What are you talking about? How does the computing paradigm (from a practical and technical viewpoint) between Linux and UNIX differ? It does not. Both implement almost the same API's, have the same kind of shell/terminal interface and have the same kind of (X-window) GUI.
Linux, like many Unices, have some extensions that are non standard (i.e. proprietary). Linux has some improvements compard to std. unix/posix, but so have AIX, HPUX, Solaris etc. Nothing new or special here.
Most of the other Unices are descendent from the original UNIX, and Linux is not. But this difference is of a more theoretical nature. AIX for example has been so thoroughly modified in the 15 years it exists, that it would be very hard to recognize even a few lines of similar source code. In that sense there is no difference, and the line "unlike Unix..." is an insult to Unix, and consequently to Linux.
In the company where I work (a large bank, 40000 work places) the latest IE security patch caused grave problems with (client certificate authenticated) SSL connections. Many internal applications broke down at random after about 10 minutes. This is costing massive amounts of time and money.
I agree fully, I've done the same though I prefer to call it a "library". A framework sounds so pretentious.
Our library (it was "mine" once but now it is a shared effort of about 4 developers in a group of 30) does about the same as struts, and also contains custom tags. It is not configured by ugly xml files though, but 100% based and focussed on JDBC.
The library itself was a relatively small effort, and it pays back because it is totally tailored to our needs. The project is large enough to justify the effort by far, and fitting our needs so perfectly it has paid of many many times already.
I truely have my doubts on high level all encompassing frameworks such as struts. Basic technologies, such as the JDK class library itself, or JSP and servlet API's, or corba or whatever for interprocess communication, of course provide a great benefit and cannot be done without. But above that level, any project of decent size is better of writing their own environment.
Any software DRM mechanism can be and will be circumvented. Thus sooner or later "the industry" will find out and probably bribe lawmakers to mandate hardware DRM (end to end) in all new computers, and new content will only play on such computers with hardware DRM, TCPA etcetera.
At some point of increasing draconian measures, I think the public at large, and therefore also politicians as long as they are still being elected, will have to see the inevitable consequence: the way the media industry works including the concepts of copyrights and distribution, whether you like them or not, just don't work anymore in this age. Unless you want to chance society into a hell of restrictions and lock large fractions of the population away.
In that sense this is a step in the right direction: it simply shows the truth: media content is increasingly easy to copy and distribute, effective protection schemes are hardly possible. Thus the current order of this industry, with rich, mighty distribution and production companies, can no longer be maintained. With a global audience, normal production rate and zero distribution costs, the price per copy (for the consumer) should be much much less than today and still provide enough financing for media content production.
The consequence is: less money for distribution (which is no problem) and also for production. The latter means: less products, especially movies are very expensive today. For music I don't see much changes happening. Movies: yes we will get much less new productions of them, with less expensive effects. So what? So much has already been produced, even with one 10th of todays new production (which might put more emphasis on quality script and play instead of spectacular effects) there is still more than enough to see. Those junkies that don't do much else in their spare time but watching movies and television might finally get a life again.
The parliament overlooked some undesirable effects of the new copyright law one year ago. Then the parliament realized and undid part of the law. The restriction on freely reselling and importing all DVD's shall be lifted on january first 2004.
It is a very small step, but still the first and only positive step I can remember in this area of law.
Yes the Kiss have all the described features. One problem is that they use a sigma decoder chip that is not very powerful. Thus you cannot go fast forward/rewind with picture, and divx 3.11 does not run smoothly.
The Philips DVD 737 uses an own Philips chip with much more power. It does not suffer from such problems.
I believe in modularity. There will always be a market (at least a niche market) of people that do not want a monolithic thing that does it all, but is mediocre at each function.
The ideal solution is available today (I have it): a bluetooth PDA, a cell phone with bluetooth and GPRS (or whatever internet access protocol) and a bluetooth headset.
You leave the phone mostly somehwere in your suitcase or backpack, can use the phone for talking can calling via voice dialling through the bluetooth headset, and can use the PDA for meaningful internet access (the phone's screens are simply too small), for the classic PDA functions or for reading e-books (which also need a better screen than cell phones can give you).
I think maybe in 10 years, when both cell phones and PDA's are so mature that you don't need to replace them every 2-3 years (throwing away the other function as well if its all in one device) it may be the time to put it all into one device and still have the best for each functionality. But that is not the case yet.
