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Banshee, Mono May Be Dropped From Ubuntu Default
itwbennett writes "The Banshee music application, and Mono, the open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework, on which Banshee is dependent, may be excluded from the next release of Ubuntu. In 'a blog entry titled Bansheegeddon,' Banshee and Mono developer Joseph Michael Shields says the reasons given for the change are that Banshee is 'not well maintained' and 'porting music store to GTK3 is blocked on banshee ported to GTK3.' Other reasons mentioned but not in the session logs are complaints that it doesn't work on ARM. Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon pointed out in a blog post that the decision to drop Banshee, Mono or other apps that are dependent on Mono has not been finalized. But the blogosphere is lit up with speculation that this is a deliberate move to exclude Mono because of its emulation of Microsoft .NET."
...that Banshee was made a default? ffs, make up your mind, Ubuntu people.
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I have Rhythmbox as default on 10.04 (Ubuntu and Lubuntu), and see no need for Mono. Is this an outbreak of uncharacteristic good sense in Ubuntu (but only a partial atonement for their Unity sins)?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
So?
sig: sauer
This makes perfect sense. Almost nothing depends on mono anymore. Ditch the last holdouts, replace them with alternatives without the taint and move on. Besides, Ubuntu has made it clear they see tablets as THE future and tablets run ARM. So they really can't afford to offer a second class status to ARM and thus anything that isn't portable to it has to go from the default experience.
If they were removing mono from the repository or moving it to non-free or something there would be a story here, but they ain't so there isn't.
Democrat delenda est
It is awesome and much better than Java! Think of the great note taking and music apps you can write! Don't worry, Microsoft will never block its development because they said so. You can always trust a large company when they say something in a non-binding manner.
They've already said they're setting the limit at 750MB (more than a standard CD). There might be a slight argument there but with the next limit being 800MB, then 1GB, disk space isn't as premium as it used to be.
A lot of people forget that when something is excluded from the default installation of Ubuntu, that doesn't mean that you can't install that feature later.
looks like ubuntu finally dropped off the #1 spot in the rankings on the right hand column
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
sudo apt-get install banshee
Is it that fucking hard?
Because Microsoft has never used vague legal threats to leverage the Linux market before, right? Except those times they did...
The less Microsoft in Linux, the safer it is to use. If some programmers need to learn a real language in order to deal with that, then guess what? They will have to. There isn't a shortage of languages leading to a requirement to use Mono.
I applaud this move and hope other distros follows. Mono has no place in Linux. It is an EEE torpedo of the worst kind.
Great Intellect...
Clementine and Audacious are pretty good. Check them out.
It doesn't work on the omap4 apparently according to Canonical which is what they are targeting for tablets and phones.
Having a language ratified as an ECMA standard is fairly binding I find. You might want to update your trolling.
Mono has always been substandard and playing feature catch-up compared to the actual .Net runtimes available only for Windows.
.Net cross-platform from the start and released their own Linux version at the same time each Windows version was released? Answer: they could if they wanted to.
.Net with no "yeah but ..." differences would make it easier for popular applications to not *require* and *depend on* Windows. That would not serve Microsoft's interests. Letting other people do the Linux work for them in a way that will never be complete serves two goals: 1) costs them nothing and 2) makes people like you feel a baseless goodwill towards a monopolistic corporate giant that plays to win.
This is what was intended. Even if you can't admit it. Just ask yourself, with all the resources and talent available to Microsoft, why they couldn't have simply made
Obvious conclusion: they don't want to because a truly cross-platform
If you actually look at the facts of the situation the intention is not difficult to understand. But what the fuck ever. If you want to be naive it's your choice.
After nearly a decade, MS is still involved in the scox-scam. This in spite of the facts that linux is not infringing, and scox doesn't own the code anyway. Any steps linux can take to avoid patent parasites, like MS, should be taken.
I can get not installing it based on the fact that it targets libraries that drive for-profit philosophy, but at least call it that. Of course, then why is there still wine? samba? tsclient? All of these support and encourage Windows use.
It's minor, but I disagree with this notion.
Interoperability and compatibility are good things. There are situations where your end-users must run software available only for Windows. Wine is constantly improving. Still, not all things fitting this description run well in Wine, and many production environments don't want to struggle with getting them to work based on forum posts etc. when it is known that simply running Windows avoids all of this. Remember that to a Fortune 500 corporation, the cost of a Windows license is less than marginal but the cost of downtime can be significant.
I don't like this and I don't like Windows and I'm not fond of Microsoft, but this is a reality. Things like Samba open up new options that may not have been available before. So you're stuck with Windows for your end-user workstations? At least now your servers can be Linux. That's one more Linux system than you would have been able to use if you had no Samba (et al) equivalent.
Interoperability means you can pick the best system for the particular job knowing it will work with the rest of your systems. There's a freedom in this that you just don't get without it. Without interoperability you're much more at the mercy of vendorlock. The only thing that's a shame is that interoperability is always a one-way street when you deal with a monopolist. Interoperability today means it is always Linux's job to accommodate Windows protocols and filesystems. Microsoft is terrified of merit-based competition on an open playing field with no vendorlock, proprietary protocols, or other cheap tricks designed to prevent evaluation of merit.
