In which a Brilliant Observation is made

Take a look at the poll about Mono at the Ubuntu Forums.

Keep in mind this is the disgraceful Ubuntu “Free Speech Zone“, hidden away by the Ubuntu Forums staff as a single thread in a sub-forum of a sub-forum of  a sub-forum. So, you can say with some confidence that a high percentage of thread participants are interested in the subject of Mono, relative to the “general population” of Ubuntu Forums.

At the time of this post, here are the results:

Check out all that Zealotry!

 Care to guess your Humble Hosts vote?

In which Results are Analyzed and Deconstructed for Your Amusement

It’s almost a normal distribution; notice the number of “wary” and “supportive” are exactly equal, and both just slightly below the neutral “don’t care” choice. This indicates that the poll is not “skewed” by organized voting or other blatant manipulation.

Now, check out the difference between the extremes: there are 2 extreme anti-mono votes, and 8 extreme pro-mono votes!

Does this mean there are 4x more pro-mono zealots than anti-mono zealots? I shall consult a statistician, post haste!

And what about all those middle-of-the-road zealots? What makes someone turn neutral? Lust for Gold? Power? Or were they just born with a heartful of neutrality?

The non-statistician returns

What this does illustrate, I think, is something that is already obvious to anyone that has been following the Mono controversy: there are people that are just as “extreme” and unwilling to listen to reason as the most zealoty charactertures painted by the Broad Brush of the Most High and (Self) Righteous Community Gatekeepers.

You can spot these people by the mindless regurgitation of other people’s talking points and the inability to make even the slightest concession to any opposing argument; the gleeful participation in any manner of attack or disinformation; the uncritical embrace of  anyone or anything that supports thier position. A sure sign is charging the opposition with the very crimes they themselves are in the act of commiting.

I’m glad to know with statistical certainly, though, that although there are some people like that “on my side”, they number fewer than those that stand in the Ranks of the Opposition.

The target

For perfectly understandable reasons, Team Mono is really targeting Ubuntu to get ever more mono applications in by default. Banshee is virtually a given at this point, and GNOME-Do is a likely follow up. There is a blizzard of pro-mono misinformation on the Ubuntu Forums – which it breaks my heart to say, doesn’t exactly have quite same level of intellectual rigor as the Dialogues of Plato.

But I digress.

The point is Ubuntu is #1. Love it or hate it, for a vast majority of peoples, Ubuntu == Linux. Through the time-tested method of pulling a number out of one’s hindquarters, I will state with no other evidence that 99.9% of newcomers to Linux install Ubuntu first. And the Ubuntu Forums is where they go to ask questions. This is good ground for Team Mono. If it were a war, Ubuntu would be a valuable territory poorly guarded.

The resistance

As people came onto the Ubuntu Forums and heard about Mono, they would naturally ask “What’s the story here?”, upon which pro- and anti- mono people alike would chime in. It was all pretty boring and standard. It happened a lot, because Ubuntu Forums gets a lot of new users, and new users tend to have the same questions. If you were to inspect those sorts of threads you would generally find the same people appearing. Nothing much interesting about this part, it was the same mono apologists recycling the same misinformation.

By my lights, there was much less misinformation on the mono critic side. Now, I know that is to be expected, but let me say why. Most of the mono critics on the Ubuntu Forums, expressed an opinion on why they didn’t like Mono. But, they were attacked in turn over that opinion by recycled and often plain non-factual arguments. If I tell you Nickelback sucks, that is an opinion. (It happens to be true, but it is still an opinion). If I tell you that Nickelback do not write formulaic songs then that is just a plain non-factual argument.

Hooray for Nickelback sucking, the one thing all people can agree on. It’s like comparing someone to Hitler, without having to worry about Godwin.

The end result

Eventually, the Ubuntu Forums set up a “Free Speech Zone” of a thread called “Monolith” in a sub-forum of a sub-forum of a sub-forum. There’s a pathetic attempt at pretense: “We do not want to silence them and in fact encourage Civil debate.”

