Pinta 0.2 Released, bags 5 new tools, new effects (.deb)

$ apt-cache show hugin
…
Depends: hugin-tools (= 0.8.0.dfsg-2ubuntu1), enblend (>= 3.2), enfuse, libimage-exiftool-perl, make, libboost-thread1.38.0 (>= 1.38.0-1), libc6 (>= 2.4), libexiv2-5, libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1, libglew1.5 (>= 1.5.1), libglu1-mesa | libglu1, libpano13-1, libstdc++6 (>= 4.4.0), libtiff4, libwxbase2.8-0 (>= 2.8.10.1), libwxgtk2.8-0 (>= 2.8.10.1), autopano-sift

That’s on 9.10, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see any mono dependencies there.

$ apt-cache show hugin
…
Depends: hugin-tools (= 0.8.0.dfsg-2ubuntu1), enblend (>= 3.2), enfuse, libimage-exiftool-perl, make, libboost-thread1.38.0 (>= 1.38.0-1), libc6 (>= 2.4), libexiv2-5, libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1, libglew1.5 (>= 1.5.1), libglu1-mesa | libglu1, libpano13-1, libstdc++6 (>= 4.4.0), libtiff4, libwxbase2.8-0 (>= 2.8.10.1), libwxgtk2.8-0 (>= 2.8.10.1), autopano-sift

That’s on 9.10, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see any mono dependencies there.

AFAIK this is about Ubuntu. Hugin on 9.10 depends on Mono.

I have no particular feelings towards or against mono, but I saw this in the past and thought it was interesting: http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/

Then why do you use Linux? The kernel was involved in a patent lawsuit (TomTom, FAT32 patents). Mono wasn’t. You apparently have no problem using software that was found to be infringing on patents.

I have no particular feelings towards or against mono, but I saw this in the past and thought it was interesting: http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/

I’d suggest reading this blog post: http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2009/Jan-19.html

A very good summary about why the patent concerns surrounding Mono are not any more serious than those surrounding other free software. Also, the MS Community Promise essentially indemnifies anyone implementing one of the covered specs from patent lawsuits by MS:

“Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation, to the extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications, and is compliant with all of the required parts of the mandatory provisions of that specification (“Covered Implementation”)…”

The C# and CLI specs are included in the list. If MS were to later sue and none of the exemptions in the Community Promise were violated by the defendant, they would easily win on the grounds of Estoppel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

IANAL, etc. But seriously, can we move past the FUD now?

I’d suggest reading this blog post: http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2009/Jan-19.html

A very good summary about why the patent concerns surrounding Mono are not any more serious than those surrounding other free software. Also, the MS Community Promise essentially indemnifies anyone implementing one of the covered specs from patent lawsuits by MS:

“Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation, to the extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications, and is compliant with all of the required parts of the mandatory provisions of that specification (“Covered Implementation”)…”

The C# and CLI specs are included in the list. If MS were to later sue and none of the exemptions in the Community Promise were violated by the defendant, they would easily win on the grounds of Estoppel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

IANAL, etc. But seriously, can we move past the FUD now?

Well, you shout even louder than me :) Tell me how community benefits from developing mono apps over apps in (let’s say) C++.
This is also an interesting article http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/25/jose-on-mono/ .
Better safe than sorry.

Linking to boycotnovell? No wonder you have no arguments backed by logic or evidence. Just regurgitating FUD/lies from that god-awful site.

I’m mentioning FUD because you are engaging in it.

Please stop pretending like Mono is the only one that has patent risk associated with it. The entire FOSS ecosystem is under threat of patents. Mono is actually one of the safer components. Why don’t you comment on this: http://is.gd/aIqYP ? Are you going to start demanding people don’t use Vala and Python?

>Tell me why we should use C# over other languages.

You are the one making a accusations. You tell me why we shouldn’t use it. Patents aren’t the reason for not using Mono btw. Give me some technically or functional reason why C# shouldn’t be used.

>I don’t say mono is the only risk to free software. I’d act the same if there was a discussion of adding, let’s say, lame, or libdvdcss2 as default in Ubuntu.

Your examples are poorly chosen. Lame – mp3 patent owners are highly ligitatious, libdvdcss2 is illegal in the US (DMCA, IIRC).

>Community benefits from enforcing open formats. Let’s say Google would choose an open, patent free format for Youtube instead of x264 (or open VP8), would it hurt community in your eyes too? Or wouldn’t you care?

