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Read on here. Excerpts:

Well, that didn’t take long. I had thought that after Attachmate bought Novell it would be keeping its open-source teams working. Indeed, Attachmate CEO Jeff Hawn had told me that, “Business will operate as usual.” While Attachmate will be keeping SUSE Linux as a spin-off company, Mono, the open-source implementation of Windows’ .NET, is being shut down and there have been hundreds of additional Novell layoffs. So much for business as usual. […]

Mono, since its implementation of a proprietary Microsoft software stack and C# language, has always had its enemies in open-source circles. Frankly, I didn’t like some of .NET’s licensing ; I wasn’t comfortable with how close it brought open-source programming to Microsoft; and, having nothing to with software development politics or licensing, I didn’t like that Mono would forever be trying to catch up with its proprietary big-brother .NET.

On the other hand, there have been several great programs written in Mono. As far as I’m concerned, Banshee is the best open-source media player out there.

No, it is not. Banshee is ugly and unpractical.

But will Mono continue? I’m sure it will in one form or another. […]

Will it continue to be an important software development environment is another question entirely. I fear the answer is no. While some programs, such as Banshee and the F-Spot photo manager, will continue on, it’s hard for me to see developers choosing to start significant new projects in Mono.

Well, F-Spot is another unnecessary piece of software.

Given the way GNOME has embraced Mono (Tomboy since GNOME 2.16, etc.), I can only wish good luck to the KDE project!

Some opinions?

you've mentioned here 3 applications i couldn't care less:

-banshee: rhythmbox, clementine, audacious, ohh heck, we have hundreds!!!

-F-Spot: Shotwell or gThumb are faster, lighter and do (my experience, may not be to demanding) the same;

-Tomboy: never used!

Anyway, Gnome doesn't depend upon mono, even gtk3 9here we go again )is mono-free;

KDE? I don't know! It's my favourite DE, but i would like to see the QT-Nokia-Microsoft deal explained, like to a 3 years old child

zerozero wrote:Gnome doesn't depend upon mono

I said "embraced" but if you really think what you wrote then you have some problems... But, if Mono "is being shut down" now and if "all of the Mono team, approximately 30-individuals, have been let go", then now maybe yes...

I have already, and other also here and elsewhere, explained/talked about Mono, GNOME... I didn't really wish to begin another debate here on Mono, although I am against it and it's one of the first things I remove if the distro that I use installs it by default, but just give some info and know the people opinion about the subject of this article...

Btw, have you really read the article (the link is at the beginning of my previous post in case where you didn't see it )? Don't forget to read also the links inside the text...

As far as I’m concerned, Banshee is the best open-source media player out there.

that a good joke, the best is one that fits your needs, and needs of each user are different.

For example:
I need an audio player that has better sound (audacious beat's with crystalizer plugin enabled)
many need one that has many options for downloading lyrics (amarok)
etc ......
banshee never was option for me.
I have 5 distros installed and never use tomboy.

I need an audio player that has better sound (audacious beat's with crystalizer plugin enabled)

+1. It is awesome even without the crystalizer.

linuxviolin wrote:No, it is not. Banshee is ugly and unpractical.

Take a look at: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1746 . I am sure you will be delighted to hear, that Banshee will be default for Mint 11. I actually installed Banshee to see what will we be dealing with in Mint 11 and found out, that Banshee looks and works almost the same as Rhythmbox, so I have no idea what do you base your opinion on.

Regarding Mono - this is terrible news. When will Linux developers learn, that C is good only for two things - low level stuff like drivers or kernel and for writing higher level frameworks (.NET, Java, Python, etc.). I cannot believe that people still develop high-level stuff like GUI applications in C. Linux progress will never accelerate until people understand that. As much as I dislike Micro$$$oft, .NET and Visual Studio is currently THE best development environment out there. Mono and MonoDevelop was a great effort to move some of the proprietary stuff into the world of open-source. Too bad its being shut down.

Mono and MonoDevelop was a great effort to move some of the proprietary stuff into the world of open-source.

Who in their right mind would want to put proprietary stuff into the world of open source? I couldnt care less if Mono died.

linmint777 wrote:

As far as I’m concerned, Banshee is the best open-source media player out there.

that a good joke, the best is one that fits your needs, and needs of each user are different.

