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Fair question.

Have you ever tried to use a Linux box in a Windows LAN environment at work? If you had, you would understand the answer to your question. SAMBA allowed me to configure my Linux workstation so that it appeared to the Windows network to be a Windows workstation. SAMBA in no way compromised my desktop nor did it extend Microsoft's dominance. Microsoft could not break the SAMBA standard without disconnecting Windows workstations as well as Linux workstations. This URL explains how SAMBA was written:
http://www.samba.org/ftp/tridge/misc/french_cafe.t xt
and from this URL you can download the latest version, 3.4.0, written in C:
http://samba.org/samba/ftp/stable/samba-3.4.0.tar. gz
and you can compile it using gcc. SAMBA was upgraded from the GPLv2 to the GPLv3 in July of 2007.

So, SAMBA is a green room development with no Microsoft licenses currently needed. Microsoft may change that in the future by patenting software technologies it uses to extend SMB in future releases, thus blocking SAMBA, if the current challenges to software patents fail. So, if Linux is not connected to a Windows network it does not need SAMBA to operate at all.

That is not true with MONO. de Icaza did not use the "French Cafe" to figure out .NET because because he has been in frequent contact with Microsoft developers during the development of MONO. I understand that he wrote MoonLight, a SilverLight clone, in 20 days and finished it on a plane flight to Europe, where he presented it. Considering his MS contacts I can understand how he did it.

To make matters worse, the Ubuntu Technology Board voted on June 30, 2009 to make the Ubuntu desktop remix DEPENDENT on MONO! Since MONO is a clone of .NET, and .NET is owned and controlled by Microsoft, that means that Microsoft will, directly or indirectly, control the Ubuntu desktop in future releases, unless the UTB comes to its senses and reverses itself. Now, consider this: GNOME is built using C and the GTK+ API, and compiled with gcc. MONO (.NET) has it's own API and GUI dialog frameworks, and is written using C#. There is NO NEED for GTK+ if GNOME because dependent on MONO. Expect the Ubuntu Technical Board, after a "reasonable" period of time to allow MONO based GUIs and utilities to gradually replace GTK+ counterparts, to announce that it is removing the GTK+ toolkit to "save room" on the ISO. That is the same reason it used to remove GIMP from the ISO in favor of MONO.

So, the Ubuntu Linux user doesn't have to install SAMBA to have a fully functional desktop. Currently, if the Linux user removes the files dependent on libmono* it will disable only half a dozen applications, none critical to Linux. HOWEVER, when GNOME becomes dependent on MONO one will NOT be able to remove MONO without making GNOME inoperable.

See the difference now?
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GreyGeek