How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

[MoonRise]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

What is sad is that the poster of that had to go to another forum to BASH what is being said here without provocation. Sad, Sad individual. Must have struck a nerve or something.

[Snowhog]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

See As It Stands, Ubuntu Has No Issues With Mono in the UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue149

Michael Larabel of Phoronix reports on the position paper concerning Mono that was issued by Scott James Remnant on behalf of Canonical and the Ubuntu Technical Board. This paper was released in response to the concerns of free software advocates, including Richard Stallman, who question the legal aspects of using Mono. However, Ubuntu continues to include it and packages built on it, like F-Spot and Tomboy, in the distribution since there have not been any legal notices of infringement from Microsoft or other IP stakeholders. Scott's position statement on Mono in Ubuntu can be found on Ubuntu's mailing list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...ne/000584.html

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NzM1Nw

See Mono Position Statement by Scott James Remnant scott at ubuntu.com dated Tue Jun 30 15:58:44 BST 2009

The Ubuntu Technical Board has been asked for a position statement on
the use of C#, specifically the Mono implementation, by applications in
Ubuntu.

These applications, as well as the Mono stack, were proposed for
inclusion like any other application and underwent the same review
process that all new applications and platforms undergo before being
accepted into the archive.

With specific regard to the default installed application set,
applications have been reviewed and compared against each other on merit
and features. These often take place during the Ubuntu Developer
Summits, most recently over the default media player.


A common concern cited about Mono is the patent position, largely it
seems due to the originator of the C# language and associated ECMA
standards.

The Ubuntu Project takes patent issues seriously, and the Ubuntu
Technical Board is the governance body that handles allegations of
patent infringement. The Ubuntu Technical Board strives to engage with
rights holder openly in terms of the code that we ship. If a rights
holder claims a patent infringement applies to said code, the Technical
Board will commit to a review of the claim.

The Ubuntu Technical Board has received no claims of infringement
against the Mono stack, and is not aware of any such claims having been
received by other similar projects.

It is common practice in the software industry to register patents as
protection against litigation, rather than as an intent to litigate.
Thus mere existence of a patent, without a claim of infringement, is not
sufficient reason to warrant exclusion from the Ubuntu Project.

(While the Ubuntu project wishes to be responsive to patent infringement
claims, we cannot commit to the assessment and review of claims made by
anyone other than the registered rights holder.)


Given the above, the Ubuntu Technical Board sees no reason to exclude
Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default
installation set.

Since the Mono stack is already a dependency of the default installation
set for many remixes of Ubuntu, including the Desktop Edition, there is
no reason to consider a dependency on Mono as an issue when suggesting
applications for the default set.

(Other remixes may obviously consider the CD Size implications if an
application would introduce the Mono platform to the set.)


Scott
on behalf of the Ubuntu Technical Board
--
Scott James Remnant
scott at ubuntu.com
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...attachment.pgp

See Minutes from the Technical Board meeting, 2009-06-30

= Attendees =

* Matt Zimmerman (chair)
* Colin Watson
* Scott James Remnant

= Notes =

* Scott Kitterman's [[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ClamavUpdates proposal for a
ClamAV update policy]] was endorsed by the Technical Board, contingent
on the approval of the security and release teams

* Charlie Smotherman was granted upload privileges for ampache,
ampache-themes and coherence

* Thierry Carrez was welcomed as a new core developer

* Scott James Remnant has put forward a Technical Board position statement
regarding Mono, which is to be published shortly

* The Technical Board is discussing the creation of a new governing body,
the Developer Applications Board, to process new developer applications,
separating this function from the Technical Board itself


--
- mdz

[GreyGeek]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

See Minutes from the Technical Board meeting, 2009-06-30

Ah, I see they have it back on line again. Raven said he couldn't find it after I mentioned it as a source for my statement that Mark Shuttleworth wasn't at the meeting, and my reference to the special developers board. I went to look for them and also noticed that they were missing, but several of the minutes before and after were not.

However, IIRC, the minutes I read were somewhat longer than that, and I read them on the NIGHT of June 29th, between 11 and 12 PM, CST. The 6-30-30 time stamp may be a timezone difference.

[Snowhog]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

I also purused Mark Shuttleworth's Blog. Didn't find anything there re:MONO.

