Mono Progress In the Past Year 441
Eugenia writes "OSNews posted an article accounting the applications created in GTK# the past 8 months, since the release of Mono 1.0. While many of them are still in their infancy, it's clear that the platform had a healthy progress, with 'super-hits' like Tomboy, F-spot, MonoDevelop, Muine & Blam! and other, less known gems, like SportsTracker, PolarViewer, MooTag, GFax, GIB, Sonance and Bluefunk. The 2.0 version of Mono is expected around May, but the developers advised distros and users to upgrade to Mono 1.1.4 despite being a beta."
Mono is Wonderful (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep up the good work Mono team, I love C#, and I love how you are brining it to *nix.
I fear the day when Microsoft will come and snatch this out from under the Mono team, but I really think this benifits Microsoft just as having an open source version of Java benifits Sun.
Mono talk w/ icaza (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong punctuation? (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't heard of even one of these "super hits." I think that should have been punctuated,
with 'super-hits' like Tomboy, F-spot, MonoDevelop, Muine & Blam! and other less-known gems,
C# Rocks - go mono go. (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep up the good work - I'm loving it!
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the reason(meaning many simmilar things M$ have done) I currently dont use mono for any production systems
now this isnt totaly related , i do admit but the relationship is too close for comfort
. i feel on unsteady ground using it , not that it would matter as im in the EU (unless those *Explitives* get their way)
Although i must also raise a glass to the mono team on an excelent job.
Dashboard (Score:4, Interesting)
C# is Better than Java(At least I think So) (Score:5, Interesting)
The only problem I have with C# was that it was not as portable as Java, but Mono came to my rescue. I was surprised how many of my program just worked in Mono (after removing winforms that is). I can't wait for version 2.0.
Really, Mono should be embraced
P.S. And for some reason, they still have the sides on their computer case.......
.NET is a brand, Mono should stop referring to it (Score:1, Interesting)
".NET" is Microsoft's brand. They use it to refer to many many different pieces of their technology that use the CLR/C# runtime. This includes such nebulous things as "Sign In.NET", the button that people use to login to MSN and Hotmail. What on earth does that have to do with Mono????? How is that related??
Furthermore, all of the tools that *include* many, many technologies that do not fit under the ".NET" umbrella (if strictly defined as the C#/CLR pieces) sport the brand. Even VisualStudio.NET is not completely a ".NET" thing.
So, my very firm advice and solemn plea is for Mono completely to drop *ALL REFERENCES* to ".NET". It is doing them no good whatsoever and just confusing people. It is not clear at all what ".NET" really is, and I'm afraid the Mono team have been roped into Microsoft's marketing machine, not realizing what's being done to them. In addition, I think that ".NET Framework" is equally muddled and confusing. I would recommend that they refer to Mono only as an implementation of the C# and CLR specifications as outlined by the EMCA standards body, with a link to those specific standards.
Otherwise, they are showing a complete ignorance of basic marketing. They are simply reinforcing Microsoft's brand in a very significant way, not just implementing their technologies. This may not be so bad, but one thing that Open Source/Free Software *really* *really* *really* desperately needs to get better at is marketing, if it ever hopes to get beyond an also-ran technology implementor of other peoples' technology. Take a small lesson from Firefox. If Microsoft released a XUL clone, integrate it with some parts of XAML, and changed the name of Internet Explorer 7 to "InternetExplorer.WEB", I would sincerely hope that Mozilla would not start calling Firefox an "Open Source implementation of the
Re:it's not reverse engineering (Score:3, Interesting)
Those same applications will also run under Windows, which means people dont have to run a competitors OS to run the software. Plus, they can sell MS Office.NET to Linux users too, as it can run on Linux.
Re:Beagle (Score:4, Interesting)
You should try gcj with the SWT or gnome-java bindings. Nothing doggy about it. :-)
BTW, gcj is the gcc Java compiler [gnu.org].