When that changes, everyone will benefit. There is no concern about "encouraging Windows use" for those cases where it really is the best tool for the job; nor are there such concerns when it isn't and you can easily replace it with something more suitable.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Strawman arguments for 100, Alex.
Microsoft has stated that they won't sue over C# usage, and they've demonstrated no inclination whatsoever toward doing so. Nobody has ever presented evidence that they will - only vague accusations about how EVILLLL Microsoft is.
Microsoft actually does contribute code to mono. The missing components are mainly either deprecated or windows specific; for 99% of applications it's good enough. Troll harder.
I don't know a lot about .NET vs. Mono, but can you address this part before you call "troll"?
Just ask yourself, with all the resources and talent available to Microsoft, why they couldn't have simply made .Net cross-platform from the start and released their own Linux version at the same time each Windows version was released? Answer: they could if they wanted to.
If you could invalidate that question you'd really have a case for GP being a troll. As it stands you seem to have selectively glossed over it. I know people around here love to cherry-pick what they respond to, but it really weakens your case.
Microsoft really does have a lot of wealth and a lot of highly talented programmers. It's not a question of whether they could or couldn't. I mean, they could have done what Sun did with Java and simultaneously release the runtimes for multiple platforms while maintaining a degree of control over the standard. Why do you believe they didn't? What explanation do you have for this that fits the observed facts better than GP's position? I really want to know and am willing to entertain a solid explanation.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
the promise was made to Novell which licenced .NET. Anyone who dowloanded Mono from Novell would be protected (with the implication that anyone who got it non-Novell sources would not be protected, I don't know if that'd stand up in court, but it was used as an excuse against using Mono by various people)
Now Novell no longer exists, I'm not sure where the promise went, or the licencing agreement they had. Perhaps de Icaza's spin-off company has it, maybe Attachmate has it.
Well they can't sue over C# usage. They can't stop someone from creating their own C# compiler. But they can still hypothetically cause a world of grief over .NET-like functionality. Judging by the lack of interest in a C# compiler outside of Mono, I'm guessing the wonderfulness of C# is not so great that there's a huge push to see native C# compilers or Java byte code compilers for C#.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you are going to go down that road, then theres pretty much no one you can trust.
How do you figure? He's simply judging them by their reputation and past actions. Why would you not do that for any person? Don't tell me Microsoft isn't a person either, because that's not really true. For instance, judging IBM by their past actions (WWII, PS/2 computers, etc.) would be pretty silly, because for their WWII sins, everyone involved is long-since dead now, and for their lame actions in the 90s with trying to push proprietary junk on everyone when clones were taking over, again, the people in charge are long-since gone (probably not dead though, but not with the company either). Most corporations change leadership periodically, so it's not sensible to hold grudges against them indefinitely. This isn't true of Microsoft: that company has been run by the same two guys ever since it started: Bill and Steve. Bill's not even gone; when Steve was too dumb to make his own decision about Courier, he called in Bill to make the decision for him. So any past bad actions that MS has done are fair game for criticizing it now, and this will remain true until they finally get some new leadership, which doesn't look like it's going to be any time soon.
That's the point. "Album Artist", which is different from "Artist", is always the same in every track of the album, so grouping works.
For example, in the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, each music has a different Artist, but the Album Artist in all of them is "Various Artists", so the tracks are kept together.
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Mono has its uses - it could help people remove .Net dependencies from their software packages.
But for new software packages, choosing a Microsoft technology is a mistake. Microsoft calls free software an enemy - "cancer" to be "extinguished", so building on their technologies is folly, especially when there are lots of non-Microsoft languages and frameworks that we can use. The problems of software patents are only getting worse, so we need to prepare for the future by applying some caution today.
I hope this is indeed the real reason for taking Mono-dependent software out of Ubuntu.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Mono
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+1, this saves me time. And good riddance to Banshee, such a slow POS that is.
Seriously. When a music player decides it needs to be able to play DVDs, it's time to move on.
Having a language ratified as an ECMA standard is fairly binding I find.
Mono, and the .NET framework they seek to implement, is much more than what was standardized in ECMA. Windows Forms is one example.
Just ask yourself, with all the resources and talent available to Microsoft, why they couldn't have simply made .Net cross-platform from the start and released their own Linux version at the same time each Windows version was released?
They should have. I think it was a strategic blunder not to, from a Machiavellian viewpoint, because all they needed to do was pretend to play nice with multi-platform and then yank the rug out once they achieved marketshare. They did this with IE.
Having a language ratified as an ECMA standard is fairly binding I find. You might want to update your trolling.
While ECMA supposedly requires that all patented technologies standardised by them be made available under a "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms", you might want to note the Wikipedia article which states that parts of .Net *not* covered by ECMA include "Windows Forms, ADO.NET, and ASP.NET". Even if the ECMA-standardised parts of .Net are safe from patent infringement, this doesn't necessarily cover the rest.
