It is not just an issue of “a proprietary world”. Perhaps some other proprietary company would act in the same manner if they had the power. But that is not relevant right now, because they do not have such power. Microsoft does. They will never ever give it up. It must be taken away slowly: one user, one standard, one refusal to be locked-in at a time.

I don’t consider the mere fact that Microsoft-inspired technology can be seen on Linux as sad. You don’t merely use Linux just to escape every influence of a proprietary world, do you? That’s a little unrealistic.

Not every user has to choose an ideological side in the free-software struggle just to enjoy using your system.

Agreed. There’s a certain sadness to the image of a new user that has finally managed to break free from Windows (or one that has never really had to worry about Microsoft tactics), only to look up and see Team Mono happily bouncing down the path to the front door, arms overflowing with packages from Redmond.

Mono and many of its applications can not be ignored – you have to think about it and come up with an opinion because of agressive promotion. By forcing users to decide if they want this technology, they divide the community. It’s inevitable and sad.

I didn’t mean to imply the developer’s aren’t aware of it – I meant the “foot soldiers” out there are overlooking that fact. In fact, some are plainly stating that all those apps are safe when they aren’t (yet) – ala the linked thread in the post.

I’ll contribute by keeping you guys honest – how about that?

If you continue to address legit concerns and criticism – even if it is only “trival” code changes – and it can only help all the way around. It’s much nicer having your points actually addressed than being called names, and it undeniably puts the project on safer footing (even if you thought it was “safe enough” before.)

Replacing System.Data is a trivial exercise. The code in question is some 200 lines of C# interfaces (a contract that providers implement) that need to be replaced with something else.

For the technologically inclined, the interface contains stuff like “SendCommandToSql”, “GetReplyFromSQL”. Not exactly rocket science.

This is perhaps your chance to contribute and get the new interfaces in place. Should not take more than a couple of hours.