Uh no. Just say you don’t want anymore mono criticism and be done with it. I despise people that feign neutrality. If you have a position, announce it and defend it. Don’t dance around like you have no bias and then pull some BS like the Free Speech Zone. It’s dishonest and transparently so.

Wait. Let me help you with that.

I almost don’t want to go ahead and write more, because I can already imagine the mono apologist defense, but I will pre-emptively answer a few of the protests. (I would rather put them in a sealed envelope and then reveal them dramatically.)

Well, that is the forum for “Recurring Discussions” is it not?

Yes it is. Except for the fact that the Mono/Moonlight situation is constantly changing. We just saw a major huge change with the Community Promise, and another recent change with Banshee’s announcement that they intend to build the GUI in Moonlight. This is an ongoing concern, where the situation changes.

The vast majority of the Recurring Discussion threads are stale things that only the newbiest of the new feel like they have to chime in on like KDE/GNOME or vi/emacs. Here is a sampling of the recent threads in Recurring Discussion:

• What can Windows do that Linux can’t?
• Windows? What about Mac?
• Which is more bleeding edge? Gentoo Linux or Arch?
• GIMP v. Photoshop
• Why do you choose Ubuntu over Windows?
• Poll: Which IRC client do you use?

Do you really think the debate on Mono fits among those inane discussions? Ha ha, you said “yes”. Let’s laugh together!

Furthermore, Ubuntu Forums only allows a single “sticky” thread. So it’s not like you could at least break off a specific discussion into its own thread (still confined to the Recurring Discussion sub-sub-sub forum). No all mono criticism must be confined to a single thread. At the time of this posting there were 1,105,286 threads on Ubuntu Forums. (1,102,284 of which are how to enable wobbly windows.)

If you are trying to stuff all Mono criticism into one thread out of a million, then you are not “encouraging civil debate.”

Additionally, check out the opening post to the thread: “This thread is created to give a voice for all those who oppose Mono, but we are in trun asking you to keep your opinions / rants / anit-mono propaganda out of the support threads” So, this is for all Mono criticism, not just crazy rants – or is all Mono opposition “opinions / rants / anti-mono propaganda”? That’s another annoying thing about mono apologists, the refusal to recognize that there can be any valid criticism whatsoever of Mono.

In practice, you will find this thread is also for any question that might even turn into a chance to say anything possibly critical of mono / moonlight at all:

Originally Posted by lewmnik

Correct me if I am wrong but is it not only Novell who may distribute Moonlight? Banshee developers will make Banshee also replace f-spot?? I think Ubuntu should reconsider Rhythmbox decision.

Source:
http://download.banshee-project.org/…ee-gcds-09.pdf

Thread merged. Please read the first post, and then if you like all the others, and if you really want, read through the old mega thread.

Even though this gentleman is exactly correct about Moonlight being a proud Novell-Microsoft exclusive offering, he is quickly shuffled off into the “Free Speech Zone”. Was there some opinion / rant / anti-mono propaganda in that post?

Needless to say, mono promotion has free reign into any other forum. Want to pimp your latest Mono app or talk up Mono/C# or just go on about how awesome you find a specific Mono app – knock yourself out! Why, with no criticism at all, it’s just like everyone agrees.

Well, they had to do something!

Uh, why? They have hundreds of absolutely idiotic threads like counting to a certain number before the thread is locked or whatever. It’s not like some mono critical posts are out-of-place in the kernel developer’s mailing list or something.

And, if you accept they had to do something, was this the right thing to do?

Well there you have it

It is shameful and deceitful. I am very disappointed that the staff of Ubuntu Forums resorted to such a move. Although they are perfectly within their rights to do so, it is a disservice to the Ubuntu community and the larger GNU/Linux community. Interested to hear the pro-mono side of this.