.Net applications *will* be written assuming the whole ecosystem is available. One may argue that the core ECMA-covered parts are useful in themselves, but I suspect that this will miss what most people want (and expect) ".Net compatibility" to deliver. This is in addition to MS being in control of the language and thus always one step ahead of the competition.
And realistically,
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Ubuntu dropping mono is proof that there is a God and He loves us.
My apologies to Benjamin Franklin.
vi +
Saying things like this:
If you actually look at the facts of the situation the intention is not difficult to understand. But what the fuck ever. If you want to be naive it's your choice.
Is absolutely trolling.
As someone familiar with Microsoft's long history of abusive, illegal, and Machiavellian behavior as well as their preference for long-term strategy over hasty decisions ... I really do agree that it's naive to expect any form of goodwill from them, or that they would ever do anything that they don't believe gives them a way to put their competitors at a disadvantage. They're not a charity and they're not a community. That's okay because they generally don't pretend to be.
I don't subscribe to this culture where every single opinion that isn't worded with sweetness and presented with a cherry on top absolutely must be trolling. That poster gave reasons for why he believes as he does. The position is valid even if he wasn't terribly nice about it.
I can't speak for decisions I didn't make, but I can guess. Linux is an very fragmented platform. Getting a major piece of software to work across different distros often requires hacks and changes specific to each one. It's very rarely just a matter of recompiling and it's good. If you follow some of the microsoft blogs (windows 8 for example), one of the most common questions they get asked is why didn't you include feature X. The response is usually along the lines of not enough people would use it to be worth the effort. No company has enough resources to implement everything that everyone ever wanted.
Really? Normally the method is to release it in a generic form and let the individual distribution maintainers worry about details like that. Normally the generic form is a source-code tarball, but if you need a proprietary example take a look at the nVidia graphics drivers. They don't provide packages. The distro maintainers have made .deb and .rpm packages for it, and Gentoo includes an .ebuild for it. Nvidia Corp. didn't have to worry about any of those particulars, nor should they. There is simply no reason why Microsoft would have to. I have to assume you have heard of nVidia.
Sorry but you don't sound knowledgable about this subject you're choosing to speak about. Not when well-known things easily contradict your "guess" and you state obvious things like "no company has enough resources to implement everything that everyone ever wanted" when no one was claiming that a company did. This kind of vacuous reasoning is more trollish than the post you were complaining about, if you still feel concerned about trolls.
No, you haven't made your case. You might have strong emotional feelings or some kind of faith-based belief concerning Mono but there remain facts of the matter that indicate something other than Microsoft having no ulterior motives and a genuine desire to play nice with the Linux community. You can dismiss the fact that this would contradict their last 20 years of history too, if you like, but I say there is absolutely nothing wrong with being reluctant to trust a known abuser.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Canonical can't seem to decide what to do with its selection of default software. I found an insightful comment from OMGUbuntu that I thought I should share:
To all newcomers - people here are very close-minded and can't handle complaints about Linux. Keep this in mind.
I wanted to play a list of finely normalized (volume-adjusted) tracks using both replaygain and crossfading.
Banshee and RB were very buggy with crashing, jumping to odd tracks w/o shuffle turned on, even playing multiple tracks at the same time. I consider them unusable for anything.
And then Amarok, my old regular from the KDE 3 days, had been lobotomized to the point of being unable to handle normalization. But I had switched to Gnome and didn't want to use 150+ MB extra ram to play some audio tracks anyway.
I had to resort to a very obscure program called Aqualung and forget replaygain data, using AL's special gain calibration system instead.
In iTunes, the exercise is extremely simple and reliable. The only player that comes close to matching it in features and reliability is Amarok 1.x, but the FOSS community decided to replace it with something "clean" and easy for new project members to figure out. Bad tradeoff.
Normally the generic form is a source-code tarball
Have fun.
I don't believe Microsoft has any plans to ever sue anyone using Mono, and I absolutely don't believe it's Microsoft's responsibility to make a linux version of .NET. That said, your little link is disingenuous as you are not allowed to use that source code to create Linux packages, or really use it to create any modified version at all. Here are the relevant parts of the license under which that source is released, with additional emphasis placed by me:
The Microsoft Reference Source License (MS-RSL) is the most restrictive of the Microsoft source code licenses. The license prohibits all use of source code other than the viewing of the code for reference purposes...Microsoft commonly uses this license for developer libraries where modification is not required to make use of the source code. In these cases, the importance of transparency is based on the need for developers to more deeply understand the inner workings of the source code...The license limits the source code release to use on the Windows platform only.
The full license text, lest I be accused of taking words out of context, is here.
I'd rather not take any chances, thank you. it'll be a cold day before i ever develop anything for mono. Microsoft used to be buddy-buddy with Barnes & Noble. You see how that's working out. Lie with dogs, get up with fleas.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
they're suing the shit out of android vendors, you think they wouldn't do the same to mono distributors if they thought they could turn a buck? how naive.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.