De Icaza Pleads For Mono/.Net Cooperation

suka writes "In a recent interview with the online edition of an Austrian newspaper, Mono project-lead Miguel de Icaza pleads for cooperation between Mono and Microsoft's .Net: 'I think that the deal should include a technical Mono/.NET collaboration, and even go as far as Microsoft recommending Mono for all of their developers looking at migration'. The whole interview has some other interesting bits, like de Icaza's thoughts on open sourced Java and information about upcoming versions of Mono."

Mono

[by Anonymous Coward]

My cousin tried Mono in college. Some bed rest and lots of fluid and she eventually got better.

Good Luck

[MightyMartian (840721)]

Good luck on that. Microsoft most certainly doesn't want its application platform running well on other operating systems. The whole point of .Net was get something there while it fucked over Sun. I'm afraid that Mono, like Samba and OpenOffice, is stuck reverse engineering Microsoft, and that will always be a game of catchup.

Re:Good Luck

[by Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think the point he is trying to make is that Novell should have pushed for the cooperation to be part of the deal, as in: one of Novell's demands. Of course Microsoft probably doesn't want to do this voluntarily, which is why it would have a place in the deal.

Re:Good Luck

[LWATCDR (28044)]

I hate to say it but I always felt Mono was a mistake. The problem with .NET is that it really is a Windows only system. When you try to point that out people say not it isn't you can use Mono. A convent lie that lets .NET compete with Java right up to the point where you have tens of thousands of lines of code and you want to migrate to a different platform. Then the Microsoft sales rep can say, "You know Mono really has fallen behind .NET. You can port your applications if you want but it would just be cheaper to stick with Windows. Once you add in the cost of porting all that code your Total Cost of Ownership will be much less with Windows. Oh and would you like some more copies of Office and another Exchange server to got with that?"

Mono is multi-platform .NET is not.

This time is a backwards embrace & extend

[Nicolay77 (258497)]

I thing all the projects started by Icaza have been secretly backed by Microsoft (except midnight commander). This includes Gnome.

MS monopoly is all about protecting the API. As Ballmer said: developers, developers, developers! They had one API everybody used, win32, and it was their crown jewel. As long as everybody keep developing for win32, MS would win.

Then came Linux. If Linux distros could provide a competing API to Win32, MS would be screwed. MS solution? fragment the Linux API. You see, one of the main values of a successful API is that it's universal. So how to destroy Linux? Destroy the universality of the API. Make not one, but TWO competing APIs! Then developers would have endless religious wars and Linux would not grow as a competing commercial platform against Win32. How to do it? Make Gnome and start a religious war against the then 'closed license' QT libraries. Forward ten years and what's the result? Nobody uses either KDE or Gnome to develop commercial software, the 'developers, developers, developers' are still somewhere else. Oracle uses Java as the API when running in Linux. And who started Gnome? Icaza.

Meanwhile Java becomes stronger against C++. Developers switch to Java.

Now what happens, MS decides to create a new API from zero, sacrificing their beloved Win32. The new API is then called .NET. They have to do this, because they could not destroy Java. Now MS has to protect .NET, make it the universal API that every developer would use. Linux (as always) is a threat to MS. So what's MS strategy this time? The same they used against Java, just a little backwards.

Against Java they used the embrace and extend, promoting J++, that used MS proprietary extensions to the Java language to achieve developer lock in. To protect .NET from Linux, they would do a backwards embrace an extend: give Linux a limited .NET implementation, so that developers would still be locked to .NET proprietary extensions in the Windows platform. This limited .NET implementation is MONO. And who started MONO? Icaza.

Right now it is Java vs .NET, everywhere where developers make $$$.

Icaza is also a strong backer of the Novel-MS deal.

All I can see Icaza doing lately is telling everybody: "why can't we be friends?", but I seriously suspect the motives behind it.

Re:Good Luck

[SoCalChris (573049)]

Considering that section 3.d.iii of their MSDN code license (Covers the code samples on the MSDN site) specifically disallows you from using any of their code on non-windows platforms, I'd say their position on cross platform compatibility is crystal clear.

MSDN Code License [72.14.253.104]

Re:Good Luck

[kosmosik (654958)]

> I'm afraid that Mono,

Dunno. I don't use it - *I* think it sucks cause I have installed some apps using Mono on my Fedora box and they crashed really bad all the time. So it probably sucks.

> like Samba

Samba? Well Samba is Samba. Maybe it lacks in some stuff that MS has implemented (AD and such) but still it is de facto standard for CIFS/Windows Networking on non-Windows systems. It is *the* standard for most of unices, NAS boxes, Macs, Solaris, Linuxes etc. So I don't really think Samba fits along with Mono or OpenOffice.org (read further for OOo) it is not even in the same league it is not even the same game. Samba *is* very successfull and fucking nice OSS project. I have like dozens of servers that do really weird stuff most of that would not be even possible using Windows. Like providing SMB services with custom configuration just to support really old (but trust me - business critical) DOS programs.

