How to remove Mono (M$) from Ubuntu Hardy Heron

I have had a long-time problem with Mono and the Mono-based applications that, for reasons I do not understand, come installed by default with Ubuntu.

For those who don’t know about it, Mono:

provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix.

That sounds pretty innocuous on the face of it. But Mono has a potentially fatal sting-in-the-tail for some, and leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouths of many others…

The potential sting is because Mono is developed and supported largely by Novell who are, as we all know so well, in a patent-protection deal with Microsoft. This caused a huge storm when they signed the deal – basically because it gave some “credence” to Ballmer’s “Linux/OSS breaches 235+ patents” line. So, it’s O.K. for Novell to do stuff that implements helps M$’s stuff because they have “protection” from being sued [yeah right – who really believes that one!]. But what about everyone else???

The nasty taste which has always ‘ever-so-slightly’ tainted my use of Ubuntu is that Mono is there only to support applications written in languages and for platforms which are basically Microsoft’s. It encourages software development using systems that are based on technologies almost certainly encumbered by a whole raft of M$ patents. To my mind, there are many great non M$ languages and architectures out there which are almost part-and-parcel of Linux programming and I see no need to bring .NET, ASP or even Visual Basic to my desktop. If I want to write an application, I could use PHP, Python, PERL, C, C++, Java and, of course, many others. Why do I need to endorse and encourage the proliferation of non-free software by relying on M$’s IP and the smell of their stinky patents?

Well, I figured I don’t. So, I thought I’d see what happened if I removed Mono from Ubuntu.

As a test I typed the following (but I didn’t accept the Y/n question before doing some further research):

sudo apt-get remove --purge mono-common

The following packages will be REMOVED
banshee f-spot libart2.0-cil libavahi1.0-cil libboo2.0-cil libflickrnet2.1.5-cil libgconf2.0-cil libglade2.0-cil
libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.2-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil libgnome2.0-cil libgtk2.0-cil libgtkhtml3.16-cil
libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo1.0-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib1.0-cil
libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-data-tds1.0-cil libmono-data-tds2.0-cil libmono-security1.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil
libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil libmono-sqlite2.0-cil libmono-system-data1.0-cil
libmono-system-data2.0-cil libmono-system-web1.0-cil libmono-system-web2.0-cil libmono-system1.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil
libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil libmono1.0-cil libmono2.0-cil libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libtaglib2.0-cil
mono-common mono-gac mono-jit mono-runtime tomboy

This lot removes just three applications from Ubuntu 8.04: Tomboy, F-Spot and Banshee. And they aren’t exactly desktop behemoths either.

The long list of libraries and things that just might break something else looked pretty scary to simply accept without question. So I built a quick Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 VM using Virtualbox and tried it in there first. It seemed to be fine. Nothing else I tried broke. I rebooted the VM and tried loading several applications and it all worked as expected.

So here we go then; to get rid of Mono, Tomboy, Banshee and F-Spot, simply type the following.

sudo apt-get remove --purge mono-common libmono0

(The --purge switch removes the old packages from the package manager’s cache so you actually get the disk space freed up too)

Now I must confess to having used Tomboy in the past. But after a bit of research some time ago I found what I think is actually a better alternative called Zim. It is basically a desktop Wiki application:

Zim is a WYSIWYG text editor written in Gtk2-Perl which aims to bring the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Every page is saved as a text file with wiki markup. Pages can contain links to other pages, and are saved automatically. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a non-existing page. Pages are ordered in a hierarchical structure that gives it the look and feel of an outliner. This tool is intended to keep track of TODO lists or to serve as a personal scratch book.

I have been using Zim for several months now and am very happy with it.

F-Spot is easily replaced by gthumb which, for me at least, does exactly the same thing: it gets photos from my camera.

I never used Banshee after looking at the UI once. I found Rhythmbox much more obvious and easy to use, and it is already installed as well.

So, to replace the 44 packages (and 3 apps) above with non-encumbered alternatives, simply type:

sudo apt-get install gthumb zim

Of course please check your own system before blindly following my instructions. I checked carefully before removing Mono to make sure nothing was going to break. I would recommend you do the same, and, of course, back up your Tomboy notes first 😉

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86 Comments

  • Alan Lord says:

    @Dan, I’m not quite sure you get it… The reason I wrote this piece, pure and simple, is because I really don’t want Mono on my system. It really struck a nerve along with many others.

    Try reading this comment http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2008/08/04/how-to-remove-mono-m-from-ubuntu-hardy-heron/#comment-8414 and others to see why Mono is more than just ECMA334 and 335.

    Oh yes, and please do remember, ECMA are that totally august body that brought us ECMA-376 (OOXML) too. They are simply Microshaft’s standardisation department and I have little trust in anything they claim.

  • Slated says:

    @Dan O’Brian

    What “personal attacks”?

    Do you consider dissent against Microsoft to be “personal” now? Why? Do you have some connection with Microsoft we should know about?

    The only person launching “personal attacks” in this thread is “Cosmo7” with his assertion that we’re “retarded creationists”.

    As for Microsoft and their personal “standards” group, ECMA, issuing vague promises to be “reasonable”, well I trust them about as far as I could throw Sweaty Ballmer … or about as much as I trust you, come to that.

    We don’t want Mono.

    Deal with it, and find a new hobby.

  • Mono domyÅ›lnie w Ubuntu Hardy Heron – po co i jak usunąć?…

    Nie przepadam za Mono, a raczej za aplikacjami napisanymi w Mono, jednak z jakiś (nieznanych mi) powodów jest ono domyślnie instalowane w Ubuntu.

    Dla tych, którzy nie wiedzą czym jest Mono:
    projekt w ramach wolnego oprogramowania majÄ…cy na[…..

  • Ryan says:

    This is a great guide, thanks , I do something similar on all my new machines, but hadn’t remembered the applications I’m losing. It’s too bad f-spot is written with mono, of those apps, it’s the only one I miss.

  • Alan Lord says:

    @Ryan,

    many thanks for the compliment. It was a quick piece I wrote just because I wanted to document it really – I didn’t realise it would become the most popular article on the whole blog… I guess it just goes to show that there is a great deal of “interest” in removing the taint of Microsoft/Mono from one’s free software experience.

  • […] it isn’t such a bad thing in reality. The article I wrote at the beginning of August “How to remove Mono from Ubuntu…” was, and remains, one of the most read peices on here, and almost all of the 50+ comments […]

  • sporniket says:

    Thank you for this post. I’ve been wary of not letting Mono sneak in my computer, but having a cook-book to check that is a plus ^^

  • […] doesn’t like Mono, or just want to eliminate some cruft from your computer, then check out this blog post. It explains how to remove Mono from Ubuntu (the Hardy Heron […]

  • sillyxone says:

    thanks for this, I removed mono two weeks ago using your instruction, been working great. The only thing I missed is Gnome-Do which is convenient, but I’m learning Python with the hope to write a replacement.