Whether at that time the PDA's have added a phone or the phones have added a PDA is quite irrelevant.
As a web application programmer, I very much doubt the use of javascript and other 'advanced' features.
If you are on a local (fast) LAN, you can mostly replace javascript by doing round trips to the server.
One has to resist the idea that nowadays any GUI app must be written as a web app. If HTML won't do, better use some other GUI technology instead of a web app. HTML's statelessness has benefits, but greatly hinders some GUI concepts and requirements. In those cases, your GUI obviously is too complex to be meaningfully implemented as a web app.
I know applets are "out" (and I have never programmed one, I've been using Java for 5 years but exclusively on the server side) but they do have some uses. And, gasp, even stand alone GUI apps might be appropriate in some cases.
The HTML-ification of all GUI's, IMO, often leads to less usable and slower applications. Yes it removes a deployment problem and costs associated with that, but you do pay a price for that.
I think nokia might really be in problems. I'm not using observations from "above", but more from the "ordinary customers" in the street.
A few years ago (holland and switzerland) almost everyone I know bought a nokia phone. They were the only sensible choice for critical and demanding consumers. Nowadays they have been completely replaced in this segment by Sony ericsson. Nokia has lost their technology and marketing advantage. SE has the lightest and smallest phones and/or with most features nowadays.
at the iriver IHP-120. It beats the Ipod in all aspects and has more functions. It plays Ogg too (AFAIK as the only HDD based portable player at this time).
EJB provikes bad database design
on
Bitter EJB
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
EJB uses OO centric ideas, which tend to neglect data modelling. Class modelling is what its all about, data is not at the center.
You see it in the idea of entity beans that encapsulate data, and the higher layer of session beans that encapsulate process (i.e. business logic). It encourages you to not use RDBMS business logic (such as constraints, triggers and a sound datamodel).
Lighter approaches such as the simpler "model-2" servlets, using plain JavaBeans as data access layer much more leads you to put more emphasis IN the database and less in all kinds of layers outside. It leads to simpler and more robust systems with (generally) better thought out datamodels.
Is it really such a big deal that the compiler does a "cat file1.cs file2.cs file3.cs >file.cs" for you?!?
OK, you can close the braces in C# now, in Java you'd have to leave them open. I don't really see the point. And I cannot believe that this might make the difference between a viable migration target or not.
Compared to Java, 1 and 2 are not new. 3 is new, but I don't see the point of it (essentially you can define a class/type in multiple files, but all must be compiled together so it cannot be used to extend existing classes (which would be bad)).
1 is only in the spec stage here, whereas for Java there is already a technology preview, i.e. a more or less working implementation.
2 already exists for a long time in Java, the Java pendant of delegates being an adaptor class, and you can use anonymous classes to do exactly the same that anonymous delegates will provide.
The spec for generics is (as is to be expected) quite complicated, there are more issues to be careful of than one might think at first sight. I really wonder how other.NET languages will deal with this. For VB.NET programmers, using.NET classes implemented using C# generics must be a nightmare. I assume they will extend the other language specs in a similar way, otherwise you would loose the ability to mix languages in.NET.
The result is that VB.NET shall become a complex language too, to the point that most traditional VB programmers have to give up. In that case I wonder, what is the use of alternative languages then?
In various european countries there have been initiatives like this. Very slowly some are catching on. I think it will be widespread and replace credit cards in time.
Terrorists are a subgroup of fanatics, a group that uses TERROR to reach their goals/obsessions.
Linux "zealots", fanatics whatever you name them, do not use terror to reach their goals. W.r.t. fanaticism they may seem alike, but not w.r.t. to the tactics they follow.
Even if one would accuse Linux zealots of illegal actions, that does not make them terrorists yet. Using terror is a subgroup of using illegal methods in general. E.g. stealing and terror are illegal, but stealing is not equal to terror.
So those who call Linux zealots terrorists need to take a dictionary and lookup the meaning of words.
This must be a communist plot to provoke a revolution in the western hemisphere. I have no other explanation. This lead unavoidably to civil war or some kind of insurgence.
Every time when you think the corporate/fascist alliance have all they want in place, they seem to go yet one step further. Note: I am not a communist, not even a socialist (I despise the socialist idea to take away the individuals own responsability and freedom) but I begin to think that Marx was right about some things, a.o. about the unavoidable self destruction of capitalism.
