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Mono Squeezed Into Debian Default Installation
pallmall1 writes "OS News reports that Debian developer Josselin Mouette got Tomboy accepted as a dependency for gnome in the next release of Debian (codenamed Squeeze). While that may seem like nothing big (except for the 50 MByte size of the Tomboy package), Tomboy requires Mono — meaning that Mono will now be installed by default. Apparently, Debian doesn't have the same concerns over using specifications patented by Microsoft and licensed under undisclosed terms that Red Hat does. Perhaps Debian doesn't believe that Microsoft might do something like Rambus did."
TFA: "However, Microsoft says clearly that only Novell can supply Moonlight to end-users:".
Rolling Mono (note: Mono != Moonlight) into Debian would be beneficial for both Debian and Microsoft. I don't believe that Microsoft will take legal action against Debian or Miguel, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least considering Microsoft's recent suicidal business divisions.
Perhaps Debian doesn't believe that Microsoft might do something like Rambus did.
Rambus was chastised for their actions (like the linked article states). And I propose Debian approach this the same way someone would approach the Rambus situation from the beginning had they an inkling of Rambus' true intent.
.NET, MIcrosoft does hold at least one patent on the .NET infrastructure. So far, Microsoft has agred to offer these under a "reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms of use" and they are currently royalty free. No one seems to be clear on how you get this into writing but it's allegedly the way things are.
.NET. Should they fail to comply with this request in a timely manner, I would submit all communications with Microsoft to ECMA in a motion to dismiss the aforementioned "standards" and remove Mono--and unfortunately Tomboy--from the Debian default package. I'd beef up the Debian wiki with details on how to get these two packages to fix this bug and focus on the bug for a near future release after Squeeze.
Even though Microsoft submitted the CLI and C# main components of
Were I a Debian leader, I would simply approach Microsoft with the Mono code and the ECMA code of conduct and demand it in writing that for this snapshot of the code you have a forever royalty free to interact with
At that point, sit back and let ECMA and the community at large hash it out with Microsoft. Better now than later when other things may depend on this package and Microsoft has you right where Rambus has every memory maker on the planet.
My work here is dung.
Last I checked, the "default installation" of Debian didn't even include X. So I'm guessing what they really mean is that they've included it in the default repositories, and if you apt-get gnome you'll get tomboy and mono too.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
tomboy package "Description: desktop note taking program using Wiki style links"
"..except for the 50 MByte size of the Tomboy package..."
What's wrong with this picture?
we discovered a new way to think.
The commit was done on Debian unstable, which is Sid, not Squeeze.
Am I missing something?
I've been using Debian for ..... 8+ years, since 2001, and I've NEVER heard anything about "GNOME" being in the "default" install. Anything resembling a "default" install would be the the Debian base system, which includes things like basic system files, core-utils, bash, pam, etc. Anything else is installed explicitly by the user (yes, installers make it easier, but still you need to choose the option). There are thousands of Debian desktop users who have no GNOME installed, and are either using KDE, or some other desktop environment.
Besides, isn't "tomboy" already included in the GNOME of Debian Lenny (the current stable release)? At least when I did an "apt-get install gnome" yesterday (source list pointing to lenny), it installed tomboy for me, together with the EVIL EVIL mono etc. And Debian has included mono as part of its repository for years. If it had licensing/patent concerns, there wouldn't be any difference whether it was in the "default GNOME" installation or not.
Argh.
Don't quote me on this.
Not really being much of a Linux person myself yet, I was curious about the negative feelings I've read about for Mono, ranging from general dislike to outright hate, as I've had several people tell me that Mono is actually really cool and easy to use if you're used to doing .Net programing in general. Malevolentjelly posted this link a few days back in the Silverlight 3 post and I found it very informative:
http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/
Here ---> http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/
This space for rent.
Proven? Really? What's the proof? That Microsoft hasn't sued yet? That doesn't stop them from suing in the future. I'm not aware of any 'proof' that the Mono fear is stupid. If anything, I used to not be too worried about Mono, until Microsoft sued TomTom for their use of Linux. That was NOT a lawsuit over Mono, but rather over VFAT and some other stuff. But, it proved that Microsoft is willing to use stupid patents to sue Linux users. So, now I'm worried that in the future, they will decide to sue over Mono. What would stop them if they should decide to sue?
GNOME folks are really pushing the adoption of KDE 4 nowadays. :)
It is great to see so much friendship between open-source projects
As a .NET developer (at work), and a Linux user (at home), I don't like this idea. I'm sure you are going to label me "a big rabid stallmanist troll" for pointing this out, but those patents are real, at least if you ask Microsoft. And so is the agreement that gives Novell permission to distribute Mono.
Now, why would Novell sign such an agreement? Easy: Because their legal department advised them to do so. From this we can conclude that Novells legal department has knowledge of legal risks concerning Mono.
