Stallman warns against C# and Mono

Is Mono a disaster waiting to happen? Should we be avoiding C#?

Richard Stallman says 'yes' on both counts.

Richard Stallman said:

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.

edit: tried to fix the quote; gave up.

Hmm is that a foghorn I hear?   ... BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIINNNGGGGGGG

My impression is that MSFT has been deliberately ambiguous about the patent situation.  They're trying to simultaneously get developers to think they won't need licenses and some businesses to think they will.  (sort of reminds me of the US' "one China" policy)  I don't think it's too unreasonable of Stallman et al. to call them out on it although as someone who likes both .NET and Linux, and really appreciates Mono, I wish the situation were better.

BTW speaking of Tomboy (of which I'm also a big fan), it runs on Windows now and the recent 0.15.1 developer release appears to fix whatever problem prevented 0.14.x from installing on W7 for me.

contextfree said:

My impression is that MSFT has been deliberately ambiguous about the patent situation.  They're trying to simultaneously get developers to think they won't need licenses and some businesses to think they will.  (sort of reminds me of the US' "one China" policy)  I don't think it's too unreasonable of Stallman et al. to call them out on it although as someone who likes both .NET and Linux, and really appreciates Mono, I wish the situation were better.

BTW speaking of Tomboy (of which I'm also a big fan), it runs on Windows now and the recent 0.15.1 developer release appears to fix whatever problem prevented 0.14.x from installing on W7 for me.

I agree. This whole "neener neener you violate our patents but we don't tell you which patents you violate" business from Microsoft is pathetic. It shows they aren't really interested in "protecting their IP" but rather to spread Fear, Uncertainity, and Doubt (FUD) about their competition using unsubstantiated legal threats. It's really a pretty disgraceful and shady tactic, and I wouldn't mind if the EU or some other entity punishes Microsoft for doing it.

That said, I think the Mono project is awesome and I hate all the FUD it is getting. Mono brings a high quality development platform to Linux and it's a shame I think this type of FUD (from the Linux camp) is scaring people away from Mono. In fact I think the Linux desktop will get hurt because of it.

Stallman has reached coolaid pusher status.  Mono is one of the few bright spots going for OSS community.  Eating your young is not a smart way to promote your agenda.  Where is the facts of his claims?

Stallman may be a caricature of what he stands for but he isn't dumb.

The main contention with Mono is not that MS only has an agreement not-to-sue with Novel. Customer of Novell are OK, others are not, which raises the question of what are you really getting yourself into if you create an application using mono that can be installed on non-Novell platforms like Ubuntu for instance. 

With WPF and Silverlight, there is a real possibility that .Net can push the boundaries of Windows and get installed on Linux and Macs. That may not represent the wishes of Microsoft for a Windows-only world, but I believe that this shortsightedness is very limiting to the development of .Net, and by extension also limits what software companies can offer to their own Customers.

I really wish MS made it clear that it will not punish customers who invest in .Net and want their application to work on multiple platforms.

EDIT: just found and read this excellent article and I must say it puts a lot of the misinformation about mono in perspective:
Why mono doesn't suck., I only wish there were more links to resources to justify some of the positions but it's a worthy read.

blowdart said:

cycnus said:

*snip*

Yea, for once Stallman isn't blowing smoke out his a$$. Mono has problems with patents, they may well be doing things covered by them and only a distro from Novell is safe. It's a stupid situation and one Novell has rightly been slammed for.

However his statement "The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue." is balls. If it was a core CLR implementation that's safe, it's an open standard, with no patent worries.

And of course "The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents." is an opinion. not a fact as he presents it. But then it's Stallman, he believes he speaks ex-cathedra, because he's also god.

Stallman is a god who can turn foot skin into yummy cookies!

YouTube: Richard Stallman Eats Something From His Foot

It's like turning water into wine except you don't get drunk. And it's totally gross.

PS: See if you can watch this and not get the stupid song stuck in your head.

blowdart said:

cycnus said:

*snip*

Yea, for once Stallman isn't blowing smoke out his a$$. Mono has problems with patents, they may well be doing things covered by them and only a distro from Novell is safe. It's a stupid situation and one Novell has rightly been slammed for.

However his statement "The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue." is balls. If it was a core CLR implementation that's safe, it's an open standard, with no patent worries.

And of course "The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents." is an opinion. not a fact as he presents it. But then it's Stallman, he believes he speaks ex-cathedra, because he's also god.

People keep falling for the same trap over and over again:

Stallman warned of the dangers of using BitKeeper for the kernel and nobody took him seriously until they had to freeze kernel development to come up with Mercurial and Git. Now Stallman warns of C# and again people do not take him seriously - there is nothing about Tomboy notes that requires mono and couldn't be done just as easily in java given that we have a FREE implementation of java (and it was java which originally 'inspired' c#). M$ did try to screw Linux already with their SCO trial so there is no reason why we shouldn't assume that their intentions are malicious in this case as well.