[GreyGeek]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

The MONO situation has toned down over the last six months. I think there are a couple reasons for that.

First, pro-MONO advocates believe they have the "cat in the bag" because of the position statement that all future remixes of the Ubuntu desktop will be dependent on MONO. Including SUSE, that's TWO MAJOR distros that are working to make the Microsoft's .NET clone the default API on their desktops. The third major distro with corporate backing, Fedora, is alone in its rejection of MONO/.NET. (Mandriva has been moved out of intensive care and into the morgue. All they are doing is waiting for someone to claim the body.) Eventually, just like the larvae of a caterpillar wasp, GTK+/GTK# will be eaten out of Gnome, leaving only the shell, the "looks", to be replaced by only MONO libraries. If I read de Icaza's intent correctly, MONO will eventually replace libc6 and from the desktop talk directly to the kernel. (I doubt if Torvolds would care.) Novell can do it without fear of IP lawsuit because of their "deal" with Microsoft, but Canonical cannot unless they, too, sign a "deal".

Secondly, the claims of MONO's IP purity were dealt a stunning blow a few months ago when it was pointed out that the ECMA 334&335 do not provide for the critical GUI components of MONO, hence the need for the MONO combined with the GTK+ to create the GTK# kludge in order to give MONO graphical user interfaces. You can't have a graphical desktop without graphical API tools. Again, Novell doesn't have to worry about that, but Canonical does. Using WinForm and other .NET components not included in the ECMA and hoping that Microsoft won't sue you is the very definition of insanity. It may be something else, but that last reason is why I believe that despite the 6-29-09 position statement, Canonical is going so slow down the MONO rabbit hole that progress is hard to notice.

But, as long as I can strip MONO libs out of Kubuntu without affecting it, I don't care what Canonical does to Ubuntu. And, like I said before, if it gets to the point that Kubuntu is dependent on MONO then I will switch distros.

[The Liquidator]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

Here's my output - I'm not entirely sure what it's telling me. Has it found a lot, or is it simply checking for a lot, but returning a "not found"message at the bottom?

ian@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get purge libmono* libgdiplus cli-common libglitz-glx1 libglitz1
[sudo] password for ian:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-i18n-west1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-getoptions2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-firebirdsql1.7-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-messaging1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-posix1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-winforms1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-microsoft7.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-security1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmon-perl for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-npgsql1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-data-tds2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-i18n2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmoneta-ruby1.8 for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cscompmgd8.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono0 for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-data2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-uia3.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-ldap2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-bytefx0.7.6.1-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-sqlite1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-rabbitmq2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-web1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-addins-gui-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-peapi2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil0.4-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-corlib1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-simd2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-windowsbase3.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-uia-atkbridge1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-data1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-runtime2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-relaxng2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-ldap1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-uia-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-microsoft-visualbasic8.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-accessibility1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-addins-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-messaging-rabbitmq2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-windowsbase-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cairo2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-fuse-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-zeroconf-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-sharpzip2.6-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-bytefx0.7.6.2-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-oracle2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-messaging2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-addins0.2-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-uia-winforms1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-web-mvc1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-messaging2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-posix2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-winforms2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-microsoft8.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-sharpzip0.6-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-security2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-microsoft-build2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil0.5-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-npgsql2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-webbrowser0.5-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono0-dbg for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-getoptions1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-data-tds1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-sqlite2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-i18n1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cscompmgd7.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-data1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-web2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-ldap1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-db2-1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-corlib2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil-private-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil-flowanalysis0.1a-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-data2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-nunit2.4-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-ldap2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-peapi1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-accessibility2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil-flowanalysis-cil-dev for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-profiler for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmoneta-ruby for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil-flowanalysis0.1-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system-runtime1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-relaxng1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-management2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-c5-1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cecil0.3-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-cairo1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-wcf3.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-system2.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
Note, selecting libmono-oracle1.0-cil for regex ‘libmono*’
E: Couldn't find package libmono*
ian@ubuntu:~$

[GreyGeek]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

It says, in a round-about way, that your system does NOT have MONO.

[The Liquidator]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

Thanks, I had not knowingly installed any mono apps on it so I'm not surprised.

Tell you one thing though, originally I really didn't care but it's clear from what I see all over the net that the pro-mono lobby react so violently to criticism and seek to discredit non-supporters that someone must be striking a nerve.

