Bonum Certa Men Certa

Monoment [sic] of Novell's Demise

Monument
Living and dying with Mono



A FREQUENTLY-ASKED question is, "what distinguishes between the FSF's approach to .NET and that of Novell?"



Aside from the fact that the FSF seems to have lost interest in .NET cloning, the key difference between dotgnu and Mono is that the former is intended to bring legacy applications over to GNU/Linux (much like Wine), whereas the latter -- Mono -- is somehow making its way into GNOME/GTK applications. Ximian/Novell are the cause for this and Novell encourages use of MonoDevelop.

A reader brought to our attention this video from a year and a half ago where Richard Stallman answers a question about Mono.

Ogg Theora





Direct link



Mr. Stallman says people "shouldn't implement in .NET." It is important to use our own tools. For example, it would be impossible to find GNU/Linux developers selecting Microsoft DirectX just because Wine can sort of handle it. Unsurprisingly, one of the most vocal boosters of Mono goes by the name directhex.

Novell is actively developing its desktop with Mono, so it's not just a matter of bringing applications to GNU/Linux; it's also about making applications in GNU/Linux using Microsoft technologies and therefore enriching Windows as well. Here is a brand-new reminder that comes with Novell's release of Banshee 1.4:



Developers should use GPL-licensed tools like net2java (there are also non-Free ones) to escape the .NET trap as soon as possible.

Even Miguel seems to be having regrets. An older article is summarised thusly:

Novell Vice President Miguel de Icaza criticizes choice of Microsoft technology over open-source options.



To quote further from this article:

Speaking on a panel at the MIX 08 conference in Las Vegas, de Icaza said that Novell has done the best it could to balance open-source interests with patent indemnification. However, if he had his way, the company would have remained strictly open source and not gotten into bed with Microsoft. Novell entered into a controversial multimillion dollar cross-patent licensing and interoperability deal with Microsoft in November 2006.


Despite all of this, Novell's new leadership is looking into further development of Microsoft technologies with Moonlight. Yes, it even "calls for [Moonlight] 2.0 contributors."

Moonlight 1.0 Beta 1 Nears Rollout, Calls for 2.0 Contributors



The Moonlight team has announced that the first beta release of Moonlight 1.0 is nearly ready for testing. Moonlight is an open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight product.


"Come and volunteer to help the poisoning of GNU/Linux..."

Who are they kidding? Novell should fight XAML, not support it. Fedora knows better.

Truthfully, .NET is Microsoft's imitation of Java, but the patent office does not recognise the fact that all ideas (or so-called 'inventions') are merely aggregations of existing knowledge. This is why we push so hard for a reform and so should everybody else (shall time permit).

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

--Albert Einstein

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

GAFAM "doesn't depend on any sort of lock-in, humans just don't want to be free anymore," according to MinceR
As many readers are aware, our criticism of UEFI (restricted boot in particular) attracted a lot of online harassment against us, including stalking and libel
 
Links 15/12/2025: Chromebooks as Work Machines, "Americans [Who] Moved to Australia" to Avoid Cheeto
Links for the day
Breaking Your Proprietary Router in the Name of "Security"
Each time they "patch" the router something that previously worked OK is likely to just break
IBM May be Breaking the Law to Silence Staff It Laid Off
Observation to add regarding IBM layoffs
Demonisation Attacks on Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS) - Including Antisemitic Attacks - Have Not Worked
Name-calling doesn't work
Slop ("AI") Will Replace People and Take Away Jobs, Say the Slopfarms With Fake (LLM-Generated) Text and Slop Images
"AI" often means slave labour in a poor country
More Than a Million Bytes Should be Enough for Most Computer Programs
Who said computing would improve over time?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 14, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, December 14, 2025
Another "AI" (Slop) Use Cases Turns Out to be a Fraud
Those who talk about this fraud get SLAPPed
They Say Rules Are Made to be Broken, at Microsoft That Became an Imperative (e.g. Accounting Fraud, Bribery and So on)
Its biggest client is itself
In Russia, Microsoft is Already a Dying Breed Online
A lot of Europe also dumps Microsoft. Europe is a big revenue source of Microsoft.
The Future of News on the World Wide Web
No "greener pastures" on the Web
𝐈𝐁𝐌 𝐂𝐄𝐎 𝐀𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐊𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐧𝐚: Proof That at IBM People Fall Upwards
IBM is collapsing
EPO People Power - Part XII - The Mobbing Got So Bad People Were Unable to Work
What's at stake here isn't just the EPO or the patent system
Links 14/12/2025: "Chile to ban smartphones in classroom" and "Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/12/2025: "GUI TUI CLI" and EmacsConf 2025 Video
Links for the day
Links 14/12/2025: Tensions in Asia, US Making Deals With Belarus
Links for the day
A Utopian and Very Dumb Vision of Technology, Based on Accounting Fraud
the "industry" has become insane and a lot of "the media" is going along with it
Links 14/12/2025: "The Slop of Things to Come", Goldman Sachs Nervous About Slop Bubble
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 13, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, December 13, 2025
Google News is Google Noise
Google News is really hopeless, even on weekends
IBM: We Pay You to be Obedient or Deny You What You're Entitled to If You Don't Act Obediently
Good luck starting legal battles with a company that has almost as many lawyers (including aggressive patent lawyers) as it has geeks
Links 13/12/2025: Jimmy Lai and Media Freedom on Trial, "OpenAI Researcher Quits, Saying Company Hiding the Truth"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/12/2025: Extensive Catchup With Gopherholes
Links for the day
Deliberate Lies or Glaring Distortions
Calling Torvalds anything "Soviet" or "Russian" would overlook the fact he comes from Finland and has Swedish roots
Canonical and Ubuntu: Working for Microsoft, Promoting Proprietary Surveillance (Dis)Services
Canonical started with a rich and overambitious Debian Developer. He wanted to become richer.
Russian "Hybrid Attacks" Are Typically Microsoft TCO and/or Windows TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
Information-related warfare relies a lot on computer systems
EPO People Power - Part XI - The Media in Europe is Ill and Complicit in Ills
We must all recognise that there's a problem here
Running With Technology
At least they always run Linux (all of them, since 2015)
Dealing With "Tech Cults"
If you think you identified a "Tech Cult", walk away
It Seems Like IBM is Firing 'Everybody' (Anywhere, Any Age, No Matter What Team)
Healthy companies would sack IBM's management (sacked by Board, bylaws etc.) but IBM is a sick company
Latest Stallman Talk (Event in Argentina) Published
Less than a day ago they released his talk
GAFAM is a Financial Problem and Sovereignty Risk, a Policy-Level (National Level) Boycott is Needed
Europe has plenty of skilled computer engineers
LLM Slop Becoming Rarer
Today we've found no LLM slop in our RSS feeds regarding "Linux"
2026 Could Very Well be Last Year of XBox, Microsoft Dropped the Ball
It would be shocking is XBox can stage any kind of comeback
Links 13/12/2025: Social Control Media Bans and "Could Finland be Hiding a Blue Zone?"
Links for the day
Expecting Mass Layoffs, More Microsoft Workers Join Unions
they see tough times ahead
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 12, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, December 12, 2025