    As for the other applications: I’ve been using Zim, never touched Tomboy before; F-spot wasn’t my taste, I’m using gqview; and Rhythym box is my music player.

    I don’t hate Tomboy, F-Spot, and Banshee, they are great products. I just feel pity for those who picked the wrong path. Value your freedom, or you will lose it.

  • Warren says:

    Why do people STILL believe this UTTER UTTER rubbish.

    The core .NET runtime and C# language are ISO Standards that are NOT patent encumbered and that ANYONE is free to implement.

    Let me say that again.

    The core .NET runtime and C# language are Internation Standards that are NOT patent encumbered and that ANYONE is free to implement.

    IF you make use of MS patent encumbered libraries (WinForms, ADO.NET etc) then yes there is a problem otherwise Mono is fine.

    Do you REALLY believe that the Gnome and Ubuntu people would risk having to pay MS licence fees. Come one people, wake up and smell the coffee.

    I am not a MS fan and have put my money where my mouth is because of it, Vista was the final push for me. That said I develop in Mono. Why because as long as I do not use MS patent encumbered stuff, the bits they have not given over to ISO, I have no patent issues.

    .NET, like it or not, is a VERY VERY good environment to work in. I can write ANY part of my app in different languages, including Python, and all parts can communicate with each other.

  • […] to remove Mono from Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex As this was such a popular How To for Hardy Heron, I thought I’d document the same exercise for […]

  • Alan says:

    Yo,

    Thanks for the tips. I don’t use Ubuntu but I confess I have used Tomboy before as a virtual “sticky note.” I don’t know if Tomboy and Zim have advanced features (you say Zim is like a desktop wiki, I guess), but for simple notes xpad is great.

    Alan

  • […] similar thing happened the last time, when I did a piece on doing the same thing for Hardy […]

  • Yaro says:

    “Why do people STILL believe this UTTER UTTER rubbish.”

    Because it isn’t utter, utter rubbish. It’s actually quite logical.

    “The core .NET runtime and C# language are ISO Standards that are NOT patent encumbered and that ANYONE is free to implement.”

    First off, .NET and C# are NOT ISO, but ECMA, which is in Microsoft’s grubby little pocket. Second off, just because something is a “standard” doesn’t mean it is open or unpatented. A requirement for standardization is not that anyone can use it freely even without royalties. Do research before opening your mouth.

    “Let me say that again.”

    Okay

    “The core .NET runtime and C# language are Internation Standards that are NOT patent encumbered and that ANYONE is free to implement.”

    .NET *does* have patents, look them up, and in actuality, there is only ONE other company than Microsoft who is actually allowed to use .net, and that is Novell. Mono is only legal on SuSE. Again, do your research.

    “IF you make use of MS patent encumbered libraries (WinForms, ADO.NET etc) then yes there is a problem otherwise Mono is fine.”

    No, the entirety of Mono is an implementation of a MICROSOFT controlled standard. Which means that whether it is patented or not makes no difference. Microsoft can and likely will pull crap like demanded a project be pulled or somesuch. A truly open standard is one that a group of groups control so that the standard will not be manipulated for monopolistic goals. Mono and .NET do not fall into that category. Mono is still an IP landmine, patents or not, because .NET is not any more “open” than Shared Source is.

    “Do you REALLY believe that the Gnome and Ubuntu people would risk having to pay MS licence fees. Come one people, wake up and smell the coffee.”

    I believe GNOME would thanks to a certain Microsoft-loving asshole named “Miguel de Icaza” who would probably jump at the chance to pump more garbage from Microsoft into Linux that the Linux community knows better than to want in their distributions. As for Ubuntu, it’s simply a matter of Mark Shuttleworth not believing Mono is a problem… yet. Even he admitted, however, on his blog, that there could be problems with Mono in an IP sense.

    “I am not a MS fan and have put my money where my mouth is because of it, Vista was the final push for me. That said I develop in Mono. Why because as long as I do not use MS patent encumbered stuff, the bits they have not given over to ISO, I have no patent issues.”

    Ah, the curtain is lifted. You’re a Mono developer. You’re just trying to defend a huge mistake you’re making. Be careful, in a few years Microsoft might actually own your ass when they decide .NET shouldn’t be “open” anymore. It doesn’t matter if .NET isn’t patent encumbered, it’s still controlled by one company who has the power to patent the whole damn thing whenever they want to, MSECMA standard or not. And I repeat, .NET is NOT NOT NOT an ISO standard.

    “.NET, like it or not, is a VERY VERY good environment to work in. I can write ANY part of my app in different languages, including Python, and all parts can communicate with each other.”

    I find .NET to be a horrible platform to develop in, coming from over 11 years of development experience for both Windows and Linux. Without the obvious IP deathtrap, .NET is clunky, slow, non-portable, and your claims that you can mix or match languages in your software is not something that .NET provides exclusively. It’s quite easy to mix up languages without a garbage framework like .NET or Mono weighting it down. I find Mono and .NET to be like Java: Nice and convenient for the incompetent programmer too lazy to do basic foundation programming, and very inconvenient and not fun for the end user, who is more important from a software standpoint than the lazy programmer who uses things like .NET. There’s NOTHING .NET provides that I can’t do in C++ or Python with just a small addition of time and effort required, and my software does well for it: No encumbering dependencies, no potential for a notable enemy of open source and Linux to be allowed to pull the rug out from under me, and best of all, small and fast binary.

  • See ISO/IEC 23270:2006 (C# standard) and ISO/IEC 23271:2006 (CLI [Common Language Infractructure] standard, which includes [but not exclusively] the CLR). It is both ISO and ECMA.

    Feel free to do the research which Yaro appears to have already done. Shuttleworth stated that there _could_ be a problem, not that there was. Your overamplification and lack of context in the whole of your discussion on Mono is an excellent tool to use in FUD.

    Also, read the in re Bilski decision completely. If you continue to assert that Mono is bad, provide proof as to why.

  • Pardon, but I misread the headers on the ordering of the posts. Yaro needs to do the research which Warren appears to have already done.

  • Yaro says:

    I *have* done my research. Warren clearly didn’t.

    “See ISO/IEC 23270:2006 (C# standard) and ISO/IEC 23271:2006 (CLI [Common Language Infractructure] standard, which i”
    includes [but not exclusively] the CLR). It is both ISO and ECMA.”

    C# and CLI are not .NET. They’re built off of it. That doesn’t make .NET an ISO standard. .NET has NEVER been an ISO. Unless you can show me an ISO number for .NET, your argument fails. Saying C# proves mono is an ISO standard is like providing the existence of mustard that bread exists. Try again before shilling for .NET or Microsoft.