If I need to run a windows app, I'll use wine or my virtual machine. I'm not a gamer. I want linux to remain as linux, not become a poor mans windows.

[GreyGeek]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

.....
it's clear from what I see all over the net that the pro-mono lobby react so violently to criticism and seek to discredit non-supporters that someone must be striking a nerve.
...

What you've observed is so common place that it speaks of an agenda. However, you and I were not the first ones to notice it. Joe Barr, deceased Linux advocate and journalist, first described the phenomena in 1996, TWO YEARS before I discovered Linux. The techniques pioneered on Canopus, used by OS/2, Mac and others, were apparently so effective they became part of the Technical Evangelists arsenal after it was founded by Microsoft's James Plamondon. Plamondon added "The Slog", the "Stacked Panel" and his successors have added the "Standards Committee Subversion", "Hijacking FOSS gov agencies", and many more.


I found Barr's article in the Internet Archives.

By Joe Barr
Originally published September, 1996
SLIME 1. Spin, Lies, and Insults by Microsoft Employees. The extension of Microsoft's corporate ethic to online community.

One place that's been SLIME'd is Canopus, the forum on CompuServe that had become my regular online habitat. At one time it was a bastion of independent thought, consisting of contrary but industry-wise regulars who were never afraid to criticize the powerhouses in the industry, be they IBM or Microsoft or anybody else. Will Zachmann, the WizOp, sought to keep it from becoming simply another fluff PR site for anybody, regardless of their affiliation.

He requests only that those with an industry affiliation make it known in their posts. It is a call for polite, ethical behavior, so that readers of the messages can be aware of the potential for bias towards one's own. Forum participants are widely known for challenging the crap that passes for "knowledge" elsewhere.

The participation of Phil Payne, industry analyst with Sievers Consulting, added not only an international flavor but an authoritative voice with an amazing archive of Canopian messages. Just the fact that he had the archives, and would produce messages from one, two, or three years ago when needed to support a point or defrock a scam kept the signal-to-noise level much higher than normally found in cyberspace.

In most online haunts, supporters and users of niche products like OS/2, Mac, or whatever, are drowned out by jeering proponents of Windows. Canopus used to be a refuge from that sort of crap. Stress the was. Canopus today is a far different place than it was when I first started hanging my hat there in '92.

I think the change began about the time Win95 debuted. For one thing, honest debate and sincere conversation began to decline with the arrival of Arnold Krueger. Whatever it is that brought him to Canopus, or keeps him there, it is definitely not honest discourse. Arnold is a one-man propaganda machine, boosting Win95 and dis'ing everything else. He is the kind of guy who belongs in one of the comp.os.___.advocacy newsgroups. And no where else. Since the first day he arrived, his message has been simply this: Win95 is it, if you don't use it you are stupid, if you computer won't run it, it's a piece of crap.

Pointing out fallacies in his arguments or contradictions in his statements or outright lies in his messages does no good at all. He has admitted that he is there only for one reason: to bring grief to those he calls "Warpies." What's worse is that he has become the most prolific poster in forum. Even when you recognize him for what he is (he is also the most twitted participant in forum history), he is still a huge negative presence that drives people away. Will Zachmann and I have opined openly that his real mission may be to do exactly that. Since Krueger's arrival, other changes for the worse have taken place. When you look at all of them in perspective, Will Zachmann's public departure from the OS/2 camp and his swim back towards Microsoft don't seem to come as much of a surprise.

Another big negative for those seeking a refuge from the Windows Uber Alles mentality is the attitude and behavior of Bruce Biermann, who is both a Microsoft employee and one of Will's forum sysops. The change in his online behavior is dramatic. In my column on the forum (Canopian Embrace, Tech-Connected, April, 1995) I commented about the wonderful trio of sysops Will had gathered, including MS employee Bruce Biermann. His behavior recently hasn't earned him any such accolades.

Several on the forum, myself included, feel that Bruce's change in online manner centers around a very nasty online run-in with MS booster Bill Mattox. Mattox, if you will recall, was responsible for a Canopian term: TDNBW. TDNBW is an abbreviation for "This does not bode well," which was Mattox's conclusion about every event that transpired with regard to the future of OS/2. As a result of the Mattox/Biermann dispute, Mattox tried to have Biermann fired from Microsoft, evidently because he felt that Biermann was not active enough in promoting and/or defending the Redmonian way.

