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 😉
Tags: gthumb, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Open Source, Patents, Rhythmbox, Tomboy, Zim
Mono is Microsoft C#, open source clone or not. It is probably even a nice programming environment. But I will never use it. Ditto Silverlight or Moonlight.
I am concerned that one day mono will become a Gnome dependency, and then this approach will not work. OpenSolaris ships with Gnome and absolutley no mono, so we can guess Ian Murdock and Sun are not keen on it either.
I have a test box of XFce on Debian Lenny to learn it’s functions so if needed I can dump Gnome for another GTK based desktop. I have tried to like KDE 4.1 but it is still a bit rough – you have to shut down twice and unmounting a USB drive is convoluted (I am using the KUbuntu variant). Plus now we have Nokia owning Trolltech and thus qt making for a cloudy future.
Let us hope Gnome can avoid Microsoft pollution or a bigger better GTK based desktop arises.
Hi GregE, thanks for commenting.
I get the impression that Gnome is very unlikely to depend on Mono for anything. There are plenty of blog posts from Gnome guys who “really” don’t like Mono or what it represents.
But I’ve always had this niggle as to why there is “any” mono in a distro like Ubuntu? I set-up a new partition on my laptop the other day and installed Kubuntu and installed the 4.1 release of KDE. I haven’t played with it much yet, but it looks nice. It’s very different from Gnome and will take some getting used to but at least there is an alternative.
XFCE is great. I use it on the boxes I build with Linux From Scratch. It’s lightweight and fast. If you add in something like Rox, you have a pretty neat way of working there too.
Thanks
Al
“Moonlight is usable for anyone on any distribution of Linux (redhat, ubuntu, etc.) — it is not limited just to Novell as Mono is.â€
-Brian Goldfarb [Microsoft]
Silverlight’s lead deveopers believes that only Novell via the ‘patent covenant’ can use Mono.
[…] Mono should be ’safe’ only for Novell’s customers, can anyone blame people for wanting it removed? The nasty taste which has always ‘ever-so-slightly’ tainted my use of Ubuntu is that Mono is […]
Of course for a photo application you can still use Gwenview with Kipi Plugins! However, you can’t get them from simple add/remove option (as this one installs the Kipi-less KDE 4.x version of Gwenview)… You need to use Synaptic.
Gwenview (old version) is folder based does not require you to download into a photo folder at all. Much Quicker to use (just needs a date sorter plugin to be built)! Kipi Plugins can be used for lots of things. Just stay way from the new Gwenview right now as it is totally a work-in-progress (hopefully not a step backward, or one that requires use of some database function of photos to use it).
Thank you for your hint – I just replaced Tomboy with Zim.
@Robert,
You are welcome. Thanks for dropping by.
Besides the fact that mono is a convenient panic-button for Microsoft to press should Linux become a bigger threat the whole dotnet technologies really sucks. Writing desktop applications in a slow and memory demanding enviroment isnt productive in the long run. The more CPU cycles we can spare for real work the better.
I have seen enough of dotnet/mono applications to loathe it even more than java. Every single app i have seen in dotnet has been like java but much slower, and not platform independant, and not that secure, and not that easy to program and so on.
You can take steps to prevent Mono from being included on your system. I tossed together a pseudo-package for Debian/Ubuntu derivatives which I’ve posted here:
http://tim.thechases.com/mononono/
It intentionally creates conflicts with core Mono packages. This gives me a conflict warning if I try to install a program that tries to slipstream a Mono package into my system. I’ve included the source as well if you need to tweak the conflicting list of packages and rebuild the .deb file. It also makes it easy to uninstall Mono stuff by simply installing this package and letting the conflict-resolution code remove the Mono packages.
-gumnos
Applying “sudo apt-get remove –purge mono-common libmono0”, will effect gnome-rdp which is a better application then the KDE version.
Here is what terminal fed back to me:
The following packages will be REMOVED:
gnome-rdp* libglade2.0-cil* libglib2.0-cil* libgtk2.0-cil* libmono-cairo1.0-cil* libmono-corlib1.0-cil*
libmono-data-tds1.0-cil* libmono-security1.0-cil* libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil* libmono-sqlite1.0-cil*
libmono-system-data1.0-cil* libmono-system-web1.0-cil* libmono-system1.0-cil* libmono0* libmono1.0-cil*
libvte0.16-cil* mono-common* mono-gac* mono-jit* mono-runtime*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 20 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
After this operation, 19.1MB disk space will be freed.
