

Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C# - aj
http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

======
drewcrawford
This is absolutely absurd on its face. Far from facing patent problems, the
only interaction Microsoft and Mono has had is for Microsoft to officially
support Mono/Moonlight as the official Linux silverlight client.

Jo Shields wrote an excellent rant a few months ago that completely destroys
the patent argument (among other things):
<http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/>

If RMS was being ideologically sound, he would oppose the use of C/C++, on
which patents are held by the convicted monopolist AT&T. Instead, he only
opposes languages like C# and Java, the success of which poses a credible
threat to the vast quantity of C/C++ code the FSF controls.

For those of you who don't know, C# is an EMCA and ISO standard, protected by
numerous pledges not to sue, and the use in question is a Debian desktop app
to expand and promote Debian Linux as a viable desktop platform; everything is
100% free software all the way down. By RMS's own purported ideological views,
this is a great thing.

All I can say is, it feels like I'm trapped in a dreamworld where somehow RMS
and MS have switched places; now MS is pushing open standards, and RMS is
railing against them and spreading FUD. WTF?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Why would you expect Java to be supported by RMS and the FSF before it was
fully open sourced? That's fairly basic to their worldview. Throwing out
absurd accusations about them trying to protect C/C++ makes you seem a bit
partisan on this issue.

~~~
Retric
It's one thing to complain before gcc.gnu.org/java/, kaffe.org, etc showed up.
However, once there is an open source compiler and JVM it's time to complain
about something else.

~~~
jrockway
The standard library?

------
yungchin
As I told a buddy earlier, the piece is below RMS' usual standard: "This is a
serious danger, and only fools would ignore it" - poisoning the well rather
than arguing the case properly...

~~~
evdawg
_This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C#
implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which
is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called
Portable.NET.)_

I don't get it. Why is the GNU Project developing their own C# implementation
but is seemingly anti-Mono? Hypocritical much? They want to discourage the use
of C#... so they're developing their own C# suite? Doesn't make sense to me.

Question to those who may know: If C# is an ECMA standard, how can Microsoft
shut down C# implementations legally? Aren't ECMA standards free for all to
use?

~~~
darshan
According to the Wikipedia page on DotGNU [
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotGNU> ], Mono doesn't just aim to by compliant
with the Common Language Specification, but to maintain compatibility with
.NET releases as they come out. DotGNU, on the other hand, is only concerned
with implementing the standard. So, at least in theory, Mono could get into
trouble where DotGNU wouldn't.

Still, this isn't making a lot of sense. My understanding is that Microsoft
has been very helpful to the Mono project. But what really gets me is "it's a
really good thing to have free implementations of C# but a really bad thing to
use them..."

~~~
ori_b
I would guess what he means is "It's good to be able to use the existing open
source C# software, but please don't write any more of it"

------
nanexcool
Stallman thinks he lives in a black and white world, when in reality it's all
shades of gray. His zealotry is getting tiresome (for me).

~~~
jackowayed
I agree with that, (he believes all software should have to be open-source, I
believe) but I also agree with this post.

This post is not saying "we shouldn't make anything relying on any non-free
software because all software should be free software." It's a pragmatic post
saying, "look, it's likely that all of the man-years going into C# free
software will be lost when we can't run that software on our machines. So
write it in something that we'll be able to use on Unix forever." If someone
chose a proprietary framework with official implementations on Unix systems,
this post wouldn't say that those are bad as well.

~~~
profquail
One cool thing about C# (and the .NET platform in general) is the ability to
translate your code into another programming language (aside from some
possibly incompatible differences in programming languages). So there's really
not much stopping anyone from writing a C# to Java converter that would handle
a decent chunk of the porting (so you wouldn't lose any software), and then
you could just fix up the minor stuff yourself.

For an example, check out the .NET reflector. By default, it lets you convert
between C#, VB.NET, (Managed) C++, and CIL. You can also get plugins for
IronPython and so forth.

<http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/> (it's free)

~~~
scscsc
The ability to translate between two programming languages is called a
compiler. There is theoretically nothing stopping anyone from writing a
anything-to-anything "converter" (you mean compiler).

~~~
stevecooperorg
No, the right word is translator. A compiler generally creates a form
optimised for execution, like machine code or bytecodes. A translator creates
source code files from other source code files.

The program the poster was referring to is actually a disassembler, taking
Microsoft IL (assembly for the virtual machine) and converting it to a .Net
language. So you might;

\- compile C# to Microsoft IL \- decompile the IL back to IronPython \- use
that as the basis of a CPython version.

