Bonum Certa Men Certa

Mono Applications Get Integrated with Microsoft Moonlight

"I'd like to see Gnome applications written in .NET in version 4.0 - no, version 3.0. But Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET."

--"Gnome to be based on .NET – de Icaza"



Mono GNOME
Don't let Mono and Moonlight tarnish GNOME



Summary: Novell-sponsored Mono software gets extended so as to make it interconnected with Microsoft Moonlight, a "forbidden" component by Red Hat's assessment

Novell's Mono projects are starting to take problematic shape. As Jason puts it after some research, Banshee begins to overlap Microsoft Moonlight, which is Mono-dependent. And as we already know, the Novell-sponsored Banshee uses parts of .NET which are not covered by Microsoft's "community promise". The word "Trojan" comes to mind and Red Hat should pay careful attention again.



Yes. That’s right. According to the GCDS 2009 presentation notes on the Banshee site, we learn lots of nice stuff about Banshee:

“It’s not just an app, it’s a platform”.

* Long term goal is to write the UI in Moonlight o Declarative UI, canvas, scene graph, and toolkit o Moonlight is an Open Source implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight technology … and it is awesome

“Banshee is going to do photos”

“We are re-basing the F-Spot core on top of Banshee”

And it ends with GNOME, Mono and Banshee logos.

Moonlight is of course, absolutely toxic unless you get it directly from Novell, as the so-called “covenant” specifically prohibits non-Novell distributions from distributing Moonlight


We have had a long-standing suspicion that Banshee will be used for video and maybe even Windows DRM. According to sources, Novell already takes the lead in building GNOME 3.0, which Miguel de Icaza wanted to make Mono oriented. Tony Manco argues that "they should really start a desktop environment based on mono. I suggest MonoDrop [...] to stop the gnome poisoning [...] and future kde too." Forenza calls it "very scary". Here is another new analysis of ongoing attempts to put Banshee inside Ubuntu despite the patent issues, Novell's control of it, and extreme bloat.

It seems we are settling on the “best-of-breed” as the ultimate justification. This is a good stop if you are on Team Mono, because you can call any application the “best-of-breed” so long as you are the one that gets to decide what factors make it the “best-of-breed”.

I always chuckle around #4; Team Mono is forever chanting “pragmatism” and how “the user doesn’t care about freedom or principles”. Yet it’s quite clear that the overwhelming majority of users do not want Banshee. So, do the users matter or not? It seems to me that how much they matter is in direct proportion to how much they support you on any specific issue.


Mono Dangers Revisited



This month's posts about Mono (e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4]) hopefully showed that Microsoft's "community promise" is worthless because it changes nothing of substance. Sam Varghese goes further and suggests that it may do more harm than good because it's intended to fragment the Free software community.

When Britain was the superpower of the world, there was one tactic which its officials used, with great success, to manage its colonies - divide and rule.


As Jason puts it, the differences between Google's and Microsoft's promises to Free software developers are truly telling. The SFLC has just used its excellent audiocast to address the subject too [via]. It still insists that depending on Mono is a bad idea.

Bradley and Karen discuss the community debate regarding C# and Mono, and its inclusion in GNU/Linux distributions.


The verdict remains negative. Richard Stallman too, on behalf of the FSF, says that Microsoft's "community promise" is inadequate, only to find himself smeared as a result of such statements.

Alan Lord wrote on this matter as well.

How on earth could a 19th century detective know about the long running saga of a rather large and bloated software stack designed, it seems, simply to drive a wedge into the FOSS community and act as a trojan horse for our most [ahem] loved convicted monopolist?


Remedy



A new version of Gnote has just been released.

I just released gnote 0.5.3. It is a bug fix release.


The lead developer of Gnote responds to Mono's meme (banners with “I am not afraid”) by saying: "I write code"

I don't know what the meme is about but:

I WRITE CODE


The update pace of Gnote seems quite rapid. Releases are frequent. It is ironic that Gnote's developer originally came from Novell because Novell promotes Mono inside GNOME and Tomboy has served Novell well (it even employs Tomboy's developer).