I chose no, as I use gnome-rdp..
D.
Yeah, did that months ago, never had any problems. I went to Linux and OSX to avoid Microsoft (I have a moral disagreement with the company) so that last think I wanted on my Ubuntu box was Mono.
And yes, I know that OSX ships with Microsoft Office installed. At least I do now. I sent a very annoyed email to Apple about them installing it without my asking.
Thanks for the pointer to gthumb as a replacement for f-spot.
The first thing I do whenever I install Ubuntu, is to remove everything mono-related–which includes f-spot.
Last week, however, my brother called me because he wanted to transfer photos from his camera to his computer.
It didn’t, apparently, work under Windows, so I suggested to him to try it under Ubuntu instead.
That didn’t work either at first, because f-spot was no longer installed.
I figured that this was the time to get him acquainted with Synaptic, and I got him to install f-spot–figuring that I would look for a better alternative later on.
Anyway, he just *loved* the ease with which he could install the software, and subsequently transferring the photos was a breeze as well.
I’ll try gthumb next, and see if that’s a workable alternative for him.
@DOUGman,
I didn’t have gnome-rdp installed so it wasn’t on my list to be removed. A quick look on it’s home page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnome-rdp) says that it “can be run with Mono runtime.”. On Ubuntu it has been built to depend on Mono – which is sad. But I’m sure there are alternatives available, perhaps someone can suggest some?
@Gumnos, that’s a neat idea. Thanks for the link.
@Wayne, Cool, by the amount of traffic this post got yesterday it looks like it is a hot topic for many. And I was just “scratching-an-itch” on Monday evening when there was nothing on TV…
@Ivur, personally I thought gthumb was a bit better to use it offered the option, when you connected your camera, to remove the files from the camera after copying them. Never did see an option to that in F-Spot and it was a right PITA.
Thanks for all the comments, this is one of the most active commented posts I’ve written. That says something to me… “Ubunutu/Canonical – Are you listening?”
@GregE You said: “Plus now we have Nokia owning Trolltech and thus qt making for a cloudy future.”
Excuse me? Qt is licensed under GPL v3. There is nothing at all cloudy about it.
If Nokia want to make their version of Qt proprietary … then it simply becomes time to fork.
Qt and KDE is in an immeasurably better position than Mono and GNOME. Don’t take my word for this … read some other discussion on the topic:
http://www.gnome.org/~seth/blog/mono
MarkN, Yes qt can be legally forked if necessary, and that is a good thing. However if such an act became necessary we would assume that the qt experts of Trolltech would be in the other camp. Thus qt would stagnate while a new community is built up to develop the new free qt. This disquiet about using qt is what created Gnome in the first place and caused the creation of the GPL version of qt. And now we have a subtle subversion of Gnome.
A lot of this discussion is fairly far fetched conspiracy theory stuff. I will go on using Gnome sans mono without to much worry.
We will always have Xfce/GTK+ and Enlightenment as true free alternatives.
Can someone please tell Mark Shuttleworth,
that we need NO STINKING MONO!!!?
He should take care and make basic Ubuntu absolute MONO(POLY)FREE!
I set up a poll on ubuntu-forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=881672
data, I’ve already asked him:
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/02/22/mark-shuttleworth-on-patents/
GregE: Your claim: “This disquiet about using qt is what created Gnome in the first place”.
Almost true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#History
“In 1996, the KDE project was started. Although KDE was free software, it relied on the then non-free Qt widget toolkit. Members of the GNU project became concerned with the use of such a toolkit for building a free software desktop environment. In August 1997, two projects were started in response to KDE: the Harmony toolkit (a free replacement for the Qt libraries) and GNOME (a different desktop without Qt and built entirely on top of free software). The initial project leaders for GNOME were Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena.”
Harmony toolkit? Who has ever heard of that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_toolkit
Ah ha! It turns out that the Harmony toolkit was discontinued as long ago as 2000. Your FUD about Qt being somehow a concern is as out-of-date as that! Eight-years-old FUD is very impressive.