I've read about Samba implemementations (search on /. there was a "Ask..." some time ago) that do stuff that Windows could never (for economical or practical reasons) do. Like really wide WANS, really Terminal Services (what Windows provides regarding printing is a joke) spawning multiple operating systems into custom soltuion.

So *please* do respect that Samba *is* the killer-app of Open Source. I can bet that along Apache/PHP/Python/PERL/Java whatever stuff Samba is one off the most important projects that drive OSS adoption on servers (and also on clients - see OSX).

> and OpenOffice,

Well OpenOffice.org is a cow - bloated, big and slow. But still making OOo work faster (like throwing some hardware onto the problem) is cheaper than getting into MS Office licensing. OOo is *not* MS Office replacement (due to problems with exchanging documents with MSO - but hey even various versions of MS have *severe* problems with exchanging their documents) but as an office suite itself it is really nice. From my (company) perspective it does fucking loads of jobs right - it does basic office stuff almost right, it manages to interact with databases, it can do really nice macros/scripting/programming, it can produce decent PDF files, it can (due to ODF support) interact with other OSS projects (our marketing stuff edits our website right from OO.o via XMLRPC and eZ Publish CMS - imagine that). Etc. So OOo is also in another league than Mono.

Mono? I just don't see any practical use of it for me. Few apps, bloated runtime. What are the advantages? Java is much better for portability.

Sounds kind of pitiful

[L. VeGas (580015)]

This is like a pimply teenager begging the homecoming queen to go out with him.

Wait. Did I just compare Bill Gates to a homecoming queen?

.NOT NYET

[by Anonymous Coward]

Oh just quit it, Mono has no takeup because if people wanted to use Microsoft technology they'd be buying Vista and .NET.
If they want cross platform portability they don't rely on Microsoft for anything, rather than try .NET plus a clone.

All Mono does is give them a veneer to claim cross platform portability without actually being cross platform portable.

Instead of catch up

[stratjakt (596332)]

Why not develop mono on it's own, as it's own application development platform.

C# is a good language, having it represented outside of Windows is a good thing. Plenty of C# coders are hitting their streets, and linux could exploit that too.

Instead of dicking around trying to recreate MSFT's libraries (Windows Forms), why not more focus on developing their OWN truly cross platform libraries, (like, say, GTK#)

I had some success writing cross-platform apps based on GTK#, this was over a year ago, and haven't played with Mono since, I didn't want to invest too much time into something that looked like a novelty which would just be pitched.

De Icazas focus seemed to be "do exactly what microsoft does" then, and seems so now.

I'd take a thread safe GTK# over a half-assed wine-implementation of winforms.

But, that's just one little bears opinion.

Re:Instead of catch up

[tkinnun0 (756022)]

Once upon a time, Microsoft tried to create an incompatible Java.

Now, Open Source Aficionados are creating an incompatible .NET.

Ah, the bitter sweet irony.

Re:Instead of catch up

[agent dero (680753)]

Wow, where does one even start to combat the trolling.

If you look in the Mono.* namespace they've developed a LOT of Mono on its own, including Mono.Xml, Mono.Unix, Mono.Math and a wide vareity of other tools. Not to mention now there are various open source projects out there like DBus# [ndesk.org], Dumbarton [imeem.com], and of course Tao [mono-project.com].

Mono is a definite option now for cross-platform applications (Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, etc) and extends the compatibility to .NET 1.1 and is coming up on having a .NET 2.0 compatible class library.

Don't get yourself mixed up, Mono does allow developers to use .NET code on other platforms, but it is really a powerful framework unto itself nowadays.

Like if it would ever happen

[vivaoporto (1064484)]

If Microsoft was interested in interoperability, they could have it, anytime. They own the platform, for goodness sake, and if they wanted other their framework to work on other O.S., they would do it themselves. Microsoft strategy is not and will never be help to other platforms to run their applications, they prefer people locked in, with no choice. What is the main excuse for Mono? "To help people that are locked in .Net applications to migrate to Linux". (btw, if those people had plans to migrate to Linux, they would not choose .Net in the first place, as the technology is widely known as MS only. It is not as if it was a market standard, it is 6 years old, tops). Microsoft, on other hand, lists .Net as an advantage over "Unix" [microsoft.com]. Why would they give up that advantage? On the goodness of their hearts?

I say it again: if MS wanted a fully functional port of the .Net framework for *nix, they would do it themselves (like the PS3 people ported linux to their console). The truth is that they don't want.

