In the professional Linux community, almost everyone views Mono-haters as nutters/trolls. If you have real concerns about Mono, I suggest that you contact Miguel de Icaza directly.
Well, I am professional and I see Miguel De Icaza as Microsoft zealot and nutter/troll. Person that is "psyched" (see http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/open-source-guru-... )about Nokia going Wp7 can't give unbiased opinion about anything connected to Micorosft, especially anything that he is actively pushing... and he pushes .NET more than Mono these days.
That's where I stopped reading, but I'll say this: Nowhere in the FSF's critique of the MCP is it mentioned whether or not the promise itself is legally binding. From a bunch of people who are supposed to be legal experts. What does that tell you?
Whether this "Promise" is actually worth much depends on much more than just the question of its legal legitimacy, as you'd have learned if you actually bothered to read the articles.
But, as far as that particular issue is concerned, as the techrights article points out,
"It may become legally binding ... if used as a challenge in court. But of course it does actually need to be tested in court /first/."
Yes well, I could have used the same argument against the GPL back in the day. And really, I don't need to read through an article by someone who declared the Mono project "dead" a few months ago because he couldn't find the SVN repository. Or spams Reddit endlessly. Not to mention the years of insults and ideological attacks on various FOSS people.
In any case, you might want to look up the legal term estoppel.
Mono pushers keep repeating estoppel meme but nobody ever explained how estoppel would apply to Mono. Microsoft never promised anything more than ECMA spec. They made clear they are not giving anything more. Yet, we know that even basic bits of Mono overstep ECMA http://www.the-source.com/2010/12/more-mono-misinformation-m...
So please stop repeating estoppel meme, it is nonsense. Also, attacking all people who show the world truth about Mono shows you have no arguments. Reddit was spammed by Mono pushers who were impersonating other people.
I did a search on techrights.org of your username and it seems you're one of the regulars there. I guess paranoia pays off sometimes. The "gnosis" account that posted on this same thread is a, um, friend of yours, I take it?
In any case, sorry, but I'm not going to argue this issue with the likes of you. You may have a point somewhere, perhaps, but anyone associated with that blog has about as much credibility vis-a-vis Mono as Rush Limbaugh does when he talks about... well, anything. I bid you adieu sir. Good luck.
So? What if I visit techrights regularly? If you asked me I would tell you that. I go there because it is good site with well researched information, and if you were less pro-mono biased you would recognize that.
I don't know who "gnosis" is, first saw that nick.
Anyways, if you need to attack people and make this kind of nonsense, it means you have no arguments whatsoever, so you just do what rabid Mono pushers always do: character assassination and libeling of every critic, with heavy use of all kind of fallacies.
"Argumentum ad Hominem: the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."
You cited a site that routinely makes claims either without citing sources, or with cites to sources that contradict those claims. To a large part, it appears to simply make up stuff, and does not issue corrections when its errors are pointed out.
Citing Boycott Novell about software (or about anything, actually) is about equivalent of citing your Astrologer in a science argument.
Your character wasn't attacked, your credibility was. It's perfectly legitimate to question your credibility if the questioner believes your source to be biased.
An ad Hominem attack would be calling you stupid for linking the biased source. That didn't happen.
The ad hominem was made against techrights, not against me.
I didn't even make an argument. I just linked to a few articles that criticized Microsoft's "Promise".
Did tsz address the substance of techrights' argument? No. He just smeared them by implying that merely citing an article by them would make me lose credibility.
That is a perfect example of an ad hominem.
Attacking me was more of a case of shooting the messenger.
If you do a Google site search on that blog you'll see that the term 'smear' is used endlessly and quite carelessly by the author. It's interesting to see that you use it in the same way - and like the author I don't think you understand very well what the term means. I sure hope "gnosis" isn't one of the various aliases the guy allegedly uses across the internet, including on Slashdot where he became a bit of a legend for maintaining dozens of them.
I don't think I have to point out that this is yet another ad hominem.
But, be that as it may, I'll just say that yesterday was the first day I've even heard of techrights, when I found their site through a google search.
And, honestly, I don't even care much about Mono. I'm just very suspicious of anything originating from Microsoft, and the techrights and FSF articles support these (well founded) suspicions.
Instead of dancing in circles, please look at the contact information I posted above. Miguel de Icaza is a good guy. I am certain he will answer any questions you might have.
...The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. ... This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it...
It seems as if they are passing off wild speculation as inevitable fact. What is to prevent MS from using its portfolio of patents on any given project? Is a free C# implementation infringing on more patents? The supporting links just looked like general anti-patent pages.
http://techrights.org/2009/07/09/community-promise-sham/
and
http://www.fsf.org/news/2009-07-mscp-mono
and of Mono in general:
http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono