Mono: Shielding the facts

By Sam Varghese
Sunday, 21 June 2009 23:13

Technology

Should FOSS users be concerned about the software they use, in case it opens them up to copyright, trademark or patent claims? Or should such concerns be left exclusively to developers?
One would think that in the case of FOSS, the user is as much a player as the developer. After all, when Richard Matthew Stallman kicked off the whole free software movement in the 1980s, he had the user at the centre of his movement.
 
But if one were to believe Jo Shields, a Mono advocate, the user should merely shut his or her mouth and just use whatever is created.

In what one can only term breathtaking arrogance, Shields had this to say in an essay advocating the use of Mono: "... the vast majority of the anti-Mono crowd are not developers or packagers - they are back-seat drivers. They make proclamations about how other developers (who are surrendering their time to developer Free Software) should instead use the framework of THEIR choice, not the developer's. This is another reason why anti-Mono arguments are given so little respect - the sheer cheek, the PRESUMPTION that they somehow are in a position to make demands of other developers, is galling. Free Software is a meritocracy - those who do things earn respect. Until the anti-Mono crowd actually make a contribution to Free Software, they will continue to be treated as cranks - and their questions left unanswered."
 
(Before I go any further, for the uninitiated, Mono is an attempt by Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza to create an open source clone of Microsoft's .NET development environment.)

So, according to Shields, users, who by their very utilisation of FOSS serve as a testing ground for the efforts of FOSS creators, should button their lips and just use any software that is provided with a GNU/Linux distribution.

Those who publicise the work and efforts of FOSS people - why, they should just shut the hell up as well. Developers are gods who should be left to their own devices. If they choose to use tools that are likely to get you into patent problems down the line - just STFU.

The quote above is from a guest essay which was published on Linux Today.

Like many others who go in to bat for Mono, there's a lot of intellectual dishonesty in Shields' arguments. There are half-truths scattered all over the place.

CONTINUED