I think this would be awesome. But…

>For example, there’s a similar situation w/ Theora as there’s w/ mono. The risk of using Theora is, AFAIK, even lower than the ones w/ mono, but some companies (like Nokia, and Google for that matter) are too careful to enforce it. They know what they’re doing, because they have to care. The responsibility for community decisions is not up to you, nor up to me, but we should be careful about those decisions as it would be in our company. Not accusing one another…

Theora and Mono (and every other FOSS project) could be hit by submarine patents. If that happens its not going to be from MS (in Mono’s case since there are provisions on part that are important for Linux). Mono is actually the safer of those two since even if MS has patents they have a legally binding promise. It isn’t perfect but Theora has no such promise from companies that have patents in the audio/video space.

Nokia and Google are both phone manufactures. Theora simply doesn’t cut it for them. Theora has a number of technical problems. The most important one is the lack of a hardware decoder. Using a software decoder sucks up battery life which is important on a phone. Theora is also less efficient on higher resolutions size-wise (IIRC). That matters since most (smart)phones today have DVD-quality resolutions.

>I did not reply to that post, because I’m not well experienced in Vala yet. And there’s a reply of a person who seems to understand it more.
Patents may not be the reason for not using, but they’re the reason for not enforcing mono. For example having it as default in the most popular GNU/Linux distribution. Nobody says there’s 100% risk, nobody says there 0% risk. There’s a higher risk than in most of other FOSS projects, which is enough to be careful about it.

The most popular distro doesn’t have a problem with Mono. I think you could take that as a cue.

C# is a really nice language. It’s kind of like Java, but better. It’s got a large ‘user-base’ and is also easier to develop with rather than languages like C++.

Using C# benefits the community because many developers can easily follow the code and jump straight in and get to work. It’s a RAD tool. C++ on the other hand is much more difficult to read, and for the less experienced, harder to write, due to things like pointers, which can cause headaches, and distracts from the real task. It’s great for writing system applications where the developer really needs to get to the metal, but for things like docks, music player and note-taking tools, C# is much better.

Other than that, I don’t see what your argument is about. How does using C++ benefit the community? How does using Python benefit the community? It’s about using the right tool for the right job.

>Mono is not free of software patents (most likely – it is a great risk to rely on a belief that is it not), which is also mentioned in the article linked in fict10n’s post.

Here is an interesting fact: Mono is covered from MS’s patent lawsuits but other technologies that borrow from C# (aka partial implementations) aren’t. Like Python and Vala. Guess we shouldn’t depends on those too.

Mono is also Free Software. Even the FSF can’t distort that. So please stop FUD-ing. You are like a reverse MS troll.

I think you do hurt the community.

You are spreading FUD and attacking a project and its author because he chose to write the app in C#. I find it hilarious that you recommended it before you learned it was written in C#.

Just shows how brainwashed you are. I see no reason for the app to be written in another language since even people like you can’t find any good arguments against it. You can’t even repeat the fallacious arguments like “it uses too much memory and its slow to start and run”.

If you don’t like in what language it was implemented perhaps you could port it to another one. Put up or shut up, simple as that.

And start getting your information from a site that has intelligent people running it (hint: it ain’t BN).

I do think you are brainwashed (the lesser variant). You are ignoring facts. I suggest you ignore for a moment that Mono was inspired/specified-in-part by .NET. I think you will find it is a good framework for developers (if you actually listen to people developing in it).

>I don’t know what I recommended, I can’t say it never happened, I just don’t know what you’re refering to.

Whoops. It appears I made a mistake. In the comment where you said how Pinta wasn’t a Mono app you were referring to monono package. I thought you continued to talk about Pinta. Please use paragraphs next time.

>Simplifying a discussion to personal attacks, that’s too low for me. I’ve posted my arguments in other articles.
Mono IS a risk. dot

Those weren’t personal attack. It was a factual observation based on your wording and my experience with anti-Mono folk. From my perspective you are a hypocrite. You have double standards, one for Mono , the other for everything else.

It isn’t a stretch at all. Partial could be anything from 1% to 99%. I think I’m semantically right here.
AFAIK Java is taking cues from .NET this days.

They just have to have a patent for that “1% partial implementation”. The point is that even though Python and Vala might not be trying to implement directly .NET they are still borrowing from the spec (hypothesizing here).

But anyway, I hope they expand the coverage to partial implementations so that everybody can implement what they want without worrying if they are stepping on some MS patent.