Responses to Richard Stallman's Verdict on Mono
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2009-06-28 10:30:24 UTC
- Modified: 2009-06-28 10:30:24 UTC
Summary: Mono developments to be aware of
Richard Stallman's advice against Mono (by default) has made the front page of Slashdot where it received over 700 comments, which is exceptional even for Slashdot. The updated summary also links to an overview of Gnote, which concludes with:
To me, this is a huge victory for Anti-Mono supporters. Users get just as much functionality out of their old apps, and are rewarded a freedom from code patents at the very same time! It's a win-win situation!
One of our readers, Toros,
writes:
"!fsf !gnu @rms - http://fsf.org/: Why free software shouldn't depend on #Mono or C# - http://ur1.ca/6d0x"
Brad Kunn from the SFLC
passed on this message:
"c.f. Tomboy C++ rewrite effort as well ââ¢Â» @toros: !fsf !gnu @rms: Why free software shouldnt depend on #Mono or C# - http://ur1.ca/6d0x"
John Sullivan (FSF)
adds:
"!fsf rms warning about !debian and others depending on Mono: http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono"
Other core people in Identica remark as follows:
[1]:
"@gnufs He's talking talking about the risks faced by including mono by default. He never says not to use it. Just don't depend on it. !fsf"
[2]:
"We know #Microsoft plans to attack free software with patents because they've said so. Implementing MS tech carries special risks. !fsf"
[3]:
"Should the !GNU system support #NTFS? Yes. Should the GNU system _depend_ on NTFS? No. Same with #Mono or any other #Microsoft tech. !fsf"
[4]:
"It's not a matter of "here @rms supports inclusion of patented software, and here he doesn't". !fsf"
Over at LinuxToday, Rainer Weikusat correctly
points out that the pro-Microsoft/pro-Mono crowd goes to great lengths to characterise Mono opposition as "crackpots". We
wrote about this before. The only thing worse than this is
personal abuse from Novell employees.
As an added bonus, it doesn't even work: Helping
'dubious comrades', like LinuxInsider, with
painting all people who are critical of Mono
as crackpots by virtue of drowning any attempt
at a serious discussion of the associated issues,
eg Microsoft-controlled APIs, especially,
bad Microsoft-controlled APIs in, in "Patents!
Patents! Patents!"-shrieks is likely to rather
help than hinder the proliferation of C#/.NET.
.
But this is certainly entirely coincidental ...
It has become abundantly clear that Mono advances Windows [
1,
2,
3]. We
published something about this yesterday and
this new post may serve as further evidence.
How to build MonoDevelop with Visual Studio in five easy steps...
The above post is not so innocent. The author says he works as a developer for Novell as part of the Mono team where he leads the MonoDevelop project. They sure spend a lot of time improving the Mono experience for Windows and integrating it with Microsoft's .NET, which won't be available for GNU/Linux.
⬆
"The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us.
"Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there's no way to avoid this danger. But that's no reason to put our head inside Microsoft's jaws."
--Richard Stallman, 2007
Comments
Sean Tilley
2009-06-29 02:39:41
contextfree
2009-06-29 02:29:40
apropos of patent concerns, though, you guys may find this blog comment from James Plamondon (of "Evangelism is WAR!" fame) of interest:
http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/10/17/f-a-functional-programming-language.aspx (about 1/4 down the page)
"My brother Peter Plamondon and I started Project 7 at Microsoft, which was the code-name for an effort to (a) get the .NET & Visual Studio.NET products opened up to non-Microsoft languages and (b) get non-Microsoft languages implemented on .NET. [...]
There was a LOT of resistance. Microsoft had just been burned by a non-Microsoft language -- Java -- and there were those who felt that Microsoft should be actively suppressing the emergence of new languages, not facilitating it. Fortunately, Paul recignized that the emergence of Java proved that Microsoft could not suppress the emergence of new languages...and that it shouldn't WANT to do so. Better to encourage their emergence, and to make it super-easy for them to emerge first, best, and only on Windows. This is what's happening now with languages such as F#.
One of the main reasons I wanted to open up .NET and VS.NET this way was to facilitate the miscegenation of programming languages -- the mixing together of ideas and features that can only happen on top of a platform (the CLR) that provides a simple, open, flexible DNA for programming languages). [...]
This modular approach to language functionality would (a) allow the more-rapid evolution of programming language functionality, and (b) be available first, best, and perhaps only on Windows, because no other platform has the necessary infrastructure (and presumably Microsoft has patented the holy shit out of the CLR and VS.NET).
If, at the same time, Microsoft were to aggressively support the use of VS.NET as a cross-platform development tool, implementing redistributable .NET equivalents ("the .NET Platform") on other operating systems, then this would de-commoditize programming, establishing Windows as the most efficient platform for developing applications for the .NET Platform (and thereby all other OS'), thereby ensuring that the best applications were developed first, best, and perhaps only for Windows. This could make it possible for Microsoft to regain the Cool Factor Cup than Linux et al. have recently captured.