    I’ll do you one better. I did a little digging, on Wikipedia and elsewhere and found that .NET itself wasn’t standardized at all, and just C# and CLI which are .NET itself by a long shot, especially since there ARE patented elements and probably even unpublished elements (And if you don’t believe there are, you’ve never payed attention through all the Microsoft hidden API debacles which got them in deep crap with the EU.) which basically mean any public aspect of .NET that is “standard” meaningless in the first place.

    Remember also that ECMA is in Microsoft’s pocket, used along with tactics like committee stacking and even outright bribes to bring the unnecessary OOXML standard to ISO. (And you’re telling *me* to do research and you’re using ECMA as a defense for Mono?) I wouldn’t believe any ECME standard is a standard at all the way Microsoft controls it.

    If standards bodies actually followed half their guidelines, we wouldn’t have Mono, C#, OOXML, or Joliet. And I repeat myself, I wouldn’t trust ECMA any further than Microsoft the way they conducted themselves with OOCLY

    “Feel free to do the research which Yaro appears to have already done. Shuttleworth stated that there _could_ be a problem, not that there was. Your overamplification and lack of context in the whole of your discussion on Mono is an excellent tool to use in FUD.”

    I never said otherwise or anything, I said, quite plainly that Mark Shuttleworth said ther may or may not be a problem. how is that out of context or an overstatement? Here, I’ll repost my statement on what Shuttleworth thinks of mono:

    “As for Ubuntu, it’s simply a matter of Mark Shuttleworth not believing Mono is a problem… yet. Even he admitted, however, on his blog, that there could be problems with Mono in an IP sense.”

    Tell me where I said anything that was really different than you did. Please. I said he said there COULD be problems and that indeed he DIDN’T see any problems with it, just like you said he sais. Pay attention to what you read before shilling for Microsoft.

    “Also, read the in re Bilski decision completely. If you continue to assert that Mono is bad, provide proof as to why.”

    Read it. No relevance here, doesn’t say anything about how a standard can’t be patented even after the fact. It’s a nice read, but sadly, irrelevant here.

    So, again, where’s the proof .NET or Mono are anything BUT fake open standards that Microsoft shills like you and Warren seem to think are actually open?

  • Yaro says:

    Also, you’re missing my point, I forgot to add.

    Even if .NET were standardized through ISO and not pantented at all, it’s still a deathtrap since ONE company controls it (Microsoft.) Which ,eans that people may have a way to follow one form of .NET, but that will not and cannot stop Microsoft from completely abandoning the standard and locking in .NET developers anyway.

    And again, explain to me why, if .NET is such a safe standard like you erroneously claim, that only Novell is legally indemnified for using and developing Mono?

    And the point most these people are making is they don’t want Mono at any rate since it’s still a Windows technology that those in the majority of Linux usage don’t want. Lunux users don’t want Windows features, and don’t bring your Mono using Microsoft shills into it as they’re in the minority just by looking at the vast majority of comments against Mono verses the three or for for it. Linux users don’t want jumk like C#, Mono, or Moonlight bloating Linux up or slowing it down.

  • I have written a commercial application in .Net and someone asked me for a considerable ($100K’s) worth of a Linux alternative development. I had thought that possibly I could use Mono as a jump start. But I Googled for “Mono Rubbish” first to get the downside and found this thread.

    Having read at least about 2/3 of the above, it just confirms my opinion of what a disjointed mess the Open Source so-called “community” are and how much I should avoid your volatile in-fighting in which no technology, platform, collaboration or whatever you guys like to call them is really ever safe and guarantied decent long term support.

    You know what? I’m going to tell the guy my App is Windows only and find something equally profitable to do instead.

    …Should have listened to Cosmo. If you guys lived in the real world you would realise that he wasn’t so much backing Mono as pointing out that you all back stabbing and flaming each other makes Microsoft look like a welcome island of stability. Native C#.Net is at least well backed whatever you think of the backer, so no, I won’t be ‘dipping my toe’ in any of these rant infested waters!

    As for the people above who dissed MS C#.Net – well you are all script kiddies obsessed with your own cleverness aren’t you? It doesn’t take long in a production environment to appreciate that it’s the ease of team working and the power of the IDE that sells. Fact – C# is fast and cheap. Why? Because it creates clear, easy to read and maintain code that can readily be shared in a team production environment, plus the .Net libraries (on Windows obviously – I am not taking about Mono) are extensive, and rock solid reliable. Put together it’s easily the fastest to develop language I have used in 25 years of coding. And you know what? It’s programmer time and expense that is important in commerce. I don’t actually care that the execution speed is sub optimal. Big up to the people who mentioned that above (duh! bangs head on desk) – Look, I wrote code in the 80’s and computers were expensive and slow. Then you would have had a point. Now that PC’s are cheap and fast nobody cares how direct and fast your platform is over anyone else’s. …What does it look like, what facilities does it provide and how cheap and easy is it to code in? That’s what’s important.

    Sounds like a big rant but I am not actually anti open source!

    It just has a way to go, and the fact that you very clearly are not the “Community” you claim to be is part of that. Now quit squabbling, give each other a hug and by all means gang up on me instead. I’m sure at least that, you can agree on. 🙂

    PS. What do I think of the actual subject under discussion?

    …I think a woman and a pig in a dress are not quite the same thing.

    Thanks for pointing that out to me re Mono.

    An Outsider (Pro C#.Net Coder)

  • The_Pirate says:

    Thanks for this guide.

    I really do not want Mono, so this was a lovely, simple way out.

    Just FYI – it works perfectly on Ubuntu 9.04 too.

  • […] for non-technical and personal reasons. I tried removing it and found that it worked so I wrote a post on how to remove Mono from Hardy. What amazed me was the huge surge in traffic to my lowly blog and […]

  • Robert says:

    For those that want a replacement for Tomboy they can use GNote. It’s a port of Tomboy to C++. To get your notes from Tomboy to GNote just copy from .tomboy to .gnote all *.note files. Done. Mono free here now 🙂

    cp .tomboy/*.note .gnote/

  • Kory says:

    Ubuntu says they do not know of any patent issues, please see: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-June/000584.html

    • Yaro says:

      Their TECHNICAL board says it, and they’re hardly a board of experts on a non-technical issue like obvious patent threats. I prefer what the actual experts say. The Software Freedom Law Board is much more of an authority… and what did they say? Oh yeah: Mono is BAD.

      Heck, even Richard Stallman himself said to be damned cautious about it.

      Also remember that technically unles you’re using Mono with a Novell-based project (SuSE.) you’re not spposed to be using Mono anyway due to the cross-patent agreement between Novell and Microsoft.

      Personally, I have no use whatsoever for Mono, and I see it as a real threat.

      Remember that Canonical is not an advocacy organization of FOSS, it is a commercial organization with a Linux distribution, and even has some proprietary software of its own.

