Talk:Mono (software)

Ground rules: The purpose of talk pages is to facilitate discussion. This can only happen if people show some minimal courtesy, including treating each other with civility and respecting each other's opinions. Truly exceptional circumstances aside, nobody should need to make any substantive edits to another user's comments. Removal of comments, bad-faith editing, incivility, trolling, etc. will not be tolerated. Ignore these rules at your own peril. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 05:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no section on the critisizms of the Mono framework? Not just the patents but complaints from the MS camp about poor implimentation. I know there are such complaints, but I don't code so I cant talk!

Proprietary open source

User:85.140.83.108 reintroduced the "proprietary open source" expression again.

So I did a little bit of research. He created a page with the expression "proprietary open source" on November 20, an expression which is not only an oxymoron, but is intended to hurt Mono's image by adding a negative connocation to it. The sole purpose of the page was to associate it with Mono, as can be seen by the fact that the only two pages that linked to it (up to January 19th 2006) were the Mono page and the .NET page when referencing Mono.

The IP for 83.237.108.102 and 85.140.83.108 belong to the same person, he goes by the nickname "krokas" on irc (this can be found by googling for his ip addresses) and he is involved in the development of a competing project (dotgnu). Krokas has used the expression "proprietary open source" a number of times on their irc channel. The only other mention of the term "proprietary open source" on the web has a different connotation and was used by Bruce Perens when refering to the subscription and support models that are provided to customers purchasing the software (and is in no way related to the actual contents of the actual page Mr Krokas created).

This practice Mr Krokas dislikes so much is often refered as Dual license, and the Wikipedia article on the subject is not politicized by the desire to promote one project over another.

Other projects that have commercial backing and require copyright assignment have not received the continuous flood of edits from Mr Krokas: OpenOffice, MySQL, Qt, Berkeley DB and other projects that use dual licensing to fund the open source development (The page Dual license has more projects).

For User:83.237.108.102: please stop this edit war; let's discuss here or in my talk page, please. No, Mono is definitely not proprietary, even if its development is leaded by a commercial company. You can say that it's commercial free software since it's presumably written (also) for a profit, but its license makes it inequivocably free sofware and open source. For another example of commercial free software I invite you to see GNAT; also many developers of GCC are paid, but this doesn't make the compiler proprietary. The same holds for many RedHat tools. --positron 13:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User:83.237.108.102 doesn't seem to answer, so I'll do that instead. Mono's licensening FAQ (http://mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing) says:

"When a developer contributes code to the C# compiler or the Mono runtime engine, we require that the author grants Novell the right to relicense his/her contribution under other licensing terms.

This allows Novell to re-distribute the Mono source code to parties that might not want to use the GPL or LGPL versions of the code.

Particularly embedded system vendors obtain grants to the Mono runtime engine and modify it for their own purposes without having to release those changes back. "

Mono is commercial, yes. Mono is open source, yes. BUT Novell can decide to give you a version of Mono where you do not need to distribute the changes back (Which probably cost some $) . For me that sounds like you can get a proprietary version of Mono. - David Björklund (talk) 01:30, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The project can be either open source or not. If it is released under the open source license (GPL, LGPL and so on), it is the open source project, even if written by the devil himself. If there are any additional restrictions, or the license is specific, it probably is not. I downloaded the Mono sources, they contain the file Copying.lib with the text of LGPL. To be completely sure, it would be good to check if it builds. Novell is doing something very strange by not saying nothing direct about the license in the main homepage, but there is unlinked [1] that states all licenses are open source. Audriusa

Changed text so that it now mention the licensing of all different parts of Mono. There are quite a lot of open source projects that are, more or less, only driven by one company. The proprietary open source nature about Mono is because it's availible both under open source licenses and a proprietary.- David Björklund (talk) 13:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Portable.NET project: patents and licensing.

Hi User:83.237.60.214. I reverted your edits (twice) about Portable.NET and the patents and licensing. Mono could have problems with licensing and patents, but to this day - nothing has happend. Also, the article has a section discussing the patents and licensing.

Your addition is an opinion more than facts. - David Björklund (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David Björklund. "Mono could have problems with licensing and patents, but to this day - nothing has happend." Doesn't that sound like a problem with licensing and patents? I think this should be said in a way or another. As the Portable .NET project is developed it a way that it doesn't have those problems at all - then it makes a difference? And then there is the part about why patents it is not a problem for Mono, doesn't this point that the licensing and patents are actually a problem for Mono development?

No. That sounds like they could have problems with licensing and patents - not that they have problems. Also I'd like to know how why (some sources) Portable.NET won't have any problems at all - it cover system forms, one of the problematic parts.- David Björklund (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is not wether Portable.NET or Mono "could" have problems, the question is which project is using a license that makes IP claims an actual problem. I have emailed a Portable.NET developer, he answered me quiet quickly in contrast to what I could think as they work on the project in they free time.

