Bonum Certa Men Certa

Simon Phipps on “Monomaniacs”, More Reactions to Jeremy Allison's Mono Prognosis

Summary: More people have their eyes opened now that Mono enlightenment spreads; .NET and Hotmail failures revisited

AS EXPECTED, Jeremy Allison's article about Mono has brought a lot of feedback and although there are many comments, there is clear absence of opposition to Allison's remarks; it is almost too hard to refute or to disparage the character.



Simon Phipps from Sun Microsystems adds the following:

Monomania Jeremy Allison argues that Mono is dangerous to free software distributions and should be relegated to the "restricted" repositories along with other software with unsafe licensing and/or patent contexts. He makes rational arguments, avoids emotion and thus when he is inevitably dismissed with a hand-wave by the Monomaniacs like the rest of us it will be especially telling.


To be fair, Phipps has little or no reason to like Mono. Phipps promotes Java for obvious reasons.

Others too have been moved by the column from Allison:

Mono a mano - Many of us are wrestling with this, I suspect



[...]

Allison's contention is that while he can understand original Mono creator Miguel de Icaza's reasons for wanting to code GUI apps in C# rather than C or C++, Allison would rather that the open-source community turned to Java instead in its quest to build out the graphical environment. There is some talk about, at the time Mono was started, Java not being available under a free license, but Allison contends that it has more to do with potential or real rivalries among developers wishing to use Java or Mono/C++, as well as control over their respective projects.

[...]

On the other hand, seeing Mono as the "Miguel de Icaza-who-works-for-Novell Show," keeping in mind that I know little about him and have never met him, doesn't give me a good feeling about how GNOME is tipping every more closely into becoming a Mono-powered world.


Over at ECT we find this new article about the massive loss of .NET (and perhaps of Mono, by inference):

Android on the Rise, While .Net Takes a Blow



[...]

Back in July, reports surfaced that the London Stock Exchange had decided to abandon its Windows-based TradElect system after suffering a debilitating software crash the previous fall.

TradElect is a custom set of C# and .Net programs created by Microsoft and Accenture.

Instead, news came out last week that the LSE will switch to the GNU/Linux-based MillenniumIT system, even going so far as to purchase its developer in the process!


We wrote about this before. Other parts of the UK public sector are currently being hurt by Microsoft software. Now it's the national health system, again:

Microsoft's Hotmail 'blacklists' NHS email - again



NHS staff can finally send emails to Hotmail accounts again, seven days after some healthcare workers complained to Microsoft that their messages were being blocked.

It’s not the first time the NHS has been shunned by Microsoft’s Hotmail. In May this year all addresses in the nhs.uk namespace were reportedly being blocked following a complaint about email originating from one of its IP addresses.


We wrote about the previous incident right here. NHS connections with Microsoft UK [1, 2, 3] are leaving lives are at stake (yes, British patients sometimes die as a result) and there is never a defensible reason to use Hotmail.

Death of a delphin

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The "Alicante Mafia" - Part IX - EPO Budget Funnelled Into Cocaine and Moreover Rewards Cocaine-Addicted Management for Getting Busted by Police
Any day that passes without European media and European politicians doing anything about it merely discredits the media and the EU (or national governments)
10 Easy Steps to Follow for Digital Sovereignty in Nations That Distrust GAFAM et al
When "enough is enough"
 
