Thanks for that.

I’ll be a more careful about throwing around the word “dishonest”, it is applied to the comparison, not the person making it, but that’s a fine distinction that might not come across in the heat of an argument.

Actually I have used C#, albeit the “real” thing, not Mono, and it was 1.0. I used to develop for Windows. /oh god the shame

I have thought about rewriting – and have even been politely challenged to do so – my pet GPLv3 publically available application in C# – it is in Python/PyQT right now. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that idea, but it is something I am aware of and have been considering.

Also, I have never once tried to hide my “bias” or point of view. I do not feign neutrality. Rather, I am trying to come to terms with why people are doing something that I think is harmful. This doesn’t mean I think the people doing it are evil. It means I don’t understand why what I assume are decent people are doing bad things. I hope the difference is clear. Sadly, the reverse is not usually recognized.

I believe that the W3C commitments are appropriate in the context of how the W3C operates and don’t present a cause for concern. The cause for concern in that area is when members break from W3C standards and introduce incompatibilities, which is both frustrating and fascinating, but not really of interest for our purposes here.

OK, enough comment “spamming”.

They pass judgment on software and provide guidelines to follow. Completely voluntary since they don’t have any power to dictate what distro’s ship.

Now the problem I have in their case against Mono is that they didn’t even try (to my knowledge) to contact the Mono team or Microsoft and see if they can push the
relevant parties to give legal assurances so that this FLOSS technology can be used for the benefit of the community and users.

It took Miguel de “Devil” Icaza and other people on the Mono team and in MS to bring this to fruition. The first iteration might not be to FSF’s liking but it’s far more then they did. Perhaps if they actively participated they wouldn’t have to tarnish hard work of others with their ideologically colored writing.

And don’t take this post as my general opinion on FSF. I think that they do great work for FLOSS and actively protect it by busting patents and sponsoring FLOSS development, but that doesn’t make them perfect. And I think that they fumbled the ball on the whole Mono/.NET thing.

Jason :

@zekopeko
You said:

The point wasn’t AT&T == MS but that it didn’t stop people from using C nor C++. You nicely point out the number of C implementations.

Let me just stress this a second. When Jo Shields says something like:

Mono implements an international standard – albeit one from a convicted monopolist. If this is a problem, why do people use C, the standard from convicted monopolist AT&T?

And you repeat this by saying something like:

You are about to install the Linux kernel, the core of the system that was built from scratch but with strong ‘inspiration’ from the legacy Unix System developed by AT&T, a convicted monopolist in the USA.

Then that is exactly trying to mis-frame mono critics’ arguments and draw an equivalence between AT&T/Microsoft. But it is not a good argument. Not only because of what I have shown, but also because even the very first patents that might be considered “software patents” only came along in the early seventies, and virutally no one at that time realized they would be the issue they are today.
The comparison is totally inappropriate and proves nothing. It is a dishonest comparison, and fails on every level you care to consider it.

Your right. I didn’t take into account the situational difference. I drew a parallel because it was logical in abstract.
When applied to the “real” world it loses it’s appeal as a strong argument.

Calling it dishonest, one the other hand, is attributing me with it. And one thing I’m trying not to be is dishonest intentionally. But even if you remove that part from my “warning” message, you are still left with a fact. That MS alleged that the Linux kernel infringes 235 patents. And they pointed at least two in the TomTom case.

The question is should people stop using the Linux kernel? And the answer is Hell NO! Patents are a sucky thing all around. But they shouldn’t stop people from creating something that benefits people. And I’m expecting people to stand up to MS on Mono as they would if the Kernel is in question. All FLOSS is created equal and it should be treated equally. And so should the associated developers.

On a more interesting note, the kernel was patched in a matter of days, without much fuss. So why can’t you give the Mono developers the same trust that they will also do the same in case of a proven patent infringement (not to mention that they published their plan in case of such a development) ?