In a comment on another post, Chris Halse Rogers raised an interesting and challenging question: “What evidence is there that Novell, the company, is promoting adoption of Mono into GNOME?”

Here’s where I attempt to answer that question! The easy part

It’s always more effective to knock out the easy stuff first. So let’s establish that the premise is at least reasonable. Here are some facts. Facts are a nice way to start:

1. Mono is a Novell project. 2. Novell is on the GNOME Foundation’s Advisory Board. 3. Mono is lead at Novell by the founder of GNOME, Miguel de Icaza. 4. Mr. de Icaza has said in the past, “Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET“ 5. Mr. de Icaza claims to be “in charge of Novell’s Linux Desktop Strategy” along with Nat Friedman.

[...]


It can be added that Nat Friedman came from Microsoft. Many people do not know this.

'We had some painful experiences with C and C++, and when Microsoft came out with .NET, we said, "Yes! That is what we want."'

--Miguel de Icaza



Orangutans at the zoo

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Hard to Find a Job After Working for Microsoft (Back Doors Giant, Bribery Hub)
It generally looks like people who chose to serve Microsoft's agenda don't end up too well
Altering Perceived Reality to Make It Seem Like Microsoft is Thriving, Not Failing
pretend XBox did not die
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Off Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
Where and How to Spot LLM Slop
Many people correctly perceive LLMs as a site's downfall, a step towards the abyss
Links 25/03/2026: Nations Return to Russian Oil and Burning Wood
Links for the day
 
