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All GPLed Code Removed From MonoDevelop
rysiek writes "A few days ago, Miguel de Icaza wrote on his blog that the whole of MonoDevelop is now 'free' of GPL-licensed code. 'MonoDevelop code is now LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licensed. We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop (like RemObject's Oxygene).'"
Does this sign the closing of the Mono project? And can anyone tell me, since this fundamentalist stance against the GPL and the alleged impending patent sword hovering over the Mono users' heads, what exactly is there to attract people to adopt it as their developing platform?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
By removing GPL code, the Mono team has laid the groundwork for a closed source, commercial implementation. You watch. Mono is going to become a product, something that will be an instant-cripple for any Linux distribution that comes to rely on it.
This is my sig.
The GPL is great for standalone applications but if you want to allow developers to make addons you really have to rethink it. Yes, it ensures that any addon made for the application will be free software however you have to consider the tradeoff; GPL it: everything is GLP'd, some companies/people won't develop or release addons; Other license: non-freesoftware addons may be developed, companies/people will have no reason now to release their software but it may not be open.
So it depends on what you value more; having the software but maybe not the freedom, or not having the software.
Obviously Stallman would rather the software was never created if it wasn't open, so the GPL wins for him there.
Personally I prefer the Artistic License 2.0; all the freedom and protection of the GPL without the virality.
Various pieces from "olive" graduated into main Mono in the past year, including WCF, LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML and WindowsBase (they are all in Mono 2.6)
The missing pieces (Workflow Foundation and Presentation Foundation) are not part of our plan.
Thus begins the Free-Free Software movement.
Begins? BSD guys have been trying to get rid of all GPL (including LGPL) in the base distro for a looong time - hence the planned migration to Clang (I believe GCC was the last remaining bit).
wxWidgets is rather dated, though, and that's by design, making for rather awkward API. I mean, have a look at this:
"wxWidgets does not use templates (except for some advanced features that are switched off by default) since it is a notoriously unportable feature."
In 2009! Notoriously unportable, seriously? Basic template stuff (enough for generic containers, for example) has been perfectly portable since late 90s! But no, they don't want templates, which is why you get to write gems like:
I'll take Qt any day, thanks. It doesn't look any worse than wxWidgets in terms of "native" (even if it achieves that differently), but it's much more powerful, and the API is better. Now that both are LGPL'd, I really don't see any advantage wxWidgets might have.
.Net sucks on it's own, not because Microsoft made it. I think it's crap and I think Mono is just cross platform crap. My list of languages that suck: .Net|Mono
VisualBasic
Java
RubyonRails
All 'framework' languages that make it easy for people to crank out bloatware.
Last month I replaced 120MB of ruby dependencies with 14 bash scripts. But it seems like every time I turn around someone is presenting me with a new sack full of ax handles and asking me to alter our filesystem to support it. The current bane of my existence is an 'unsupported' gui .net app that won't run in anything except 1.49-somethingsomething.
My opinion is that how easy it is to implement your ideas is the _least_ important consideration, but so many programmers seem to think it's the only one that matters.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I really hate Slashdot moderation. This isn't a troll, it's a perfectly valid opinion and one that I agree with. What's with all the MS shills having mod points here anyway?
The last two companies I worked for (one being Intel) were also very large, and had no problems with the GPL and OSS. Intel releases tons of GPL code, and contributes tons of code to the Linux kernel (in GPL of course). Intel is smart enough to know how to use GPL code to their advantage, and not be stupidly afraid of it. My last company (I'll start saying who that was after they're at least 2 employers behind me) also did lots of Linux kernel development.
My current company isn't as smart, unfortunately. They're starting to develop a Linux-based product, but they're pretty paranoid about the GPL too, and are looking for ways to be able to use GPLed code without contributing anything back (nice, huh?). They don't seem to understand that contributing changes back means not having to maintain your own fork, which is a PITA.
Hmm...I tried to verify the statement about the 189 MB and failed, but maybe I'm just using the wrong method. I did a free -m, loaded tomboy, and then did another free -m. The result was only a 10 MB change in the amount of free memory.
It's true that tomboy is slow-loading on my (relatively fast) hardware. It's also true that it uses quite a bit of disk space. I did apt-get remove tomboy f-spot libmono* && apt-get autoremove && apt-get autoclean, and that freed up 64 Mb of disk space. If you're looking at, e.g., how much you can fit on a CD-based linux distro, 64 Mb is a heck of a lot to dedicate to something that's only needed for the sake of one applet.
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