10 years after what looked like the final victory of capitalism, it is becoming clear that it may not have been so final. True madness is going on that must lead to a catastrophe. The greedy bastards are just going one step too far, so far that they'll loose everything (and rightly so).
I know you can get 1 via SDIO, but I don't want to sacrifice the SD expansion slot (i.e. not more memory). 1+2 is important to get a cheap hands free application. Currently I have an SE t610 which works beautifully with bluetooth and voice dialing. Bluetooth is also nice for syncing with computers everywhere without buying extra cables (and is easier of course).
I know bluetooth is viewed differently in the US, but in Europe it is taking off and you won't sell much devices of this kind without it.
Lastly, PalmOS is great for e-book use (I use mine daily as such) but you do need higher resolution for that.
I hope such an all in one devices appears soon; until then, I'll do with my T610 phone + Palm T3 instead.
If you believe in patents, what matters is not if it has been done before, but if it is worthy of patent protection, i.e. it must be non trivial and not something that is so logical that the "invention" is unavoidable.
The problem with prior art is that you do not reward a patent based on a objective judgement if it is a true invention or not, but based on luck: If the first one who happens to think of a new but trivial idea (probably a lot of people think of it in parallel, but one of them writes a bit faster than the others so to say) is a bastard then the rest is out of luck and has to live with a patent situation.
For me, law must not be based on luck or chance, but on objective judgement.
A further problem of course is, how to determine what is trivial and what is not.
Like it or not, SUN has been a driving force behind commercial success for UNIX for a long time. Without SUN, UNIX (and thus also Linux) would have been swept away by others (mainly windows and other closed proprietary midrange operating systems) long ago.
Now, we can only hope and pray that Linux has gained enough commercial credibility to stand on its own feet (together with AIX and HPUX as 2 other remaining serious representatives in the UNIX world). As for the "big iron", that is almost mainframe class servers with partitioning etc. SUN is still in the lead and for many it is either Mainframe (MVS) or SUN. If SUN falls away, it would be a huge loss of reputation for UNIX as a whole, which would damage "us" all, including Linux proponents.
To some of the Linux fanatics I say: look a bit further than you own little server or linux desktop at home. If Linux would "beat" Solaris, at this time it surely would be a "pyrrhus victory", that is this victory would damage and weaken UNIX/Linux as a whole and help more devious competitors.
IBM could take over SUN's role at this time, but IBM's signals never have been so clear. Some parts of IBM sell and UNIX, some even give away some developments such as JFS, though only very tiny amount compared to what SUN has done and given, but other (large) parts of IBM are clearly in the proprietary camp (windows, AS/400 or MVS) and view UNIX as a competitor that must be extinguished. I would not (yet) count on IBM as a reliable ally for the UNIX camp.
Without SUN UNIX would not have been more successful. I was a PhD student around 1990, and at this time it was SUN, HP and IBM fighting for the academic world (giving away cheap workstations etc).
SUN was never alone in the market, they had fierce competition from other UNIX vendors. If SUN was really so bad w.r.t. GUI and API's, then why did they gain most of the marketshare? It was a free market with open competition, so I cannot see how a single company would have been able to do damage to UNIX.
If any, it was the collective vendors that spoilt it, not SUN alone. By the way, do you remember the X11-GUI war between OpenLook (sun) with a good looking and easy to program toolkit and interesting windowing system (News, which is very much like Apples display postscript of today) against the rest of the UNIX world pushing for g*dawful Motif?
In the end SUN was forced to give in. If SUN would have had their way, UNIX on the desktop would have been in a much better shape.
Sun is a coward in this case, not a traitor. Yes they could and should defend against SCO, but instead they are trying to stay out of the line of fire and let IBM solve this issue.
However, given their current problems, I do have some understanding for their cautious approach.
Imagine in a few years time, almost all popular & important Linux apps would have been developed in Mono. Then some lawsuit comes and kind of outlaws this. Suddenly much of Linux application development would be halted, forcing them to rewrite/migrate to another development. Of course this would be an enormous blow to Linux.
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What are you talking about? How does the computing paradigm (from a practical and technical viewpoint) between Linux and UNIX differ? It does not. Both implement almost the same API's, have the same kind of shell/terminal interface and have the same kind of (X-window) GUI.