I know I am beating up this point, but as I said the mindless regurgitation of “talking points” is my number one pet peeve about mono apologists. No one was bringing up this “AT&T thing” until Mr. Shields posted it in his “Why mono doesn’t suck” post, and now I see it quite often.
Well, I guess that horse has taken enough of a beating. Let’s move on:

I have no problem using Jo’s (or others) “talking points” when they make sense. He has proven to be dedicated and positively passionate person with great insight,knowledge and integrity, while packaging my favorite apps for my favorite distribution (to Jo: no I don’t want to marry you).

I’m a drive-by “defender of mono” (when warranted off course) so I don’t have all the information on it at a given time. Nor do I have a “pro-mono” blog nor time nor motivation to maintain one. I didn’t even know what mono was until about a couple of years ago. I didn’t use Tomboy or F-spot in Ubuntu at the time. And then came Gnome-do and Banshee and I was, being a pretty-UI whore, in love. Little by little I started understanding the situation and was left with the question “why are people attacking developers for this awesome free software? And today here we are. Flinging words at each other while the Redmond Beast’s management is getting quite a show.

MS position certainly is “entrenched” on the market, but as we can see it’s slowly but surely being eaten by FLOSS solutions. And in part thanks to Mono, whether you like it or not.

Now this, on the other hand, is an interesting proposition. So interesting in fact I will defer commenting here, because I might try to work out an post on just this topic.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that it’s not going to be an article that’s going to address why Mono is great for application development (since you haven’t used it by your own admission) , nor why are Mono apps better then their equivalent (if any). That feeling is probably steaming from you being extremely biased (the URL is a real tell). I hope you disappoint my feeling .

BTW didn’t directhex point out that MS invented AJAX? And that it’s an ECMA standard (can’t find the comment know).
And that AJAX as an extension of ECMAscript is used on more computer and in more FLOSS applications then Mono (let me remind you, based on other ECMA standard(s) )? So why aren’t you crusading to have that one removed from Linux distributions? Why do you use it on your blog?

Yes, AJAX is just like Mono.
Oh, except Javascript came from Mozilla who submitted it to ECMA for standardization in 1996. And the ECMAScript name was a comprimise because Microsoft had an intentionally close-but-not-quite-compatible clone called “JScript”. And of course, Mozilla had its own implementation of the mechanism that makes AJAX possible. Oh, and the standard was written by Opera and the W3C. Oh, and the W3C has a patent policy that the entire software industry has trusted for years for Internet infrastructure, instead of a “Promise” that Microsoft has applied to about 4 technologies.
So, yes, AJAX is just like Mono, except for the minor fact that it is nothing at all like Mono. And thus we must search for my hypocrisy elsewhere.
This is another of those “repeated talking points”. Did you actually read up on AJAX and the standard before you began repeating this argument?
Now that you know they are poor arguments, will you continue to use them? Will you correct other mono apologists when they use them?

It’s still a MS invented technology that can be easily patented (if it isn’t already) in the US since MS is the “true” inventor and it can prove it. Off course this argument can be easily dismissed if they gave a perpetual irrecoverable patent licence for it. REALLY don’t want to read and try to interpret the whole W3C Patent Policy but what stands out, at a cursory glance is this:

Patent disclosure
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#sec-Disclosure

followed by licensing commitments that extend to the current version (not “forevar” as far as I understand)
http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/38482/showCommitments

Perhaps you could sift through this and look if there is cause for concern?

Or will you just stick your fingers in your ears and flatly reject the rebuttal?
Let me be clear: I don’t think everything Mr. Shields – other any other mono apologist – posts is garbage or intentionally misleading – but I do think these are invalid.
I also think it points to a lack of original thinking on the part of those mono apologists that just repeat points. I have more respect for those trying to formulate and express their own thinking than just repeating points of others. I also have more respect for those arguments that give me pause and I must seriously consider to debunk, or even – god forbid – accept as winning the point.
Not every argument that supports your position is correct, and not every argument that opposes it is incorrect. You can concede a point without losing. Try it. It is part of honest discourse.

Trust me I don’t like pyrrhic victories. I simply don’t like people attacking developers for using a specific language and platform for purely ideological/political reason. Nothing is stopping people from using a distro that doesn’t package ,or uses in the default desktop set, Mono. A Google search knows that there are plenty of those.