Microsoft has already shown that their patents are not for self defence only, when they sued Tomtom over several patents related to the FAT filesystem. Not only is FAT old, there is also nothing about FAT, that isn't obvious to someone writing filesystem. In other words: FAT is not even patent worthy. The .NET framework, however, represents a great value for Microsoft (for one thing, it's the first Windows API that doesn't suck big time), and it's got to have several patent worthy ideas in it.
So, why would Microsoft want to protect something worthless like FAT, but not real value like the .NET framework?
As I see it, it's not a question about if they are going to sue someone over the .NET patents. It's a question of WHEN and WHOM.
Python is awesome. Linux is better for having it around.
Fixed it for ya.
Apparently, Debian doesn't have the same concerns over using specifications patented by Microsoft and licensed under undisclosed terms
Microsoft has filed a patent on the .NET APIs, but Tomboy (and most Mono applications) don't use the .NET APIs, they use the ECMA APIs and standard Linux APIs. Mono is no different in that way from Python, Ruby, Perl, or many other languages people commonly use on Linux: it uses proprietary APIs on Windows, and open source APIs on Linux.
Furthermore, Mono is way ahead of languages like Java in that regard because, unlike Java, Mono is based on an open standard and there are no known patents on the language core or core libraries.
If anybody can point to an actual patent that Mono or Tomboy violate, please file an issue report against the Mono project; if it is credible, the infringing functionality will be removed from Mono. So far, nobody has been able to come up with anything.
Have you tried gnote yet? It is a C++ reimplementation of tomboy. gnote's binary package itself is less than 4MB with only a few standard dependencies that you might already have on a GNOME desktop, significantly smaller than Mono. I made the switch fully from tomboy to gnote a few months ago and things are working very nicely.
Even though Microsoft submitted the CLI and C# main components of .NET, MIcrosoft does hold at least one patent on the .NET infrastructure.
First of all, they "don't hold a patent", they have filed a patent application. Whether that application gets granted remains to be seen, and even if it does, it's unclear what such a patent actually would cover or whether it could be enforced.
Furthermore, even if the patent were valid and enforceable, it is irrelevant as far as Tomboy is concerned, since Tomboy and most other Mono desktop applications don't use the ".NET infrastructure", they use ECMA C# libraries and standard Linux libraries.
Were I a Debian leader, I would simply approach Microsoft with the Mono code and the ECMA code of conduct and demand it in writing that for this snapshot of the code you have a forever royalty free
What's there to put in writing? You might as well demand Microsoft to put in writing that GNU C++, the Linux kernel, and Python are forever free from Microsoft royalties.
With Red hat/Fedora dropping Mono out of the gnome dependencies, and ubuntu and it seems even debian stick to their Mono ways. And ubuntu even threatening their users to install a lower quality Mono-dependent music player to replace Rhythmbox just because the Mono zealots are very, very loud about how they want to push this MS technology on everybody using free software. I guess I will have to change my current ways and just move to .rpm based Fedora. It's been a long time without red hat, shall be fun. "Let's all make gnome depend on MS technology just so we have a desktop widget that has already been ported to native code!" That's great...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Yes, Mono probably has "patents" against it.
So does every fricking application on the planet. 3D graphics? Patented. One click to buy? Patented. What's the bet that Microsoft has patents on half the Linux kernal?
Can't they just do what every other free software project does, and just ignore the bloody things?
Microsoft might sue, but they will probably just laugh. Nobody is going to re-implement the entire .net framework (including all the quirks of Microsoft's database layer, file system behavior, etc). Just look at the difficulties in getting data out of MySQL and PostGres in a sane way! Once you target a specific platform (i.e. the entire Microsoft stack) it's very hard to replicate.
> Mono Squeezed Into Debian Default Installation
It is not going into the Debian default installation. The Debian default installation does not include any "desktop environment". It is going into the Gnome "desktop".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Legal departments are mostly "I'm scared Dave, will I dream?" They do anything that won't put them in an obviously worse position, just in case. Basically they're for negotiation and diplomacy; if Novell thinks Microsoft's claims on Mono are bullshit, they can call it, but Microsoft may raise something else real on them for happening to be uncooperative. If you are a ridiculous joke demanding money, they squash you; look at SCOX vs IBM vs Novell, with everyone else in the business world shelling cash to SCOX because they may have some legitimate claims, while IBM and Novell decided they were full of shit and not a real threat. You're too annoying and full of shit, IBM's going to stamp you into the ground.
