"The Gnome desktop environment developers have recently taken the decision to reengineer the Gnome desktop around the Mono framework. This decision has mainly been influenced by the main Mono developer Miguel de Icaza, who is a very vocal employee of Novell..."

Does GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza's backflip over the Novell-Microsoft deal a few days ago mean that he has finally been convinced that he is on a one-way path to nowhere?

Dear Miguel: During the last couple of weeks there has been a tremendous amount of information pouring about Mono, the free (speechwise) implementation of .NET started by you, Novell's vice-president of Development Platform, and how it should/would be handled by distros. We even had RMS himself come into the fray and tell us his take on it (which he had been mum about till now).

Miguel de Icaza's path from programmer to free software evangelist to Novell Inc. vice president has unfolded like the lives of many luminaries -- he fell into it by chance and seized the opportunities.

Novell has a Mono-based replacement for the GIMP and some of the most expected sources are covering it

OK, I'm conflicted. Last Saturday at the Software Freedom Day event in Boston, Richard Stallman called Miguel de Icaza “a traitor to the Free Software community" because of de Icaza's involvement with Microsoft-based technologies like Mono and Moonlight.

More perspectives arrive in response to a technical/legal analysis of Moonlight and Miguel de Icaza's highly-deserved Microsoft MVP award

Jo Shields writes well and this is a well written piece that articulates the position of a software developer who clearly likes what Mono has to offer. What strikes me with these posts is how technical and abstract the position of the developer is.

If Novell's vice president is "droolingly" Microsoft's, then how can Mono and Novell be trusted anymore?