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

What the Media Misses: It's Not an NVIDIA Issue, Super Micro Computer Inc Also Fell From $45 to $26 in the Period NVIDIA Lost 33% of Its Faked 'Value', NVIDIA is Collapsing Like Intel
History goes in circles
Waste of Money: Giving More Money to Toothless Regulators That Don't Even Examine Evidence
Shame in SRA
At Microsoft, "Buyouts" or "Global Voluntary Separation Agreement" (GVSA) Not Much Different From Layoffs (Severance Shockingly Low)
From what we are able to gather, many people are leaving Microsoft 'voluntarily'
Is Microsoft the Next Fake-Valued Corporation to Lose 35% in "Market Value"? Is Slop Bringing Microsoft Down?
Will NDAs prevent people talking or journalists finding out the true cause?
Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Continue in November 2026
IBM's CEO is "a Palliative Care Doctor Who Slides [IBM] Gently Into the Night"
Links 13/11/2026: "Apple Support Community Forums to Permanently Close" and "The Slop Market is Getting Nervous"
Links for the day
 
Microsoft Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): We Need Accountability Because Many People Die and It's Because of Microsoft Diehards or People Bribed by Microsoft to Deploy Microsoft Where Lives Are at Risk
They're trying to save face right now
It's Not About China or Sex, It's About Corruption at NVIDIA and a Pyramid Scheme Perpetrated Under the Guise of "Hey Hi Revolution" (That Wasn't, It's Manufactured and Hyped by Bribes, Subsidised by Multi-Trillion-Dollar Loans, People's Pension Funds and More)
What's at stake here is a lot bigger than the "Ponzi hub" of Jensen Huang
No, You're Not a "Most Valuable Company" When Everything is Down for Half a Day in the Entire Planet
Still down, still no explanation (maybe they too aren't sure)
"Techrights Statement on Phoronix" Still Valid Five Years Later
Our position as stated in early 2022 has not changed
Vista 11's 'Growth' Has Stalled, It's Measured at Only 17.9% in the US This Year
That helps put in perspective Microsoft's attempt to discard almost 30% of its remaining workforce
"NVIDIA is Enron" (Subsidising the Pyramid Scheme That It Profited From), Microsoft is Next to be Down for the Count
Microsoft increasingly looks like the "next NVIDIA"
Richard Stallman Travels to South America to Give Talks About Free Software in Spanish, FSF Raises Money
The FSF is raising money (goal is $400,000) and the FSF has just mentioned the upcoming talks by the FSF's founder
United States Adding ~300 Billion in Government Debt Per Month, Wall Street Shaves Off Trillions in 'Value' in Less Than One Week
cushioning "assets" by helping them fake "value"
Microsoft: Pay Us for the Stuff That's Offline and We Cannot Fix
Learn to take control of the technology that you rely on
Links 13/11/2026: "Copyright-Strike-for-Hire" and "Stevie Wonder Photo Lawsuit"
Links for the day
The Slop Bubble (or Pyramid Scheme) Relied on Trust and Patience (Being Patient as Losses Grow and Debt Explodes, Trusting the Roadmap of Cheaters and Frauds)
Remember that it all began with trust
Anthropic's IPO Depends on $895.4 Billion in Debt (Money It Doesn't Have, It Loses Over 100 Billion Dollars Per Reporting Period), NVIDIA Has Just Lost Almost 2 Trillion Dollars In Value and Its Debt Trebled in Three Months
This coming week will be very, very entertaining for slop critics/sceptics to watch
Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) the Latest of Many to Quit Linux Development Over Linus Torvalds' Obsession With Slop (Linus Wants to Work With Bots, Not Humans Who Understand Whatever Code They Write)
Linus caught the 'brain virus'
Microsoft Asks 60,000 Workers to Leave, Some Leave, Services Go Down
Microsoft laid off about 40,000-50,000 people in past years
Gemini Links 13/11/2026: Roku Exits the Smart Home Market and Poor Reporting/Journalism Regarding Slop Plagiarism
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 12, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, November 12, 2026
Gemini Links 12/11/2026: A Firing of a Boss and Geminispace Growing Fast
Links for the day
Bill Epsteingate-Funded BBC "Totally Ignoring the $1.7 Trillion Wiped off NVIDIA Stocks"
Imagine how many pension funds are tied to this NVIDIA pyramid scheme
A Few Hours Before NVIDIA CEO Canned (and NVIDIA Shares Plunged) the NVIDIA-Funded The Register MS Published Paid Spam With "AI" 18 Times in It
Anything to inflate the bubble
Links 11/11/2026: NVIDIA Decapitated, "The Company That Published Fake Journalists in Sports Illustrated is Collapsing Dramatically"
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXIX - We Didn't Start the Fire
It started in 2012
Photo Ops Are Liabilities
NVIDIA is not a "family business" and its CEO isn't some modest genius
NVIDIA’s Total Debt Trebled in Three Months!
Not the hallmark of a rich company unless its accounting is fraudulent
NVIDIA Turns Out to be Serial Cheater, Stock Plunges 33% in 5 Weeks
The "slop bros" have long relied on patience and blind faith
Adopting LLM Slop is Still Suicide
Suicide (in the literal sense) is also linked to adoption of chatbots
On Laundering Licences and Code
A "Second SCO" waiting to happen
The Cyber Show on Slop and the Ministry Of Truth in "Nineteen Eighty Four"
"cultural erasure" by slop
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXVIII - Keeping Both Eyes on the Ball
One upside of these disputes is that they raise at least two very important issues concerning the law
Gemini Links 12/11/2026: Encryption is Easy, Human Emacs, and Legislation in Italy
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 11, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Links 11/11/2026: End of Novaya Gazeta (Assassinated by Putin) and North Koreans Too Poor to Buy Rice
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/11/2026: The Tyrant’s Moat and Rants About Slop Causing Problems
Links for the day
Links 11/11/2026: Skydance Games and Boeing Hit By Layoffs, "Time Out for Timeouts"
Links for the day
IRC is for Communities, Social Control Networks Are for Broligarchs (by Broligarchs)
Unlike Reddit, it's not a company
JavaScript is the Problem, Not the Answer
Making the Web better is about making things better, not slapping more JavaScript 'walls' at it
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXVII - "Making a False Complaint to Police is a Crime." (British Cops Aren't American Mercenaries)
"In the United Kingdom, the Foreign Enlistment Act 1819 and the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 make it unlawful for British subjects to join the armed forces of any state warring with another state at peace with Britain."
The Label 'Anti-AI'
They make it sound like opposing plagiarism or cheating is an act of intolerance or hatred
Intolerance and Violence
Intolerance in the software world is not a new problem
António Campinos Hiding From Staff Amid Strikes, Won't Participate in Dialogue
They voted to continue striking until Christmas
Silent Layoffs at IBM (Rolling Layoffs), Now Curbs on H1B (Mostly Indian Applicants)
Little will change at IBM except the gravity (global distribution) of its workforce will go east
Links 11/11/2026: Moving from Proton to Posteo and "Floating in Space"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 10, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 10, 2026