Old mono rants

[Wolki]

The thing is, as I said do we really need to get entangled in a "patent war"?

And another interesting thing is, why are patents relevant for mono? Why do I need "insurance" from the OIN? I was led to believe that as mono only is an implementation of the ECMA/ISO specification it was alright.

No, we don't need to be entangled in a patent war. I personally think that software patents are a horrible idea, and think they shouldn't be done. But as we can't directly have abolish them ourselves, it's better to have some for protection.Even if Mono is just an implementation of a specification, there could still be some patents involved - if just for the fact that the patents are a mess and a lot of people got away with completely ridiculous patents. OIN serves as a deterrent here, in a similar way to how large patent portfolios work for large corporations.

[DoctorMO]

Tomboy and F-Spot are open source right? if you hate it that much fork them and rewrite them as C++ progs.

[etelerro]

I think it isn't a good idea to dump Mono in one day, but I think it is smart to slowly move away to other alternatives.

Of course the C# language is quite well, and together with GTK# it is a good platform to develop applications. But I think that when a company like Novell says that using Mono does no harm, and after that signing a devils-pact with Microsoft, it isn't a very good idea to trust Novell on their word, after all most Mono programmers work for Novell and creating new code under new licenses isn't so hard to do.

Though there are good alternatives, which aren't used enough I think. Next to PyGTK there are is also the wonderful Java GTK bindings.

I think that this "move away from Mono" doesn't have to come from the Ubuntu community, but more from the Gnome community.

[pmj]

Regardless of whether or not Microsoft will, or even can, sue makers of Linux distributions over mono, just the fact that we're having this argument is already hurting us. For that reason, I'm all in favor of getting rid of it. And it's better to do it now before too many applications depend on it.

And if someone could explain how to remove mono and all applications that depend on it without at the same time uninstalling most of my system, I'd be very grateful.

[KaeseEs]

One of the problems here is that unnecessary dependencies are taking away users' freedom. It was a poor decision to make the ubuntu-desktop packages depend on Tomboy and FSpot. If Gnome were installed on a clean system, for instance a fresh Slackware install, it would be perfectly possible to build Gnome from source without either program. Thus, programs that are not necessary for another program to run (such as Tomboy and FSpot vis-a-vis Gnome & ubuntu-desktop) should be listed in the package as 'recommended' rather than required, so they can be uninstalled without hosing the 'main' program.

By the way, if there is a way to toss Fspot and Tomboy (which I have no use for) without waxing ubuntu-desktop, I'm all ears.

[darkhatter]

Microsoft could Sue every single Linux Developer on the face of the planet, and nothing would happen. Red Hat doesn't appear to be freaking out, why is everyone else doing it.

[ago]

I am in favor of getting rid of it. For one thing, it brings in quite a bit of dependencies. Moreover IF MS is going to sue, Novell will not be able to move a finger. And remember that MS does not need to sue, some FUD is enough to discourage several users. The fact that Novell is paying royalties corroborates such claims. And if we need to switch, the sooner the better. I look with great interest to XUL/XPCOM, it is a nice framework for several reasons (overlays, integration of remote and local apps, cross platform...). If we really need a new framework we should look more at Mozilla and possibly integrate it with python/parrot (pyxpcom is proceding slowly)...

[Xace123]

Tomboy and F-Spot are open source right? if you hate it that much fork them and rewrite them as C++ progs.

We are talking here about freedom of choice here, it's not about hate. I do not even know or care what Tomboy and F-Spot do, but I'm sure that there are other existing open source alternatives without the need to "rewrite them as C++ progs."

[Xace123]

... there could still be some patents involved - if just for the fact that the patents are a mess and a lot of people got away with completely ridiculous patents....

You are right there Wolki, and that is the uncertainty in the Microsoft FUD against Linux.

My thinking is that it is a big mistake to embrace and make mono a cornerstone of Linux on the desktop, because it is uncertain whether Microsoft and Novell will claim ownership over it (or parts of it) later. Mono is "tainted".

[JayTee]

First they subtley infiltrate the OS of the opposition and then wait to strike when the timing is right. Sounds like plans for a coup 'd etat. I tried installing Mono on Dapper but it ran like crap and borked my keyboard settings so bad I had to remove it.