Ubuntu said:

blowdart said:

*snip*

People keep falling for the same trap over and over again:

Stallman warned of the dangers of using BitKeeper for the kernel and nobody took him seriously until they had to freeze kernel development to come up with Mercurial and Git. Now Stallman warns of C# and again people do not take him seriously - there is nothing about Tomboy notes that requires mono and couldn't be done just as easily in java given that we have a FREE implementation of java (and it was java which originally 'inspired' c#). M$ did try to screw Linux already with their SCO trial so there is no reason why we shouldn't assume that their intentions are malicious in this case as well.

Please move on to a Linux forum where your religious zealotry will be unquestioned. I could care less about Stallman. I think the sky is green and there are lepracauns on every hill. Discuss.

foreachdev said:

Ubuntu said:

*snip*

Please move on to a Linux forum where your religious zealotry will be unquestioned. I could care less about Stallman. I think the sky is green and there are lepracauns on every hill. Discuss.

Which part of my post is untrue? The M$ and SCO long standing business relationship or the BitKeeper story? Is it not true that M$ called the free software movement a cancer and communism? Is it not true that M$ claimed multiple times that Linux kernel infringes on its IP? And I couldn't care less that you as the company BS men don't like to read about it.

blowdart said:

Ubuntu said:

*snip*

I know, let's all wait for Hurd! That will save us.

 

Oh, oh wait.

We can as we often do on C9 turn the whole story into a joke but this is not a story about: I like the ribbon and you don't - it's a story about who will get fcuked in the arse by M$.

Ubuntu said:

foreachdev said:

*snip*

Which part of my post is untrue? The M$ and SCO long standing business relationship or the BitKeeper story? Is it not true that M$ called the free software movement a cancer and communism? Is it not true that M$ claimed multiple times that Linux kernel infringes on its IP? And I couldn't care less that you as the company BS men don't like to read about it.

The "company BS men" line is tired. Especially when you have a penchant of throwing it around in threads where the supposed "company BS men" are taking Microsoft to task for something.

Oh, and BTW, AFAIK, Microsoft never called Linux a cancer and communism. Those quotes came from individuals, not the corporation.  Even if those individuals have influential positions (not trying to spin, but I can't think of a better way to state this), you can't conclude a corporate stance on this topic.

wkempf said:

Ubuntu said:

*snip*

The "company BS men" line is tired. Especially when you have a penchant of throwing it around in threads where the supposed "company BS men" are taking Microsoft to task for something.

Oh, and BTW, AFAIK, Microsoft never called Linux a cancer and communism. Those quotes came from individuals, not the corporation.  Even if those individuals have influential positions (not trying to spin, but I can't think of a better way to state this), you can't conclude a corporate stance on this topic.

The guy foreachdev in his post acted like a m*ron therefore I concluded that he's probably a: company BS men - if he's not that then he must be a m*ron in which case I'm not going to refer to him in my posts.

 Those quotes came from individuals, not the corporation.

What you are trying to say is that anything that doesn't come out of the PR office is not the official position of MS - as if the PR office made the strategic decisions at MS - if it doesn't come from the PR office and instead comes out directly from one of the' individuals have influential positions' then I presume that it's more important than the standard BS that comes from the PR office.

Ubuntu said:

wkempf said:

*snip*

The guy foreachdev in his post acted like a m*ron therefore I concluded that he's probably a: company BS men - if he's not that then he must be a m*ron in which case I'm not going to refer to him in my posts.

 Those quotes came from individuals, not the corporation.

What you are trying to say is that anything that doesn't come out of the PR office is not the official position of MS - as if the PR office made the strategic decisions at MS - if it doesn't come from the PR office and instead comes out directly from one of the' individuals have influential positions' then I presume that it's more important than the standard BS that comes from the PR office.

He said nothing moronic. Just because you don't agree with him, doesn't make what he said moronic. But, continue to troll here. We love it soooo much. Moron.

Ubuntu said:

foreachdev said:

*snip*

Which part of my post is untrue? The M$ and SCO long standing business relationship or the BitKeeper story? Is it not true that M$ called the free software movement a cancer and communism? Is it not true that M$ claimed multiple times that Linux kernel infringes on its IP? And I couldn't care less that you as the company BS men don't like to read about it.

I often don't agree with you, but I think the possibility of MS suing is like epsilon - larger than zero..

In the same way AT&T could sue Linux developers because they maybe own patents related to unix. Does that mean we should abandon Linux because AT&T might sue?

Still, MS suing over Mono would be monumental, as not only would it cause incredible harm to some foss projects, they would also lose  any goodwill that they seem they've been trying to get in foss comunity with open sourcing some of their projects and supporting some open technologies. It would also mean that they can forget about their standars if they chose to randomly sue guys that implement their standards, so it would also hurt their projects like OOXML.

That said, maybe I'll start GTK# project in not that distant future, I want it to be cross-plaform but it seems C# is the only sane option. I don't want doing C(++) for desktop application (memory safety), Java is generally lame (event system!), python and ruby are slow (and I don't like languages that are not in the end compiled to machine code, it feels dirty) and any functional language works like communism (on paper). If MS sues I'll rewrite it in Vala, but I won't touch it now as it's (imo) not mature just yet.