewritten in Mono. At the time, RMS was very concerned about this article. He proceeded to asking Miguel to explain his motives, IIRC. There was also a clarification (damage control) in LinuxToday. I'd have to check the details and research this better when time permits it. It's intent and deed combined that will give us some answers.
To quote an E-mail I received on Saturday:
[about friendly acquaintances with de Icaza:]
Don't confuse words with deeds, especially claimed intent. How familiar are you with "Coyote" legends, from your part of the country more or less? Or known 'kind' people who manage to turn everything around them to shit?
[...]
Again to dismiss or minimize the problem by framing it as one of emotions furthers the harm. If you mean that the anger is caused by Miguel's and Bruce's [Lowry] apparent efforts to subvert, block or undermine FOSS, then that's correct. But it might be more accurate to address the problem behavior itself - the undermining and subversion.
To single out Miguel, perhaps he really is so tarded, dumb or naive, that he thinks FOSS will somehow come out ahead by copying M$ broken, proprietary gimmicks into their systems without written assurances of approval. But at the end of the day it matters not what he thinks, besides we cannot know what he thinks. We can only see the results of his actions and these have been consistently bad. c.f. recent debate over backing MOOX.
Rodney Dawes
2008-02-27 17:53:18
Yes. I'm quite used to get plenty crap as well, especially from you.
I wouldn't exactly say that you've earned respect, though, so much as created a facade of it. You came in with the premise of being the face of GNOME, rather than working up to it. You came in and took advantage of the fact that we didn't have marketing or publicity, setting yourself up to be in the position you wanted to be in. Ever since you "joined" this community, you have done nothing for me, but provide mockery and insult. Your attitude and behavior leave much to be desired in the way of professionalism. Being in your position is nothing more to you than a tick on your resume.
Please stop speaking about me in blog comments. It is rather unbecoming of your position.
As far as I'm concerned, you and Roy are both on the same level.
CHrisophorus
2008-02-27 18:13:10
It's a shame that it is the website of a so-called 'free-software-evangelist'. If asked whether I would rather be forced to spend an hour with Steve Ballmer of with Roy Schestowitz I'd have think about it for a very long time.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-27 18:16:46
CHrisophorus
2008-02-27 18:29:25
Your methods are just as ugly as Steve Ballmer's.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-27 19:04:54
This argument is hopeless.
Rodney Dawes
2008-02-27 20:10:32
It is FUD when you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. You don't work at either Microsoft or Novell (or do you?). You aren't a lawyer. You don't choose the direction of either company. As far as I can tell, all you do is sit on your ass and post crap to forums and web sites all day long. You don't know what is and isn't FUD with regards to Mono, Microsoft, Novell, or anything else. That's the entire point of FUD. All you're doing is buying into it, because you are full of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. If you weren't, you wouldn't have this web site up to post your trash on. You would be confident and knowing of what was happening, and that things would end in a good way. Instead, here you are, revelling in the FUD.
CHrisophorus
2008-02-27 21:32:26
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-28 02:40:55
Prior to joining this site (a couple of weeks after the Novell deal) I realised that I was looking at the wrong problems by advocating GNU/Linux for years. When someone walks around offering bounties on Linux's head and bribing diplomats, then clearly it's important to put a stop to it. Things are more complex they you wish for them to be. Microsoft will never let Linux just win based on technical merits. It plays hardball. It cheats. Just look back at the OS/2 days. Microsoft continues to use the same tactics (if not much worse) and it's worth attention so that it can be combated effectively.
Lastly, to use an analogy. If you always just praise a young person for everything, he or she might never improve. It's by pointing out problems that things will improve. Just because I'm pointing out the problems doesn't mean I make them. At least I don't find endless problems in actual GNU/Linux distributions and publicizing them like Beranger does. I think /that's/ damaging because it can be used against us.
CHrisophorus
2008-02-28 12:44:38
All your website does is undermining Linux users' reputation. Not all of us are wearing tinfoil hats.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-28 13:42:09
Pursuit for truth and liability for crimes/corruption shouldn't harm anyone's reputation, apart from those who carry guilt. A person who 'dares' to report abuse, misuse or misconduct is bound to become a victim of personal attacks and smear campaigns, but whose word you trust is a separate matter altogether.
