"Is merely including such applications in a Linux distribution a real problem? Nope, not according to the Ubuntu Technical Board. The committee decided that "We will ship the best available free software applications, in the judgment of the relevant development team; the desktop team has responsibility for desktop application selection, as is natural. In a small number of cases, Mono applications have been selected there on their merits. At present, were there to be an issue, Mono would be easy to extricate. Making it more of a core requirement is likely to encounter some performance concerns at present anyway, since the budget for desktop startup is increasingly tight as we work on boot performance." So, as far as Ubuntu is concerned, "Mono is very well-maintained in Ubuntu and there appears to be no significant cause for concern over its IP [intellectual property] situation. We will attempt to clarify in suitable places what developers and/or rights holders should do in the event that they have evidence of a problem."
"...But, leaving aside for now how trustworthy Microsoft is, how dangerous is Mono really?"