Mod parent up!

[khasim (1285)]

Not to mention that ALL the source code for Linux is Freely available online. If there's any "interoperability" issues, Microsoft has access to ALL the Windows code and ALL the Linux code.

They only reason there are "interoperability" issues today is because Microsoft wants there to be.

Mono is a Trojan Horse, expect no help

[Locutus (9039)]

Why does this guy need comfort from and a working relationship with Microsoft? And why do all of his projects follow some tech Microsoft convolutes from some REAL tech(OOP, Java, etc)? Sure seems like he's got a case of Microsoft envy or something and IMO, it can only be terminal.

Because De Icaza is not only putting Microsoft tech in Mono, he's pushed Mono applications into Gnome and he's loading the MS Trojan Horse onto many GNU/Linux distros.

So what is up with him needing acceptance from Microsoft?

LoB

Miguel needs a reality check

[overshoot (39700)]

Microsoft didn't get where they are today by enabling their customers to leave.

Miguel's role in the world is to make it possible for Linux developers to get locked into Microsoft technologies, In due time Microsoft can harvest them in any number of ways. If he thinks otherwise, he needs to reconsider his choices in recreational chemistry.

Why Mono and DotNet should synch

[Orion Blastar (457579)]

This gives a great opportunity to allow Visual Studio developers to port code to Linux, Mac OSX, *BSD Unix, etc by having Dotnet and Mono synch up to be 100% compatible in the code and CIL, CLR used.

It also would allow Microsoft to more easily port Visual Studio to Linux, Mac OSX, *BSD Unix, and other platforms that Microsoft claims is too hard to port Visual Studio over to. After that is done, Microsoft can port their application software to those platforms more easily rather than rewriting code for a separate Windows and Mac version of MS-Office, etc. Then it would be one code base, and recompiled for each platform using Dotnet/Mono libraries. If Mono is finally 100% compatible with Dotnet, then the CIL and CLR code will run under Mono as well as it does under Dotnet on Windows. Since Mono exists for multiple operating systems, all that is needed is to compile the code for that OS and it makes cross-compiling easy and less costly.

Think of all the money in R&D that Microsoft would save, if it partners up with Novell and Mono just on the R&R of OSX applications that Microsoft writes if the same code can be used for Windows and OSX with just being recompiled.

Novell Failed With Evolution, so Why Not?

[filesiteguy (695431)]

I've been a SUSE user for about two years now. I have exclusively SUSE on one laptop and dual boot one desktop with Win2K. My other desktops have either SUSE/XP or SUSE/2K at work. I remember the big push after Novell bought Evolution and brought all the Mono developers on board, where they said, 'hey, let's all be one big mono happy family and everyone use Gnome.' Of course, us KDE-fans screamed and pouted and stomped our feet so much, that Novell pulled back to some degree.

I remember back to TechEd (or was it TechNet) 2001 in Atlanta where Bill and Co. introduced .NET to us as "the next big thing." Even back then I thought of it as a half hearted attempt to marginalize Java. (Not that I had any love for Java at the time.) Now, they have the market share they want, we've all got VS 2005 loaded on our machines (next to Netbeans 5.5) and those few who use Linux (including me) as a desktop may want to use C#/Mono to develop. Well, the problem is, there's no good IDE. Monodevelop isn't really up to the same level as VS 2005 or NetBeans (or Eclipse, for that matter) and is currently at a 0.13x release. Who'd want to develop an enterprise-scale application using that?

So, here's Miguel, who failed at getting us enterprise users to adopt Evolution, and he wants us to go with Mono.NET. I particularly love Miguel's naivety in saying he'd want to, "even go as far as Microsoft recommending Mono for all of their developers looking at migration." Migrating from what? Windows? Microsoft doesn't want people to migrate away from Windows. That's the furthest thing on their minds.

In any case, I'll stick to migrating to Java. Now that it is going to be truly OSS, I'll trust them just a wee bit more than our good friends in Redmond.

Forget dot net / mono, use Java

[d3xt3r (527989)]

Seriously, now that Java will be GPL'd, why exactly do we need Mono?

.Net only exists because M$ failed to embrace and extend Java. Why does the OSS community need a knock-off of a language that only exists because M$ couldn't control Java?

Re:Yeah right

[daeg (828071)]

Because it saves them market share, which is still valuable. If you're going to lose someone to Linux, you can at least keep them partially on your platform. This makes it easy, or sometimes desirable, to switch back to Windows (for integration into other Windows software, etc).

Furthermore, if you keep them on .NET, you may also keep them on SQL Server and Exchange, which are very very pricey and I'm sure turns a nice profit.

Visual Studio is also very nice to work in, and Visual Studio isn't cheap, either. As you use Mono you can reuse those same components on Windows, too (ideally).