      • Hey, now. MS ended the war some time ago, promising not to pursue patent litigation on implementations of the CLI spec. Out from under that rock, you.

        As far as citing who and what and whatever—forget it. Quit blindly citing things, go out there, and read the laws as they are written. Read the case law as it is published and presently standing. Learn a bit. It’ll help you a great deal to be able to forumlate an opinion based on the facts, straight from the sources, instead of digested time and time again through people on both sides that clearly have a bias.

        I’d move for closure of additional comments on this old post. Not only has it become irrelevant, but it’s bloody time to move on. Maybe start working to improve the situation moreso than it has already improved itself and make waves to completely, explicitly prohibit software patents. While current patent law (at least in the U.S.) and the legal climate (again, at least in the U.S.) makes it relatively easy to challenge software patents and win (if you actually bother to go through with the court case, unlike what TomTom did, which was asinine; though less asinine than the sensationalist and uninformed “reporting” that surrounded it). There is a three-pronged legal test on patents which determine their validity here in the States, and most—if not all—software patents (including any that could even remotely possibly be asserted on the CLI; though to know that you’d have to read patent law, case law as pertains to patents, and the ECMA standards themselves) fail this test, just as business process patents do (see current Bilski case and keep an eye on it for the SCOTUS ruling sometime later this year). Already, we are seeing software patents being invalidated on the basis of this ruling, and we are seeing that the USPTO is proactively rejecting more (already known to be invalid) software patents after the case issued clarification on the patent test—which, by the way, was established 20+ years ago, by the Supreme Court.

        The problem here in this small event, and the overall problem in our society, is that rarely is there a time when people stop to think and validate the information that they are given. Why is it that a layman should never argue in a court for himself, do you suppose? It’s not because lawyers have minds that are naturally attuned to the premise of law. There are many pretty bad lawyers out there. It is (in part, mind, and don’t harp on this point as being the only one, it’s just a part—the only relevant part for the purposes of this discussion anyway) because a lawyer can be held accountable for not doing his job well. And many law-savvy non-laywers have been able to take their lawyers to court for sheer incompetence. Legislation, while it can be sometimes hard to understand, is modified and formed in part by the courts by case law (which is often significantly easier to read). So, seriously people. Stop typing for a while, and start reading, eh?

        • Yaro says:

          Rock? Hardly! How many promises has Microsoft made that they actually kept? I’ll believe Microsoft “ended the war” when they actually do something different, not when idiot Micropologists like yourself say so.

          So far this is typical Microsoft behavior. And I won’t feel safe using Mono just because a company that has declared numerous times TO THIS DAY it wants to bury Linux and all FOSS says that it is safe. Making it an ECMA standard doesn’t indemnify us, either. Unless Microsoft actually signed a CONTRACT with someone saying that Mono will never be the subject of a lawsuit, your little “promise” from Microsoft is worth crap. They’ve gone back on promises way too much for me to blindly trust everything Microsoft tells me like you apparently do. Let me guess, are you one of those dumb shits who actually started blogging with headlines like “Microsoft Goes Open Source” when it tried to get projects like Blender hooked on .NET so they’d be stuck on Windows?

          So, how about this: You believe Microsoft won’t sue us over Mono despite having a long history of doing similar things? Prove it. Prove to me that Microsoft will actually keep that promise. I highly doubt they will. Mono is a patent death trap. And SCOTUS cases are not patent system reform. Microsoft already sued TomTom for patents earrlier this year. There’s nothing. NOTHING. Stopping

          Just because Microsoft says it in a PR conference doesn’t make it so. Unless we see Microsoft signing a contract or a real patent reform happens, there’s nothing safe in Mono. At all. Unless, of course, you’re a SuSE user. They’re the only people actually indemnified from the blatantly obvious Mono patent death trap.

          As for the “three-pronged” patent test, it doesn’t need to actually WIN a patent lawsuit to do damage. Settlements can cause enough damage, and settlements are most common in those cases, as lawsuits are prohibitively expensive. On top of this, Microsoft has the money, not the FOSS projects and users foolishly using Mono and exposing themselves to this, and thus will usually be forced into the “painless” option of bending over and taking it up the ass, which is what Mcirosoft wants, not a won lawsuit. Microsoft didn’t sue over the fictional patent-infringements in Linux not just because they were fictional but also because what Microsoft wanted was to manipulate Linux distributors, not crush them outright. That’s what Mono will be for later, trust me.

          This is not an outdated problem. There’s nothing that suggests Mono is safe beyond the non-credible word of a monopolistic global corporation that has, since 1998, declared FOSS and Linux its greatest threat and enemy. Perhaps you can actually cite something NOT written by Microsoft that proves Mono is safe? Oh wait, you can’t.

  • But you see, even if they do sue, the law does not support them in that action. Nor does the current legal climate. Granted, you have about a week’s worth of reading (if you’re a fast reader) ahead of you before you can actually discover that for yourself, but hey, the information is out there.

    The first error you have made here is the assumption that a corporation is a single entity with a single mind. No, indeed, no corporation is like this. Is there a chance that they will go back on their community promise? Maybe. Does the law defend them in doing so? Absolutely not.

    If a company issues a public statement, the public has reasonable cause to believe it. If the company does not adhere to it, then the company has been deceptive. Further, this means that mens rea is not present on the part of a member of the public (which did not seek out a contract because it believed it was not legally obliged to do so, because the member of the public read the promise and had reason to believe that the words contained meaning). So, this means that the member of the public is not criminally liable for any violation whatsoever. So the next thing to cover is civil violations.

    Let’s frame this differently by constructing a situation that is similar and comparing it. Let’s say that I made all of the content on my Web site available in the public domain (for the record, it is not). Now, let’s say that at some arbitrary time, I change that, by claiming copyright on my Web site’s content and licensing it under the strictest terms that Copyright law would permit me. Does this mean that I can win a case against you for using something that was already entered in the public domain? Absolutely not; you would have the reasonable expectation to use that content. After all, once something is in the public domain, it is always in the public domain, even if a derivative is copyrighted. Now, if you use the derivative, or newly-written posts which I assert copyright on, then you would be guilty of copyright infringement and thus I could win *that* case. While this example is on a copyright, it demonstrates the same basic principle.

    Now, let’s take something else into account: members of a corporation are required BY LAWto act in the corporation’s best interests. Of course, what is in a corporation’s best interest changes, over time. Of course Microsoft wants everyone to run Windows—on the desktop, on the server. As long as everyone purchases their copy of Windows (which of course is the company’s intention), they *must* want that, for as long as they determine that they are going to continue the Windows line of operating systems. And when, one day, they stop making the Windows line of operating systems (which their research into managed-code operating systems suggests they will eventually do), they will no longer want everyone to run Windows. Instead, they will want everyone to run that new operating system. Why? It betters their bottom line. This is natural.

