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Who’s that knocking at my door?
,----[ Quote ]
| Many mono apologists like to portray critics as fanatics, aggressively
| opposed to anything Microsoft-related
`----
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/02/whos-that-knocking-at-my-door/
Some other sane views on RMS
,----[ Quote ]
| So now that we have Stallman painted with the “sexist” brush, I see some
| people casting glances to the “Death Threat Crazy” and “Nazi” brushes.
|
| Let me clear: I wasn’t at the conference, and I don’t know exactly what
| Stallman said. It is possible he made an inappropriate remark. Some
| reasonable people say it was a joke gone bad; stuff like that happens.But,
| even if it were an honest-to-good malicious sexist remark (unlikely
| considering Stallman has a long record of supporting women’s rights in his
| writings and interviews), the character assassination has been totally
| disproportionate to the event. He may indeed need a word of correction from a
| trusted friend or even a letter of concern from a respected group. What he
| doesn’t need or deserve is a pack of snarling jackals lumping him in with
| lunatics making death threats and freaking Nazis. (Assuming the death threat
| thing is legit, I haven’t looked it up. I know I got a lot of death threats
| from owning peeps in Quake, so that junk can be serious business.)
`----
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/13/some-other-sane-views-on-rms/
There. Fixed that for you.
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/13/there-fixed-that-for-you/
In the Shadows of .Net
,----[ Quote ]
| Back in 2006, we put our trust in Mono because we refused, or perhaps
| disliked, to vilify a project solely because it emulated something created at
| Microsoft. While Open Source backers generally dislike Microsoft technology,
| with Mono they had another argument that being a clone it could be affected
| by a number of patents that Microsoft holds related to the .Net framework.
| This point often comes up in debates about the “safety” of the Mono project,
| the defense of Mono being that large parts of the .Net specification are an
| open, published ECMA standard. I sided with the Mono supporters then,
| downplaying the risk of patents from Microsoft. But then in November,
| Microsoft and Novell announced their Patent Agreement, which guarantees
| patent protection exclusively for users of Novell Linux. The Mono project is
| largely supported by Novell, and such an agreement is disastrous for a
| community project like Mono. At this point, the fence-sitters in the Open
| Source community largely crossed over to the anti-Mono camp. Perhaps, they
| were justified in doing so. I could no longer defend Mono, and my belief in
| the framework getting wider acceptance has diminished significantly since
| then.
|
| [...]
|
| It is entirely possible that Mono can suddenly gain acceptance if Microsoft
| decides to relinquish patent claims regarding the .Net framework. If it
| happens, .Net and Mono could well become an powerful challenger to the
| dominance of Java. This is very unlikely, Microsoft’s current strategy seems
| to be relying strongly on patents and IP to ward off the looming threat from
| Linux.
|
| For now, we decided to look beyond Mono and C#.
`----
http://blog.agilehead.com/content/from-c-on-mono-to-clojure-on-the-jvm/
[PJ: Hmm. I see Rick Spencer, now Engineering Manager, Desktop, at Canonical
(since December of 2008) used to work at Microsoft. He was Lead Program
Manager at Microsoft (May 2006 — September 2007), User Experience Manager at
Microsoft (May 2005 — May 2006), and Usability Engineer, Usability Manager at
Microsoft (March 1998 — May 2005). Given the current debate going on at
Canonical over Mono, I thought it was worth at least a mention.] - LinkedIn
Re: Mono Position Statement
[PJ: Here's my Mono statement: just because others jump off a cliff, there's
no reason why you have to.] - Scott James Remnant
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-06-30-008-35-OP-CY-MS-0002
"De Icaza has been trying for EIGHT YEARS to get a distro to become totally
dependent on MONO, and since Novell bought De Icaza, both have increased their
propaganda efforts, with the assistance of Microsoft TEs, trolls, astroturfers
and fanbois.
"IF MONO is what its advocates are saying it is (the best thing since sliced
bread and safe to use), it would already be in widespread adoption by now. The
fact that you can count dependent programs on the fingers of one hand says
VOLUMES about how the Linux community as a whole totally distrusts MONO. They
are right to hold that distrust."