That effort failed and Mattox began staying away from Canopus a lot more than participating. But since then, Biermann has begun acting a lot more like a biased MS booster than an evenhanded Canopian sysop. He denies that Mattox incident had any influence on him, but I'm certainly not the only observer to note the swing in attitude before and after the Mattox incident. Biermann became arrogant and rude, much more rude and much more often, than he had ever been before. Not only did he become an active defender of Microsoft's business practices, but he began to defend other MS employees who were posting in the forum. In short, he stepped down from the high ground and began wading through the mud.

An example: one day an IBM employee came into the forum and asked why the message threads were handled (mangled?) in such a way as to make it impossible to follow from beginning to end. Biermann came down so hard on the IBM'er that he never returned. Biermann, an accountant by the way, claimed it was ignorant to come into a forum and after only a day or two to know more than the sysops about how to handle threads.

What he didn't know was that he was talking to a programmer responsible for handling threads on IBM internal systems, a programmer whose scope of knowledge about the topic towered above Biermann's like the Shaq towers over Truman Capote. To flaunt his ignorance even further, Biermann later speculated that the IBM'er had asked the question only because of his (Biermann's) MSFT affiliation. A small event, perhaps, but typical of the change in Biermann. And in the forum.
Speaking of Biermann's MSFT affiliation, the refusal of a fellow MS employee to include mention of that affiliation in his posts has turned into one of the longest running, nastiest battles in forum history. The battle itself has further reduced the value of the forum.

Richard Shupak works for Microsoft, but he refuses to identify himself as an MS employee when he posts, this in spite of countless requests by forum regulars and a number of direct requests from Will Zachmann himself. He seems to enjoy flaunting his unethical behavior and abusing the lax forum "rules."

One unfortunate reality of Microsoft's reputation for dishonesty is that its employees can immediately gain credibility by claiming not to be MS employees. Steve Barkto and Bill Diamond are two of the best known examples. Of course, Shupak does admit that he is an MS employee when he is asked directly, so it's not like he is pretending otherwise. The point is that if people read his messages without knowing that fact, they are not going to know it after consuming whatever bit of spin he is putting on the current topic.

And spin he does. He is easily the most gifted liar the forum has seen. He is not a buffoon-like bozo like Arnold Krueger who puts out so much crap that it is laughable. No, Richard Shupak does it with style. He mixes truth, fact, and bull**** in amounts calculated to bring the most believability a spin-doctor can hope for. He uses inuendo like a scalpel. Almost always his goal is to deceive.
Shupak works for Microsoft Research, and according to the information on their Website works on RAD (rapid application development) tools. Technically, he is very savvy and he uses double-dweebspeak to deceive.

One example: the well-known lack of performance of Win95 on Intel's Pentium Pro processors because of the amount of 16-bit code in Win95. Shupak attempted (still does, actually) to convince people that 16-bit code in Win95 is not the reason for its poor performance on the Pentium Pro. If that were the case, he argues, OS/2 would run even more slowly because it has even more 16-bit code in it than Win95. You have to give Shupak credit for brass balls. His brazen lies about this issue reveal the arrogant swagger that accompany most of his disinformation. He genuinely seems to revel in his dishonesty the same way he loves to flaunt the disregard for forum policy. This arrogance runs rampant at Microsoft: from Gates down to the mailroom, they feel they are above the law.

And look at how he packaged this crap. He went to the trouble to show how many bytes of code exist in 16-bit chunks of OS/2 and Win95 in order to support his argument. Remember now, Shupak works in MS research, he is not completely stupid. He knows that the statistic he presented is completely meaningless. The only thing that counts is how much 16-bit code is running, not many bytes of 16-byte code exist. You could add ten meg of 16-byte code to either operating system, and it wouldn't influence performance on a Pentium Pro one iota, unless it were executing.

Why does Shupak go to such bother over this point? Because the slowdown (yes, Win95 runs slower on a Pentium Pro than on a Pentium) is not just a black-eye for WinTel, it draws attention to the fact that Microsoft was lying about an "all new, all 32-bit" operating system from day one.
The magnitude of his lie is shown in the relative performance of OS/2 and Win95 on the Pentium Pro: one 32-bit OS/2 app has shown performance increases of over 100% on the Pentium Pro. The best any 32-bit Win95 app has done is run at about the same speed. Most run slower.