    Now, as to your statement that Microsoft wants to bury Linux and all other free/open source software, this is simply not true. Microsoft has itself released free software—see the ASP.NET MVC stack that they released. The ASP.NET MVC stack is free software by extension of the fact that it is licensed under a recognized free software license (despite the fact that it is incompatible with the GPL license, it is still free software in that it grants the appropriate rights by which it can be called free software). If your assertion that Microsoft wanted to bury all free and open source software were true in the slightest, they would not themselves be releasing software under that model. This is significant, because it means that someone at Microsoft—however small—has realized that there must be a fundamental shift in the way that they do things, or they very truly will be left behind. Do they want to push Linux out of the market? Yes, as well as OS X, AIX, z/OS, MVS, Free/Net/OpenBSD, and I’m willing to bet ReactOS. Tough. In this world, you get competition.

    As for your mention of CONTRACT (emphasis yours), I am glad that you brought that up. What is a contract? It is “an agreement creating and defining the obligations between two or more parties,” in the words of Sir John William Salmond. That fundamental definition of a contract still holds true today. Now, the community promise states the following:

    Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation, to the extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications, and is compliant with all of the required parts of the mandatory provisions of that specification (“Covered Implementation”), subject to the following:

    This is a personal promise directly from Microsoft to you, and you acknowledge as a condition of benefiting from it that no Microsoft rights are received from suppliers, distributors, or otherwise in connection with this promise. If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in a patent infringement lawsuit against a Microsoft implementation of any Covered Specification, then this personal promise does not apply with respect to any Covered Implementation made or used by you. To clarify, “Microsoft Necessary Claims” are those claims of Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement the required portions (which also include the required elements of optional portions) of the Covered Specification that are described in detail and not those merely referenced in the Covered Specification.

    Much like the end-user license agreements which Microsoft grants in exchange for monetary consideration (and often with unenforceable components, but that is beside the point), this is a contract. If you read the contract, and you agree to it, Microsoft has already stated that they agree to it. This unqualified acceptance by both parties makes it active. Furthermore, it is not the type of contract that is required to be validated in writing, as are the contracts that govern the sale or transfer of title of certain types of things such as property. Oh, and in American law, such seemingly informal agreements are covered, provided that there is proof that the agreement existed in the first place. This is why one can have a verbal contract over some seemingly little thing and take it to court in this over-zealously litigious society we live in. No signature is required. Note further that “necessary claims” are named such because as a corporation owning a patent, it is required to act to enforce the patent (again, by law, that whole best interests thing) unless there is an agreement that states otherwise.

    That is, unless enforcement of the patent would be a greater danger to themselves than it would be a help. You do not see Microsoft shutting down the development of the Linux kernel or the GNU userland, despite the alleged fact that they have hundreds of patents covering that software that they could enforce. Not only would it make no sense to do that from a PR point of view, it would be murderous on them if they didn’t want the DoJ actively crawling up their asses again; they would in effect be murdering several companies and significantly harming numerous others, and it would be seen as a mala fide action with the intended consequences to become the monopoly it was 10 years ago.

    Now, while I cannot prove that any action will or will not take place in the future, neither can you. Prove that I won’t sue you tomorrow because you’re being an idiot and I take personal offense to that. I can say that I won’t. I can assure you that the statement is true, because I wouldn’t waste my time nor the filing fees unless you have actually done something to damage me, though I could easily make the claim that you’ve committed defamation (libel) and that I am hurt by it—I am not, nor have I ever been, an apologist for Microsoft; on the other side of the coin, I am not filled with blind ripe hatred for them, either. Note that I am not stipulating that you are, but I will say that you seem to be. Still, you have no proof that I won’t do that, or that I will. Demanding someone to prove something from the future is plain idiocy only used to fluff the argument.

    What I can say is this: Microsoft has stated that the ECMA standards are covered under their Community Promise. The Community Promise can be agreed to by any legally competent member of the public who is of age to enter into an agreement. Should Microsoft sue someone who is covered by and has agreed to the Community Promise (which, read carefully, does have obligations that the implementor must pay attention to) and the suit is brought without cause as outlined in the Community Promise, then the lawsuit is mala fide and is thus subject to summary judgment.

    And I see you brought up TomTom again. Let’s clear that one up a bit, shall we? Any person or company can sue any other person or company for any cause, real, perceived, or just plain ficticious. I *can* sue you if you are so ugly that you cause me to vomit. I will likely never win that case, so it largely would not matter. It’d be 15 seconds of hoopla, go away, never to be generally heard of again. Or I *can* sue you because you called me something which I am most assuredly not, in a public forum, and I could feel incensed enough with you so as to take you to court to lay out my claims and proof (my entire computer network would be a good start) that I am no such apologist. Fortunately, logical (that is, formal) arguments hold up more in court than they do in interpersonal communications, where they are often ignored. I could probably win that case and leave you with your head spinning, wondering how I won, because you seem the type that would rather make emotionally-charged arguments than listen to a boring real argument and its proof. Don’t worry, I won’t bother; it’s really not worth the time or money, especially if you’re not in the country.

    Oh, right. That means the problem isn’t the lawsuit. It was the *settlement*. And let me tell you, that was a *stupid* move, insofar as it threw a lot of vaguity on a fire for the FUD-slinging crowed to pick up and throw. While we cannot be sure of the terms of the settlement, since they were not disclosed, it would make sense only if it were a measure taken to prevent a whole patent war of sorts—which is in everyone’s worst interest, but is often perceived to be in the everyone’s best interest. A patent world war, right now, in this time, would be absolutely beautiful. It’d be the one true way to expose just how much stupidity, incompetence, wimpy settlements and a broken system to begin with all mixed together throughout time created this ugly mess, and it would ultimately be repaired.

    That is exactly why we have three major components to the legal system. The truly underlying problem is that we, arguably the most important parts of the system of government are seeing a broken system combined with fear (of said broken system), and so we dart, weave, and try hard as hell to avoid getting entangled with it, even if it that is the most reasonable option available to fix it (and believe you me, it *is* available). Perhaps the largest of all the choice rocks to live under.

    Further, this is not some PR conference that we’re talking about. We’re talking about a document that you can print right now and retain, should you choose to do so. A document which, in the event of a suit brought forth for any of the causes not listed in this document, could be used to demonstrate the frivolousness of the suit on the basis that the suit is brought mala fide due to blatant misrepresentation on the part of Microsoft, the corporation.

    How you can call something which does not exist “blatantly obvious” is beyond me. The ECMA standards are not only controlled by Microsoft, but also HP and Intel, all of whom are the submitters of the standards to the ECMA. So Microsoft is quite nearly impossibly able to slip in ways to make the standard only possible on a Win32 implementation (not to mention the sheer difficulty of doing that in the first place) and it largely consists of material which is simply not patentable under the current legal system. Combine this with the fact that any advocate of your position has yet to reveal a valid patent against Mono (or virtually any other nontrivial software project along the same lines, such as Wine, or even not along the same lines, such as the Linux kernel—which, don’t forget, Microsoft alleges infringes on 200+ of its active patents) and what you have is clear: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Now that the potential and perceived threat has been addressed in this situation, wouldn’t it be time to find a new fight? Really.

