Re: GNOME dependent on Mono

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    Also to not clutter mailboxes even more, I don't see how an optional
    dependency on anything can be worse than the fact that GNOME optionally
    compiles on MS Windows systems.

That GNOME can work on Windows has no effect on what GNOME does in a
GNU/Linux system.  However, a dependency for GNOME when running on
GNU/Linux does have an effect on what GNOME does in a GNU/Linux
system.

A mandatory dependency is automatically crucial.  If the dependency is
optional, then it is not necessarily important.  But it is not
necessarily unimportant either.  Its importance is determined by the
practical details of the situation.  Thus, having some applications
written in C# is not an automatic disaster, but the more they are
the more the problem.