Well, you know reading? "As far as I’m concerned"...

eiver wrote:.NET and Visual Studio is currently THE best development environment out there. Mono and MonoDevelop was a great effort to move some of the proprietary stuff into the world of open-source.

My God! Sometimes it's better to be deaf to hear things like that! We don't need Mono and I don't want it on my Linux box(es)...

I have used Banshee. It's OK, but easily replaceable. Rhythmbox does a perfectly fine job of playing music on a GTK -baseddesktop.

F-Spot: Never used it. Probably never will.There's nothing wrong with any of the other basic image viewers out there.

As for Tomboy, what does it even do? *Checks Wikipedia*. Oh. It might be handy, but it's something you can live without.

The best Mono-based application is GNOME Do. Very handy for launching programs quickly and easily, but GNOME Shell makes it obsolete, doesn't it?

I won't comment much on Mono or .NET itself, since I'm not an experienced programmer, but isn't cross-platform compatibility an important feature of any programming language/environment and a major consideration in which language a programmer chooses to develop something in? I mean, you would be able to develop for a lot more platforms in Java (yes, I know Java has its own problems. It's just an example) than you could in C#, right? C# is fine if you are only developing on Windows, but if any developers are making apps across different platforms, they would be better off with Java or Python (for high-level development, of course).

I am afraid Moonlight will die also when this happens. Can't anyone take over the project from Novell?

eiver wrote: Regarding Mono - this is terrible news. When will Linux developers learn, that C is good only for two things - low level stuff like drivers or kernel and for writing higher level frameworks (.NET, Java, Python, etc.). I cannot believe that people still develop high-level stuff like GUI applications in C.

Do you mean C++? If so, Qt begs to disagree.

eiver wrote: Mono and MonoDevelop was a great effort to move some of the proprietary stuff into the world of open-source. Too bad its being shut down.

It was sponsored by Novell though. And seeing as how they can't commercialize it, it makes logical sense to drop it right?

Any non-developer won't care about this. You can make a very nice application in any language. It is only a matter of amount of work put into it. For example I hate Java (from the developers perspective), but I don't mind using Vuze, which is Java based. I hate Python, but I still have nothing against Python interpreter sitting on my machine and being used for MintMenu, MintUpdate, Mercurial, and other Python-based apps. In fact I have really a lot of respect for Clem and team, that they managed to produce such nice apps in this not-that-user-friendly development environment. Of course from the users perspective it doesn't matter - If MintMenu were rewritten in Ruby instead of Python, no one would even notice.
So if I hear someone saying, that Mono is cr@p because Banshee can be replaced by RhythmBox, it really means that someone doesn't have a clue about development. Its like saying I hate gstreamer because Totem's color theme is ugly.

linuxviolin wrote:Read on here. Excerpts:

Well, that didn’t take long. I had thought that after Attachmate bought Novell it would be keeping its open-source teams working. Indeed, Attachmate CEO Jeff Hawn had told me that, “Business will operate as usual.” While Attachmate will be keeping SUSE Linux as a spin-off company, Mono, the open-source implementation of Windows’ .NET, is being shut down and there have been hundreds of additional Novell layoffs. So much for business as usual. […]

Mono, since its implementation of a proprietary Microsoft software stack and C# language, has always had its enemies in open-source circles. Frankly, I didn’t like some of .NET’s licensing ; I wasn’t comfortable with how close it brought open-source programming to Microsoft; and, having nothing to with software development politics or licensing, I didn’t like that Mono would forever be trying to catch up with its proprietary big-brother .NET.

On the other hand, there have been several great programs written in Mono. As far as I’m concerned, Banshee is the best open-source media player out there.

No, it is not. Banshee is ugly and unpractical.

But will Mono continue? I’m sure it will in one form or another. […]

Will it continue to be an important software development environment is another question entirely. I fear the answer is no. While some programs, such as Banshee and the F-Spot photo manager, will continue on, it’s hard for me to see developers choosing to start significant new projects in Mono.

Well, F-Spot is another unnecessary piece of software.

Given the way GNOME has embraced Mono (Tomboy since GNOME 2.16, etc.), I can only wish good luck to the KDE project!

Some opinions?

I just wanted to chime in, that no matter how 'kewl' gnome 3 might be,,and thats a HUGE might ( I looked initially, frustratingly , trying to find out why there was NO minimize widget!; yeah , not funny ), that no way
am I ever going to use it, because somehow the gnome team with their collective heads into all things novel no matter what RMS and other have said about mono, thinks its funny to ignore threats that everyone else sees clearly.

