We have received some mail recently from developers who are concerned about issues that are covered here, including OOXML and Mono. One person, for example, was concerned about pressure on KDE to implement support for OOXML (a big no-no). Coming from Debian, a concerned developer spoke about the problems surrounding Mono. Together, we ought to at least try to inform.

In response to the open letter written by free software guru Richard Stallman about the Mono problem, Alexander Schmehl, Debian developer and spokesperson for the GNU/Linux distribution has pointed out that Debian has no plans to include the controversial programming environment in the default GNOME installation.

Refutation of Mono disinformation about Banshee being a GNOME project without associated issues

The Debian GNU/Linux distribution may include Mono in its default install, with the project leader Steve McIntyre telling iTWire today that "there's a chance that it might do, but it's under discussion at the moment."

Debian a step closer to Mono independence, whereas Ubuntu does not quite tolerate Mono criticism

Alexander Reichle-Schmehl, a Debian developer who stated Debian's position on Mono in the default Debian install last week, has clarified his statement on the issue in a new posting.

There has been a lot of pro-Mono and anti-Mono arguments assaulting the community of late. The debate is not new but both sides have taken up arms since some distributions have decided to either remove Mono or include Mono by default.

OpenSUSE 11.2 (GNOME) has Mono installed by default, including non-ECMA parts like Winforms

The question of using applications that are dependent on Mono has been a vexatious one for a long time. Nobody in the FOSS community has ever raised an objection to the provision of the packages by any GNU/Linux distribution; it's only the question of making these applications a part of the default set that has resulted in endless arguments.