08.21.08
Mono ‘Guard’ Found in Ubuntu Forums
We have been warned about this several times and covered it a long time ago. We mentioned people’s ability to tweak polls and request more Mono. They may do so for personal reasons, for their own benefit (money). We have just found one person, who at one point confessed: “I do C# programming on Linux for a living using Mono, so there are definitely jobs out there - and more companies seem to be moving to Mono every week if you pay attention to the Mono mailing lists.”
This person has only participated in 4 threads in Ubuntu Forums, despite joining 8 months ago. All of them, unsurprisingly, are about Mono. He shoots down opposition to it. Here are the posts, enabling readers to judge for themselves:
1st Example
2nd Example
3rd Example
4th Example
Next time you ponder Mono inside Ubuntu and then wonder why it’s not being removed, in spite of the associated problems, see the examples above again. There are clearly some people out there who fight for Mono.
Over at ZDNet, Jason Perlow has some tough words for Mono and Novell.
Well there’s… Mono? Sure, Novell has access to Microsoft’s developers and documentation for re-implementing .NET on Linux, but Microsoft has hardly made a college try to help Novell actually FINISH Mono or commit programmers to the effort. Hell, if Microsoft took one million dollars of that hundred million, and earmarked a few of its .NET developers as consulting staff to Novell for 3 years, you can bet they would get to parity with the one on Windows, at least so it isn’t always broken with the latest implementation of whatever API. Now, I’m not blaming Microsoft for not being open with Novell — it’s not their implicit responsibility to build Open Source projects — Mono is a Novell sponsored, community effort. But if Microsoft really wants to see .NET running on literally every OS, then Mono is going to need more than just “here’s our docs and call our guys and come on campus whenever you want when you need help, Miguel. Oh and by the way, have some free Diet Cokes and go use our Starbucks in the lounge.”
Surely enough, Microsoft wants it to be broken and crippled, always incompatible with the ’standard ‘ (de facto). It’s yet another reason among many more to steer away from Mono. But will Mono ‘guards’ be kind enough to let people do the right thing? █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
NoSoftwarePatents said,
August 22, 2008 at 2:30 am
Another reason is that the mono Guards hit bug reports and feature requests hard and fast, removing them from public visibility within minutes. The issues remain in the database, of course, but are not visible in the default searches due to the new classification that they get from the mono Guards.
Ubuntu could save many hundreds of megabytes out of the install CD by dropping mono. Since there are only about 650 MB in a CD, that’s a lot of real estate for anything. It’s a large chunk of the install CD.
For a large chunk of the install CD to be used for anything, it should be darn good. Mono is by all regards (except MS’ own de Icaza) garbage and not up to speed on what it is imitating, especially Java. It’s a travesty for a large gob of the install CD to be used up for something as diametrically opposed to Free Software principles as Mono. That space can be used for something technically sound instead that also meets the goals of the combined Ubuntu/Debian/GNU/Linux projects.
Ha! Chairman Bill and his ‘Guards.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 22, 2008 at 7:21 am
How are people removing bugs from public visibility from the Ubuntu bug database unless they are the original submitter or an Ubuntu employee?
Hint: they aren’t.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 23, 2008 at 8:25 am
Just got around to reading the threads, and it turns out that the most recent thread was started by a guy asking for help with MonoDevelop and then along comes your friend, Neighborlee, who starts trolling.
So, who’s the troll again?
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 23, 2008 at 8:33 am
“Neighborlee” is my friend? Oops. I must have lost count or track of my friends then.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 23, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Well, he seems to be based on your hanging out together on irc (see your own irc logs for example)
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 23, 2008 at 3:28 pm
This started /after/ the conversations in Ubuntu Forums, AKAIK.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 23, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Considering he was asking for your help DURING the Ubuntu conversation, you’d be wrong
You’ve been chatting with him on irc for weeks or more.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 23, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Btw, I take it from your lack of denying that Neighborlee is a troll, that you agree he is one.
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 23, 2008 at 4:35 pm
He showed up in IRC about 4 days ago.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 23, 2008 at 5:33 pm
He showed up more than 4 days ago. Recheck your logs
Here’s an example of one from a week ago:
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/08/16/irc-log-15082008-2/
And you guys seemed pretty chummy there.
Btw, you’re still avoiding the question of whether Neighborlee is in fact a troll.
I’ll remind you that the thread Neighborlee started bashing Mono on was a thread started by a guy asking for help with Mono/Develop on Ubuntu. A few posts later, Neighborlee starts attacking Mono without any provocation.
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 23, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Interesting. I didn’t remember this. it felt like 4 days or so.
I didn’t track these threads. I was shown some isolated posts there. I think it came from Neighborlee after he had done this. He wanted advice, IIRC.
Chris Lees said,
August 24, 2008 at 4:41 am
Mono doesn’t take up “many hundreds of megabytes” on the Ubuntu CD. A quick look through Synaptic for Mono libraries and runtime reveals that, in their compressed form (as they are on the CD), that Mono stuff takes up 16 megabytes.
Tomboy and F-Spot, which seem to be the only Mono-dependent packages shipping with Ubuntu, together take up about 4 megabytes in their compressed form.
Twenty megabytes in total. Google Earth takes up the same amount of space. Remember that Ubuntu would ship some other photo management program instead of F-Spot, as well.
Dan O'Brian said,
August 24, 2008 at 6:09 am
Damn, Chris, don’t you know you’re not supposed to let little things like “facts” get in the way of a Mono-smear?
Greg Kasyanov said,
August 24, 2008 at 1:34 pm
This isn’t the first time that ‘Neighborlee’ has been caught trolling:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4478432&postcount=251
Chris Lees said,
August 27, 2008 at 8:00 am
@Dan: I’m trying to get on BoycottNovell’s “McCarthy Index”… oops, I mean “Credibility Index”. Once there, I’d like to get a lower score than Steve Ballmer, if that’s possible. In fact, I’m such a Microsoft-loving Linux-hater that I’m posting this message using Xenix running on my 286!