"In the early days, mono's class library was still LGPL, it was then changed to the MIT X11 license and mono leads announced that, if Microsoft ever wants them to buy an IP license, they will do so[1] and *that* is the difference. Portable.NET is completly GPL(+linking exception)/LGPL, thus, even if the copyright holders ("Southern Storm Software, Pty Ltd" and the "Free Software Foundation") wanted to buy such a license, the (L)GPL(+linking exception) would not allow this. If you contribute code to mono's class library and assign the copyright to Novell, it is only free as long as Novell wants it to be free (if Microsoft claims IP on that implementation Novell announced to buy it, thus, turning your contributed code into proprietary software because the MIT X11 allows such action). It's not that the MIT X11 is a bad license, it's just that the LGPL would be a much better choice for a free software project that also wants to *remain free* in the future. With "MIT X11" licensed libraries it is possible for a proprietary software company to take a library (which was jointly developed by many companies and individuals), change it, and consider the modified version their proprietary library which they license only under restrictive conditions. This means that in the long run it could happen that contributions to Mono's class library (which is licensed under the MIT X11 license) might actually help proprietary software companies to compete successfully against Free Software, like DotGNU Portable.NET.

[1] http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/mono-list/2003-October/016292.html "

Well, what is your opinion? Should we change the text to show that the project gives a lot of attention to the patents/licensing problems, shouldn't we?

The issue is a practical one. If a piece of code is found to infringe a patent it is up to the patent holder to set the terms and the rules for the use of his invention. So it is a primary directive of the Mono effort to abide by the law and if we are forced through a legal ruling to remove the code, we will remove the code. Such a ruling would also affect Portable.NET (and the same theoretical problem happens with all software: if you infringe on someone else's code, you must abide by their rules; if this is free software you would have to stop distribution of the infringing code no matter what license you picked).

If the Mono code is found to infringe on a patent, our intention is to negotiate with the patent holder, and if the terms are right, we could make the code that uses the patented invention available to those willing to abide by the terms impossed by the patent holder. The actual requirements would depend on the patent holder and the rules he wants to enforce. This means that Mono would have two editions: one that is completely free and does not infringe any code (removing the infringing code) and another edition that has the patented code available licensed under whatever terms the patent holder might impose on us. Open source/free software developers could continue to use Mono, without the infringing parts.

The difference is that Mono is in a position of offering two editions if we are ever forced to go down that path. Portable.NET on the other hand would be limited to remove the features and there would be no option to users of the system, even if they are willing to pay or license the patent, to make use of the software. This is detailed in the GPL section 7:

If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

The steps that Mono took were taken precisely to avoid that problem: if we are found to be infringing, we will have to remove the code, but we are still allowed to make an edition that licenses the patents to those users and customers that need it. A GPL or LGPL implementation means that we would have to cut the option without being able to offer any remedial steps to any customers.

The quoted text is also missing a point: if Mono's code were at any point to become proprietary, anyone could continue developing the open source edition. This is the same situation that exists today with BSD or X11. If someone makes a proprietary version that does not stop anyone from maintaining the already existing open source code. Today people take pieces of Mono code and stick it into their projects, this is very common, as our license is very lax and they do not have to worry about infringing the GPL or the LGPL. They are allowed to do so. The fact that many people borrow Mono code and include it with their projects does not mean that Mono has to stop, we continue to develop code in the open, and we continue to release it as free software.- User:Miguel.de.Icaza

Edits from DotGnu advocates.

Over the past few days an intensive campaign from an anonymous user logging in from a variety of 83.237.* IP addresses has engaged in the following activities:

The user has engaged on a mission to label Mono as "proprietary open source". He created a page for this oxymoron, and then linked the Mono article and the reference to Mono on the .NET article to it.
Mono is dual licensed software available under commercial and open source terms which bothers him.
He refuses to discuss on the talk page, despite the fact that the article text actually has a number of notices placed by another editor requesting that he engages in a discussion in the talk pages.
Instead of discussing on the talk pages, he resorted to removing my comments from the talk pages where I address this issue.
He re-introuces the expression or deletes my comments on the talk page using the "Restore objective information".
We know he reads the discussion page, because he edited the page and removed things he did not like, but refuses to discuss his edits.

The user is associated with a competing project to Mono and has decided to promote the agenda of the competing project on the Wikipedia.

Maybe it is time to call for arbitration. --User:Miguel.de.Icaza

I concur. scot 03:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Behavior of user Miguel.de.Icaza.

I have requested help from the Wikipedia admins in dealing with the deletion of discussion on the Mono talk page, and his changes to the main page.

History section

User Krokas has decided that the background history on the beginning of the project is not worth having in the "History" section because it is not appropriate there.

I did not add that section, but it feels that the history of the project has a spot on the History section. His comments. The actual comment for the removal of the history is:

Removed info about user Miguel.de.Icaza as it doesn't sound appropriated in the context.

Miguel.de.Icaza