Linux, like many Unices, have some extensions that are non standard (i.e. proprietary). Linux has some improvements compard to std. unix/posix, but so have AIX, HPUX, Solaris etc. Nothing new or special here.
Most of the other Unices are descendent from the original UNIX, and Linux is not. But this difference is of a more theoretical nature. AIX for example has been so thoroughly modified in the 15 years it exists, that it would be very hard to recognize even a few lines of similar source code. In that sense there is no difference, and the line "unlike Unix..." is an insult to Unix, and consequently to Linux.
Aha, we use NT4 SP6a too. This might be very useful information, I'll try this on monday. Thanks.
In the company where I work (a large bank, 40000 work places) the latest IE security patch caused grave problems with (client certificate authenticated) SSL connections. Many internal applications broke down at random after about 10 minutes. This is costing massive amounts of time and money.
I agree fully, I've done the same though I prefer to call it a "library". A framework sounds so pretentious.
Our library (it was "mine" once but now it is a shared effort of about 4 developers in a group of 30) does about the same as struts, and also contains custom tags. It is not configured by ugly xml files though, but 100% based and focussed on JDBC.
The library itself was a relatively small effort, and it pays back because it is totally tailored to our needs. The project is large enough to justify the effort by far, and fitting our needs so perfectly it has paid of many many times already.
I truely have my doubts on high level all encompassing frameworks such as struts. Basic technologies, such as the JDK class library itself, or JSP and servlet API's, or corba or whatever for interprocess communication, of course provide a great benefit and cannot be done without. But above that level, any project of decent size is better of writing their own environment.
Any software DRM mechanism can be and will be circumvented. Thus sooner or later "the industry" will find out and probably bribe lawmakers to mandate hardware DRM (end to end) in all new computers, and new content will only play on such computers with hardware DRM, TCPA etcetera.
At some point of increasing draconian measures, I think the public at large, and therefore also politicians as long as they are still being elected, will have to see the inevitable consequence: the way the media industry works including the concepts of copyrights and distribution, whether you like them or not, just don't work anymore in this age. Unless you want to chance society into a hell of restrictions and lock large fractions of the population away.
In that sense this is a step in the right direction: it simply shows the truth: media content is increasingly easy to copy and distribute, effective protection schemes are hardly possible. Thus the current order of this industry, with rich, mighty distribution and production companies, can no longer be maintained. With a global audience, normal production rate and zero distribution costs, the price per copy (for the consumer) should be much much less than today and still provide enough financing for media content production.
The consequence is: less money for distribution (which is no problem) and also for production. The latter means: less products, especially movies are very expensive today. For music I don't see much changes happening. Movies: yes we will get much less new productions of them, with less expensive effects. So what? So much has already been produced, even with one 10th of todays new production (which might put more emphasis on quality script and play instead of spectacular effects) there is still more than enough to see. Those junkies that don't do much else in their spare time but watching movies and television might finally get a life again.
The parliament reversed this part.
The parliament overlooked some undesirable effects of the new copyright law one year ago. Then the parliament realized and undid part of the law. The restriction on freely reselling and importing all DVD's shall be lifted on january first 2004.
It is a very small step, but still the first and only positive step I can remember in this area of law.
Yes the Kiss have all the described features. One problem is that they use a sigma decoder chip that is not very powerful. Thus you cannot go fast forward/rewind with picture, and divx 3.11 does not run smoothly.
The Philips DVD 737 uses an own Philips chip with much more power. It does not suffer from such problems.
I believe in modularity. There will always be a market (at least a niche market) of people that do not want a monolithic thing that does it all, but is mediocre at each function.
The ideal solution is available today (I have it): a bluetooth PDA, a cell phone with bluetooth and GPRS (or whatever internet access protocol) and a bluetooth headset.
You leave the phone mostly somehwere in your suitcase or backpack, can use the phone for talking can calling via voice dialling through the bluetooth headset, and can use the PDA for meaningful internet access (the phone's screens are simply too small), for the classic PDA functions or for reading e-books (which also need a better screen than cell phones can give you).
I think maybe in 10 years, when both cell phones and PDA's are so mature that you don't need to replace them every 2-3 years (throwing away the other function as well if its all in one device) it may be the time to put it all into one device and still have the best for each functionality. But that is not the case yet.
Whether at that time the PDA's have added a phone or the phones have added a PDA is quite irrelevant.
As a web application programmer, I very much doubt the use of javascript and other 'advanced' features.