By now the story has turned completely about-face.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(runtime)#Microsoft_support
“Since shortly after the first demo at MIX 07 in Paris, Microsoft began cooperating with Novell to help the building of Moonlight. Support includes exclusive access given to Novell for the following Silverlight artifacts:
* Microsoft’s Test suites for Silverlight,
* Silverlight specification details, beyond those available on the web,
* Binary codecs for Windows Media video and audio, only licensed for use with Moonlight when running in a web browser. ”
So now we have a project, led by the exact same person in Miguel de Icaza, that has the direct aim of injecting Microsoft secret APIs and Microsoft-supplied binary-only codecs into the Linux desktop. read the words … “exclusive access to Novell”.
This following Miguel’s effort with Mono, which also includes Microsoft proprietary technology and APIs, and an apparent subtle push to make the Mono libraries a GNOME dependency.
For example, I recently looked into a Linux package repository, and I found this library description:
“mono-winforms – Windows Forms implementation for Mono​ 
This package provides a fully managed implementation of System.Windows.Forms, the default graphical toolkit for .NET applications.”
Unlike some more open parts of .NET such as C# and CLI which are ISO standards, Windows forms is not a licensed technology, it is Microsoft proprietary.
Therefore to get Microsoft IP out of your Linux installation (and hence get rid of a potential license dependence on and monetary debt to Microsoft), it is absolutely necessary to get rid of Mono and Moonlight.
It is getting closer and closer every day, with every single contribution form Novell, to also become necessary to get rid of GNOME.
Finally … I repeat for absolute clarity … Qt is licensed under GPL v3.
I sometimes build custom ubuntu live CD’s/DVD’s and one of the first things I do is remove all mono apps and libraries. I usually take it a step further and remove all evolution stuff as well.
@MarkN, thanks for the detail in your reply.
@chip, I’d be very interested to know how you prevent the default email icon on the Gnome panel breaking for new users when you remove Evolution. We’d also like to build a custom Ubuntu with Thunderbird rather than Evolution.
Care to drop me a line or send me link to somewhere?
Thanks.
Al
Good going! I kept your article for reference. Mono and all the likes should be erradicated from the FOSS landscape, starting with your and my computer. It is time Stallman and FSF utter a sound about this issue. It is far too late already…!
There was a discussion on Groklaw some time ago about preventing Mono to get reinstalled accidentally (e.g., as a prerequisite of a package that you try install without realising that it relies on Mono). That discussion resulted in the dummy “Mononono” package, which does nothing but create an intentional conflict with mono packages. Thus, it will prevent Mono from getting installed without your explicit agreement.
The “Mononono” package can be found at http://tim.thechases.com/mononono
You can find the Groklaw discussion at by searching for “mononono” on the page at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080705225101376
MarkN, You do not read my posts very carefully before replying. My statement that Gnome was created because of the non free nature of QT is correct not “almost true”. I also stated that the same reasoning created the free version of qt to answer this problem for KDE. There was no implication that this is still the case today, merely a statement of history not a histrionic stirring of eight year old fud.
So I repeat, yes qt is GPL 3. However if Nokia want they can withdraw support, both monetary and the Trolltech programmers and go their merry proprietary way. So, what would happen? As you state there would be a fork. QT is the fundamental building blocks of KDE and initially it would not be an issue. A new team would have to step up the continue development. It would take a long time before they could come to grips with such a massive project. In the meantime qt would stagnate. So GPL3 or not it would chuck a spanner in the works.
I am not the first person in the world to think Nokia buying Trolltech is not something to be ignored. Will Nokia do this? Who knows? We can all hope that everything stays as it is.
My last post on the subject, this discussion is meant to be about mono not KDE
Anyone wanting to read more can Google “Nokia Trolltech QT” or http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=827969 to get started.
Thanks,
I’ve long been wondering how to remove Mono from my Linux box and whether it’s safe. I’m using Amarok so banshee can suck sideway. Hope Songbird gets released this year.
For information, I’ll repeat this here, although I also posted it to Groklaw:
For Fedora 9,
yum search mono
(or the GUI search in an X11 session, if you don’t mind logging in
graphically as root) produced this suspicious looking beast: mono-core.
I used the GUI to check dependencies, just because I was there, and because
shift-page-up to look at what has scrolled by until you switch virtual
consoles still takes a little more thought. But I logged out of the X11 session
before I did the un-install, just in case.
Noticed these: gmime-sharp, gnome-sharp, and gtk-sharp2, and ndesk-
dbus. These are just support glue for mono. Oh, also tomboy and f-spot, of
course, but no banshee. (Tomboy is a name I’m familiar with, and gave me
some discomfort to find in the list of installed stuff.)
yum remove mono-core
yum info gthumb zim
???
yum search zim
yum info Zim
gthumb was already there.
yum install Zim
Zim was a quick install as soon as I saw it was capitalized, and I found
myself wondering why I should want to trade perl for mono (perl
libraries were more than half the 13 dependencies it brought it).
