Microsoft infecting Fedora through Gnome?

[Dubious Dave]

I just read an article on BoycottNovell.com about how Mono is infected with Microsoft code and the Gnome guys have been making Mono an integral part of Gnome and many other applications. If this is true how does the Fedora team justify inclusion of Gnome? I really thought that I was free from M$ when I started using Fedora. Please tell me I'm wrong.

[schwim]

Heya Dave,

You can find out what everyone thinks here, when we discussed the dastardly act by villains so evil, you must pronounce it EvILE.

thanks,
json

[Thetargos]

I thought the general consensus then was to completely remove mono from your system and to prevent it from even installing when you setup a new system, with two simple steps, do not install Tomboy, and do not install F-Spot.

[Hlingler]

Must have missed the hub-bub last fall, "yum remove mono*" running as I type....

Regards,
V

[Thetargos]

Actually you'll see there is more to it than just that, there's also a gdi-something package installed, search for it.

[Hlingler]

Quite a huge overhead for beagle, which I [...ahem...] never really liked, never use, and manually crippled/disabled anyhow:

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================
 Package                 Arch       Version          Repository        Size
=============================================================================
Removing:
 mono-core               i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed          31 M
Removing for dependencies:
 beagle                  athlon     0.2.16.2-5.fc7   installed         3.6 M
 beagle-gui              athlon     0.2.16.2-5.fc7   installed         452 k
 dbus-sharp              i386       0.63-6.fc6       installed         126 k
 gmime-sharp             i386       2.2.3-5.fc7      installed         193 k
 gnome-sharp             i386       2.16.0-3.fc7     installed         1.7 M
 gsf-sharp               i386       0.8.1-2.fc6      installed         143 k
 gtk-sharp               i386       1.0.10-12.fc7    installed         1.9 M
 gtk-sharp2              i386       2.10.2-1.fc7     installed         2.3 M
 kerry                   i386       0.2.1-2.fc7      installed         792 k
 mono-data               i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         4.8 M
 mono-data-sqlite        i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         161 k
 mono-extras             i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         737 k
 mono-jscript            i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         1.2 M
 mono-nunit              i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         294 k
 mono-web                i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         7.4 M
 mono-winforms           i386       1.2.3-5.fc7      installed         8.5 M
 sysinfo                 i386       0.7-1            installed         336 k

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install      0 Package(s)
Update       0 Package(s)
Remove      18 Package(s)

Is this ok [y/N]: y

You mean libgdiplus? Gone...anymore?

Thanx and Regards,
V

[Thetargos]

Yep, it was libgdiplus.

Nope, I believe you have freed yourself from the clutches of Microsoft tainted-ware... Well, we are not yet sure if Mono is indeed tainted with Microsoft code or not, but until such time arrives, better to stay clear of it.

[stevea]

I was aware of the situation but the there are a significant number of pkgs, dependent on mono-core. beagle, banshee, muine, tomboy, lat, f-spot, boo, blam, cdcollect, cowbell, nant ..... They all come out with a "yum erase mono-core". Then a lot of mono APIs for various packages like avahi-sharp, evolution-sharp, dbus-sharp and several others.

[blue sky philosophical statement]
So when I read about Mono a couple years ago in LJ my first reaction was - 'neat technical feat'. My second reaction was, 'why would anyone want to push the cr*ppy .NET model onto Linux? Who would want it ?'. Since then I've also seen questions from some newbie Linux developers who are absolutely lost without something like the .NET framework and IDE. So now I see the motivation.

FWIW I think Mono is a big mistake even if the threat of MS copyright and patent violation didn't exist. Linux is an opportunity to do things differently and hopefully better than MS ever did. C# is an MS invention and it inherently shows the limitations of their thinking. The original implementation fell in the same general category as C++ and Java, without introducing any new ideas. C#3 adds some few features taken from functional pl's like Haskell. A mistake IMO - like grafting legs to a fish and calling it a monkey; functional programming is conceptually different from OO programming and C#3 isn't an interesting synthesis. So what you have is the MS flavor of a modern OO language - with no significant rationale except it's the 'MS flavor'. Of course Mono, like all modern languages are surrounded by vast APIs and libraries that define them as much as the base language syntax.

So the only reason to want Mono on Linux is to make cross-over developers more comfortable, and to allow them to continue to propagate that Win-developer mindset onto an open platform. Very bad idea IMO. You can't win a race playing "follow the leader".

