All GPLed Code Removed From MonoDevelop 443
rysiek writes "A few days ago, Miguel de Icaza wrote on his blog that the whole of MonoDevelop is now 'free' of GPL-licensed code. 'MonoDevelop code is now LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licensed. We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop (like RemObject's Oxygene).'"
I know it's now LGPL but I couldn't resist ... (Score:0, Interesting)
Now for business use (Score:2, Interesting)
Businesses really don't like the GPL. I'm not allowed to use any GPL stuff anywhere unless it absolutely, positively will never leave the intranet. However, many businesses love the LGPL. It doesn't restrict them. So, it still stays open source, and businesses will create plugins. I write open source software on my own time, so I appreciate open source, but if I was a manager, I wouldn't touch any of the GPLv2/3 programs/code ever.
Is this the closing of Mono? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this sign the closing of the Mono project? And can anyone tell me, since this fundamentalist stance against the GPL and the alleged impending patent sword hovering over the Mono users' heads, what exactly is there to attract people to adopt it as their developing platform?
A Prelude to Charges... (Score:4, Interesting)
By removing GPL code, the Mono team has laid the groundwork for a closed source, commercial implementation. You watch. Mono is going to become a product, something that will be an instant-cripple for any Linux distribution that comes to rely on it.
This makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
So it depends on what you value more; having the software but maybe not the freedom, or not having the software.
Obviously Stallman would rather the software was never created if it wasn't open, so the GPL wins for him there.
Personally I prefer the Artistic License 2.0; all the freedom and protection of the GPL without the virality.
Re:I think it's funny (Score:5, Interesting)
Various pieces from "olive" graduated into main Mono in the past year, including WCF, LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML and WindowsBase (they are all in Mono 2.6)
The missing pieces (Workflow Foundation and Presentation Foundation) are not part of our plan.
Re:Removing the GPL code. (Score:1, Interesting)
The holier than thou community can always fork MonoDevelop into GplDevelop and force everyone to use GPL.
While they are at it, they should fork Eclipse into GplEclipse
Re:I know it's now LGPL but I couldn't resist ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus begins the Free-Free Software movement.
Begins? BSD guys have been trying to get rid of all GPL (including LGPL) in the base distro for a looong time - hence the planned migration to Clang [wikipedia.org] (I believe GCC was the last remaining bit).
Re:Does anyone really use it? (Score:4, Interesting)
wxWidgets is rather dated, though, and that's by design, making for rather awkward API. I mean, have a look at this [wxwidgets.org]:
"wxWidgets does not use templates (except for some advanced features that are switched off by default) since it is a notoriously unportable feature."
In 2009! Notoriously unportable, seriously? Basic template stuff (enough for generic containers, for example) has been perfectly portable since late 90s! But no, they don't want templates, which is why you get to write gems [wxwidgets.org] like:
I'll take Qt any day, thanks. It doesn't look any worse than wxWidgets in terms of "native" (even if it achieves that differently), but it's much more powerful, and the API is better. Now that both are LGPL'd, I really don't see any advantage wxWidgets might have.
Re:Good. (Score:1, Interesting)
(yes, pedantic types, I know it's all pass by reference, but you know what I mean)
If you're talking about being pedantic, you should look up what "pass by reference" actually means. (Hint: it's not what Java has)
Re:Does anyone really use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yuo may jest about Javascript, but I really think its the future. Everyone wants easily-deployable, thin-client apps (well, everyone, I mean line-of-business people) that perform as well as thick-client apps. Now we're just about, almost, getting there with HTML5, WebGL and the like, and so a good javascript implementation could provide a nice GUI to a back-end processing cloud. .NET and similar will become obsolete if the above could be shown to be workable in practical terms.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Interesting)
.Net sucks on it's own, not because Microsoft made it. I think it's crap and I think Mono is just cross platform crap. My list of languages that suck: .Net|Mono
VisualBasic
Java
RubyonRails
All 'framework' languages that make it easy for people to crank out bloatware.
Last month I replaced 120MB of ruby dependencies with 14 bash scripts. But it seems like every time I turn around someone is presenting me with a new sack full of ax handles and asking me to alter our filesystem to support it. The current bane of my existence is an 'unsupported' gui .net app that won't run in anything except 1.49-somethingsomething.