Before the CP:
C#, see submarine
,----[ Quote ]
| A similar kind of encumbrance would be if MIT (or Xorg) could retroactively
| re-license the X11 libraries to something proprietary (note: they cannot),
| thereby removing the platform upon which all Free Software X11 applications
| are built; it would be a risk, and given the importance of Free Software, a
| risk where the expected value of a manifestation is huge.
|
| This isn’t to say there’s not other submarines in the water. We don’t know.
| Maybe we should. The known submarine should be treated with caution. And the
| side of caution is to treat C# as a non-Free platform to be avoided.
`----
http://blogs.fsfe.org/adridg/?p=157
http://www.redmonk.com/public/mono_cc_licensed.pdf
[PJ: Here's an article from RedMonk's Steven O'Grady back in 2004, with a
description of Mono, a bit of its history, Novell's commitment to it, and who
else has invested in it, namely Intel and HP.]
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx
"Because the General Public License (GPL) is not universally interpreted the
same way by everyone, we can’t give anyone a legal opinion about how our
language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from
the open source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can
implement the specifications."
Recent:
Are Microsoft's Promises For Ever?
,----[ Quote ]
| Now, is it just me, or does Microsoft conspicuously fail to answer its own
| question? The question was: does it apply to all versions *including* future
| revision? And Microsoft's answer is about *existing* versions: so doesn't
| that mean it could simply not apply the promise to a future version? Isn't
| this the same problem as with the Open Specification Promise? Just asking.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/07/are-microsofts-promises-for-ever.html
And the knives come out
,----[ Quote ]
| I told you the knives would come out for Stallman.
|
| [...]
|
| The sad thing is, much of the damage is already done. Stallman is facing a
| concerted attack on his character and competence and stands little chance of
| coming through it unscathed. Such is the penalty for daring to critize Mono.
| This garbage is already all over Planet Gnome, Planet Debian, Monologue and
| spreading.
`----
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/12/and-the-knives-come-out/
Boycott Novell is Back!
,----[ Quote ]
| If I had to list my concerns around the Promise I would come up with a
| slightly different list:
|
| 1. Standard bits alone are not enough to deliver killer apps. We have
| several Microsoft emails about limiting the usefulness of what was
| standardized, so we know they at least discussed this internally.
| 2. The Community Promise has that restriction that the Open Specification
| Promise does not. By not extending the Promise to partial implementations,
| it could “lock out” alternative implementations of the standard. Limited
| sub-sets of languages are a common practice in the industry for
| specialized purposes.
| 3. The Community Promise will constantly be misrepresented as covering the
| whole of mono – giving a false veneer of security over the non-covered
| bits (which end up to be the “juicy parts”)
| 4. The Community Promise only applies to the current version. This could
| be used by Microsoft to “freeze out” competing implementations. Just
| update the standard, but not the promise.
`----
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/09/boycott-novell-is-back/
Criticism where it is due
,----[ Quote ]
| Consider that we know for a fact that F-Spot and Banshee, at least, use
| non-ECMA covered parts of mono. Maybe they will be re-written soon. That’s
| great. But at the time of the announcement and currently, they were and are
| not covered by the standard, and so not covered by the agreement.
`----
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/10/criticism-where-it-is-due/
Windows developers on mono
,----[ Quote ]
| There are many such internal documents that clearly show Microsoft
| understands exactly what standardizing parts of .NET means, and how to keep
| that offering in control and inferior to .NET. If Mono is not “chasing” .NET,
| then it fails to meet Windows developers expectations. If Mono
| is “chasing” .NET, then it both runs the risk of anti-competitive tactics on
| the non-standard parts, and is undertaking a task not likely to succeed.
`----
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/11/windows-developers-on-mono/
Debian plans draw sharp warning from GNU guru
,----[ Quote ]
| As the Debian project releases a second update of its Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
| ("Lenny") distribution, a controversy has broken out over the next
| version, "Squeeze." GNU guru Richard Stallman has warned that by including a
| Mono-based note-taking application called Tomboy, Debian runs the risk of
| Microsoft litigation over C# patents.
`----
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4526886823.html
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