The Mother of all Flame Wars - Mono!

There's an intense debate raging at the moment about the inclusion or (not) of Mono by default in Debian/Ubuntu Linux distributions. I believe that Mono is good for Linux software development. It's ironic that it was a Microsoft invention but I think it's safe to say that there are more Windows C# developers than Linux developers and many of the former group (that I have talked to) would like to get into Linux development which can only be good for Linux.

Richard M. Stallman (RMS) has waded in and says Mono (and C#) should not be included in the default installation of Debian. He believes there is too great a danger that "Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. ". This has come about because the Debian installer creators switched the note taking application to Tomboy, a Gnome utility written in C# and GTK# for taking notes. It's considered to be superior to most others note taking apps. Including it of course means that the install needs the Mono run-time as well hence the fuss.

It's not about C# as such. RMS just doesn't trust Microsoft and it's hard not to see why given their past behavior. That said, they have provided Mono with a lot of help and I think also that Moonlight (the Linux equivalent of Silverlight) has their blessing makes me more inclined to believe that patent apocalypse isn't around the corner. There's an excellent rebuttal of RMS's argument by Jo Shields, a member of the Debian Mono Group, Debian CLI Applications Team, and Debian CLI Libraries Team. So read both and decide for yourself.

• Link to C# Tutorials