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● 09.13.08

●● Microsoft Admitted Mono is a Patent Trap Back in 2006 (Updated)

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Office Suites, OpenOffice, Patents, SUN at 5:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

And now it comes to Mandriva?

[Update (17/09/08): Mandriva is said to have addressed this issue. Adam Williamson wrote: “Our oo.o build is based on the go-oo project, which optionally adds Mono support (basically for writing plugins or macros in Mono). We enable this, and by default if you do that, it winds up with an auto-generated mono dependency in the package. In fact everything will basically still work without Mono installed – you just won’t be able to use any plugins or macros that are written in Mono unless you have Mono installed. So with the new build we’ve just disabled the Mono dependency.”]

Let it be emphasised that Mono is a threat because of a variety of innate issues. We’ve known this since 2006. Here is a top Microsoft executive admitting that Mono is a patent problem for GNU/Linux. We also discussed the effects on OpenOffice.org back in 2006. Microsoft admitted this again on several occasions later on (even in 2008 when Brian Goldfarb accidentally confessed). For the lawyers among us, it’s also in the heavily-redacted contract with Novell [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Only one company is said to have ‘protected’ its paying customers. Yes, Novell is fine with Mono risk because it probably wants to use this to its advantage.

=> variety | innate issues | admitting that Mono is a patent problem for GNU/Linux | back in 2006 | accidentally confessed | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | probably wants to use this to its advantage

Now, I am a very happy Mandriva user. It’s therefore disappointing to find this short rant from Planète Béranger. It suggests that there is a Mono dependency in OpenOffice.org 3.0.

=> a very happy Mandriva user | ↺ short rant from Planète Béranger

rpm -i --force openoffice.org-common-3.0svn13475-1mdv2009.0.i586.rpm 2>&1 | grep mono

    libmono.so.0 is needed by openoffice.org-common-3.0svn13475-1mdv2009.0.i586

    mono(mscorlib) = 1.0.5000.0 is needed by openoffice.org-common-3.0svn13475-1mdv2009.0.i586

    mono(mscorlib) = 2.0.0.0 is needed by openoffice.org-common-3.0svn13475-1mdv2009.0.i586

PCLinuxOS, a Mandriva derivative, was once claimed to have had a similar dependency in version 2.4 of OpenOffice.org.

=> ↺ similar dependency in version 2.4 of OpenOffice.org

Makes sense to me and I want to purge mono-related packages – if any – from distributions I use [which are - on hard drive - PCLinuxOS, Fedora, Mandriva, Mint, and Kubuntu].

An interesting but quickly executed purge, right? Not. The packages I don’t want are: mono-common, and libmono0.

PCLinuxOS doesn’t have mono-common – done. It does have libmono0 – which I tried to zap but got: rpm -e libmono0 error: Failed dependencies: libmono.so.0 is needed by (installed) openoffice.org-2.4.0-3pclos2007.i586

Oops! Put a hold on that for a bit!

Some input would be appreciated while I look at those other distros.

Fortunately, the claim was eventually challenged and refuted.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is soon to be integrated into many GNU/Linux distribution, as Tectonic has just reported.

=> ↺ Tectonic has just reported

The final release of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is expected later this month, in time for the upcoming Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora and OpenSuse releases later this year.

There will hopefully be no Mono poison inside OpenOffice.org in its distributor-packaged form. Novell and Microsoft would love this to happen. █

=> would | love | this | happen

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