Of course, this de-commoditization only happens if VS.NET, the CLR, and the novel re-engineering of programming languages allows such a big jump in programmer efficiency that programers who don't use it are outcompeted in the marketplace. That's what de-commoditization MEANS."
Don Syme (the principal designer of F#) talks about this as well: "Right back in 1998, just in fact as our research group in programming languages started at Microsoft and I joined the team and then other 10 of us joined the team, we were approached by a guy called James Plamondon, who started the project called Project 7, which was about getting 7 academic and 7 industrial programming languages on each side to target the .NET common language runtime and really check out if it was good enough, to see if design changes could be made early on in the design process of .NET to make sure it was good enough for a range of programming languages.
Some of those design changes were made, like tail calls were, for example, were added in the first version of .NET and that was a very interesting project because they gave a lot of way to our group and researchers at Microsoft to make connections between the academic programming world and .NET. We have seen that there are a lot of people working on .NET over the years, and also let our group work directly on .NET with regard to .NET Generics and other proposed extensions to .NET - we got these researchers engaged with the system."
aeshna23
2009-06-29 02:54:06
If you're not willing to take the time to understand other people's arguments and just want to label them "vague cultural bigotry", don't expect me to read what you have to say.
contextfree
2009-06-29 03:40:55
monomania
2009-06-29 00:44:50
It's not the patents that bother me. It's the fact that the mono proponents are attempting to transform Linux into a second rate cousin to Microsoft.
It reminds me of the film Bridge over the river Quai in which the British officer, mortally wounded, as the allies attack a bridge which he and his fellow captives have built - to show their captors just what discipline and organisation can achieve - suddenly realises that they have also contributed to the enemy effort by building the bridge so well and so effectively, The officer stumbles, stares in amazement at his own realisation, and asks rhetorically with his dying breath, "What have I done..." then, rather fortuitously, falls on the plunger that sets off the explosive charge which destroys the bridge.
I don't suppose we can trust the Mono developers to do something similar? Probably not.
I'd go back to Debian, but horror of horrors, even they can't be trusted. Who would have thought it.
Thank goodness for Fedora.
Nobody Real
2009-06-29 00:42:46
One has to wonder why Roy chose the method of 'correction' he did, but oh well.
Jose_X
2009-06-29 03:44:53
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/12/29/jimmi-hugh-wikipedia-censorship-on-ms/
How do you get this link above to appear on google as an individual search result link?
G. Michaels
2009-06-29 16:55:29
The URL was removed from Google, which is interesting in that according to Roy there was nothing to apologize for and in fact he hadn't even read the evidence that he was wrong. Fascinating, don't you think?
I'm fairly sure that only the owner of a URL can get it removed from Google without a DMCA takedown notice. Of course that didn't remove all the mirrors and USENET comments that link to the article, which still show up in Google anyway. If I were a potential employer looking for information on Mr. Hugh it would take me three clicks instead of just one to get to Roy's hit job.
When you enter your real name into Google, do you see a smear? I thankfully don't. Hugh isn't that lucky. But it's OK, right? It's all in the name of freedom. Collateral damage is to be expected. The journalists that see smears about them having been "bribed" with a $1,500 laptop should also be sympathetic to that. And so should everyone else that has ever been targeted by BoycottBoy.
David "Lefty" Schlesinger
2009-06-28 19:10:56
aeshna23
2009-06-28 22:15:23
And I checked and Roy did cross out the claim about Jimmi Hugh. I do think he should make a point of explaining why he crosses out some text. It may confuse some people, and I suppose give ammo to people like Lefty.
Jose_X
2009-06-29 03:31:43
You had left off at: >> We’re clearly not going to agree on much else, and I sense that pursuing this further is a less worthwhile use of my time…
What specifically are you looking for today beyond what was recounted there?
JohnD
2009-06-28 15:55:17
Roy Schestowitz
2009-06-28 16:03:10
More cheap smears from an increasingly-miserable group that simply cannot defend what it's doing to GNU/Linux with Mono, so it daemonises those who disagree, even with lies.
aeshna23
2009-06-28 22:06:09
The article makes the calumnious insinuation that people such as me who would object to the Microsoftization of Linux--regardless of patent issues--are simple haters of Microsoft. No, it is that we care that the FOSS wins on it own merits. Copying Microsoft or, as Microsoft would have it, ripping off Microsoft would be to say that FOSS is inadequate, that Linux does not deserve to win the OS wars. I strongly believe Linux is able to win on its own.
I could go on, but it's rather easy to tear holes in the article's argument.
Jose_X
2009-06-29 03:22:19
Needs Sunlight
2009-06-29 10:56:59
So why the hell should free software use patent encumbered .NET? Screwing up FOSS development might be one reason, it might be fine for Redmond, but it's not a worthy reason for us end-users who *use* computers.
That aside, Mono/C#/.NET applications are drag-ass slow. Java's much faster, C++ much so. Drop the ideology and let the technologies live (or die) according to technical and legal merits. The experiment with M$ is over. Leave it behind.
G. Michaels
2009-06-29 17:09:38
Evangelism at its best.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-06-29 11:27:25