no mono by default

[garba]

just curious, what do you think about this spec?

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/No-Mono-by-Default

[bobbocanfly]

I support it. F-Spot and Tomboy aren't exactly the most used applications and could be easily replaced by better alternatives (Zim for notes etc.). Also with all the rubbish Microsoft is coming out with about Patents, the last thing anyone needs is a lawsuit stealing all of Canonicals funds.

[saulgoode]

I agree with the points presented. No animosity towards the Mono project's developers but it is not a good solution for FLOSS.

I do, however, think the memory savings issue (48Mb, uncompressed) is less important than whatever (compressed) space the package occupies on the distribution CDs.

[Lster]

I don't use either application, so I would quite like it removed, but I feel others may object. Rather, I would prefer an option in the installer that asks you what applications you would like to install. A simple list where you can select the packages you want could save disk space and installation time (I would guess?). That would keep (just about) everyone happy.

[K.Mandla]

Mono feels creepy to me. I'd be a fan of losing it. I don't know much about it aside from what I read on Wikipedia, but I just get that dirty feeling like I used to have back when I used Windows.

[smartboyathome]

just curious, what do you think about this spec?

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/No-Mono-by-Default

I don't think the reasons for taking mono out are good enough, and let me explain why.

It has NEVER broken a single patent, and the project is very careful about that. I think that this is just an argument by people who want to purge microsoft from Linux.

Mono is not a bad language for the reasons you give. If Microsoft decides to expand on .NET, then let them, and Mono will take over the stuff Microsoft abandoned (thus allowing for compatibility with old programs), and start in on the new stuff. I quote from Mono's FAQ:

What is the difference between Mono and the .NET Initiative?
The ".NET Initiative" is a somewhat nebulous company-wide effort by Microsoft, one part of which is a cross-platform development framework. Mono is an implementation of the development framework, but not an implementation of anything else related to the .NET Initiative, such as Passport or software-as-a-service.

So you see that Mono is NOT the Mono standard, but the development framework. It also doesn't make a dependancy on a bad competitor unless Novell became a bad competitior, because Mono is not part of Microsoft in any way, the only connection being they develop a framework which Microsoft uses. If it is provided on the desktop CD, more SOFTWARE will be migrating from Windows to Linux, as it will be cheaper to develop.

It will also not take much less space on the CD, 48.6 mbs compressed is not very much compaired to the whole install of a CD (which is around 2 GB).

Overall, this is nonesense. People just want to purge Microsoft from Ubuntu, it sounds like. I really think this should be made for Gobuntu instead.

[Solver]

As an alternative perspective, you can say this is just anti-Microsoft sentiment and fearmongering. First, to get it out of the way, Mono hasn't been shown to infringe on any patents so far, and Microsoft hasn't complained, either.

Now, I firmly believe that what's important for the growing popularity of Linux/Ubuntu are primarily practical, not ideological, considerations. If you're talking about getting Ubuntu "on the desktop" and moving average users to it, you have to realize that the average user won't care too much about the ideology behind the software and all that. The average user cares about software quality. Even many Linux geeks care about software quality above the ideological issues.

And that's the important part for Mono. Mono allows the creation of quality software just because .NET/Mono are powerful platforms and fairly easy to code for. I only started really developing something for .NET last year but I was immediately pleasantly surprised to see how much easier it sometimes is than Visual C++ with MFC that I had used before for some applications. This is not to say that all applications should be written for .NET on Windows or Mono on Linux - choosing the right tool and development environment is highly important. But there are applications that are good to develop for these platforms.

[fwilliams]

I do not see why people insist on leaving it in by default. I am not opposed to people using it, I just do not want it installed by default.

It will always lag behind .NET and there are better cross-platform languages out there. If people want to code .NET and use .NET then use Windows!

How about silver light? An application written with .NET being ported to mono that has patented code purchased by Microsoft so it can be included. Is that OK also? How many of these mono applications are going to have similar issues?

Please do not include mono by default.

I like Ubuntu very much and would prefer not to find another distribution.

If Ubuntu decides to keep mono, please recommend a Debian based distribution with Gnome. Thanks.

[maniacmusician]

I don't think the reasons for taking mono out are good enough, and let me explain why.

It has NEVER broken a single patent, and the project is very careful about that. I think that this is just an argument by people who want to purge microsoft from Linux.

Mono is not a bad language for the reasons you give. If Microsoft decides to expand on .NET, then let them, and Mono will take over the stuff Microsoft abandoned (thus allowing for compatibility with old programs), and start in on the new stuff. I quote from Mono's FAQ:

So you see that Mono is NOT the Mono standard, but the development framework. It also doesn't make a dependancy on a bad competitor unless Novell became a bad competitior, because Mono is not part of Microsoft in any way, the only connection being they develop a framework which Microsoft uses. If it is provided on the desktop CD, more SOFTWARE will be migrating from Windows to Linux, as it will be cheaper to develop.

It will also not take much less space on the CD, 48.6 mbs compressed is not very much compaired to the whole install of a CD (which is around 2 GB).

Overall, this is nonesense. People just want to purge Microsoft from Ubuntu, it sounds like. I really think this should be made for Gobuntu instead.

Ditto, good post.

[igknighted]

I don't think the reasons for taking mono out are good enough, and let me explain why.

It has NEVER broken a single patent, and the project is very careful about that. I think that this is just an argument by people who want to purge microsoft from Linux.

Mono is not a bad language for the reasons you give. If Microsoft decides to expand on .NET, then let them, and Mono will take over the stuff Microsoft abandoned (thus allowing for compatibility with old programs), and start in on the new stuff. I quote from Mono's FAQ:

So you see that Mono is NOT the Mono standard, but the development framework. It also doesn't make a dependancy on a bad competitor unless Novell became a bad competitior, because Mono is not part of Microsoft in any way, the only connection being they develop a framework which Microsoft uses. If it is provided on the desktop CD, more SOFTWARE will be migrating from Windows to Linux, as it will be cheaper to develop.

It will also not take much less space on the CD, 48.6 mbs compressed is not very much compaired to the whole install of a CD (which is around 2 GB).

Overall, this is nonesense. People just want to purge Microsoft from Ubuntu, it sounds like. I really think this should be made for Gobuntu instead.

Great points. I agree with you that this might get railroaded out simply because of an irrational fear/hate of everything related to microsoft. Microsoft supports mono for pete's sake (moonlight anyone?)!

All that said, I think there are some very reasonable reasons to avoid mono on Ubuntu, and that is the preponderance of apps written in python/GTK. Everything else in Ubuntu is already python, so to add the mono libraries just for a couple apps may not be the best use of space. This is assuming you can find a good photo management app to replace fspot (nothing comes to mind).