06.03.09
Ubuntu Users Plead to Keep Novell’s Banshee Out (and Other Miscellaneous Mono News)
Summary: Progress on the argument for GNU/Linux without Mono as a dependency
IT IS no secret that Mono boosters are trying to put Novell's Banshee deep inside the most used GNU/Linux distribution. Putting aside vocal people like Jo Shields (“directhex“), who is currently busy attacking messengers that oppose Mono, there are actual users of Ubuntu out there and they do not want the bloat of Mono. To quote a small portion from an ongoing discussion:
Banshee replacing Rhytmbox on the other hand, not so much.
However, it does seem to use 3-10x more memory than RB which is very troubling (60-300MB compared to RBs fairly consistent 25MB),
Please, Please think of those of us who only have 512 Mb of ram in a laptop, or even those with less.
Red Hat is already removing its dependency on Mono. Here is Rahul commenting on the inclusion of Gnote:
A while back when I saw Hub announcing Gnote on April first, it just seemed like one of those jokes but with a predictable weekly release schedule, this application has now improved in leaps and bounds. One of the great things of being involved in Fedora is that you can watch applications and technologies grow from a nascent immature but promising state to something that everybody is in awe about.
Hubert points out, “we are no longer on a weekly release schedule. I’m trying to work on other stuff too 
but it is steadily going forward.”
This is good news for Gnote, which is stealing capturing Tomboy’s thunder and delivering it without Mono, which also means a lot less bloat.
The Tomboy team is worried about Gnote and its key developer, Sandy Armstrong (he too works for Novell), takes the fight to social networks along with colleagues. According to this new article from Ars Techica, a key plug-in for Tomboy was being developed as part of Novell’s Hack Week.
l developer Brad Taylor created Snowy in his free time as an experiment. It matured recently when Tomboy developer Sandy Armstrong teamed up with Taylor during one of Novell’s Hack Weeks in an effort to accelerate progress on the project.
Doesn’t Novell want to accelerate the project called Gnote? And if not, why? Does everything have to use Mono, whose copyrights are Novell’s and other rights (not just leadership in direction) are Microsoft's? █
Dan O'Brian said,
June 3, 2009 at 6:24 pm
You have a number of factual inaccuracies in this post:
1. Tomboy is NOT a Novell-sponsored project
Sandy Armstrong, while a Novell employee, does not get paid by Novell to hack on it afaict. As a recent post of yours pointed out, his job at Novell is doing a11y for Mono.
He also only recently even became a Novell employee (you blogged about that too a year or so ago). The reason I mention this is that obviously this means that Sandy Armstrong has been maintaining Tomboy since long before he ever joined Novell.
Novell also did not start the Tomboy project. If you read up on the history of Tomboy, it was started by a GNOME developer named Alex Gravely who has never worked for Novell afaict.
So, given this “enlightening” information, why should Novell care at all about GNote? They don’t seem to care enough one way or the other about note-taking apps, so why should they all of a sudden be sponsoring GNote?
2. Snowy is also not a Novell project – had you bothered to read the Ars Technica article you refer to in this very article, you would have noticed that the developers are working on Snowy “in their spare time” (btw, you even quoted the relevant paragraph).
Do you just not fully grasp the english language? Or are you purposely spreading misinformation to rile up your mindless drone army so that they go out to various other forums to repeat your lies as a means of hurting these fine developers’ reputations?
You seriously need to learn to do research before you go off spreading this misinformation.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
You’re attacking a straw man. I know Tomboy is Sandy’s hobby and I did not say it was sponsored by Novell. But well done creating straw men. You will have to try harder.
Dan O'Brian Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 6:27 am
My point is that you are attacking Novell over projects that Novell isn’t even involved in.
That’s disingenuous.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Novell owns Mono.
K Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Mono is free software. I thought you of all people should have known that.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Free software and software patents are not compatible. And there are other issues.
eet said,
June 5, 2009 at 6:51 am
Roy’s answers here are pure gems of feigned idiocy. He impossibly can be THAT stupid. Software patents don’t make Novell the owner of an open and free framework (Mono) and doesn’t make free and open software that is created by that framework Novell-owned.