Re:huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and forget Access, Visio, Excel, BOB, Acrobat, Encore, PowerPoint, and similarly named programs. I can't tell what they do either just by their names....
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Story time (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know the detailed inner workings, but it seems like these projects are forever doomed to being a shadow of a "mostly" implimentation riddled with "gotchas" and always a few steps behind. I don't blame the developers in any way, its just we all know MS does not play nice with others.
Re:From a mono developer.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Great, now that you are here:
A while (a year or two?) ago Novell was asking MSFT to clarify the IP issues with Mono, or at least to declare that Mono does not infringe MSFT IP, i.e. that it's safe to use. What happened with that? I'd certainly like to get a form of reassurance that it's going to stick around and be safe to code for, esp. with the emergence of projects like IronPython...
Re:it's not reverse engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to the ecma site and saw this page [ecma-international.org]:
WARNINGS
The liability and responsibility for the implementation of an Ecma Standard rests with the implementor, and not with Ecma.
Below that was a warning and a linke about settling patent issues pertaining to ECMA standards. Scary.
B
Re:I for one (Score:0, Interesting)
Stop modding down any anti-Mono posts. Many of them have valid points.
C# for UI? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm primarily a *nix developer, but this Mono implementation of
A good portable way to write programs might be to write the application core in standard C++, then write the UI in C#/Mono on *nix, Obj-C on OS X, and C#/.NET on Windows.
Thoughts?
Re:C# is Better than Java(At least I think So) (Score:1, Interesting)
How can you miss the virtual keyword in Java since every 'function' is virtual?
That C# even has functions and function pointers (delegates) is a sick joke. The naming scheme is inherited from visual basic and lame since it doesn't tell you anything meaningful... in Java Nouns are capalized and verbs are camel-case whereas in C# Classes, Methods, and Properties are capitalized and only variables are not (ie, it's retarded). Microsoft took Java's standard library, which uses good short names, and crapped on it so it wouldn't look like a straight rip-off, so you end up with retarded names all of the API.
Basically the C# language is built for the masses of lame C / VB / C++ coders that have no sense of style. Seriously, nobody with any self respect could even write in C++ if they knew the difference. The only thing holding Java back is the license; you can't even emerge in on gentoo without manually downloading a file for heaven's sake!
Re:Mono has a long way to go, even in OSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Java: Azureus, Eclipse.... I'm sure if I really searched I could find a third.
Mono: Beagle, Tomboy, F-Spot, Muine, MonoDevelop etc. [osnews.com]
It's no sillier a metric than the amount of showelware on SourceForge for a given platform. For the Linux user it's certainly a more interesting one.
Even these so called crown jewels of the Java desktop can be spotted a mile away as Java programs. When you run Beagle or Tomboy you can not distinguish them from native GTK+ apps. For all intents and purposes they are native.
Java and Mono have chosen completely different paths at this point. It's futile to try to evangelize one language over the other at this point. Java has settled as a backend language for stuff like web services, while Mono/.NET competes with the incumbent C/C++, and Python to some extent, over the desktop. It's now a case of different tools for different jobs, and at this time it's already pretty clear that Mono is going to be a major force when it comes to the future of the Linux desktop.
Re:I think it is a mistake (Score:1, Interesting)
2. I agree with your "appreciation" of MS bussiness practices and I readily agree with you that MS wouldn't shy away from even the most disgusting legal assault on open source if it thought to profit from it. But this holds true with mono and without it.
I think one can even argue that attacking mono would be the stupidest thing MS could do, as, again, it's an open standard, MS is marketing
Re:Beagle (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it that anytime someone asks for an example of a decent Java App the Java Fanboys come up with either Eclipse (doesn't count, only useful with Java) or Azureus?
Why is it I have to install old versions of the Java Runtime to run certain InstallAnywhere Installers (like Borland Together, needs 1.3.1, didn't run with 1.4.2 runtime, needed it because a University Software Engineering Course insisted on it). Never had that problem with Perl or Python.