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And this is an example of a good deal:
Non-disclosure agreements and time-limited covenants are by their very nature exclusive and are a complete joke to free software. If Microsoft really understood FOSS, they would have offered an agreement like that right off the bat.
http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/meta-gnome2/debian/control?revision=20303&view=markup
"Depends: gnome-desktop-environment (= ${source:Version}),
gdm-themes,
gnome-themes-extras,
gnome-games (>= 1:2.24.3),
libpam-gnome-keyring (>= 2.24.1),
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly (>= 0.10.10),
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg (>= 0.10.6),
rhythmbox (>= 0.12),
synaptic (>= 0.62),
system-config-printer (>= 1.0.0),
totem-mozilla,
swfdec-mozilla,
epiphany-extensions,
gedit-plugins,
evolution-plugins (>= 2.24.3),
evolution-exchange (>= 2.24.3),
evolution-webcal (>= 2.24.0),
serpentine,
gnome-app-install,
transmission-gtk,
bluez-gnome,
arj,
avahi-daemon,
tomboy (>= 0.12.2) | gnote,"
note: tomboy (>= 0.12.2) | gnote
In plain English that means tomboy *or* gnote.
It's Debian, you have a choice.
Debian also offers an Xfce/LXDE version of CD1 and a KDE version of CD1, CD1 being the installer. Neither of these offer mono or Gnome (duh!). Debian also offers fine grained package selection in all the installers, and a netinstall and a tiny netinstall, the businesscard iso. There is also the DVD installer which offers a choice of desktop environments along with the usual options for fine grained selection of packages, the 'Expert Install' option.
So *one* of the numerous ways of installing Debian *may* offer Tomboy to those who want it. Cue howls of intolerant, ill-informed, unsubstantiated quasi-religious outrage.....
And anyway mono is accepted as free software by the two bodies which are best placed to determine its status, the FSF and the OSI (and Debian Legal as well). Their legal teams have somehow failed to persuaded by psychotic ravings and are obstinately insistent in assessing these things by means of reason, facts, law and other little know methods. How churlish.
On the other hand it might be a far reaching conspiracy and have something to do with the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 and Roswell.
Stallman did comment on Mono, and it's not necessarily what one would expect: See?
If that's true, could someone explain to me how MS.NET is "more free" than Qt?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
This particular outburst of concern is FUD. Debian already has Mono in the "main" repository (as opposed to "contrib" or "non-free"). That alone is a statement that they are not worried about the "free-ness" of the package. Even if it will now be installed by default, it was already made available by default to every Debian installation. The difference is very superficial.
If MS was going to go after them, they could have already. This changes nothing. (although this spat on /. might bring it to MS attention.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Since .NET is an entire platform "just like Java", let's compare their bloat. .NET framework is 231 MB big. And it will only run apps written for that version, requiring the "side by side" installation of other runtimes for other versions.
The latest version of the Java runtime is 15.50 MB big. And it will run apps written for *any* version of Java.
The latest version of the
Monday 6 April 2009 15:39, by Rahul Sundaram :: #
For Fedora, we had to remove tomboy from the live cd due to lack of space. Unfortunately, Gnote probably won't be a good replacement since it would pull in the gtkmm, boost and other dependencies. Have you considered Vala or PyGTK instead?
So the summary includes the dependencies for Tomboy but not for Gnote. If you add up gtkmm and boost and other dependencies, it might get close to 50MB. The summary is a troll for comparing apples to oranges.
This space for rent.
Just so everyone else isn't snowed by this post, Fedora has not dropped mono and currently has no plans to, they have only said "we'll continue to look at it with our legal counsel to see what if any steps are needed on our part". The recent push to include mono based Banshee by default instead of Rhythmbox in Fedora and Ubuntu was caused by the one of the main Rhythmbox developers saying that rhythmbox has "several limitations" and that he was going to "still fix (some) bugs and review patches, but it's too much of a dead end for me to do more than that", leading many to believe it is in maintenance only mode. Not, as the parent says "Mono zealots".
What the hell is tomboy doing as a dependency in the first place? It's a totally unnecessary package which I have absolutely zero use for.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
*On another note: What's the point of Gnome again, now that Qt/KDE is open sourced?*
To not be a cluttered piece of crap, which is KDE's job. See on UNIX, every program should do one thing and do it well.
I've always thought KDE's applications were much better than OpenOffice - and Gnome doesn't seem to have any productivity applications at all...
(I've run mostly KDE for a long time, though I have been running Gnome of late, on my new laptop - and I'm quite enjoying it...)
I really strongly feel that Unix lacks the coherent infrastructure needed for this "each tool does one thing well" philosophy... If each tool does just one thing, then your ability to accomplish things strongly depends on how effectively and easily you can link multiple tools together... I feel like the old Unix tools philosophy has gone AWOL of late, and it's pretty much absent from the GUI space, where an individual application is usually written to handle all possible actions for an individual problem domain, and there's very little consideration made to linking these applications together...
Bow-ties are cool.