My opinion is that how easy it is to implement your ideas is the _least_ important consideration, but so many programmers seem to think it's the only one that matters.
Re:Whining little babies. (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly which planet are you referring to, because it isn't this one. GPL v1 [wikipedia.org] is from 1989. Depending on exactly what you want to count as "The Internet [wikipedia.org]" you can put the start date as early as 1969 or as late as 1983. Commercialization and ISPs arrived in 1988 in the US. Cisco [wikipedia.org] provided many of the routers used (started 1984). BSD was the main OS used for TCP/IP development and research. BBN had the "reference implementation". Every single one of these things predates the GPL. The BSD TCP/IP stack was ported to many other platforms, including Windows. One thing is categorically certain - the Internet was not built on the GPL. If anything it was built on BSD licensed software.
The GPL is not and has never been about price. It is about freedom to share, modify and use. You can charge whatever you want. You can even charge people a small reasonable fee to get the source code. It also depends on copyright law. Someone "secretly using" anyone's code without permission is violating copyright.
The GPL is restrictive because you cannot change the terms under which the code can be redistributed. It also applies to the whole program. For example if you add one line of GPL code to a 20 million line program then the whole program has to become GPL compatible. Note I use the GPL for most of my stuff and consider that the cost if you want to use my code. But it certainly is more restrictive. There is the LGPL which mitigates this but its use is discouraged.
"Ripping people off" is usually a financial thing. Google have built a multi-billion dollar empire using lots of other people's GPL code (eg Linux kernel) and have not paid them. The GPL allows you to use GPL code within a company and providing you do not distribute outside of the company you can use code as you see fit, so the original author gets "ripped off".
Your view of the GPL is just plain wrong. It is about freedom and the restrictions are largely that you have to provide the same freedoms on the code you receive to others if you pass the code or derivatives on to others.
Re:Now for business use (Score:5, Interesting)
I really hate Slashdot moderation. This isn't a troll, it's a perfectly valid opinion and one that I agree with. What's with all the MS shills having mod points here anyway?
The last two companies I worked for (one being Intel) were also very large, and had no problems with the GPL and OSS. Intel releases tons of GPL code, and contributes tons of code to the Linux kernel (in GPL of course). Intel is smart enough to know how to use GPL code to their advantage, and not be stupidly afraid of it. My last company (I'll start saying who that was after they're at least 2 employers behind me) also did lots of Linux kernel development.
My current company isn't as smart, unfortunately. They're starting to develop a Linux-based product, but they're pretty paranoid about the GPL too, and are looking for ways to be able to use GPLed code without contributing anything back (nice, huh?). They don't seem to understand that contributing changes back means not having to maintain your own fork, which is a PITA.
Re:False dichotomy (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of me thinks that computer languages are languages like no other and one should be able to see it and use other people's work, at the very least for inspiration. Like you can do with any other language.
Another part of me thinks that true freedom means having the choice to close your code if you want because seeing the code isn't required to use your product.
But again too often companies can effectively release beta shit and be paid hundreds per licence to use it. So what we really need, imo, is standards that stop that. You can argue that, unlike a car, you can't die from bad code but your life can effectively be ruined when your privacy is compromised.
So how about striving for openness and higher standards in quality? If we get at least one of those we should be fine.
The exception should be data. Your data should *never* be stored in a format that only one or two programs can read. It's your data and if the company goes under or just moves on to another product, you're fucked. That shouldn't be allowed.
Re:Why doesn't Miguel just go to work for Microsof (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm...I tried to verify the statement about the 189 MB and failed, but maybe I'm just using the wrong method. I did a free -m, loaded tomboy, and then did another free -m. The result was only a 10 MB change in the amount of free memory.
It's true that tomboy is slow-loading on my (relatively fast) hardware. It's also true that it uses quite a bit of disk space. I did apt-get remove tomboy f-spot libmono* && apt-get autoremove && apt-get autoclean, and that freed up 64 Mb of disk space. If you're looking at, e.g., how much you can fit on a CD-based linux distro, 64 Mb is a heck of a lot to dedicate to something that's only needed for the sake of one applet.
Re:Mono Blows (hint, where's FW 3.5) (Score:3, Interesting)