DotGNU Meet-a-thon

Gopal.V writes "It's time for the Quarterly DotGNU IRC Meet-a-thon. As usual, we'll be having it on #dotgnu on irc.openprojects.net. We will be discussing the current state of DotGNU, where we've gone and where we should be headed. Anyone who is interested should join us. In particular, we are not only looking for developers to be involved in this meet, but also potential DotGNU users. We are very interested in addressing any questions/input from anyone who will one day use our framework. So come one, come all. The last meet was a lot of fun and we expect this this IRC meet will be even better than the last. Again, the IRC meet is taking place on: Server: irc.openprojects.net, Channel: #dotgnu. The meeting will run for a 36 hour period from 22:00 UTC Saturday 29 July 2002 until 10:00 UTC Monday 31 July. Every 4 hours will be an official meet time, when the major DotGNU members will be online. Most discussions will revolve round DotGNU projects and other issues concerning freedom in the new MS initiatives like .NET , and Palladium." I think this announcement may be slightly wrong on the times since it disagrees with the post to the email list; but this is posted as submitted.

For those wondering what dotgnu is...

[User 956]

IIRC, I read that DotGNU [dotgnu.org] will enable you to run your C# programs on the free GNU/Linux operating system using exclusively free software. With DotGNU [dotgnu.org], you will be able to use C# if you wish, without surrendering your freedom to study, share, change, and generally control all the software that you use.

This is, of course a boon, however it is worthless without some soft of workaround for Microsoft's Palladium scheme [theregister.co.uk]:

Microsoft's "Palladium certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances."

Fight, and Innovate

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I think it's great that they are trying to prevent MS from taking over the web; they or others should also watch out for Palladium.

2. The Free Software community will never really beat MS if it always tries to catch up with them. It should innovate on a large scale, visions for a free web etc, so that the industry and MS will be busy trying to catch up.