OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

Posted Oct 16, 2008 15:38 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
In reply to: OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges by epa
Parent article: OpenOffice.org releases 3.0, faces new challenges

The big difference may be that while you can exist in perfect comfort on a Linux system without using Mono at all, you can't very well do that without the Linux kernel. While possible patent infringement in the Linux kernel is a necessary evil, using Mono just means avoidable exposure. When you are a developer it means basing your code on something that might possibly go away at any time, when perfectly workable alternatives exist that do not carry the same risk at all.

Also, these days, attacking the Linux kernel over a software patent essentially means attacking IBM. The one thing you do not want to do in the software patents world is attack IBM, so Linux seems to be reasonably safe. In comparison, Novell is pretty much a non-entity.

Personally I have decided that for me, Mono isn't worth the trouble. There is literally nothing written in Mono today that I think is worth having, and I do not find it compelling as a development environment compared to other free alternatives, so until that changes Mono stays off my machine. For the record, I also try to avoid Java stuff wherever I can.