Make up your mind, are "C# and the core libraries" offered free or under a RAND? Also "C# and the core libraries" is only a part of what the Mono project needs to subsist independently.

I'm unconvinced. I'm not a layer but the FSF has lawyers that understand this much better and they recommend against it. I'd rather take advise from the lawyers of the FSF than some random guy in slashdot.

He asked about Mono. The situation with Java is similar I know.

He has to download a reason for it first.

Mono is like a parallel world's .NET. It compiles and runs C# but it won't run arbitrary .NET because it lacks what you could call .NET's standard library. It has reverse engineered versions of some of it but not anywhere near capable of running the usual Windows application.

However run C# at your own risk, MS owns everything related to it and it has specifically licensing it to the public and has the capacity to shutdown Mono at any time.

*sigh* unfortunately this comment is going to attract a lot of MS chills repeating ad nauseam phrases like "community promise" and "estoppel".

The gist of it is that rather than an actual license MS published a statement, a (quote) "promise not to sue". This, and the fact that MS has cooperated with Mono before creates "estoppel" which is legalese to mean that MS can't back down from it's promise.

THE PROBLEM
The problem is that the promise specifically states that MS "won't sue for properties they control" related to .NET.
They didn't promise to hold onto the property, and a third party acquiring it is not bound by the promise. So MS can sell 1 or more patents related to .NET, C# and other CLI languages to a third party from which they can then obtain a use license, for a price.

And the stinger is that MS has been caught marketing Linux patents to patent trolls before. Mind you, those were Linux, not .NET patents, but the intention is obvious.

And now get ready for the flurry of comments defending .NET most of which will fall in one of the following 4 categories.

1. Completely ignoring the above and pretend that the promise is exactly the same as a license in every way. In other words, lie.
2. Dramatic displays of indignation at how we dare ask for a license instead of merrily infringing on patents for which we have been promised not to be sued over (by MS).
3. Confident declarations that Mono can code around any possible legal threat that could possibly arise.
4. Vehement assertions that MS will never ever ever ever ever ever exercise this option that they prepared for themselves by not actually issuing a license. ...aaaand combinations of the above along with random insults as usual.

Well, explain, "you don't get it" is not an argument. But the phrase "you just don't get it" is feminist code for THE PATRIARCHY!!! So I can guess what you mean by that.

I've never found someone that uses the term "sausage fest" and doesn't harbor misandristic feelings and a veiled superiority/inferiority complex.

I don't like how these post suggest the inviability of desktop Linux D:

Look guys, the days when Linux was hard to install and use where a decade ago, I've been running Linux as my desktop for nearly 11 years. Never had a problem with it (well, not more than I've had with Windows, nothing is perfect). It usually runs in my best hardware, only about 4 years ago in my last hardware upgrade did I started to dual boot often, for games.

And I've never been treated badly in a LInux forum (well except when ubuntu went crazy). The Year of Desktop Linux was in 2003.

And yet I think we aren't selling programming enough to teenagers.

You are still a troll fred, the ideal is for hardware to be detected automatically regardless of when it was plugged, That's the ideal and you know it. Now, no one is demanding perfection from Windows, but you across as trying to blame Slackware for a Windows' error.

Please, less trolling and more lurking, thank you.

Actually learning that Wayland is being developed by former X developers removed most of my ancieties about it. Now I just want to know when it's going to be production ready and if it is going to support my craphics card.

I may have posted this already but it's still relevant.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2961#comic.

Indeed i wanted to ask, is it hard to switch between Mint Cinnamon and Mint Mate? I want to give Cinnamon a good try, (for about 2-3 months) but I don't want to reinstall the OS just to run Mate in case I don't feel at home in Cinnamon.

I would also like to try a recent Gnome 3 build. I remember when it used to be easy switching desktop environments. back in the days of KDE3 and Gnome 2.

The concern here is that the task is bad so let's assume so.

Is the fact that you are getting paid to do something excempts you from any ethical repercutions?

No I don't think so. I don't accept so.

Are you allowed to do a subpar job?

Yes. One is never obligated be perfect. Nor are we obligated to do our best effort, You can do the worst possible job the client will still accept.

So one can do a bad job. But can you do it on purpose?

For the most part the legality of an action depends on the action, not intent. Some proffesions do make requirements about intent. Doctors for instance make an oath to do no harm (intentionally). Judges, Presidents and other public servants make an oath to do their job to their best of their abilities. Do programmers make such oath? Well... Do insurance agent make them? do real state agents? Do bankers? And, do they actually follow them up?

The answer no in every case. So no. Unless you make an oath to serve to the best of your abilities, you have a right to do the worst possible job that still satisfies your contract. And abilities imply responsability so I'd say you must. However don't be outspoken about it. The law is unfair and I can see some lawyers finding a way to implicate that you do have such an obligation.

Because of lack of marketing and because of lack of OEM support. Remember, people buyed their OS from boxes in those days. And there was no Internet. If it wasn't in the store it didn't exist.

The situations is extremelly dire indeed. There are basically three ways to administer the goverment.

a) Little to no taxes,

Such goverment will wither down, unable to sustain social programs. The country will decend into chaos. No tap water. No public roads. No public libraries or public education. No firefighters and no healthcare. And very weak police, mostly at the service of rich.

Basically what we already have, only much worse. Libertarians want exactly this. Libertarians are morons; disconnected from reality, not realizing that world where corporations can work together but the people can't is not going to be a good world for the people. The people need work together.

b) Raise taxes equally.

This was tried, it's kind of the current situation really. What ends up happening is that the rich get all sorts of subsides to accomplish work they... don't actually accomplish, and from which get to profit even more, completely draining the public of wealth.

c) Progressive taxation. Taxing the rich more than poor.

The system we supposedly have now. The rational is that the rich are the ones who need the infrastructure the more and since they end up getting the mayority of subsides it makes sense that the money comes from them. Except it doesn't happen this way, because the rich simply use their laverage to get around paying the taxes.

So you can't lower taxes, you can't raise them, and leaving them as they are is destroying the nation.

The problem of course is the corruption of the government. Most people realize it, but their ideas on how to fix it are terrible. Some want to get rid of it completelly. Other think that if we select people nice enough or religious enough they'll fix it. Personally i think representative democracy has run it's course. We are giving governors power to make choices they don't have to live with. THAT is the problem. They can make whatever shit decisions they want because they don't affect them. We need some for of direct democracy, or directer-er democracy, and we need it yesterday.

I'd give you points if I had them.

What Linux needs the most are a) advertising, and b) be the default OS of gray/white box machines.

The main problem with Linux is that it arrived too late. The core of Linux is just as good when not better than Windows' but it lacks 3rd party applications because... nobody uses Linux. It's a chicken and eggs problem.