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• Launchpad Entry: no-mono-by-default

• Packages affected: F-Spot Tomboy Notes, Mono

Summary

Remove Mono and dependent applications from default Ubuntu Desktop CD, because Mono by default is a bad strategic decision for Ubuntu.

This will NOT remove Mono or any of the applications from the Ubuntu repositories, just the default Desktop CD. (Although removing them from the CD may mean they don't need to be in Main anymore)

Release Note

F-Spot and Tomboy Notes will not be on the default Ubuntu Desktop CD.

Users who currently have either installed will not have them removed.

Rationale

Ethical Reasoning

Possible Patent issues

Which most likely are just FUD. However is it worth the risk/reward in this case?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Project#Mono_and_Microsoft.E2.80.99s_patents

Beneficial To Competitor

• Mono is implemented to be compatible with Microsoft's .NET instead of the standard.
• Mono's compatibility requirement with .NET create a bad dependency on a competitor.
• Providing Mono on the Default Ubuntu Desktop CD helps Mono become more popular as more people will use it by default.
• By writing Free applications in Mono/.NET you put yourself at risk from Microsoft changing the .NET implementation creating more work for both Mono developers and application developers.

To Not Allow

"the era of 'open computing,' the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry," to end.

• http://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/danger.html

Only getting binary codecs from Microsoft for Moonlight

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_%28runtime%29#Codecs_integration

Technical Reasoning

A lot of the functionality provided by Tomboy Notes and F-Spot are already included on the default CD by Sticky Notes and gThumb. Both Mono based applications use more than 4X the memory of their non-Mono equivalent.

F-Spot vs gThumb

Memory Usage with some photos loaded (the same on both)

• F-Spot: 27.0 Mb
• gThumb: 4.9 Mb

Feature comparison

• Both can do basic photo editing
• Both have Metadata for photos
  • F-Spot was able to pick the metadata and present it faster, also tagging appears more prevalent in interface
  • gThumb can do categories, and view metadata, as well as comments
• Both can import photos
• Both can have a "Library" of your photos
  • gThumb gives you more control
  • F-Spot makes it more user friendly
• F-Spot has a neat way to view photos by year
• F-Spot has an easy slider to change the size of the collection of photos you are looking at

Overall, these applications are very much similar and including both of them does not make much sense. Having both could make some users confused as their functionality is so similar.

TomBoy Notes vs Sticky Notes

Memory Usage with 1 note having same text

• Tomboy: 15.6 Mb
• Sticky: 3.5 Mb

Feature Comparison

• Both allow you to take notes, hide them from view
• Tomboy has notes appear as full windows
• Sticky Notes appears as quasi-windows
• Tomboy has note syncronization
• Tomboy has export to HTML
• Tomboy has Wiki-like note linking functionality

There is clearly some functionality missing from sticky notes that tomboy has. However Sticky Notes is designed to just be a simple note taking applet.

Assumptions

Mono/.NET being successful will not benefit free software.

Implementation

Remove dependencies from Ubuntu desktop package.

Migration

No migration needed, old installs will still be upgraded. Mono just won't be on the CD. Revert note taking app to already included Sticky Notes applet

It is important to note that people who already have Mono installed won't be affected. Even when they upgrade to the latest release; Mono, Tomboy, and F-Spot will still be upgraded with it.

Test/Demo Plan

Test to make sure removing Mono does not break other things in Gnome.

Some Discussion

[http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=634805]

PaulKishimoto: (Comments here because the forum thread is more ideological than practical) It may not be main-ready, but [http://www.conduit-project.org Conduit] could replicate Tomboy's synchronization and HTML export for Sticky Notes. SyncIntegration is a relevant UDS discussion linked from the Conduit homepage. Wikilinks in Sticky Notes and making gThumb as user-friendly as F-Spot would probably need upstream work; also note that Tomboy has some text formatting options while Sticky Notes AFAIK has none.

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