That is why I too, will never use gnome again ( until they change their ways ), and embrace kde and E17 and others. Im not a masochist on any level. I have been warning about the mono threat for ages, and it took this to get anywhere is sad.

Is mint stilll thumbing its nose at common sense by including mint, or has the fog been lifted and I can finally try it ?

If not, sabayon here I come, because at least nothing is FORCED on me there, and yes , using the word force is accurate

Even ubuntu manager was it , said that using mono is a unnecessary threat, so why its still IN ubuntu, is a total mystery and I hopt Mint came to its senses along with Fedora etal.

I dont like things bad for me, forced on me, do you ?

We know mono is bad, has been bad, and we know this at least in part thanks to the tireless work of groklaw.

Im not a non developer, but closer to it than not, so to say a non developer will not care about this is ludicrous . I care about linux, therefore I 'care' what it does,
and when it ignores the obvious, that is bad for it, against much concrete evidence to the contrary, it matters for all of us.

THe 'app' arguement is mostly MOOT now, because gnote is easily replaces tomboy ( ask fedora) and other apps replace all other mono ones ( again: see fedora , etc.) , so
there is NO longer an excuse to keep mono; the risk is no longer viable; just ask Groklaw && RMS again, if you doubt there is any risk.

http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

There is no longer any reason to make us DEPEND on mono by including it by default, and those important to linux, have made it clear why we should not

cheers
nl

The only downside to losing mono that I can think of is going to be niche anyway, and that's people running OpenSim (and by extension SecondLife) servers on Linux boxes, since OpenSim requires mono to run. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any other applications that can't be easily replaced.

Roken wrote:The only downside to losing mono that I can think of is going to be niche anyway, and that's people running OpenSim (and by extension SecondLife) servers on Linux boxes, since OpenSim requires mono to run. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any other applications that can't be easily replaced.

The main issue with losing Mono is that you're essentially giving up an entire market of knowledge and developers to Windows. For instance, I program in VB.NET at work. Theoretically, if I were to move to move the applications to a Linux platform, I could either try to use Mono's VB libraries or use my familiarity with the .NET framework and convert it to a C# app. Without it, I would have to re-write the application in a whole other language, which from a time standpoint would take much longer.

swirling_vortex wrote:

Roken wrote:The only downside to losing mono that I can think of is going to be niche anyway, and that's people running OpenSim (and by extension SecondLife) servers on Linux boxes, since OpenSim requires mono to run. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any other applications that can't be easily replaced.

The main issue with losing Mono is that you're essentially giving up an entire market of knowledge and developers to Windows. For instance, I program in VB.NET at work. Theoretically, if I were to move to move the applications to a Linux platform, I could either try to use Mono's VB libraries or use my familiarity with the .NET framework and convert it to a C# app. Without it, I would have to re-write the application in a whole other language, which from a time standpoint would take much longer.

Vala has the ease of use, similar syntax and none of the risk associated with mono/.NET.

http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

eiver wrote:Regarding Mono - this is terrible news. When will Linux developers learn, that C is good only for two things - low level stuff like drivers or kernel and for writing higher level frameworks (.NET, Java, Python, etc.). I cannot believe that people still develop high-level stuff like GUI applications in C. Linux progress will never accelerate until people understand that. As much as I dislike Micro$$$oft, .NET and Visual Studio is currently THE best development environment out there.

Even although BEOS failed due to marketing circumstances and their own shortsightedness (perhaps): they used Objective C quite effectively for their system, and Mr Bill (Microsoft B Gates) decried their project, but could compete in terms of performance..
http://oreilly.com/openbook/beosprog/book/index.html
http://www.goingware.com/tips/

It is true that high level frameworks speed up development, if they offer enough power, now whether it is compiled in C or C++ code or dare one say it Assembler (which apparently no one uses or knows how to use anymore)
--it is also true that interactive systems such as Python or ruby or lisp etc etc provide a better (for the developer) construction framework than the edit compile cycle of others

• If you find a good Lisp programmer, they will be better than a good .net programmer or ?basic programmer
  --that is just a fact of a deeper understanding and a better(simpler) framework than the multiple extensions used to make some other IDE seem more powerful and efficient