    You tell me to trust you when you say that the patents Microsoft claimed on the Linux kernel are fictitious. No apologies, but I won’t. Or when you say that Mono is going to be used to crush Linux distributors later, given that this would be an utterly impossible action to carry out; the attempt itself would land even a company with Microsoft’s bankroll near or in bankruptcy. You’re talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of entities around the world; not all of which are going to be reachable, even for Microsoft.

    Hrm. I’m reminded of something you may want to watch; there’s a movie about a company called NURV, movie’s called Antitrust. I think you’d like the bad guy in the movie. 😉

    What suggests that Mono is usable is a through reading of the law, both legislative and case law, which not only explains the tests that patents must pass to be valid (and spells out that just because a patent is granted does not mean that it is valid). What suggests that Mono is safe? Hell. What suggests that a landline is safe, or a mobile phone? What suggests that 40 hours of work in a week is safe? What suggests that a driving a car (or riding or walking around cars) is safe? Pretty much nothing. There is nothing in this world—nothing—that is safe.

    However, and here is the secret, safe isn’t the thing you ought to be looking for. In anything, everything that all we people do, there is risk. What do you do with risk? I suppose that depends on the type of person you are. Some people run from it. Others will assess the risks, understand them, learn how to mitigate them, and then do whatever it is that they were going to do anyway. And lastly is the group that just doesn’t give a flying rat’s derrière about any of it and just behave foolishly and self-destructively. Two ends of spectrum, and but one listed option somewhere about center on it, which countless variations in between (some types of risks are addressable, others need to be feared and avoided like plague, etc.). Most of us probably fall somewhere between the left (run) and center (mitigate), at least if we look at it that way. Take a look at people who go places in life and see what they do. Rarely do you see one who sits at either end of the spectrum, choosing instead to hover closer to center. Hrm. Risk mitigation sounds pretty safe to me. Oh, but it requires that you not get all fearful of everything and look at everything with a clear mind. That’s the only catch. As I have done already several times now, then, I cite existing U.S. law and existing U.S. case law (20+ years of it, though the history can be found well enough by following the trail of law and case law back) and I cite the current legal climate to show that any risks that perhaps may develop in the future can be mitigated. I cite as an example of one method of mitigation a fully functional human brain with an IQ of over, I don’t know, 90 or so, who is trained in the art of thinking, who can mitigate ahead-of-time in an intelligent fashion to begin with, by not putting all of his or her eggs in a single basket.

    And while Microsoft (specifically, Bill Gates at “Micro-Soft”, as it was then) can be credited with starting the positional attack on software freedom as far back as in the 1970s, with his so-called open letter to hobbyists, was the foundation of that. Questioning whether mere hobbyists could build good software at all, whining about spending $40,000 of computer time to build Altair BASIC and launching into an attack on those who do nothing but steal software, because that’s what hobbyists do, right? Talking about his company only ever breaking even and software not being a profit industry. Much farther back than 1998.

    So, what’s the threat? Please, cite something that has relevance and significance that identifies it. Say, a patent that would be held valid to begin with. Though I’ll accept any patent covering the CLI, really. C# can’t be patented and any patent on it would be absolutely laughable, so I’m not going to include that, but hey, if they have patented technology in their version of the compiler, I’d sure like to know about it. I’d love just once to actually have something to read from your side of the table that is, say, a legal source document proving that there might even be a basis for the patent argument, since that argument necessitates a patent existing in the first place.

    Besides, if someone would produce a bloody patent, the patent could be shown not only to the Mono people to fix in their code, but the GNU people and the countless other unaffiliated programmers, including freelancers, so that everyone could know what to code around. Maybe you ought to come up with a Web site that takes such submissions, classifying them logistically in categories programmers would expect to find them in, thus reducing the barrier to entry to determine what cannot legally be done and for how long it cannot legally be done. If there already is a project like this, then by goodness market for it. Get its name out there, get people to know about it. That would be useful, if you have the time and the energy for it. And, in the very spirit that free software (including reimplementations of proprietary software rewritten as free software or implementations of standards including compression and encryption standards) is developed, you’d be contributing back in a way that is meaningful.

    • Yaro says:

      Maybe I should have clarified when I siad contract. Yes, the standard is even a verbal agreement is supposedly binding. That’s the theory. Tell me, however, how you can haul Microsoft to court for violating this contract when all it is is the following:

      1. One paragraph legaleze.

      2. Not showing an explicit agreement by all parties involved.

      Okay, sure, lets call that little blurb a contract, which, in terms of theory and tehcnicality of law it is a contract. Great. So, is it really going to be able to stop Microsoft from still pulling the patent death trap that they laid by “indemnifying” Mono with this. Oh wait. What about the actual explicit, fully-signed contract with Novell basically saying that use of Mono outside of the Novell umbrella as unauthorized. IANAL, but I believe that this implicit contract you cited above would actually be nullified by the agreement with Novell. Again, what is stopping Microsoft from being held accountable to that promise?

      Not a damn thing, that’s what. A lawsuit? Microsoft has a prior EXPLICIT contract with Novell, a team of lawyers, and the sort of money that a lawsuit could be mere pocket change. In the end we’d be punished FOR THE LAWSUIT. Microsoft has done this before.

      Okay, moving on to your other point: Microsoft’s fake open source under Shared Source. Every time I look at them I see non-commercial redistribution and NDAs (NDAs aren’t ina ll the shared source license, but most of them. read them up.). If I can’t do what I really want with the software, it is not free software. If I can’t modify it and sell the result, it’s not free software. It stinks that a faux FOSS license like shared source would get any consideration. May be non=GPL compatible, to be honest, I think most FOSS authorities never take it seriously. And ASP? Are you fucking KIDDING me? I see, it’s open source. Tell me then, why no one’s managed to port it to anything but… oh wait. WINDOWS. Fail. PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby on Rails is better for server usage anyway.

