3 ms·

Interesting how that was never a problem with Java. For years the only outcry against it came from Stallman babbling on about how it was a "trap". It wasn't eve

by kprobst 17y ago

Interesting how that was never a problem with Java. For years the only outcry against it came from Stallman babbling on about how it was a "trap". It wasn't even an ECMA standard like C#. Yet it was no more free of patent threats or corporate greed as Mono is today. In fact a recent article by Sun's ex-CEO casually mentioned how Sun was ready to enforce "Java patents" on Microsoft, and I didn't see anyone from the Apache foundation get on the horn with Oracle to ask just what those are. Realistically, all software is under patent threat from IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google and a thousand other small and large patent trolls. But it's fascinating that it's only Mono and de Icaza that are constantly under attack. And note I have no problem with raising and discussing the issues that surround it - the problem is the vicious personal attacks he has had to endure for releasing something that is, amusingly enough, 100% free software. Patent FUD is just that, I don't care if it comes from Microsoft or in reverse from the FSF scaremongering enforcers. No, I think the problem with Mono is that it's an implementation of a Microsoft technology, and that just rubs a lot of people the wrong way. The patent thing is just a convenient excuse. Go ahead and fire up Inkscape, GIMP, Firefox, or compile hello world with GCC and then assure me that you didn't just violate a whole bunch of patents held by other corporations. And by the way, C# is about as likely to become the foundation of anything as is Java or Visual Basic for that matter. Unless someone comes up with en enormous breakthrough in speed and memory consumption for VMs, major desktop applications and components will continue to be written in C or C++. A music player and a note taking application don't signal the Mono takeover of GNOME or whatever, that's just another excuse for the "that's a nice free OS you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it" party line that has been used against Mono. In the meantime though, anyone who does write a note taking app in C# because it takes 1/3 of the time to do so than it does with C++ is hounded to death because he's "destroying" the free software desktop.

chromatic 17y ago
[It's] fascinating that it's only Mono and de Icaza that are constantly under attack. Perhaps that's because Sun didn't sue TomTom but Microsoft did.
cageface 17y ago
Nobody ever suggested that the Gnome desktop should be built on Java. Miguel was a very vocal advocate of C# as a solution to the language interop problems the early Gnome tech suffered from. The rest of your argument is an unpersuasive slippery slope argument. The software patent system is broken and you can never really be safe but there's still a difference between building something that might use some of the same methods as other patented software and implementing a full-stack clone of a core MS technology that they've alternately promoted and protected. A big part of the reason that Mono hasn't made further inroads in the Gnome desktop beyond some disposable userland apps is because the rest of the free software movement sees it as the trojan horse it is, despite Miguel's urging over the years to make it the base of Gnome.
- kprobst 17y ago
  The argument du jour is that every software patent is dangerous and useless, and every patent holder a potential troll. Surely it cannot be "safer" to infringe on Oracle's patents than on Microsoft's, yet at least Microsoft has gone to the trouble of specifying what exactly is exempt from patent claims and what isn't with that Community Promise of theirs - which by the way is legally binding under estoppel. I don't remember ever seeing anything like that from Oracle, Sun or IBM vis-a-vis Java, and it was interesting that Java was released under the GPLv2 and not v3, which would actually eliminate the threat of a patent claim on it. /This/ argument that Java and PostgreSQL and MQ implementations (check out the patents in that niche) and everything else is "more safe" than Mono is unpersuasive at best to me - in fact I'd buy it only in the case of Samba, which does have an official get out of jail free card from Microsoft.
  - cageface 17y ago
    You may be unpersuaded, but, as Miguel acknowledged in a recent article linked here, most OSS developers have (wisely, IMO) kept their distance and relegated Mono to a sideshow. While MS was constantly making veiled threats about patent issues with free software in general and Linux in particular Sun and Oracle were making important contributions and treating Linux as a first-class deployment platform. Maybe you can't see a difference here but it couldn't be plainer to many of us.

by kprobst 17y ago

chromatic 17y ago

[It's] fascinating that it's only Mono and de Icaza that are constantly under attack. Perhaps that's because Sun didn't sue TomTom but Microsoft did.

cageface 17y ago

Nobody ever suggested that the Gnome desktop should be built on Java. Miguel was a very vocal advocate of C# as a solution to the language interop problems the early Gnome tech suffered from. The rest of your argument is an unpersuasive slippery slope argument. The software patent system is broken and you can never really be safe but there's still a difference between building something that might use some of the same methods as other patented software and implementing a full-stack clone of a core MS technology that they've alternately promoted and protected. A big part of the reason that Mono hasn't made further inroads in the Gnome desktop beyond some disposable userland apps is because the rest of the free software movement sees it as the trojan horse it is, despite Miguel's urging over the years to make it the base of Gnome.

kprobst 17y ago
The argument du jour is that every software patent is dangerous and useless, and every patent holder a potential troll. Surely it cannot be "safer" to infringe on Oracle's patents than on Microsoft's, yet at least Microsoft has gone to the trouble of specifying what exactly is exempt from patent claims and what isn't with that Community Promise of theirs - which by the way is legally binding under estoppel. I don't remember ever seeing anything like that from Oracle, Sun or IBM vis-a-vis Java, and it was interesting that Java was released under the GPLv2 and not v3, which would actually eliminate the threat of a patent claim on it. /This/ argument that Java and PostgreSQL and MQ implementations (check out the patents in that niche) and everything else is "more safe" than Mono is unpersuasive at best to me - in fact I'd buy it only in the case of Samba, which does have an official get out of jail free card from Microsoft.
- cageface 17y ago
  You may be unpersuaded, but, as Miguel acknowledged in a recent article linked here, most OSS developers have (wisely, IMO) kept their distance and relegated Mono to a sideshow. While MS was constantly making veiled threats about patent issues with free software in general and Linux in particular Sun and Oracle were making important contributions and treating Linux as a first-class deployment platform. Maybe you can't see a difference here but it couldn't be plainer to many of us.