CoolGuy
2008-02-28 16:03:24
I have seen a lot of smooth talking assholes who end up back stabbing you one day for their own personal gains.
Talking nice things and acting in a way that totally undermines ones reputation. I rather be with a person who will tell the right thing and act in the right way even if it sounds bad.
My 2 cents.
Icaza and Jeff are going down the wrong road. They way they are acting is damaging gnome and foss in the long run.
Michael Moore
2008-02-28 20:31:06
Edgar F. Hilton
2008-03-07 15:02:54
>>> apt-get remove --purge `dpkg -l | grep mono | awk '{print $2}'`
The list of items that was removed was impressive:
f-spot* gnome-rdp* libart2.0-cil* libgconf2.0-cil* libglade2.0-cil* libglib2.0-cil* libgmime2.2-cil* libgnome-vfs2.0-cil* libgnome2.0-cil* libgtk2.0-cil* libgtkhtml2.0-cil* libmono-cairo1.0-cil* libmono-corlib1.0-cil* libmono-corlib2.0-cil* libmono-data-tds1.0-cil* libmono-data-tds2.0-cil* libmono-security1.0-cil* libmono-security2.0-cil* libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil* libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil* libmono-sqlite1.0-cil* libmono-sqlite2.0-cil* libmono-system-data1.0-cil* libmono-system-data2.0-cil* libmono-system-web1.0-cil* libmono-system-web2.0-cil* libmono-system1.0-cil* libmono-system2.0-cil* libmono0* libmono1.0-cil* libmono2.0-cil* libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil* libndesk-dbus1.0-cil* librsvg2.0-cil* libvte2.0-cil* mono-common* mono-gac* mono-jit* mono-runtime* tomboy
Out of all these, I've noticed that Ubuntu has made a big deal about f-spot and tomboy. I personally am not happy about that, as I think this is a dangerous path to follow. However, I am not detecting much dependency of GNOME on mono as of this time as far as this popular distribution is concerned. I have been running without mono for some time now and everything else in GNOME still seems to work.
In my mind, Ubuntu -- and any others that follow this trend toward using Mono or C# for that matter -- should be the ones that we as the Linux community should monitor closely. Linux has been able to make great decisions in the past, and I think that she'll continue to do so in the future.
Whistleblowers are never popular, however I thank you, and applaud you, Roy, for bringing this to our attention. I'll personally be in the lookout for this in the future. However, at this time, I do fail to see the connection between GNOME and Mono other than by association (which is itself somewhat too close for comfort), not by technical dependency.
My 2 cents as well.
Béranger
2008-03-07 15:22:29
1. Shipping with at least a Mono application BY DEFAULT (i.e. Tomboy) is more than "association", it's SUPPORTING.
2. RECOMMENDING Tomboy (a Mono app) in the OFFICIAL presentation of a GNOME release is more than "association", see: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.16/index.html.en#rnfeatures-tomboy http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.18/index.html.en#detail http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.20/index.html.en#rnusers-tomboy
Still, you don't *technically* depend on Mono. YET.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-03-07 15:58:10
Miles
2008-05-28 16:21:44
If you follow the google search link below, it is plainly obvious that Roy has lied. The article's title was not changed at all.
Google search link
Note especially the mailing-list archive with a message just days after the original publishing referring to the article with the current headline.
Looks like Roy's been caught with his hand in the liar jar.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-05-28 22:55:12
I've just looked back at what gave me the impression that Linux Planet used to say that GNOME would be based on .NET. It was this:
http://boycottnovell.com/2007/07/23/gnome-mono-dep/ (see the two URLs in the quote)
I now realise that I must have mixed the two adjacent URLs (Register and Linux Planet), so you're right. I got caught up in the impression that the latter had changed. It wasn't, and I apologise. I tried to check this to verify before, but wasn't successful. There was an argument about the article from The Register later (especially the headline) and I was convinced it's based on Linux Planet (where I publish sometimes). You were right and I was wrong.
Miles
2008-05-29 16:35:30
You consistently make these "mistakes", but you haven't yet changed your ways and continue to make them (which makes me and a lot of other people believe you do it on purpose).
Jiivandeva
2008-05-30 10:21:58