      Next, I know full and well I can sue for anything. That was my whole point. And though I’m not one of those who believes the TomTom lawsuit was actually about Linux, I was pointing it out as an example of how the prior SCOTUS decisions regarding software patents weren’t exactly stopping Microsoft from making patent lawsuits over software anyway. The ONLY way software patents would work is if there are simply NO software patents. As Eben Moglen said, in this excellent, excellent speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorfgQlEJv8), I’ll paraphrase on major point he made: Software is a form of mathematics at its core, and that mathematics should never be patented (Mathematics itself cannot be. If you discover an awesome formula or algorithm, you can keep it secret, but you cannot patent it.). Now, I know the SCOTUS made some decisions toward freeing us from software patents, but they have far from removed them, and the terms for software patents are still vague enough that Microsoft can still patent just about anything they want. (Patents altogether in this country need reform, as one can apply for and recieve rather frivolous patents, and if you don’t believe me, someone applied for and received a patent for a stick for use of playign fetch for dogs. Not MANUFACTURED sticks. Natural sticks you can find in your yard after a windy day. This leads me to another point:

      BAD PATENTS ARE GRANTED ALL THE DAMN TIME. Not just in software. Three major categories, frivolous (Like the stick.), obviousness (Like most anything Microsoft has threatened Linux with in the past and will likely attempt to threaten Linux with in the future, like the patent FUD that brought us the Novell/Microsoft deal.), or prior art (Microsoft patented procedures for page-up/page-down.) Now, in legal theory this would mean the patent cases about them should be dismissed, yes?

      This is where the money and fleet of lawyers come in. Remember that in civil cases, 9/10 it is the one with the most money to spend that wins the suit. So, Microsoft probably could have sued for those 235 patents and won simply because they had the most money.

      So why didn’t they? I have a few theories. One of course is that these patents never existed and they just wanted to trap gullible distributions like Xandros, Microsoft wannabes like Linspire, and distributors with Microsoft-worshippers like Miguel de Icaza in Novell. Why? So that Mono/Moonlight could happen. So that Microsoft could inject just enough IP poison in there so that they could take out FOSS projects.

      Why haven’t they yet? They’re waiting for something huge NOT a part of Novell, to use Mono, that’s what. GNOME is a part of Novell, and also doesn’t have enough of Mono “infecting it.” I bet you my house that if the Linux kernel itself stupidly goes Mono (It won’t, but it’s a hypothetical example.) Microsoft would immediately sue and go for the kill, despite the implicit contract you cited. Why? Because Microsoft has a “real” contract in the EXPLICIT one it has in Novell saying they’re the only ones who can safely use Mono. Uh oh!

      If Microsoft really intended not to sue over Mono, they would have done more than a PR-dreamed implicit contract intended to fool gullible morons like you and they would have DONE something, not just SAID something. They would have done something like… say… dropped the actual patents over .NET that are threatening Mono and anything it touches. What Microsoft did was all talk. If they were truly embracing open source, they’d actually GO open source and make their products that way, instead they offer us non-disclosure agreements and non-commercial redistribution clauses. Oh, and the fact that they’re still trying to torpedo Linux. Unless you can cite me a source showing Microsoft getting genuinely friendly with a Linux distributor outside its cross-patent deals.

      Microsoft’s entire history is littered with those considered “safe” from Microsoft, both by implicit and explicit contracts. Look to Apple, IBM, or Spyglass. I’m not as naive as you. I’m not going to blindly believe that the shared source licenses, or an implicit (UNENFORCIBLE) contract suddenly means Microsoft is done attacking Linux. I have way too much common sense for that, as well as way topo much knowledge of Mcirosoft’s history of unethically and illegally burying competition. Ever hear of Be OS? DR-DOS? Surely you know what happened to Netscape.

      Sure there is risk, as you say. Maybe safe shouldn’t be what I’m looking for. Sudden;y that goes into the next part of my point. With Microsoft’s threats and a more safe .NET implementation in development for Linux, the question becomes: WHY THE HELL SHOULD I RISK MONO? I use nothing using Mono. Nothign mission-critical will likely ever be developed based on Mono for Linux.

      See, in most behavior there’s a little thing called risk-benefits analysis. Okay, so, take an investment. There’s a risk… but the potential benefits are stronger, yes? Now lets look at Mono. Way too much of a risk, and despite everything you said, I’m still not convinced it’s not a huge risk… and what are the benefits? I haven’t seen any good TECHNICAL or PRACTICAL reason to use Mono, as it is primarily just used by small apps as shortcut for programmers. Note I’m an experienced programmer myself. But I choose to ignore C# and any sort of .NET CLI implementation. Why? Because I see no reason to. A real programmer worth his salt would be able to implement just about everything in .NET WITHOUT the use of .NET or its alternative implementations, like Mono, stuff that has already been done and done well for decades.

      So an apparent patent threat for little gain? Why should I? This is why Mono never made it big in Linux and is stuck infecting tiny projects like Tomboy or Banshee and why Microsoft hasn’t bothered to do what we realists have been saying they’d since the creation of Mono.

      I concede I can’t prove Microsoft will try to thrash anyone who used Mono. However its still in my favor because of a teensy thing called Microsoft’s history. Their partners all end up betrayed. Microsoft has been proven in a court of law to have BROKEN the law. Several times. They’ve been convicted at least twice of anti-trust violations and have been declared an illegal monopoly. I’m not about to believe, just because in recent history Microsoft MIGHT be doing things good for open soure, because, quite frankly, I know better than to simply believe it. Maybe if they spend maybe a little more than a decade then I’ll be convinced they’re not trapping open source.

      As for the law requiring that Microsoft do what’s best for Microsoft. There’s no evidence, none, that Microsoft actually believes FOSS to be its future. All we have is PR and the faux FOSS licenses. We haven’t seen them really do that much like, say, open up the NT kernel. Nothing that shows to the FOSS community that what they are doing ISN’T trapping FOSS projects or companies.

      Can you honestly tell me that Mono is not an opportunity of the sort I speak, when all is said and done? Can you honestly tell me beyond a con

      By the way, being able to PRINT a document makes it no more legally sound. Unles we actually SEE Microsoft SIGN a contract with someone who can really do something about the PR you linked me to, that’s all it is. It’s still an implicit contract, and not worth crap when it’d come time to try to hold Microsoft to it. If it were EXPLICITLY AGREED UPON however, that Microsoft wouldn’t sue anyone over Mono no matter what, then I’d feel safe. As it happens, no such contract exists nor will it ever, because Microosft is more than likely planning to use Mono’s patents against us in the end, no matter what contract there is.

      Again, all you proved in your citations was that Microsoft is talking the talk. But it’s not proof they’re walking the walk. Tell me how we’re going to enforce this promise if Microsoft breaks it? Hmm? Class action suit, maybe. In which case all Micrsoft has to do is prove that they never SIGNED AN EXPLICIT CONTRACT.

      Face it, Mono is a patent poison. And Microsoft wants to crush Linux just like all the other competition.

      • Look, see what you want, or don’t.

        http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html — Feel free to read for yourself. It is an OSI approved license that is also free software: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html

        I wasn’t talking about their shared source licenses.

        Secondly, if you want to take a narrower view of contracts than the legal system provides, that’s your choice. That’s also your own personal problem. Nothing I can say or do to make you realize the way things are, nor can I force you to read the laws that address those sorts of things.

