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Mono - 'Breaking Down the .Net Barriers' 283

Posted by CmdrTaco from the another-brick-in-the-wall dept.
ceejayoz writes "MSNBC has an interesting article about the Mono project, saying that the 'volunteer effort could oblige Microsoft to work with Linux'."
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Mono - 'Breaking Down the .Net Barriers' More

Mono - 'Breaking Down the .Net Barriers'

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  • They say this as if it's negative for Microsoft... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:22AM (#5173599) Homepage Journal
    IMHO mono has been a great asset for .NET adoption: Previously, one of the primary "sales" problems in encouraging .NET adoption was the fear that it ties the customer to a single vendor solution (and this is often heavily played up when it goes against Java, for instance). Mono offers one the ability to offer a rapidly developing alternative in case of ridiculous FUD circumstances often imagined in efforts to detract from Microsoft products (i.e. "What if they withdraw all their products and you have to give your firstborn to use it! Then what!").
    • Only if you develop on Mono and deploy (or maybe not) on MS.

      Otherwise Mono is only of marketing value (which is probably exactly what MS wants).

    • vendor lock in (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SgtChaireBourne ( 457691 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:35AM (#5174055) Homepage

      They say this as if it's negative for Microsoft...

      Mono seems to be Microsoft's best, perhaps only, chance for implementing .Net. Unfortunately, I'm very skeptical to it and see it only as a way of porting vendor lock in to new platforms in place of Windows, which seems to be on the decline. Once OEMs are no longer forced to push Windows on each and every machine, the monopoly position that Microsoft enjoys will rapidly fade and with it, the monopoly rents which seem to be Microsoft's only source of money.

      Unfortunately that probability will exist until the issue of encumbering patents is resolved. So far there are just vague rumors of oral promises not to use submarine patents to the disadvantage of non-MS tools. Look at the disruption caused by Unisys's LZW patent used in GIFs. Look at Sendo to see how Mono will get treated if Bill G is done with it.

      Until then, Java is much further along.

      • I see OpenOffice's support for MS Word documents merely a way of porting vendor lock in.

        Ooop. Except that Microsoft don't make either openoffice or Mono. You don't think that it might be a method of removing vendor lock in?

        While I do agree that Microsoft will jump on Mono if they perceive it as a threat they will find it difficult to do the more they use it as evidence of how nice they are now and continue to point at it as demonstrating their "love" of open standards.

        • Ooop. Except that Microsoft don't make either openoffice or Mono. You don't think that it might be a method of removing vendor lock in?

          No. OpenOffice can exist without the good will of any particular company. Mono, howver, gives every appearance of being dependent on continued use of patents from a company not known for helping competitors. I expect they'll try to pull similar tricks as were done with Sendo, HTML, Kerberos, LDAP, or Java.

    • Re:They say this as if it's negative for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

      by estoll ( 443779 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:02AM (#5174257) Homepage
      Even when Mono becomes a mature product, if a customer asked me to write a .NET application and then asked if it would run on Linux, I could never honestly tell them yes. Why? Because Microsoft is a moving target and they always throw a wrench into something like this. I would never trust an application I wrote for Microsoft.NET would run 100% in Mono. For that reason alone, Microsoft will continue to hold their monopoly. The monopoly isn't because they have a great product, it is because people fear Microsoft will change gears on them. Microsoft can write code faster than any of us and nobody wants to be playing catch up by supporting a different OS. There is absolutely no motivating factor that Microsoft will play fair with .NET and the only chance the Mono project will succeed is if a major competitor like IBM takes over the project. Personally, I would love to see someone like IBM back Mono. It is going to take something like the success of .NET and its cross platform ability to Microsoft in its place. But that is so unlikely to happen, just like Java because Microsoft will drag out the problem so long, new technology will come along and the problem just goes away. If IBM could find a way around the patents, I say they should take up the Mono project and dump millions into advertising .NET! People are so confused about what .NET is anyway, they probably wouldn't even notice IBM stealing the brand name... :)
    • And you wonder why support for Sun's competing Liberty Alliance project has not gone as well as Sun has hoped.

