Comments

• Robotron 2084

  2010-02-11 06:18:58

  The sign is great. I think it serves to show how obsessed some people have become when a simple sign can be misconstrued into some kind of mass protest. While distasteful, I think it's natural for people to project themselves as being a part of something larger than they really are.
  
  I also love the flip from "this article is bad and helps Microsoft" to "anyway, here it is." I'm glad it was included because a great comment can be found on The Open Sourcerer:
  
  "Extreme FOSS (that is demanding everything be free and open source) is as virulent and damaging to Ubuntu and its community as fascistly locking everything down (like Apple seems to want to do on some of its products). While FOSS is a great model for well known reasons, it’s impractical to think that all the best-of-class software can be open source, at least in the short-to-intermediate term."

• Jose_X

  2010-02-11 16:38:24

  Mono, however, isn't about "everything being free". In a world where software patents have meaning, cloning and promoting the spreading of Monopolysoft's APIs and protocols is more than just a tad foolish.
  
  http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2010-02-11-001-35-NW-MS-SW-0002
  
  Supporting mono and some other things pays Novell's bills. That is why they do it. It was a business decision -- nothing personal. It is all Monopolysoft sanctioned, of course, since Monopolysoft benefits from the growth in mindshare towards their proprietary platform and from the embedding of their patented stuff in the FOSS world (eg, "replacing" FOSS software).
  
  Not Novell or anyone else I have heard about is focused on using "mono" as a short-term band-aid tool to help give Linux existing Windows-only MSdotnet apps. There is a large interoperability gap. In fact, when mono started, there weren't that many quality Windows only MSdotnet apps. Instead Novell and mono supporters have not stopped promoting the spread of mono/dotnet and other Monopolysoft created and patented interfaces. If nothing else, the OOXML example should have shamed them, but, again, since advancing these things (without even sensible interop) pays their bill, they have no choice in the matter.
  
  BTW, the licensing of some of these "open source" thingies is intended to help them spread as much as possible as well as to avoid weakening Microsoft's hand. At least with BSD OSs, Apache servers and Java, X and Kerberos, and some other liberally licensed software, these came before the proprietary versions and were not clones of a heavily patented set of specs created by a growing and ambitious monopolist.
  
  Anyway, I'd rather not make any of this personal or hound individuals. People can have doubts or make compromises for personal reasons or be "in love" or otherwise "stuck" with various interfaces or whatever. However, on a very impersonal basis, I think FOSS supporters (the rest of us) should avoid these software as much as possible. There is much work to be done on Linux and better tools to be used to do it. There is no need to help Microsoft embrace, extend, and extinguish (or sufficiently marginalize) Linux+FOSS.

• Robotron 2084

  2010-02-12 07:03:47

  Your reply is simply too long (remember, I'm not part of the choir), but the last paragraph was worth reading. If everyone in the FOSS community simply used the tools that made them happy, that would be just fine. However, for some, too much of their time is spent telling others what to do or what to be afraid of rather than doing something more productive.... like actually contributing real code to projects.
  
  Let those who want to use Mono do so. Let those who want to use something else go their way. If you value the freedom you preach about so much, allow others to exercise their own choices. However, I think the nature of humanity dictates that even on a ship that embraces "freedom and openness", few can fight the selfish desire to grab the wheel and lead people "their way".

• your_friend

  2010-02-15 00:23:09

  You act as if mono was spreading by merit rather than Microsoft bribery. That's almost as funny as a professional troll telling someone to be more productive or any of the other personal insults you use as a substitute for rational discussion. The language is inferior and people only use .NET when they are paid to. Everyone knows that it is a dead end and waste of time.

• Bertrand

  2010-02-10 22:34:56

  About the "Leave it in the hallway sign" : It was in fact in the Mono room for the whole day, right next to the projector screen, and was printed and put there by the room organizers themselves.
  
  Here's another picture, that shows the whole thing : http://bit.ly/bNjnEU

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-02-10 22:37:26

  The person who showed me this described the sign as one that protests against mono. Let me correct the text.
  
  Thanks.

• your_friend

  2010-02-11 07:26:56

  Oh, I see. More of the "I'm not afraid of code" rhetoric. How vacuous. Their trust in Microsoft to not sue mono users is an act of faith that makes the majority of the world's cults look reasonable. They fail to reason or convince.