Comments on: Reader’s Article: Mono and (Anti)Trust

By: The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:50:02 +0000

Stallman has real problems with Mono. If you don’t believe me, read it in his own words.

For those too lazy to click on a link:

Debian’s decision to include Mono in the default installation, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction. It is dangerous to depend on C#, so we need to discourage its use.

The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue. The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. (See http://swpat.org and http://progfree.org.) This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it until the day it actually happens. We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this future danger.

This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C# implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called Portable.NET.) Ideally we want to provide free implementations for all languages that programmers have used.

The problem is not in the C# implementations, but rather in Tomboy and other applications written in C#. If we lose the use of C#, we will lose them too. That doesn’t make them unethical, but it means that writing them and using them is taking a gratuitous risk.

We should systematically arrange to depend on the free C# implementations as little as possible. In other words, we should discourage people from writing programs in C#. Therefore, we should not include C# implementations in the default installation of GNU/Linux distributions, and we should distribute and recommend non-C# applications rather than comparable C# applications whenever possible.

By: Jose_X

Jose_X — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:17:17 +0000

http://boycottnovell.com/2009/06/25/ms-definition-of-embrace-and-extend/comment-page-1/#comment-68324

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:40:43 +0000

"The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us. "Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there's no way to avoid this danger. But that's no reason to put our head inside Microsoft's jaws."

--Richard Stallman

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:39:08 +0000

Sir Sane,

DotGNU and Mono are both Free Software, but DotGNU users/developers would never be sued for patent violations. Where is your source that both RMS and Torvalds are “okay” with Mono?

By: The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:59:42 +0000

I’ve suggested several times that the only way to answer this is to get a legal opinion from a law firm that specialises in business law and patents. Curiously, every time I suggest this, I get shouted at very loudly. I wonder why?

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:39:57 +0000

BTW, what about DotGNU? Are they subject to the same patent issues regarding .NET?
“by the time he eventually finds out, it may be too late (assuming he isn’t already privy to Microsoft’s darkest secrets).
The best case scenario might be that Mono developers find themselves having to abandon whole projects, or at least significant parts of them, in order to “work around” the problem. The worst case scenario is that Microsoft begins an all-out frontal attack (just like they did with TomTom).”
How long do you estimate before this will happen? I am just curious.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:32:53 +0000

Yep, Mono and the MS-Novell deal is certainly different in nature, the the latter is IMO worse because it imposes a MS tax on Linux, which is not good, while Mono, while it does have it’s issues, at least you are not paying the patent racketeer.

By: Sir Sane

Sir Sane — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:12:04 +0000

I don’t see what’s even wrong with Mono. Yes, it’s a controversial in nature due to what it is based upon, but as Dave said in an earlier article: RMS and Torvalds are both okay with Mono. If the founding fathers of GNU/Linux are okay with it after looking through it, what could possibly be wrong?

By: Jose_X

Jose_X — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:45:35 +0000

The Ad Bard Network ad I got was interesting: http://tag1consulting.com/mysqlsupport

There is a book on performance being written publicly. There are patches. They host and maintain.

The topic is relevant to many (mysql and drupal performance).

They appear to deal entirely with FOSS… just realized by looking at their about page that these are the people that started the Ad Bard Network.

By: lalala

lalala — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:09:46 +0000

An article from Homer? Seriously, that’s your source? He has as much credibility as astralknight.

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:44:01 +0000

To be honest however, Mono is not as bad as the MS-Novell deal.

Those two things are not comparable because they are different in nature. A relation was shown only regarding the issue of mistrust.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:37:51 +0000

“RAND” – yep RAND only lives up to it’s name if you ignore free software.
To be honest however, Mono is not as bad as the MS-Novell deal. And yes, I am completely avoiding OpenSUSE, Linspire, Xandros, all of which signed a deal similar to MS-Novell, but not Mono.