Sure, you may have caught lots of PHBs with all that hype around Java but how much of it really pays off in the real world?
Re:Beagle (Score:2, Interesting)
You obviously didn't measure, see:
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/archive/
Re:Did you forget about wxNET? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which raises the interesting question of whether we should be looking for another level of abstraction for GUIs beyond widget toolkits that let you write one codebase that then applies the HIG rules of the platform (which, of course, have to be something formally codified rather than just a spec document) to generate a (relatively speaking) HIG compliant UI.
Imagine having applications written on a level such that the "OK/Cancel" button order is determined by the platform rather than by where the code explicitly placed the buttons. Such would certainly make GNOME and KDE much more compatible. At the same time it would formalise the HIG from a "reccomended way of doing things" into a mandated consistent GUI.
Jedidiah.
Re:Impressive (Score:2, Interesting)
Guess what: there's this simple problem with Mono. It's OS/2 all over again, except Linux is already losing.
Mono spells the end of the Linux desktop, not that there was any Linux desktop in the first place. Why? Mono offers a path between Linux and Windows that allow you to keep the same apps.
Except that Windows.NET apps are guarenteed to run on Windows, but may not run on Mono, and Mono apps are guarenteed to run on both.
Meaning that you get a larger pool of software on Windows, like you already do. Meaning that there's basically no point in writing a Linux port when you can write a Windows version and claim that it runs under Linux due to Mono.
Mono will help ensure that our desktops and servers continue to run Windows. Sounds like a real win to the open source community.
Linux is already basically cut out of the desktop since people will use whatever comes with their computer, which is universely Windows (or MacOS), and companies will continue to pay top-dollar for whatever the salesman sells them. Mono will help Microsoft in the long run by ensuring that Windows runs more software than Linux does (which it, of course, already does).
In fact, this is already happening to a lesser degree. At one point we were going to buy a Red Hat support contract where I work, but because Apache, MySQL, and Tomcat all run on Windows, we instead decided to stick with Windows 2000 Server, since that's what Dell sells us anyway. We're considering getting new servers, too - which will be running Windows 2003 Server, of course. They'll be running Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, and a CVS server on Windows - because that's what the computer comes with.
If those apps were only available for Linux, we'd probably be running Linux servers right now. But since they have Windows ports, we use Windows instead. It's considered "more secure," too, because IT already tests for Windows security and it would "cost extra" to keep up to date on Linux patches. So - no Linux for us, thanks to portability to Windows.
Ignorants babble what they don't understand... (Score:3, Interesting)
wxWidgets is NOT an EMULATOR layer. It's a parallel implementation of an UI using the Native OS's widgets. From the wxWidgets site: "the open source, cross-platform native UI framework
with twelve years of evolution behind it".
It's not about how a widget should LOOK or FEEL. It's about using THE SAME CODE to make a program.
They even got a PalmOS version [wxwidgets.org] now.
Maybe for your small needs you don't need cross-platform. Maybe you're happy crunching bits and recompiling the most of your kernel, but you're certainly not the average Joe User - and that's a majority that has needs. These people right now are screaming when their machines are being invaded by spyware, viruses (and coming soon, rootkits [slashdot.org])
. These people need to escape. And cross-platform applications is the way to go.
But if you really want to help people migrate from Windows to a safer Linux environment without losing their friendly commodities, at least you should give programmers the benefit of the doubt.
I AM a windows user. But I'm planning on migrating. And I want OTHER people to migrate to Linux. Linux doesn't belong to elitists... it belongs to the world, that's why it's Open Source, and GPL licensed. So please, stop building iron walls and let the Windows prisoners escape to a safer world.
After all, don't you want to be among the ones who were there, the day Microsoft died [blogspot.com]?
Certainly, I do.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:2, Interesting)
winforms, winfx(avalon, winfs, etc) and the like are still closed and a potential attack areas from the microsoft front. and these probably going to be much used in apps.