      Since Microsoft has pretty much allowed Mono to proceed, this is actually VERY bad news for the Liberty Alliance project because why would you want to pay Sun licensing fees for Liberty Alliance code when you can implement the .NET framework at GPL prices using Mono? Imagine Windows users and Linux users all using .NET services--Sun's project will be left holding the bag.

      • All a jumble (Score:4, Insightful)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @12:07PM (#5174791)
        You have quite a jumble of buzzwords there, too bad they don't belong with each other.

        To start with, .Net and Liberty Alliance have about as much to do with each other as my computer and a furry kitten basking in the sunshine. Actually, they are not even that similar. Mono .Net is basically like trying to write a new JVM and libraries (the CLR). The Liberty Alliance is a scheme for large scale authentication. I won't say which one is the kitten.

        So to say the Liberty Alliance will be hampered by a GPL mono... is pretty ill-informed as anyone can put together a liberty-alliance program on top of Java, which is also free only it works on many more platforms - today. There are no fees that I'm aware of, though if you know of any for implementing the Alliance stuff I'd be interested to see a link. But even if there is a licence fee you've still got the core problems with Alliance all wrong.

  • Java (Score:4, Insightful)

    by e8johan ( 605347 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:22AM (#5173600) Homepage Journal

    "That [.Net works with Linux] could be a big breakthrough for Linux..."

    At the price of killing Java...

    • Re:Java (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sun could sue Linus and demand he packages a new version of Java with every kernel.

      • Re:Java (Score:3, Insightful)

        by marko123 ( 131635 )
        Read a good quote:
        "J2EE is flexibility at the price of productivity. dotNet is productivity at the price of flexibility."

        Nuff said.
      • Kinda funny,

        but IF Linus signed a contract with Sun saying that he will include a "Sun compatable and certified" JVM with every Linux kernel for the next 5 YEARS; then he would have to do so.

        We wouldn't have to worry about that though, because unlike some companies Linus doesn't appear to be so stupid as to sign anything like that.
        • If Linus would sign such a contract, we would have a complete Java VM in the kernel. No thanks :)

          I think it would be more feasible if a distribution maker like RedHat would sign such a deal. Linux is just a kernel. Java has nothing (well, little) to do with kernels.

          • Re:Java (Score:3, Insightful)

            by FatherOfONe ( 515801 )
            I realize that, but I was just commenting on the above post.

            My point is that Microsoft signed a contract. It was a stupid contract on their part. Now they must live up to it.

            In my opinion that contract was the beginning of the end for Microsoft. They gave up a HUGE developer base, AND OS lockin for those developers.

    • Re:Java (Score:2, Interesting)

      by .sig ( 180877 )
      And how is this a bad thing? Fortran was killed a long time ago (except for legacy apps and such), and I'm certainly not complaining.

      (It may be obvious that I don't like Java, but even if I did I'd still look for something better on the horizon. No sense in living in the past, especially in such a fast evolving field.)
      • Don't worry. Remember that we already have some decent free java environments. Since we are talking about Free Software here we are able to marry the best parts of both worlds!

        Look at IKVM.NET for an example:
        http://radio.weblogs.com/0109845/ [weblogs.com]
        GNU Classpath meets Mono!

      • Re:Java (Score:4, Informative)

        by mark_lybarger ( 199098 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:56AM (#5173784)
        what patents does SUN own on the Java language and arcitecture itself? we've seen IBM come out with a non-standard GUI library, and SUN only replies with: "it's not the standard java". as far as i know, anyone is freely able to use and extend the java arcitecture as it suites their needs.

        microsoft does have patents on the .NET arcitecture and have not at all publicly stated that they won't use those patents to stop those who implement their technology on other platforms. when asked about mono, they say "that's an interesting project and it shows the power of .NET". they fail to add that "yeah, and we're going to basically own their source when it's all and done with it. tht GPL is going to get ripped to shreds."

        as others have mentioned FORTRAN isn't quite dead, but like BSD, it's dying. as late as 2 years ago i was coding business applications in FORTRAN on both VMS and Solaris platforms.