[ihavenoname]

hmmm interesting stuff, but I think we (Linux users) keep thinking of Linux as an "answer to Microsoft", and that imho is a mistake. Linux's primary purpose is not to offer "a way to stick it to Microsoft" or an answer to bill gates. Linux is Linux. It is it's own thing, and if we decided to implement certain api's or languages on it, then that should be allowed, so long as we don't box ourselves in to it. Continuing to think of ourselves as constantly under attack by Microsoft or always seeing this as a good vs. evil fight of Linux vs. Microsoft is not really a good way to go. Fact is, Microsoft has the largest share of the desktop OS's yet can anyone argue that Linux is suffering?? If anything the Linux desktop is THRIVING. I for one am not up for a quick downfall for Microsoft (just think of all the jobs that would be lost, think of all the families that would be negatively affected). Don't get me wrong, I am up for quick change to Microsoft business practices. However my feelings toward Microsoft are not related to my reasons for using Linux, I didn't start using Linux because I hated windows, I started using Linux because I thought it was better for my purposes. Sorry if this got a little off topic.

[Dubious Dave]

hmmm interesting stuff, but I think we (Linux users) keep thinking of Linux as an "answer to Microsoft", and that imho is a mistake. Linux's primary purpose is not to offer "a way to stick it to Microsoft" or an answer to bill gates. Linux is Linux. It is it's own thing, and if we decided to implement certain api's or languages on it, then that should be allowed, so long as we don't box ourselves in to it. Continuing to think of ourselves as constantly under attack by Microsoft or always seeing this as a good vs. evil fight of Linux vs. Microsoft is not really a good way to go. Fact is, Microsoft has the largest share of the desktop OS's yet can anyone argue that Linux is suffering?? If anything the Linux desktop is THRIVING. I for one am not up for a quick downfall for Microsoft (just think of all the jobs that would be lost, think of all the families that would be negatively affected). Don't get me wrong, I am up for quick change to Microsoft business practices. However my feelings toward Microsoft are not related to my reasons for using Linux, I didn't start using Linux because I hated windows, I started using Linux because I thought it was better for my purposes. Sorry if this got a little off topic.

This is true in some ways, but I think many linux users just wanted to be able to fix, modify and control their own computer. They just wanted to be free, but Microsoft views linux as a threat (no really,.. they do.) and so has set out to either destroy it, minimize it, or control it for their profit. This is not a matter of linux users being paranoid and chasing non-exsistant ghosts. The majority of linux users probubly don't even care that M$ has the majority of desktops. They just want their system to work and view any intrusions by M$ into the linux world as a method for ultimate DMC (destruction, minimization, control). that's why I get concerned and wonder why the Fedora team allows this intrusion.

[adrianx]

It bothered me for quite a while that Tomboy was just sitting there, using a large amount of memory for no apparent reason. Yes, it's quite nice to be able to type a note and then close without saving, but why was it consuming so much memory? I decided to search FedoraForum to see what other people had to say about the matter. That's how I came to know about the Mono issue. Didn't take much for me to get rid of the whole lot after reading 2 or 3 posts!

[RJFUatHOME]

Well I'm mono free and happy too. I for one am glad that fedora seems to be managing the dependencies on mono and mono related apps. Did you read the comment from an Ubuntu user that said it wanted to take out half of Gnome on Ubuntu if you tried to remove it?

I can see if you like some the mono related apps how it's useful, or if you are in an enterprise environment how you might need it, but like I said I'm glad so far fedora is keeping it removable if that is your choice.

[RupertPupkin]

I for one am glad that fedora seems to be managing the dependencies on mono and mono related apps. Did you read the comment from an Ubuntu user that said it wanted to take out half of Gnome on Ubuntu if you tried to remove it?

The problem is, GNOME keeps integrating more and more Mono stuff into the DE. That's why distros like Ubuntu have such a hard time removing Mono. So far Fedora has done a good job of making Mono easy to remove, which takes a lot of work, but that's going to keep getting harder to do. GNOME founder Miguel de Icaza is a big fan of Microsoft's .NET/C# (and of MS "technologies" in general, like Silverlight, MS' answer to Flash). So expect more Mono dependencies in GNOME as time goes on. But for those of us who are already GNOME-free, it's not a problem.

[Thetargos]

Actually, Miguel de Icaza no longer has a leading position in GNOME, pretty much stepped down when he got to work for Novell. Mono and other idiotic decisions upstream in GNOME may turn the tides towards XFCE (another GTK based DE, anyway... lighter and more "evolved" than GNOME, by the way). And who knows? GNOME may get relegated just as XFree86 did (for FAR less than that). I certainly hope GNOME will reconsider their affair with Mono and only have it as an addon, not integral part of the DE.

[Demz]

would be sad to see that happen to Gnome but if they dont drop the integral of Mono in Gnome it will go under like Xfree86