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Well, the Mono debate has been raging in the Linux blogosphere for some time now, and it shows no sign of abating. Ever since RMS himself stepped into the fray to proclaim his own opinion, the fires have been burning higher than ever -- as we noted last week.
Close to 150 fresh comments appeared on the topic in just four days last week on LXer, for example, with no end in sight. In the midst of all the din, however, a small, clear voice rang out with an idea we here at LinuxInsider couldn't resist picking up and examining a little more closely.
I just wanted to clarify what I meant by the statement "I view mono as a distraction". I did not mean that we should just ignore Mono and the activity surrounding it. That would be impossible, especially if it starts being deployed by default in Linux distributions. What I meant was that Mono itself is a distraction for FOSS developers. It takes away their focus on creating a free software ecosystem and derails them into achieving quick results that could have long term problems.
Discussion of the issue is healthy and will eventually lead, to a clearer demarcation of distributions that are either not willing to endanger long term success for immediate results or those who think that short term results are worth risking long term problems, those that are more weary of Microsoft and those that are less so. When this happens, the majority in the community will support the distributions that reflect their perspective in every way they can.
We have seen this already happen before. Look at the controversy that ensued from Novell's deal with Microsoft. Thousands of comments have been made on the subject with no side relenting. However, the majority in the community has seen the deal as a very bad move. As a result, the majority in the community have shown their displeasure by not supporting Novell and Red Hat has been the beneficiary (as can be seen by their financial results). Novell on the other hand has had to depend on Microsoft's help. What is going to happen to Novell once their deal with MS expire? Who will support Novell then? It will be interesting to watch.
Discussion of the issue is healthy and will eventually lead, to a clearer demarcation of distributions that are either not willing to endanger long term success for immediate results or those who think that short term results are worth risking long term problems, those that are more weary of Microsoft and those that are less so. When this happens, the majority in the community will support the distributions that reflect their perspective in every way they can.
We have seen this already happen before. Look at the controversy that ensued from Novell's deal with Microsoft. Thousands of comments have been made on the subject with no side relenting. However, the majority in the community has seen the deal as a very bad move. As a result, the majority in the community have shown their displeasure by not supporting Novell and Red Hat has been the beneficiary (as can be seen by their financial results). Novell on the other hand has had to depend on Microsoft's help. What is going to happen to Novell once their deal with MS expire? Who will support Novell then? It will be interesting to watch.