More recently, Shupak returned to this topic by referring to Intel benchmarks showing Win95 gains over 20% in performance on the Pentium Pro. That benchmark has been openly rebuked by PC Magazine, who pointed out how it was rigged and how you would never see that gain in real life.
So professionally done is Shupak's spin-doctoring that many began to openly wonder if his job at Microsoft were not to do exactly what he was doing in Canopus: blowing smoke and dis'ing the competition. Richard insists otherwise. Though his posts almost never venture into any area more personal than Win95, he claims that his presence on Canopus is strictly personal. Why then, someone asked, is he participating with a sponsored account? That's right. This MS employee who refuses to identify himself as such, who spins faster than a Craftsman 1/4" drill, who never talks about anything except MS products and their competitors, who participates in Canopus for personal reasons, does so on an account paid for by CompuServe. Why indeed.

When I made it known that I was going to write an article about the behavior of MS employees online, and specifically about Shupak's, who else but Bruce Biermann steps into the fray. Rude, bullying, using intimidation of every kind, trying to belittle me in a number of ways, Biermann revealed himself to be a jerk of the highest order.

Threats? How about lawsuits. For weeks he talked about it. Every time I logged on Biermann was there with another warning that I had better consult my attorneys, because he is and he is going to file a libel suit. Remember now, all this talk was about a column I said was going to write. He hadn't seen it. Nobody had seen it. He had already decided it was libelous. When someone pointed this out to him, his story changed. He begins revising history in the finest tradition of Microsoft and started talking about suing me for statements made online instead.

Clearly his intent, and Shupak's, who has happily joined in, is to intimidate me so that I won't write this story. Just as there was a tradition of stealth-PR work at Microsoft, attempts at intimidation of critics also has a place in their online history. USENET posters, for example, who posted messages from government accounts were threatened with dire consequences if they didn't stop being critical of MS.

Biermann began to make insulting, slanderous, petty ad hominem attacks on a daily basis. He wanted to compare financial statements between the Dweebspeak Primer and Microsoft. Just as if the size of a bank account, or cash flow, is a valid measure of an individual. Tell that to Mother Theresa and the Columbian drug cartels. He refers to me as a "dishonest reporter." All of this activity, the constant attempt to discredit me by whatever means he can think of, is the most damning indictment of his own character possible.

In the middle of all of Biermann's threats, attempts to belittle, and other displays of his ignorance and lack of values, new facts about Shupak's participation come to light. Acting on a tip received by another forum participant, I checked the user logs of an OS/2 related forum: OS2AVEN. This forum is dedicated to OS/2 vendors like OS/2 magazine. I found that Shupak visited that forum every time he visited Canopus. From as few as three or four times a day to a dozen or more. It is obvious looking at the times of his visits that he is using an automated reader to visit CompuServe. For almost every visit to one forum there is one for the other, often within seconds of each other.
Strangely enough, I found no evidence that Shupak ever posted or received messages in OS2AVEN. He only lurked in the shadows and downloaded message traffic. Even more curiously, when I looked in a few other OS/2 fora, I found similar entries in the user logs for PSPBETA, where OS/2 and OS/2 related products from IBM are the topics of conversation. One of those would be BART, which will be a direct competitor to the RAD tools that Shupak works on for Microsoft Research. Again, there was no evidence that he ever sent or received messages. But every time he appeared in the user logs for Canopus and OS2AVEN, he visited PSPBETA as well.

For personal reasons? Right. On a sponsored account. When I asked Shupak about this on Canopus, he continued to claim it was for personal reasons. That was enough for Phil Payne. Resenting the fact that his payments to CIS each month were funding the sponsored account Shupak uses to spin in Canopus and spy on OS/2 fora, he said goodbye.

Well, like restaurants and other trendy things, haunts in cyberspace rise and fall in popularity. Zachmann spends more time posting on the internet lately than he does in Canopus. Who can blame him. These days it's only a safe haven for MS spin-doctors, not for critics or independent thinkers. Online thugs, dimly lit cyberjerks who use the foulest imaginable language on anyone who disagrees with them, male or female, roam free. I recently reported the foul-mouthed William Beem to both CIS and the police for making threats. Other vermin contribute nothing but content-free ad hominem, including one pathetic munchkin who openly wishes me a horrible death. Me? I'm following Payne out the door. The stench on Canopus is more than I can bear.

