Comments on: Does Mono even matter anymore these days?

By: André R.

André R. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:25:22 +0000

Dear Charles,

A) The promises and other legal models are premature. Irrespective of legal effects they are mostly social contracts, and ought to be expected to be effective *)

B) If there was a strong Java competitor we would find more legal certainty provided for the remaining parts of the .NET platform technologies. RedHat invested in Java technologies, and they invest in Mono-free technologies now. Gnote is only one example.

C) Do you know that through Tomboy as a Gnome dependency Mono became a part of the “Lenny” release? Yes, Mono is part of the holy grail. That explains the recent uproar among the grail lords and the curses of a crazy evangelist.

D) Novell was paid to buy indemnification. That is something entirely different and good for sales bonuses on both sides. I am curious what indemnification models Novell signed themselves for their own code? They did, no?

E) Google Chrome OS. So far Vapourware, but it is technically feasible in no time and the public can connect the dots. A bit like the OO.org PIM suite.

* Geeks think: “How does this door locker prevent hand granade attacks?” The truth is, no, it does not. Not at all. We ought to be so afraid.

By: Mono Roundup: Still Dangerous, Still Not Acceptable | Boycott Novell

Mono Roundup: Still Dangerous, Still Not Acceptable | Boycott Novell — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:35:40 +0000

[...] opines that Mono does not even matter these days. Anyway, who should care about this? Gnome developers [...]

By: vexorian

vexorian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:35:17 +0000

I meant “MS did this* just..”

Reading the FAQ it would appear they decided to turn Mono from a legal threat to Linux to a new source of anti-GPL FUD.

But at least

The CP provides the assurance that Microsoft will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, or distribute any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including the GPL

Sounds good. Not like the FAQ and the actual legal interpretation MS would give to the promise are necessarily in accordance.

Mono may not have gotten irrelevant with this, but what really seems less relevant is the MS-Novell deal… MS is basically giving the Mono protection to everyone for free (or at least stating so). Is this me or does this mean Novell is now paying for nothing?

By: vexorian

vexorian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:25:44 +0000

Isn’t it a strange coincidence MS did just as the Mono topic became so hard lately?

What’s up with these “promises” though are they legally binding? I.e. can we sue Microsoft if they suddenly decide to break the promise?

By: charles

charles — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:52:08 +0000

No I’m not. I’m just quite interested in seeing how Mono has been continuously pushed by some people who are usually less anonymous than you are.

By: blah

blah — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:56:15 +0000

For someone that has “gone out of the .NET and Java wars around 2004 or 2005″ you sure seem to be interested in continuing the battle.

For a technology that does not matter, you sure spent a lot of words attacking it