You know...

[encoderer (1060616)]

You know, this guy got mod'ed troll, but at worst I think he was off-topic.

In all reality, that is a quintessential Microsoft move.

Purchase into a market, then leverage their OS monopoly to drive adoption of SUSE, or whatever they may call it then. It's already begun, but imagine a version of Linux that also supports the ACTUAL Win32 API, or true cross-compatibility between Windows and this one linux distro.

Sure, the Microsoft-Haters in the linux community would throw fits over it and boycott it entirely, but the businesses that use Linux for web servers and db servers and such don't care about that. To them it would mean the best of both worlds. And in all honesty, they'd be correct.

Of course, it would probably be bad for the Linux community, I'm not denying that. But this is a very standard modus operandi for Redmond. It's certainly more than just a troll.

Re:Patents, again...

[wasabii (693236)]

Because he has an honest belief that a) patents are bogus and b) C#/.Net are great platforms.

Is that so hard to understand? If we were all so scared of patents, we wouldn't have a) implemented FAT b) probably not written Linux itself c) would be scared of our own shadow.

There are patents that cover every aspect of every system you use, FOSS or not. This is not an issue that affects Mono specifically, but rather our entire free software ecosystem. It's rather nice to see somebody who isn't scared of his own shadow be willing to take them head on.

Re:De Icaza is a disgrace to OSS.

[Tack (4642)]

There were some minor licensing issues, but with Trolltech's cooperation those were quite easily worked out.

The "licensing issues" you refer to were not minor; they were simply not compatible with the ethos of a fully free desktop. To the best of my recollection, at the time of GNOME's inception there was no end in sight to Trolltech's proprietary hold on Qt. Qt was GPLed at least three years after GNOME was began. Dealing with Qt's "minor licensing issues" was not as trivial and straightforward as you make it sound.

Re:De Icaza is a disgrace to OSS.

[joto (134244)]

Take GNOME, for instance. When GNOME was first established, KDE was already the premiere OSS desktop environment. There were some minor licensing issues,

Uhm, at that time, there was no good OSS desktop environment. Sure, KDE existed. So did a bunch of others (e.g. Gnustep, CDE, various fvwm-based shit, etc...). They all sucked. KDE may have sucked a little bit less than some others, but it was far from obvious that it was what everybody should bet on (if it was, everybody would have done just that). And the licensing issues seemed pretty unsolvable at the time. It is doubtful whether Trolltech would have caved in, if it wasn't for the rise in interest in GNOME.

Even today, we still see that GNOME has not yet caught up to KDE.

GNOME has never been about "catching up" to KDE. When GNOME was started, KDE was ignored out of political and philosophical grounds. Since then, both GNOME and KDE has gone out of their way to emulate Microsoft Windows. Sure, some ideas might have been brought from KDE to GNOME, or in the other direction, but for the most part, ideas have been stolen from more successful commercial products, not from some hobbyist open source desktop project.

And then we have Mono, the subject of this Slashdot topic. Again, so much valuable time and effort has been wasted on creating a product that really is of no benefit to the OSS community.

In my opinion, Mono has a lot to offer the OSS community. Does that make one of us wrong? Yes. Is it me? No. Just because you don't find any use for it, doesn't mean that it's useless. Personally, I find C++ to be pretty useless, but I don't go around blaming the gcc developers for spending their time writing a compiler for it. And if it wasn't for gcc supporting C++, there would be no KDE either.

Just imagine how much further along projects like KDE, Python, Perl, and Ruby would be if effort and expertise hadn't been wastefully siphoned off to GNOME and Mono.

I have lots of trouble imagining that just because people stopped developing Mono, there would magically appear lots of worthwhile contributions to KDE, Python, Perl and Ruby instead. People work on what they want, not what you want.

Re:Why?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps De Icaza sees or is inspired by something that others here dont recognise. that c# and the .Net framework are a genuinely beautiful techonology. its like late bound python or ruby yet is typesafe, has wonderful meta programming possibilities - dynamic properties overiding IPropertyDescriptor, and a wonderful event model using delegates - cleaner and more contained than than Qt's signals and slots mechanism for instance. also easy integration to c/c++ using MC++, now CLI in ms world or even better automatically via swig wrappers. easily configurable automatic COM IUnknown interface exposure.

i say this as someone who at a personal level actively resists windows (10 year linuxs on personal desktop yada yada yada) and recognises ms business practices for its genuine sin and damage caused to economic welfare.

much kudos to De Icaza for seeing the value in this technology before others. linux/unix is so missing in a good object model (corba, gobjects, java beans etc) and a good abstraction layer between high and low level object design - i just hope that this might become a standard that ms could permit to be embraced by the linux community.

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