[MoonRise]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

Thanks GG! that was an interesting read regardless of when it was written. Mainly because you still see that kind of attitude from the "powerhouses" even today. So it seems that man, society or however you want to term it hasn't progressed fruitfully at all and it still is about who can crush who out of the competition. Hmmmm. Just like any other business.

[kyonides]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

What I'd like to know is if using Mono also represents a threat to our Linux box security due to a possibility that they might get infected by viruses more easily than w/o it.

[Snowhog]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

I don't believe so.

System security in Linux (root vs non-root control) is very different than how Windows manages itself. In Linux, at least in Ubuntu Linux, you, as the installing user must specifically grant another non-root user/service permission to do something on or to a system/root process/file.

[GreyGeek]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

What I'd like to know is if using Mono also represents a threat to our Linux box security due to a possibility that they might get infected by viruses more easily than w/o it.

Not in the way that Windows is promiscuous. An ActiveX control can execute a Windows executable with out requiring user intervention or the admin password, i.e, as in email attachments, embedded executables, etc.... ActiveX controls are probably the #1 weakness in the Windows OS. From a programming point of view, ActiveX objects expose methods and properties which just about any other application can be programmed to access and manipulate. Holes arise when carefully crafted parameters to methods, or carefully stuffed properties used by methods are not properly checked for length and content, or are examined as regular expressions, allowing bad guys to embed SQL code (SQL injection), etc... to escalate the malware privileges.

In Linux, to be able to do things as root, and thus risk your entire system, not just your home account, the application must be given or have access to your account password, assuming your account was the first created during the Kubuntu install process. Administrative applications require the root password so you must run them with "sudo" and supply the password so they can run with root privileges.

This is where access to the source of an application is IMPORTANT, and that the source examined IS the source used to create the app binary, and the app doesn't link a closed source binary library if it requires root privileges. Otherwise, any application, MONO or otherwise, could be a security risk because during its installation the binary may ask for the root password and store it some place so that the next time you run that app it already knows the root password and can do anything it wants to your system. How do you, a non-coder, make sure the application you are running is what the source says it is? By installing apps ONLY from sites KNOWN to be secure, primarily the Kubuntu repositories. When you link up with a Kubuntu repository a gpg key is passed down to your keyring. All future downloads must be signed with that key and during the download process each app you download is checked with that key. IF, by chance, some bad guy managed to upload a bad binary into the repository, if he doesn't have the pass phrase for the key he cannot sign his malware. Attempts to download it will be blocked. Downloading unverified deb packages from any ole' website is an invitation to getting infected. Contrary to claims made by various Windows fanbois and sites which owe their existence to Microsoft benevolence, very few Linux boxes are infected. Bad guys like to use Linux boxes as control boxes for Windows bot farms because they are not easily infected the way Windows boxes are, so they have less of a risk of getting hijacked by another bad guy. To gain control of a Linux box they have to attack it manually, through an open port using an application with a publicized security hole. So, keeping a green board on your ports via a firewall and keeping up with the latest security fixes keeps your Linux installation secure. (That and NEVER saving an email attachment, add the execute permission to it, and then run it! IOW, being stupid!)

[Snowhog]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

Otherwise, any application, MONO or otherwise, could be a security risk because during its installation the binary may ask for the root password and store it some place so that the next time you run that app it already knows the root password and can do anything it wants to your system.

Kind of like getting those emails from your bank or credit card, saying they need to 'verify' your account information, asking you to provide information that they already have. In other words, phishing.

To be honest, I hadn't considered this possibility. But then, as you also stated, I don't install anything in my Kubuntu's that I haven't gotten either through Synaptic or via apt-get, meaning, through the established repositories or from PPA's I've added, and for which I've established trust with.

[kyonides]

Re: How to remove MONO from Ubuntu

Even so there are some packages in the default repositories (mmm, maybe it was from the PPA ones) that aren't verified and need the super user's OK (y or yes) to get installed on your box. Is this just something insignificant? Or is this alert an advice not to install the package (just like the ones GG mentioned that wouldn't be allowed to be installed on the first place)?