The Fall of Freenode Didn't Kill IRC and the Web's Issues (Not Limited to LLM Slop) Didn't Kill Everything
As long as there are enough people willing to keep the simple (or "old") stuff it'll refuse to die
GAFAM Layoffs by Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) Hide the Real Scale of Their Financial Troubles
the "official" numbers of layoffs will never tell the true story
'Domesticated' Animals Not More Valuable Than Free-range Wildlife, Proprietary ('Commercial') Software Isn't Better Than Free Software
the proprietary software giants (companies like SAP or Microsoft) have a lot of lobbyists
Richard Stallman Won't Talk About "AI", He'll Talk About Chatbots and LLMs Lacking Any Intelligence
This really irritates people who dislike the message; so they attack the person
Slopfarms Still Fed by Google, Boosting Fake 'Articles' That Pretend to Cover "Linux"
At this point about 80-90% of the search results appear not to be slopfarms
Gemini Links 23/01/2026: The Danish Approach to Deepfakes and Random vi Things
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 22, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 22, 2026
Five Years Ago, After We Broke the Story About Richard Stallman Rejoining the FSF's Board, All Hell Broke Loose (for Me and My Family)
They generally seem to target anyone who thinks Richard Stallman (RMS) should be in charge or thinks alike about computing
Links 22/01/2026: Slop Fantasy About Patents, Retirement in China Now Reached at Age Seventy
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/01/2026: Why Europe Does Not Need GAFAMs, XScreenSaver Tinkering, FlatCube
Links for the day
Salvadorans' Usage of GNU/Linux Measured at Record Levels
All-time high
Links 22/01/2026: Ubisoft Layoffs Disguised as "RTO", US "Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting To GAFAM", Americans' Image Tarnished Among Canadians (Now Planning to "Repel US Invasion")
Links for the day
No, the Problem at IBM/Red Hat Isn't Diversity
Microsoft Lunduke also openly shows his admiration for Pedo Cheeto
Do Not Link to Linuxiac Anymore, Linuxiac Became a Slopfarm
now Linuxiac is slop
Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why Slop Companies Like Anthropic and Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' Basically Plunder and Rob People
This article was published last night at around 10
Richard Stallman (RMS) at Georgia Tech Tomorrow
After the talk we'll write a lot about "cancel culture" and online mobs fostered and emboldened in social control media
Software Patents by Any Other Name
There is no such thing as "AI" patents
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 21, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 21, 2026
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VIII - Salary Cuts to Staff, 100,000 Euros to Managers Busted Using Cocaine (for Doing Absolutely Nothing, Just Pretending to be "Sick")
Today we look at slides from the union
Gemini Links 22/01/2026: Forest Monk, Aurora Observation, and Arduino Officially Launches the More Powerful Arduino UNO Q 4GB Single-Board Computer
Links for the day
Next Week is Close Enough for Wall Street Storytelling About 'Efficiency' by Layoffs for "AI"
This coming week GAFAM and others will tell some creative tales about how "AI" something something...
Google News Still a Feeder of Slop About "Linux", Which Became Rarer in 2026
Our main concern these days is what happened to Linuxiac. Bobby Borisov became a chatbots addict.
Links 21/01/2026: "Snap Settles Lawsuit on Social Media Addiction" and Attempts in the US to Revive Software Patents
Links for the day
Links 21/01/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' in More Trouble, US Has "Brown Shirts" Problem
Links for the day
Yesterday Afternoon The Register MS Published Paid Microsoft SPAM Disguised as an Article About "AI PCs"
The Register MS cannot help itself, can it? [...] Follow the money.
Microsoft's XBox is in Effect Dead Already, Now It's a Streaming and Advertising Platform
Expect many layoffs soon
Richard Stallman's Talk at Georgia Tech is Just 2 Days Away
We're still curious to see how malicious people (or trolls) in social control media will try to slant his talk as "bad"
EPO's Web Site Misused for Propaganda About Illegal Kangaroo Courts to Distract From EPO Scandals and Judicial Crisis in Europe
UPC is illegal and unconstitutional
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VII - The Industrial Actions Began Yesterday, Here's Why
The "Alicante Mafia" might not last much longer
Gemini Links 21/01/2026: Edible Circuits and "Sayonara HTTP"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 20, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, January 20, 2026
IBM Hides Its Own Destruction (and Red Hat's)
It's like scenes out of '1984', which is what a now-famous advertisement from Apple compared IBM to