If you are on a local (fast) LAN, you can mostly replace javascript by doing round trips to the server.
One has to resist the idea that nowadays any GUI app must be written as a web app. If HTML won't do, better use some other GUI technology instead of a web app. HTML's statelessness has benefits, but greatly hinders some GUI concepts and requirements. In those cases, your GUI obviously is too complex to be meaningfully implemented as a web app.
I know applets are "out" (and I have never programmed one, I've been using Java for 5 years but exclusively on the server side) but they do have some uses. And, gasp, even stand alone GUI apps might be appropriate in some cases.
The HTML-ification of all GUI's, IMO, often leads to less usable and slower applications. Yes it removes a deployment problem and costs associated with that, but you do pay a price for that.
I think nokia might really be in problems. I'm not using observations from "above", but more from the "ordinary customers" in the street.
A few years ago (holland and switzerland) almost everyone I know bought a nokia phone. They were the only sensible choice for critical and demanding consumers. Nowadays they have been completely replaced in this segment by Sony ericsson. Nokia has lost their technology and marketing advantage. SE has the lightest and smallest phones and/or with most features nowadays.
at the iriver IHP-120. It beats the Ipod in all aspects and has more functions. It plays Ogg too (AFAIK as the only HDD based portable player at this time).
EJB uses OO centric ideas, which tend to neglect data modelling. Class modelling is what its all about, data is not at the center.
You see it in the idea of entity beans that encapsulate data, and the higher layer of session beans that encapsulate process (i.e. business logic). It encourages you to not use RDBMS business logic (such as constraints, triggers and a sound datamodel).
Lighter approaches such as the simpler "model-2" servlets, using plain JavaBeans as data access layer much more leads you to put more emphasis IN the database and less in all kinds of layers outside. It leads to simpler and more robust systems with (generally) better thought out datamodels.
Is it really such a big deal that the compiler does a "cat file1.cs file2.cs file3.cs >file.cs" for you?!?
OK, you can close the braces in C# now, in Java you'd have to leave them open. I don't really see the point. And I cannot believe that this might make the difference between a viable migration target or not.
1. generics
.NET languages will deal with this. For VB.NET programmers, using .NET classes implemented using C# generics must be a nightmare. I assume they will extend the other language specs in a similar way, otherwise you would loose the ability to mix languages in .NET.
2. anonymous delegates
3. partial types
Compared to Java, 1 and 2 are not new. 3 is new, but I don't see the point of it (essentially you can define a class/type in multiple files, but all must be compiled together so it cannot be used to extend existing classes (which would be bad)).
1 is only in the spec stage here, whereas for Java there is already a technology preview, i.e. a more or less working implementation.
2 already exists for a long time in Java, the Java pendant of delegates being an adaptor class, and you can use anonymous classes to do exactly the same that anonymous delegates will provide.
The spec for generics is (as is to be expected) quite complicated, there are more issues to be careful of than one might think at first sight. I really wonder how other
The result is that VB.NET shall become a complex language too, to the point that most traditional VB programmers have to give up. In that case I wonder, what is the use of alternative languages then?
In various european countries there have been initiatives like this. Very slowly some are catching on. I think it will be widespread and replace credit cards in time.
You're confusing fanatics with terrorists here.
Terrorists are a subgroup of fanatics, a group that uses TERROR to reach their goals/obsessions.
Linux "zealots", fanatics whatever you name them, do not use terror to reach their goals. W.r.t. fanaticism they may seem alike, but not w.r.t. to the tactics they follow.
Even if one would accuse Linux zealots of illegal actions, that does not make them terrorists yet. Using terror is a subgroup of using illegal methods in general. E.g. stealing and terror are illegal, but stealing is not equal to terror.
So those who call Linux zealots terrorists need to take a dictionary and lookup the meaning of words.
This must be a communist plot to provoke a revolution in the western hemisphere. I have no other explanation. This lead unavoidably to civil war or some kind of insurgence.
Every time when you think the corporate/fascist alliance have all they want in place, they seem to go yet one step further. Note: I am not a communist, not even a socialist (I despise the socialist idea to take away the individuals own responsability and freedom) but I begin to think that Marx was right about some things, a.o. about the unavoidable self destruction of capitalism.
10 years after what looked like the final victory of capitalism, it is becoming clear that it may not have been so final. True madness is going on that must lead to a catastrophe. The greedy bastards are just going one step too far, so far that they'll loose everything (and rightly so).
