Mono: Why is Debian resorting to spin?

Sam Varghese
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 07:36

Opinion and Analysis

Gone are the days when the Debian GNU/Linux Project had a spokesman whose utterances could be taken at face value.
The man I encountered on several occasions, right from 2003 until last year, was the plain-spoken Martin "Joey" Schulze. Today things seem to be somewhat different.

Last month, a story appeared in these columns about the fact that Debian may include Mono in its default install. It was prompted by a post made by Robert Millan, a Debian developer, to the effect that another developer, Josselin Mouette, had apparently decided that Mono should be part of the default installation for the next Debian release, Squeeze.

Mouette, it may be recalled, is the developer who had posted what were considered sexist posts to the Debian project mailing list meant for important announcements for developers.

(Mono is an open source implementation of parts of Microsoft's .NET development environment; many sections of the FOSS community fear that Mono may prove to be a patent trap down the line as .NET is totally Microsoft technology. Recent statements have done little to dispel this impression.)

I asked the Debian leader Steve McIntyre a few queries about the Mono change and he, as always, sent back straightforward replies. McIntyre, I may add, has always been open and upfront in dealing with iTWire.

But after Free Software Foundation chief Richard Stallman called the Debian move risky - he based the statement on the inference that a decision on including Mono in the Debian default install had already been taken - Debian spokesman Alexander Reichle-Schmehl decided that the project had to speak up and did so by trying to explain things through a post on his blog.

Unfortunately, his statement contained some spin and also a number of errors. Reichle-Schmehl had to then write a second, much longer statement, explaining things all over again.

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