So Roy’s trying to mislead his mono-hating fans on purpose – as usual. Well, whatever floats your boat, Roy-boy – just remind me to slap you for dishonoring the Linux community if you ever cross my way on a conference.
Ed Landaveri said,
June 6, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Owned or not by Novell. Mono is pushed by Novell the only one who signed a patent agreement with Microsoft as well as Novell employees one of each is Miguel de Icaza.
The agreement gives “protection” to Novell from being sued by Microsoft and Novell only. Mono is “gratis” but open only to Novell for the patent agreement Microsoft and Novell boast about.
Is denouncing the fact a dishonor to the Linux community? NOT AT ALL! but to recognized and support an open enemy of the community to saw mined fields among us and to boast that we showed up to this and that Linux Conference. Maybe they showed up as infiltrated paid agents that Microsoft always send on its fight against freedom.
The fact that Novell signed and agreement with Microsoft is the reason that Novell employees pushed mono to other distributions. Time will come when Microsoft will stand up to claim it’s right to those crappy technologies that will give Microsoft the perfect weapon to destroy us. And Novell happily ever after ’cause they’re the one who have “protection”. Big mouthed people only resort to personal attack when they have no valid points to support their points.
You might attack this site, demonize whoever opposes Microsoft/Novell evil doings but the truth can’t be hidden for too long.
People all over the world are aware of it and the peoples demand freedom not digital colonialism.
123 Reply:
June 8th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
You say that there will be a time when Microsoft will claim its right to Mono in the future. What right does Microsoft have over Mono? I’d like to learn how it has any right over Mono if it didn’t contribute and code to the Mono project.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 9th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Read this.
akshunj said,
June 7, 2009 at 5:29 pm
(SIGH) I keep reading these articles about the new big bad Novell. And you “GNU/Linux” users *do* seem to need a big bad every year or so. When Novell was throwing down against SCO, they were the plucky darling of our community. But now that they cooperate with Microsoft they are suddenly in league with Satan? Wow… Last I checked, Novell was a CORPORATION not a charity or non-profit…
I think everyone needs to take a breath and remember that one of the chief principles of open source is freedom of choice. And that means that some of us might choose to support a company like Novell that is working to ensure that Linux users have a path towards interoperability with Microsoft formats. As an avid Linux user and supporter for over seven years, I’m no fan of Microsoft’s business practices. But I truly believe there needs to be a framework for cooperation in a computing world where Microsoft, for good or for ill, wrote all the standards. And just when you think things are opening up, companies like Netflix adopt Silverlight. (And even if they were using Flash, it is only by Adobe’s goodwill that Linux has a functioning plugin.) My point is that as a Linux user, I am TIRED TO DEATH of the free software GNU/Linux fundamentalists preaching purist doctrine. Back in the real-world, Linux is still only 1% of the computing world and the MAJORITY of us are not ready to bury out heads in the sand and ignore anything that doesn’t meet the RMS free software standard. Guys, you need to know when to accept some compromises. And when you present inaccuracies and WILD exaggerations (digital colonialism?! WTF?!) to support your position, the rants start to sound like those of the religious right in America. Fundamentalism in any form will rot any movement from the inside out simply because the only people you want to listen to are yourselves.
On a sidenote, I LOATHE software patents like any other rational open source fan. Whether or not Mono apps like Banshee go into Ubuntu will have ZERO effect on their existence, however. If you hate software patents (as I do), email your ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE!!! Get your friends and family to do the same! The issue is URGENT and IMPORTANT to the future of open computing, but it is our framework for thinking and talking about intellectual “property” that keeps us from changing things, not the big bad Microsoft or Novell. Microsoft defends itself from just as many patent lawsuits as it initiates. Hope this sparks some constructive dialog.
Peace.
–Akshun J
Brad Jensen said,
June 8, 2009 at 6:28 am
I would LOVE to see someone re-write the latest Banshee in another programming language. I have tried almost every music/media player on Ubuntu and Banshee is by far a lot more professional and feature-full than any of the other media players.