Can You Boycott a Boycott?
From the things-that-should-never-happen-but-you-knew-they-would-eventually department, comes more flamage in the Mono advocates vs. anti-Mono advocates vs. the now anti-anti-Mono advocates. I never like it when columnists or reporters treat all bad ideas equally, so I'll just come out and say it - the anti-Mono crowd is comprised of a bunch of corn-fed idiots with more than a passing resemblance to the recent tea bagger protesters. However, I'm not sure that the correct response to that is to ratchet up the flame wars.
There is now, apparently, a web site, Boycott Boycott-Novell, dedicated to boycotting the "Boycott Novell" site. The argument breaks down thusly:
- Lots of dedicated FLOSS developers, by way of several years of hard work, have turned Mono into a serious project, with several desktop apps that come installed by default in, for example, Ubuntu
- Some vocal minority really resents this because mono is an Open Source implementation of .NET, and we all know what that means - ZOMGIT'STEHMICROSOFT!!!!1111!!!!
- And now another vocal minority, against their better judgment, have decided to feed the trolls and attract more attention to #2 than it was receiving previously.
I suppose that by even commenting here, I'm focusing more attention on this than it deserves. However, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that some distributions and well-intentioned individuals are actually trying to appease the anti-mono crowd by giving in to some of their demands. This is ridiculous and will only encourage them to continue. I should also note that everyone is free to tailor their Linux distribution as they see fit, and if they don't want Mono-based apps, they have the option of removing it. But this is never enough for an ideological audience: it's never enough for them to suffer alone because they need everyone else to suffer with them.
Bullocks, I say. From here on, I think I shall take a cue from our Kenyan-born president and ignore the stupid. Oh yeah, and please do not feed the trolls.