Re:Take the Mono Challenge !!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you mean that it is available at no cost ?
If this is the case, then so is Java's runtime AND development environment.
If not then I assume you mean it is "open-source", which is confusing since:
Secondly, why do I need a Windows version of Mono when as stated in the projects FAQ, Question 1: What Exactly is Mono ?:
The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Novell that is working to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft
(See the http://www.mono-project.comabout/index.html [www.mono-p...t.comabout] page for details)
mostly great, BUT.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, the list of dependencies to run monodevelop is astronomical. After my 7th or 8th trip to google to find some arcane dependency, I gave up. I think it's better if you are running gnome, but not much.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:3, Interesting)
# Perl's been going for longer. How many perl forks are there?
# How may rubies?
# How many phps are there?
How many big industry names (Sun, MS, IBM, Oracle, etc) are wrestling around those like in Java? No one. There is no danger because there are no pressures to do so.
All I can think of is your beloved java. MS, IBM, Sun, Kaffe, GCJ... Your strategy of keeping it closed to prevent incompatible versions doesn't seem to have worked!
MS DID forked Java with its propietary extensions. Which it was ruled by a court it couldn't under their licence agreement with Sun. When MS decided it could not embrace and extend Java at pleasure started
IBM AFAIK made its JVMs based on Sun's.
From Kaffe homepage: "Kaffe is not the best Java virtual machine for developing Java applications, as it lacks much in the way of documentation, compatibility, debugging/profiling support, etc. If you are learning Java, or are looking for a complete Java development environment, you will probably be best served by using a "real" Java development environment (such as the JDK) licensed from Sun."
GCJ: "GCJ is a portable, optimizing, ahead-of-time compiler for the Java Programming Language.". There many other Java compilers around, notably the Eclipse project has one and Jikes, both open source.
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:2, Interesting)
Their source code is, by all I can see from feedback in the Mustang (next version of Java) forum on java.net, an unbuildable, unmaintanable mess, just like proprietary software usually is. Sun's code is increasingly irrelevant, and opening it up would probably only end up with some poor people wasting their time trying to breath life into the baroque bitrotting corpus and getting frustrated with Sun's bizarre control urge in their licensing division.
If there is any future for Java, the platform, it lies within GNU Classpath and its family of runtimes. Sun had total control of the platform and blew it. Now it's up to us to fix it, and on many accounts, the free implementation are much better than the non-free ones. So noone in the free runtime community really cares about Sun or Sun's source code any more. People are increasingly busy taking the future of Java in their hands.
What's really funny is that people hacking on free software runtimes like Kaffe or Gcj want to be compatible with Sun's implementation, but Sun doesn't really want us to, because people would switch in droves. So they make it nearly impossible get the compliance test suites, the API specs are in many parts a complete joke, and the language and VM specs haven't ever been updated to match reality since Java 1.1. They do flail their arms around a lot, and there is a lot of chest-thumping on Sun's side about how open they are, but in reality, there is very, very little coming out of Sun that's really useful for a free software implementation of Java.
They've done some great work making themselves irrelevant and to turn a nice platform into a legacy platform. Oh, and before I forget,
cheers,
dalibor topic,
Kaffe dev
I'll say this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Having recently considered learning C#/Mono, a few things bugged me. Firstly, it was not easy to find a tutorial more complex than Hello World but less complex than "oh, look, we're going to be making a wordpad clone". Considering that it is much easier to program with C and GTK, or C++ and QT or GTK--, it will take some serious work to make Mono attractive if you're looking to attract the people who don't need Windows compatibility.
Re:".net" vs ".NET" (rant) (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Mono is Wonderful (Score:3, Interesting)
Because you are incapable of catching up with Sun, pissed off you can't use their code in yours, and that you can't even come close to meeting requirements with your project, so Sun's Java MUST suck! And the only way it can be good is if it is open sourced and you can rip off of it!.... Right.