“Applying “sudo apt-get remove –purge mono-common libmono0″, will effect gnome-rdp which is a better application then the KDE version.”
Never used gnome-rdp, but tsclient does RDP perfectly fine.
[…] Haven’t seen that one. This one gets a lot of attention now though: http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2008/08/… […]
It’s not PERL – it’s Perl or perl:
http://www.perl.org.il/misc.html#pl_vs_pl
And you keep calling “MS” “M$” (with a dollar sign) has made me heavily look down on you.
@shlomi,
With regards to the capitalisation of Perl, thank you for correcting me. Although, to be totally honest with you, I really think there are far more important things to worry about – don’t you?
As for me using M$, if you look back through some of my other posts you will see that M$ is one of the nicer alternatives I use for Microshaft. They are a convicted Monopolist and are really ONLY interested in making money and have no interest in competing on a level playing field. They use every trick going (legal and illegal) to break down and crush their competitors. Personally, I hate them with-a-passion. And I think I’m not alone. 😉
Once again, I really think you shouldn’t be worrying too much about my choice of nomenclature. But of course, you are entitled to your own opinion.
You should try Zenwalk http://www.zenwalk.org/ absolutely Mono free from the start!
…and it’s fast as ligthning as well!!!
@Repowzki, thanks for the link. That’s a new distro to me.
Is the desktop XFCE? It certainly looks nice.
@TimChase, Any chance you could add mononono to the standard Ubuntu repository?
@Asdf Sadf
Debian/Ubuntu repositories are welcome to pick up the package — I’m mostly just a Debian user, so I don’t know how to go about getting the package into production. However, it’s just the one control file, and it’s freely available. The BSD license was the most liberal license-text available on my machine when I built the package, but I’d be just as content with it being public-domain. I don’t think I know enough about the guts of a Debian package to be an official package maintainer, but if somebody wants to take it and run with it, they have my blessing.
[…] The Open Sourcerer » How to remove Mono (M$) from Ubuntu Hardy Heron How to remove Mono (M$) from Ubuntu Hardy Heron […]
When I simulate removing mono-common from Gutsy (aptitude -s remove mono-common) I get, in addition to f-spot and tomboy and the expected pile of libs and mono stuff, these to remove:
gnome-applets
ubuntu-desktop
That looks a bit serious to a relative noob like me, since ubuntu recommends NOT removing ubuntu-desktop (as it’s needed for upgrading). Any thoughts?
@mac,
Hmmm – that’s not my experience. I know Ubuntu-desktop can be removed safely. It is a meta-package and won’t actually remove anything. Not sure about gnome-applets though. Try Google perhaps.
Or, install VirtualBox from synaptic and build a new instance of your OS in there. You can then try it and see what the affects are. You may be able to re-install these two packages afterwards also. But yes, don’t do it until you know what the effects will be.
Please let us know what you find out. I’m on Hardy so can’t really help with your Gutsy installation.
mac,
I do not have ubuntu-desktop installed and the updates work fine. I have no mono and yet I have gnome-applets installed. Mine is Hardy Heron.
If it were me I would go ahead and delete, then reinstall gnome applets, but it is your system and your call.
Also, let us not be silly about this, Microsoft are not going to come knocking on your door. This action is more a message to the maintainers of Gnome that we, the users, do not want mono and moonlight and they must be pressured to ensure that Novell are not able to sneak it into a dependency for the whole desktop. There are many in the Linux community who think this is silly and that it is just another programming language. Everyone here clearly does not agree and Steve Ballmer constantly stirs the paranoia.
Just being part of this discussion sends the protest message via the wonders of Google, Slashdot and TuxMachines.
For anyone looking for alternatives I have just discovered the LXDE desktop and await further refinement. It is pure GTK+ 2 and very fast. It is now the desktop on my EeePC 900, but not quite ready for my desktop. A few more versions and it will be a viable alternative, as is Xfce4.
I have used Gnome from the beginning and will continue to use it – unless it gets tainted.
Keep up the posts and send the message loud and clear.