        Thirdly, using the past as an indication of future results is a simple logical fallacy, as are ad hominem arguments, both of which you seem to heavily rely on to make your point.

        Permit me to clarify very simply what my own position is: I use free software, with the exception of the driver for my graphics chipset and the Flash plugin, exclusively. I advocate the use of free software in just about anything, for good cause: using software that is capable of being reviewed by peers and capable of being proved correct for the purposes of a purpose is a highly important thing. The big baddies like SCO have shown that there is indeed nothing safe in the world, even if you think that there is. And as far ask a cost-benefit risk assessment, using risk as a cost and mitigation as a canceling factor, using only logic and not emotional, ad hominem, or other fallacious supporting arguments, leads one to the conclusion that it is perfectly fine to use the Mono runtime. After all, if the patent position you take were one that you stuck too, you would not use any software that was complex enough to potentially infringe on someone’s patents.

        As far as technical benefits to Mono, that could go on all day long. Mono is in many cases faster than Microsoft’s implementation of the same standards, it is more featureful in some areas (and behind in others), it runs on more platforms, it provides a highly portable managed code runtime environment with a rich class library to build application software on, and has many, many different compilers which target its VM environment such that code can fluidly interact without making explicit bindings between the various languages.

        It is possible to make the JVM faster, more efficient, and port more languages to it, but I don’t know that it is possible to make it as fast as Mono. And with many managed-code libraries being made available for both the JVM and implementations of the CLI, the field is about level there.

        I’m not going to waste any more time on this topic, simply because legally the position is *very* clear, a legal defense (should Microsoft *actually* be stupid enough to sue) is also clear. I’ve already shown how you can productively help. Mono cannot be inherently dangerous because it is compatible with the Microsoft version of the CLI runtime, and if someone wants to help by identifying software patents so that programmers have a way to easily avoid implementing them, you’d be doing the community a great service.

        I am not making the claim that anything is safe, but I am making the claim that the risks as have been mentioned so far are easily mitigated. Of course, you have to want to see that before you’ll recognize it. Further, I don’t see Microsoft going after Second Life or EA who both make some of their money through the usage of Mono in or with their products, and sources such as those would be the first ones that Microsoft would go after.

        Now, if they were to say, start suing them, then I’d say that it was time to follow the cases very closely and hope to hell they don’t settle. And if they sued *you*, I’d hope that you would do your duty to protect free software by also not settling. I would certainly make every effort. Look at the bigger picture here—the community as a whole, not just little you. Freedom takes effort, it takes time, it takes work. Freedom is not, never has been, and never will be free. All you are advocating is to tuck the tail in and run, and so long as there are people out there such as yourself that are willing to do that so easily, Microsoft and similar companies will win anything and everything that they want just because the environment will cater to them.

        In any case, the argument is no longer worth spending time on if you’re not even willing to do the basic research that is required to understand the fundamental issues at play here. The fact that you would take the fact that anyone can sue anyone for any reason with or without cause and make it to court doesn’t mean that things should be avoided. If that were the case, you would be running Windows and appropriately licensed proprietary software that has companies behind it that would shield you from legal problems.

        Cower in fear if you choose; I’ll make the choice to simply go about my life and my business. I’d rather you made the choice to do something productive, rather than cower, but hey, people can dream. You could always start that Web site. In fact, I’d urge you to do so. We (as in the whole free software world) could very much benefit from a site that would aim to tell us what patents are problems where and what they cover, so that we can implement things and know that we’re avoiding mines in the field. In the meantime, if there is no proof that there is a violation, there is, practically speaking, no violation. If you think there is, than prove it. Otherwise, kindly get another bag of chips and a soda and go on with your life doing whatever it is you do with it.

        G’day.

  • Davide says:

    This guide is great, thanks!

  • Vince says:

    thanks for the discussion. my simple summary is ” better out, than in ” 🙂

  • the_guv says:

    cracking debate, thank you, and tx for teh guide, mr sourceror, which i’m about to follow.

    all i can say, from a user’s perspective, is that i am here because sys monitor showed some app chewing up 90% of my cpu .. hmmn, sounds kinda microshite

    mono .. they should call it at least duo.

    .. binned.

  • the_guv says:

    for the record, being an aptitude kind of a guy, running ..

    sudo aptitude remove –purge mono-common

    .. on Jaunty, at least, offers this ..

    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    gnote{a} libboost-filesystem1.34.1{a} libgconfmm-2.6-1c2{a} libgnomemm-2.6-1c2{a} libpanelappletmm-2.6-1c2{a} libpcrecpp0{a}
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    f-spot{a} libart2.24-cil{a} libflickrnet2.1.5-cil{a} libgconf2.24-cil{a} libglade2.0-cil{a} libglib2.0-cil{a} libgmime2.2a-cil{a}
    libgnome-keyring1.0-cil{a} libgnome-vfs2.24-cil{a} libgnome2.24-cil{a} libgnomepanel2.24-cil{a} libgtk2.0-cil{a} libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil{a}
    libmono-addins0.2-cil{a} libmono-cairo2.0-cil{a} libmono-corlib2.0-cil{a} libmono-data-tds2.0-cil{a} libmono-data2.0-cil{a}
    libmono-getoptions2.0-cil{a} libmono-i18n2.0-cil{a} libmono-posix2.0-cil{a} libmono-security2.0-cil{a} libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil{a}
    libmono-sqlite2.0-cil{a} libmono-system-data2.0-cil{a} libmono-system-web2.0-cil{a} libmono-system2.0-cil{a} libmono0 libmono2.0-cil{a}
    libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil{a} libndesk-dbus1.0-cil{a} mono-2.0-gac{a} mono-2.0-runtime{a} mono-common mono-gac{a} mono-jit{a} mono-runtime{a} tomboy{a}
    0 packages upgraded, 6 newly installed, 38 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
    Need to get 1743kB of archives. After unpacking 48.7MB will be freed.

    .. so they’re swapping Tomboy for gnote, which I figured I’d try.

    tx Robert, nice tip, cp .tomboy/*.note .gnote/ made for a snap of a transition. then again, Zim looks awesome, tx OS .. but a shame there doesn’t appear to be a migration feature, yet.

    bottom line, my system is *far* more responsive, and no nasty smell. will be bloggin about this.

  • It's a trojan horse says:

    On my Slackware-based distro (Salix64 13.0.2a) I did a search on mono and this is the result,

    root[mynamehere]# slapt-get –search mono
    bsd-games-2.13-x86_64-9 [inst=no]: bsd-games (Classic BSD text games collection)
    liberation-fonts-ttf-1.04-noarch-1 [inst=yes]: liberation-fonts-ttf (Liberation TTF Fonts)

    I guess these aren’t the Mono on debate here. But thanks for the tip on how to get rid of it. I will use the method once I test Lucid and Mint 9 when they are out. Good riddance.

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