This story (and others in this thread) makes me think. It makes buying software ever more risky than I thought.
It might be very beneficial for free software.
1 bluetooth
2 voice dialing
3 320x320 resolution
I know you can get 1 via SDIO, but I don't want to sacrifice the SD expansion slot (i.e. not more memory). 1+2 is important to get a cheap hands free application. Currently I have an SE t610 which works beautifully with bluetooth and voice dialing. Bluetooth is also nice for syncing with computers everywhere without buying extra cables (and is easier of course).
I know bluetooth is viewed differently in the US, but in Europe it is taking off and you won't sell much devices of this kind without it.
Lastly, PalmOS is great for e-book use (I use mine daily as such) but you do need higher resolution for that.
I hope such an all in one devices appears soon; until then, I'll do with my T610 phone + Palm T3 instead.
Maybe for you, but not for me. For me UNIX/Linux is a "way of live".
Even if UNIX was closed and Windows was open and free I would not touch it.
Windows is ugly and unestetical (from an internal and API point of view), whereas UNIX is elegant and beautiful. That is what matters.
If you believe in patents, what matters is not if it has been done before, but if it is worthy of patent protection, i.e. it must be non trivial and not something that is so logical that the "invention" is unavoidable.
The problem with prior art is that you do not reward a patent based on a objective judgement if it is a true invention or not, but based on luck: If the first one who happens to think of a new but trivial idea (probably a lot of people think of it in parallel, but one of them writes a bit faster than the others so to say) is a bastard then the rest is out of luck and has to live with a patent situation.
For me, law must not be based on luck or chance, but on objective judgement.
A further problem of course is, how to determine what is trivial and what is not.
Like it or not, SUN has been a driving force behind commercial success for UNIX for a long time. Without SUN, UNIX (and thus also Linux) would have been swept away by others (mainly windows and other closed proprietary midrange operating systems) long ago.
Now, we can only hope and pray that Linux has gained enough commercial credibility to stand on its own feet (together with AIX and HPUX as 2 other remaining serious representatives in the UNIX world). As for the "big iron", that is almost mainframe class servers with partitioning etc. SUN is still in the lead and for many it is either Mainframe (MVS) or SUN. If SUN falls away, it would be a huge loss of reputation for UNIX as a whole, which would damage "us" all, including Linux proponents.
To some of the Linux fanatics I say: look a bit further than you own little server or linux desktop at home. If Linux would "beat" Solaris, at this time it surely would be a "pyrrhus victory", that is this victory would damage and weaken UNIX/Linux as a whole and help more devious competitors.
IBM could take over SUN's role at this time, but IBM's signals never have been so clear. Some parts of IBM sell and UNIX, some even give away some developments such as JFS, though only very tiny amount compared to what SUN has done and given, but other (large) parts of IBM are clearly in the proprietary camp (windows, AS/400 or MVS) and view UNIX as a competitor that must be extinguished. I would not (yet) count on IBM as a reliable ally for the UNIX camp.
Without SUN UNIX would not have been more successful. I was a PhD student around 1990, and at this time it was SUN, HP and IBM fighting for the academic world (giving away cheap workstations etc).
SUN was never alone in the market, they had fierce competition from other UNIX vendors. If SUN was really so bad w.r.t. GUI and API's, then why did they gain most of the marketshare? It was a free market with open competition, so I cannot see how a single company would have been able to do damage to UNIX.
If any, it was the collective vendors that spoilt it, not SUN alone. By the way, do you remember the X11-GUI war between OpenLook (sun) with a good looking and easy to program toolkit and interesting windowing system (News, which is very much like Apples display postscript of today) against the rest of the UNIX world pushing for g*dawful Motif?
In the end SUN was forced to give in. If SUN would have had their way, UNIX on the desktop would have been in a much better shape.
Sun is a coward in this case, not a traitor. Yes they could and should defend against SCO, but instead they are trying to stay out of the line of fire and let IBM solve this issue.
However, given their current problems, I do have some understanding for their cautious approach.
Imagine in a few years time, almost all popular & important Linux apps would have been developed in Mono. Then some lawsuit comes and kind of outlaws this. Suddenly much of Linux application development would be halted, forcing them to rewrite/migrate to another development. Of course this would be an enormous blow to Linux.