I recommend replacing f-spot by intipunku, intipunku.blogspot.com
[…] my system, just to see where that would put me. There is a good blog entry from the Open Sourcerer here on […]
This is the most retarded view of Mono I’ve ever seen.
Mono is an open source implementation of public standards. There is no reason not to use Mono other than FUD. If there were a real reason you would mention it, rather than weasel words about “bad taste” and “potential threats”.
This is a shame; there are plenty of useful technologies that are otherwise Windows-only: IronPython, IronRuby, IronLisp, etc.
Mono is not Microsoft; by denigrating Mono you are doing open source development a disservice. No one is going to demand you use the framework, but you shouldn’t spread FUD like this.
@Cosmo7, I really don’t know who you are or where you have come from but this post was the most popular and most read and most commented article I had every written.
If you read the comments, almost all were in agreement. I do not want Mono. It is almost certainly encumbered by Microsoft’s invisible Patent portfolio and I would prefer to have nothing at all to do with it. Which I I wrote the piece in the first place.
Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but please show me in my article what is retarded? You in a VERY small minority of just one voice.
Mono is not really wanted by anyone except Microsoft or their minions. Just do a bit of Googling and see what the educated user thinks about Mono and the other crapware coming out of the same stable.
So you’re saying that the truth of FUD is proportional to its prevalence?
And just because people agree with you it doesn’t make it true; this is like arguing with creationists.
You can chop your install as much as you like, but it’s wrong to claim that removing Mono makes it somehow more pure, unless you also remove PHP, MySQL, Perl, Java, Python and Ruby. All of those libraries license privately-held patents.
If you just want to show what a good anti-Micro$ofter you are, you should be encouraging Mono; it’s the easiest way to replace Windows/ASP with Linux/Apache.
When you write about Mono, many apologists will show up. Don’t let them shut you up. That’s what they try to do. Public standards are unrelated to patents; put differently, it is possible to have an ECMA standard with accompanying patents, not to mention the possibility of ‘extensions’ that are covered by new patents.
Patents are far from the only issue here. It’s also about the composition of the cloud and what it integrated with. It’s about the API. He who control the API….
@Roy, very little makes me shut up. Perhaps only my mum or my wife 😉
Cosmo7, you argue that this is a root to GNU/Linux and FOSS adoption, but it doesn’t replace the competition more than it makes it stronger. You can’t beat Microsoft at its own game, for which it sets the rules (legal and technical).
> You can’t beat Microsoft at its own game, for which it sets the rules (legal and technical).
I’d say that you _can_ beat Microsoft. Microsoft’s core strength is that it sells a complete stack: Windows – IIS – ASP – .Net and Windows – SQL Server. Corporate IT departments love this (and we think it is stupid.)
Now you have an alternative, compliant, open source stack: Linux – Apache – Mono. If you’re obsessed with the C# patents you don’t have to use C#; you can use IronPython or IronRuby or Lua or whatever.
On the desktop side of things, porting applications from Windows to Linux or OS/X is much easier with Mono. It’s virtually painless if you aren’t using something like D3D.
I guess the argument I’m trying to make is that there is a huge opportunity with Mono, and that we shouldn’t be cutting off our noses to spite our faces.
@Cosmo7
this is like arguing with creationists.
What next? Are you going to start calling us “Goddam Commies”; tree-huggers; or maybe even “terrorists”, just because we dare to reject technology from the same company that described Linux as a “cancer”; claimed that Linux infringes 235 Microsoft patents; and operates it’s bizniz® like gangsters running a racketeering operation?
Yup, that sure sounds like a company I want to go to bed with.
There are hundreds of programming languages … C# is just one of them.
Try to pick a better one, preferably one that doesn’t support convicted a monopolist with an anti-Linux agenda.
[…] Alan is being hit by Mono boosters right now: http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2008/08… […]
Seeing as how Slated aka Keith G. Robertson-Turner has turned to personal attacks, I guess it means he knows he’s losing the argument.
For those interested in Free/Open Source Software, you might be interested to note that gNeeSense apparently ships F-Spot, Tomboy and Mono on the 2.1 LiveCD – if Mono isn’t Free/Open Source Software, then why is it included in gNewSense – a distro that only includes FSF-approved packages?
As far as standards and patents, it is common knowledge that Microsoft, HP and Intel patents that apply to ECMA 334 and 335 fall under non-discriminatory, royalty-free terms.
Feel free to write helpdesk@ecma-international.org which will be happy to verify the above statement.