~~~
scscsc
I do not want to enter a dispute concerning naming, but I'll just point out
that many consider a compiler to be anything that you might call translator.
What would you call a program that transforms C code in assembler code? Isn't
assembler code source code?

------
ajb
A few days back I read the story of 'The Tiger and the Traveller' from the
Hitopadesha: <http://tinyurl.com/kqsw39> . My first thought was 'That's
microsoft !'

That story is very short, the Hitopadesha is much longer (it's a collection of
tales, a bit like Aesop's Fables which are more well-known in the west.

It's set up as a morality play, but it occurs to me that there is a certain
amount of market wisdom embedded in such tales too. Maybe they contribute to
the success of Indians as traders (if that isn't just a stereotype?)

------
jasonkester
This marks the second time that I've read an article linked on Hacker News,
come away with the impression that it was written by a raving lunatic
conspiracy theorist, followed the "comments" here, and discovered that it was
written by this same author.

Has anybody else here had the same experience?

This confirms to me that I don't have any personal bias against this guy
(since I'm reading his articles blind). I just can't find any common ground
from which to empathize with anything he has yet written. He's somewhat well
known, is he not? Is all of his writing like this?

~~~
j_baker
Yup. Pretty much.

------
chrisbennet
Why isn't he afraid that AT&T will excercise patents on C? RMS sounds like he
is blinded by hatred of Microsoft.

~~~
patcito
Because C is so old that all those patents have already expired?

------
sharjeel
Is Free Software Foundation all about "no", "don't", "shouldn't" etc ?

------
dimarco
Is Tomboy the only application that uses Mono?[On a default installation] That
seems a bit extreme to include the Mono framework just for a notepad.

~~~
ubernostrum
Of course, there's a chicken/egg thing here. Might as well say "it seems a bit
extreme to include Python" just because the occasional app is written with
PyGTK, for example.

There are plenty of folks writing applications in C# using the GTK bindings,
which in turn need Mono. Tomboy is just one that's become popular enough that
people want it to ship as part of Debian's distribution of GNOME (not the only
one; IIRC there are three apps in there now which need Mono). So sooner or
later somebody's gotta ship it by default to support an application, and then
folks who don't have religious attachments to avoiding Mono will think it's no
more unusual than any other shared dependency of commonly-used applications.

------
shimi
The negativity in this article isn't necessary. I like C# I would want to say
that the more Linux / Unix C# code will be written maybe and just maybe it
will get MS to write an open source .NET framework not just for windows.
That's the words I want to read

------
swaroop
Does RMS support usage of Java?

If yes, are there no threats there? If no, have they given any thought to
having an official recommendation for new GUI (GNU) projects, at least a
language with garbage collection.

~~~
jrockway
Regarding Java: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html>

As for writing GUIs, how about Perl/Ruby/Python/Lua/... + GTK?

~~~
swaroop
Well, if Java is under the GPL now, why doesn't FSF actively promote Java for
their projects?

~~~
j_baker
I could be wrong, but I don't believe Java is GPL'ed.

------
jsz0
I wish he'd spend his time on more constructive and realistic concerns instead
of dreaming up doomsday scenarios and generally sounding like a zealot bent on
destroying any chance of Linux having a mainstream future on the desktop. How
about:

"Therefore, we should not include any obnoxious orange and bathroom brown
colored themes in the default installation of GNU/Linux distributions"

I could get down with that one.

~~~
dtf
The word on the street is that Karmic will lose the brown.

------
fatdog789
Microsoft is estopped by law from asserting patents on C#. That's one of the
benefits of submitting specifications to a standards-granting organization.

The EFF should know this, but then again, having seen some of their legal work
in the past, I'm surprised that they ever manage to win a case.

 _Edit_ Estoppel is a legal doctrine (which applies to most areas of law),
which means that MS has performed certain actions (in this case, submitting
the C# specification to the standards body) which would cause 3rd parties to
reasonably assume that MS is waiving (patent) protections (or other legal
rights in the matter at issue).