Idea #20439: “Live CD Size as an end” is harming ubuntu’s image

This is related to the fact that someone wants to pull gimp from the Ubuntu Live CD. It what I am sure it total innocent coincidence his argument is “disk space” and there’s a mono app for that”. Wow – never heard that line before. Also, in what I am sure is another totally innocent, if unfortunate, coincidence the man is an ex-Microsoftie. I mean I know Microsoft trains people to absolutely respect user freedom, openness and ethical decision making – I only hope that this gentle sir can recall Microsoft’s training when making important decisions.

Idea #20257: Change Tomboy for Gnote.

This is a  perfect idea. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for Tomboy to even exist now that a C++ version of it exists. It has virtually the same functionality – and of course missing functionality could easily be added – and it totally eliminates the “mono factor”. In fact Gnote perfectly allows the default GNOME desktop to cleanly remove any mono dependency, as Tomboy is the only default GNOME app depending on mono.

Of course, neither GNOME nor Ubuntu has jumped on this – because the decision to include mono is not a pure technical one – if it were, it would immediately be pulled out to replace with Gnote. Instead, it is either awkwardly ignored, or at most some hem-haw about “missing functionality” is pathetically offered up. A shining example of the hypocrisy of mono proponents.

Lots of fierce personal attacks and lies about Gnote from notable mono apologists, if you care to walk that dark road, though.

Idea #110: No Mono by default in Ubuntu

I like this one – straight to the point! Get that mess out of there! This is pretty much my position: if the user has decided that the issues with mono are acceptable; then go ahead – it’s all about choice and freedom. The idea that corporate developers decide for the user is not acceptable. Most of the vocal mono apologetics comes directly from Novell, who has a clear financial interest in pushing mono. Because of Novell’s secretive deal with Microsoft, it’s financial interest, and continuing unwillingness to directly clear the air, I simply can not trust them in this matter.

Idea #2073: Use Banshee as the standard music player

Sitting at -184, which is a very low score indeed, yet mono apologists pretend Banshee is “best-of-breed”. It reminds me of Microsoft promoting Vista as “Best Windows Ever!”, while people flatly do not want it. The parallel of mono apologist tactics with Microsoft tactics is something worth considering.

So that’s a quick look at a few relevant ideas. One thing you might notice – in every case the majority of votes are against including mono, but the majority of comments are mono apologists. It’s like that in the Ubuntu Forums as where, in the sense that one questioning (or heaven forbid, critical) mono post brings all pro-mono cannons to bear.

It is increasingly difficult, then, to be a vocal mono critic in the Ubuntu community, because of the strong level of support mono enjoys in many key positions. If you think that sounds a touch paranoid, just consider the reception that Richard Stallman’s short and reasoned statement of C# received … oh wait, you can’t because it’s yet another thread that has been “disappeared”. The Ubuntu Forums are constantly removing posts and threads – I don’t mean “locking” them – I mean removing them and any trace of them.

This is another credibility problem for mono apologists, if you have to “disappear” content or confine it to a ghetto – it doesn’t speak well for your honesty, integrity, or arguments.

To my total surprise, the thread starts off with a nice bit of poisioning the well:

This thread is created to give a voice for all those who oppose Mono, but we are in trun asking you to keep your opinions / rants / anit-mono propaganda out of the support threads.

Of course, the idea that a single thread is sufficient for productive debate (or even un-productive debate) is farcical, but it does allow Ubuntu Forums to pretend they are not censoring mono critics, while at the same time killing discussion and illustrating how truly little they are interested in dissent.

Oh, just one more touch of hypocrisy from the Ubuntu Forums as well, while we are at it:

The purpose of these forums is support, not ranting about Mono.

All those Games, Market, “count to 300 before moderator locks this thread”, and various other middle-school threads are support threads? Of course not. The purpose of the forums is for the Ubuntu community to gather and discuss. The purpose of the “Monolith” thread is just another step in marginalizing mono critics voice in the Ubuntu community. The extent of the inclusion on mono is directly material to Ubuntu discussion – it is offensive and dishonest to relegate it to a “Free Speech Zone”