Mono developer uses f-word to abuse RMS

By Sam Varghese
Friday, 03 July 2009 22:09

Opinion and Analysis

Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza's Mono project has the ability to attract the right kind of developer to its ranks. The most recent recruit to link hands with De Icaza and Mono advocate Jo Shields is an Indian student, Anirudh Sanjeev, who has proudly advertised his admission to these ranks by insulting Free Software Foundation chief Richard Stallman in the foulest of terms.

Stallman posted a short piece titled "Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono and C#" on the FSF website on June 26; many news outlets, including iTWire, picked up his comments and wrote about them, as they were made by a man who knows exactly what he is talking about.

But, unlike Stallman and every other person who has commented on the Mono project recently, Sanjeev developed cold feet soon after he had posted a poorly written, ungrammatical rant on his own blog, with the heading "F*** (expletive deleted) you Richard Stallman and other GNU trolls."

He had proudly advertised himself as a Microsoft intern as well, not the wisest thing to do in the circumstances. What he didn't specify was that he has the courage of a chicken. A very little chicken.

The great author has now crawled back to the hole which he normally occupies and after, first retitling his post "On Mono and the GPL", has now, in total retreat, deleted it. (His blog itself is titled Thought Outflux, the latter an archaic word that few use.) 

His bravado is gone, his bluster is silenced, and he is now making mea culpas and genuflecting in every direction. He is doing everything but kissing people's feet as he realises that even Microsoft, his employer, a convicted monopolist, does not indulge in vile abuse of this nature in public when it comes to open source.

Sanjeev justifies his childish petulance and rank ignorance by claiming that it grew out of the fact that he wanted to use a GPLed library in his MIT/X11 licensed code and couldn't due to the licensing restrictions. Anyone who finds fault with little Sanjeev - why, he calls them nitpickers. Mustn't find fault with the poor little college boy, must we?

De Icaza and Shields must truly be proud of the kind of person they inspire.