Despite earlier reassurances that Mono would never taint Fedora, it would seem that Mono has now poisoned the Fedora tree to a surprising extent. I can't say I'm very happy about Microsoft's patented, sour-grapes, anti-Java technology infiltrating a supposedly Free Community GNU/Linux distro in this way.
I’ve just completed an audit of Fedora Core 6, and this is the full list of mono dependants and sub-dependants, excluding doc, devel, debug, multi-arch and third-party repo packages:
avahi-sharp, banshee, beagle, beagle-evolution, beagle-gui, boo, bytefx-data-mysql, cowbell, daap-sharp, db4o, dbus-sharp, drapes, evolution-sharp, f-spot, gecko-sharp2, gmime-sharp, gnome-sharp, gsf-sharp, gtk-sharp, gtk-sharp2, gtk-sharp-gapi, gtksourceview-sharp, ibm-data-db2, ikvm, kerry, lat, mod_mono, mono-data, mono-data-firebird, mono-data-oracle, mono-data-postgresql, mono-data-sqlite, mono-data-sybase, mono-debugger, monodevelop, monodoc, mono-extras, mono-jscript, mono-locale-extras, mono-nunit, mono-web, mono-winforms, muine, nant, njb-sharp, tomboy, xsp.
Including mono-core itself, that makes a total of 48 packages.
Presumably Fedora 7 has the same number, or greater. I’ll do a similar audit on F7 later.
Comments
I see. Thanks for your explanation.
It's a pitty because I know some of the Mono developers and they have the free software spirit.
Best regards.
Hi!
Isn't it Mono open source? Why you call thisan infectation? In what way Mono is a threat to Fedora?
Best regards.
Mono is tainted by Microsoft patents, for which Microsoft has only made assurances of "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND)" conditions, not a patent grant:
http://www.redmonk.com/public/mono_cc_licensed.pdf
Bruce Perens has publicly stated that he feels that using and developing under the Mono framework is an unacceptable risk, with little guarantee that Microsoft won't simply change its policy and become a patent troll over the issue. Given Ballmer's recent patent threats, that sentiment seems to be well founded.
http://media.slated.org/albums/userpics/ITC_OM-BrucePerens-2007_03_26.ogg
http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2005/02/17/state-of-open-source/
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9945
http://osc.gigavox.com/shows/detail1767.html