You said:

The point wasn’t AT&T == MS but that it didn’t stop people from using C nor C++. You nicely point out the number of C implementations.

Let me just stress this a second. When Jo Shields says something like:

Mono implements an international standard – albeit one from a convicted monopolist. If this is a problem, why do people use C, the standard from convicted monopolist AT&T?

And you repeat this by saying something like:

You are about to install the Linux kernel, the core of the system that was built from scratch but with strong ‘inspiration’ from the legacy Unix System developed by AT&T, a convicted monopolist in the USA.

Then that is exactly trying to mis-frame mono critics’ arguments and draw an equivalence between AT&T/Microsoft. But it is not a good argument. Not only because of what I have shown, but also because even the very first patents that might be considered “software patents” only came along in the early seventies, and virutally no one at that time realized they would be the issue they are today.

The comparison is totally inappropriate and proves nothing. It is a dishonest comparison, and fails on every level you care to consider it.

I know I am beating up this point, but as I said the mindless regurgitation of “talking points” is my number one pet peeve about mono apologists. No one was bringing up this “AT&T thing” until Mr. Shields posted it in his “Why mono doesn’t suck” post, and now I see it quite often.

Well, I guess that horse has taken enough of a beating. Let’s move on:

MS position certainly is “entrenched” on the market, but as we can see it’s slowly but surely being eaten by FLOSS solutions. And in part thanks to Mono, whether you like it or not.

Now this, on the other hand, is an interesting proposition. So interesting in fact I will defer commenting here, because I might try to work out an post on just this topic.

BTW didn’t directhex point out that MS invented AJAX? And that it’s an ECMA standard (can’t find the comment know).
And that AJAX as an extension of ECMAscript is used on more computer and in more FLOSS applications then Mono (let me remind you, based on other ECMA standard(s) )? So why aren’t you crusading to have that one removed from Linux distributions? Why do you use it on your blog?

Yes, AJAX is just like Mono.

Oh, except Javascript came from Mozilla who submitted it to ECMA for standardization in 1996. And the ECMAScript name was a comprimise because Microsoft had an intentionally close-but-not-quite-compatible clone called “JScript”. And of course, Mozilla had its own implementation of the mechanism that makes AJAX possible. Oh, and the standard was written by Opera and the W3C. Oh, and the W3C has a patent policy that the entire software industry has trusted for years for Internet infrastructure, instead of a “Promise” that Microsoft has applied to about 4 technologies.

So, yes, AJAX is just like Mono, except for the minor fact that it is nothing at all like Mono. And thus we must search for my hypocrisy elsewhere.

This is another of those “repeated talking points”. Did you actually read up on AJAX and the standard before you began repeating this argument?

Now that you know they are poor arguments, will you continue to use them? Will you correct other mono apologists when they use them?

Or will you just stick your fingers in your ears and flatly reject the rebuttal?

Let me be clear: I don’t think everything Mr. Shields – other any other mono apologist – posts is garbage or intentionally misleading – but I do think these are invalid.

I also think it points to a lack of original thinking on the part of those mono apologists that just repeat points. I have more respect for those trying to formulate and express their own thinking than just repeating points of others. I also have more respect for those arguments that give me pause and I must seriously consider to debunk, or even – god forbid – accept as winning the point.

Not every argument that supports your position is correct, and not every argument that opposes it is incorrect. You can concede a point without losing. Try it. It is part of honest discourse.

Lex :

@Jo Shields
How about “FSF thinks this software is not free” warning?

The FSF thinks Mono IS Free though. They say so on their website. DO you know better than the FSF?

And I repeat, should Tomboy contain the “don’t install this Free Software” warning you dictated?

Lex :

@Jo Shields
How about “FSF thinks this software is not free” warning?

That warning would be a lie. Since FSF doesn’t regard mono as non-free.
From the article at FSF: “free software implementations of C#, like Mono”

Not to mention that once users see that, the only question on their mind will be: “What the fuck is FSF?” and “If it’s non-free do I have to pay for it and to whom?”