The World Wide Bots
The shape of the Web is so bad that bots exceed humans in some places
Links 26/03/2026: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Closes 101 Law Firms in 2 Years, "Please Compensate the Work You Appreciate"
Links for the day
Regaining Software Freedom Means Regaining Control Over Programs That Run on Our Devices
Richard Stallman will speak in Italy
Microsoft Secure Boot Removes Users' Choice
Has Greenland banned Microsoft and 'secure' boot yet?
IBM Pushes Workers Out, It Does Not Count Them as "Layoffs"
The number of IBM layoffs can be as large as tens of thousands per year
Microsoft Lost 31% Of Its Alleged "Value" in Five Months, Then It Got Downgraded
In 2026 Microsoft focuses on keeping the layoffs silent
SLAPP Censorship - Part 24 Out of 200: The Failed Effort by Brett Wilson LLP to Strike Out My Lawsuit and My Wife's Lawsuit Against Garrett (the Master Allowed Our Lawsuits to Proceed)
This is lawfare
Official New Figures Show That Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Sees Rise in Dishonesty Among Law Firms Forcibly Shut Down ('Euthanised' Due to Misconduct)
It's rather if in our little country as many as 16 law firms were found to be so dishonest that they needed to be shut down
Back to Normalcy
In our datacentre at least
IBM is "Increasing Its Temporary and Part-time Headcount" While Net Headcount Falls (Despite Buying Many Companies and Their Workforce)
Headcount is a rather superficial yardstick.
EPO Union Decides to Continue Industrial Actions, Next Strike in Four Days
The latest strike had the highest participation rate
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 25, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Microsoft's "Silent Layoffs" in Slop Clothing
"AI-powered transformation" is just a euphemism for mass layoffs
Public Talk by Richard Stallman in Half a Day "at the Engineering and Architecture Campus of Cesena of the University of Bologna"
He'll probably attract a fairly large crowd
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: Buying a House, Stargazing, OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Resisting Authoritarianism and Why Slop Needs to Go Away
Links for the day
Fedora Maintainer-ship Using Slop (Mistakes) Would Make Fedora Less Reliable
It won't produce reliable code or stable systems one can rely upon
IBM's "Legacy Employees" (Experienced Workers, IBM Management Dubs Them 'Dinobabies')
This notion of "legacy employees" seems like something overlapping with "expensive" (well paid) staff, even if not entirely equivalent
EPO's "Current Industrial Actions Are Likely to Intensify Further."
There is another strike in 5 days
This Morning The Register MS Published Slop Promotion With the Term "AI" 15 Times In It. The Register MS Was (As Usual) Paid to Do This
This is not a serious publisher
SLAPP Censorship - Part 23 Out of 200: We Were Right All Along (for 2 Years) About Third Party Funding and Willingness to 'Break the Bank' in Pursuit of "Revenge"
How much damage can a person do to oneself in pursuit of cover-up of legitimate technical concerns?
Gnome Foundation Inc is in Trouble
the agenda is set GAFAM and IBM rather than donors
Links 25/03/2026: Airports Further Militarised, "Slopification and Its Discontents", Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' Shutting Things Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Blogging Fright and Absolutely Useless 'Apps' Made by Slop Machines
Links for the day
Rise in Energy Prices Will Significantly Accelerate the Death of So-called "AI Companies"
It should be noted that fake news about Microsoft OpenAI doubling workforce (mere words, not actions) can serve as a nice distraction from the death of Sora due to divestment
It's Always a Question of Trust
There's a widespread stigma of lawyers being manipulative and chronically dishonest
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Must More Carefully Investigate or Assess the Financial State of Law Firms in the UK
We'll cover this in depth in the future
GAFAM Mozilla Removes Theora Support, Now GNU Needs to Re-encode Videos
Mozilla used to mean something to Free software advocates
An Open Admission Profits Depend on Addiction
Proprietary software tends to be like this
IBM Americas President Ayman Antoun Comes to OpenText, Weeks Ahead the Mass Layoffs Begin
Is that what IBM will be good at?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 24, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 22 Out of 200: When You Complain People Impersonate You in IRC (But You Yourself Impersonate People in IRC and Lock Them Out of Their IRC Handles)
We'll cover this with direct evidence some time soon
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Junk Drawer Time Capsule and Building Outside Alire
Links for the day
Not Much LLM Slop About "Linux" Lately, It Only Ever Comes From the Same Few Sites
As long as only few such sites use LLM slop we can skip and avoid them
Links 24/03/2026: "Epic Lays Off Over 1000 Employees" and US in Financial Trouble According to the Fed
Links for the day
The "Media" Does Not Only 'Miss' Mass Layoffs
"The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it"
The Empty Suits of IBM Managers (NIH or "Nothing Invented Here")
IBM's management adopted the business model of parasites
2012: 'Secure' (Microsoft-Controlled) Boot Has Not (Yet) Been Made Obligatory. 2026: systemd Has Not Implemented Age Verification
should we stop calling "nazi" everyone we don't agree with?
More Threats (Including Physical Threats) Against Us Are a Dumb Move
It's like a "hit list" (targets list) and I shall keep the police duly informed
New Example of Pentagon in "Feminist" Clothing Inside Fake News of Publishers Paid to Promote Outsourcing to US ("Clown Computing") and American Slop
Google now pays money to promote Google as a friend of women
Hating Techrights is a Career
but is it good for civil society?
Dr. Stallman’s Work Will Never be Considered 'Mainstream' Because He Rejects and Works Against the So-called 'Mainstream'
Try to be more like Stallman
The New Layoffs: 'Silent Layoffs', 'Secret Layoffs', 'Quiet Layoffs', 'Passive Layoffs' 'Stealth Layoffs', and Unannounced Layoffs Disguised as Return-to-Office (RTO Mandates)
The US needs to revisit and fix the WARN Act
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part IX - Cocaine Addicts in Charge of the EPO Attacking Families of EPO Staff
Things like being high-profile and being a serious drug addict aren't opposites
What Feminism in Science Means (Codes of Conduct Don't Tackle the Real Issues)
Universality matters, more so in a project or community that's said to build the "universal operating system" (Debian)
SLAPP Censorship - Part 21 Out of 200: It's About Behaviour Online, Not How Much Money From Shadowy Third Parties Gets Spent on Lawyers and Two Barristers
75+ KG of legal papers, 2 cases, 2 barristers (one hiding in the metadata) and maybe two law firms (also hiding in the metadata) against two modest people in Manchester seems disproportionate and vindicative
Links 24/03/2026: "Airports on ICE" and "Have You Paid Your “Intuit Tax”?"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Slop Interview and Why Slop Makes Lousy Code
Links for the day
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk This Thursday at the University of Bologna (Italy)
Hardly the first time he speaks in Bologna
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 23, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 23, 2026