    • Re:Java (Score:2, Insightful)

      by segoy ( 641704 )
      Remember, it's all about having a _choice_. Anything which gives us more freedom to chose the how and what of what it is we do is a Good Thing (R).

      And look at it from this standpoint: if we a working CLR (Common Language Runtime) for Linux, then we have an almost-idiotproof way of getting Linux in the door at historically Microsoft only companies (for example, mine).
      • Having CLR does not mean having all the classes (such as WinForms). It is still a lock-in from M$'s side.

  • Best quote (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bjb ( 3050 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:23AM (#5173603) Homepage Journal
    The article just starts off with the best quote which really sums everything up: "I don't it's ever going to wipe out Microsoft, but it's going to be a fairer universe.".

    Nobody could reasonably expect a project like this to have significant impact on a behemoth like Microsoft, but at least other platforms won't get shut out of a developing market. I'm glad Miguel at least has this realistic view.

  • Oh-oh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:23AM (#5173604)


    > saying that the 'volunteer effort could oblige Microsoft to work with Linux'.

    And look what happened to all the companies Microsoft saw fit to "work with" in the past.

    • Re:Oh-oh. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:36AM (#5173664)
      Good job Linux isn't a company then, and isn't proprietary and therefore "lock-upable", isn't it?

      • Re:Oh-oh. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Rogerborg ( 306625 )
        But Ximian is a company, they have rent to pay, and they're writing the book on Mono. I like to know that standards are been created by the people that want to use them, without having to worry about who's pulling the strings.
        • True, but Black Parrot wasn't (directly) talking about Ximian, s/he was talking about Linux.

          Yes, of course, Microsoft could just buy Ximian and, depending on Mono's licence, either shut it down completely or charge extortionate amounts for it.

      • Re:Oh-oh. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by turgid ( 580780 )
        Well, Linux may not be "lock-upable" but many of the libraries which run on top of it which are used in applications are not completely "Free Software" and by that I mean not GPL or LGPL. Some have BSD/X11-type licenses. One could envision a scenario in which Microsoft could embrace one of these libraries (e.g. from mono) and add their own code. They would be perfectly within their rights to do so. Applications could be written to use that code. Microsoft could then stop distributing the source, supplying binary-only libraries. Then they could break the API and add their own undocumented stuff. Or even worse, they could claim that some of it was patented and start demanding that everyone who uses it pay them a license fee. At this point they have rendered a whole load of other people's software useless, just as they have done before to Windows developers, effectively wiping out the competition.

        • Re:Oh-oh. (Score:2, Informative)

          by Spellbinder ( 615834 )
          seems they also thought about this
          from http://go-mono.com/faq.html#licensing [go-mono.com]
          Patents Question 122: Could patents be used to completely disable Mono (either submarine patents filed now, or changes made by Microsoft specifically to create patent problems)? No. First, its basic functional capabilities have pre-existed too long to be held up by patents. The basic components of Mono are technologically equivalent to Sun's Java technology, which has been around for years. Mono will also implement multi-language and multi-architecture support, but there are previous technologies such as UCSD p-code and ANDF that also support multiple languages using a common intermediate language. The libraries are similar to other language's libraries, so again, they're too similar to be patentable in large measure. However, if Microsoft does patent some technology, then our plan is to either (1) work around it, (2) chop out patented pieces, (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless. Not providing a patented capability would weaken the interoperability, but it would still provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools, which is the primary reason for developing Mono.

        • Re:Oh-oh. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Tim Macinta ( 1052 ) <twm@alum.mit.edu> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:35AM (#5174056) Homepage
          One could envision a scenario in which Microsoft could embrace one of these libraries (e.g. from mono) and add their own code. They would be perfectly within their rights to do so.
          Yes! Just look at what they did with Kerberos. Kerberos has an X11-type license, Microsoft extended it by adding functionality that would break machines running Kerberos code when interacting with machines running Microsoft-Kerberos. They documented the changes, but to get the documentation you had to agree to some ridiculous NDA which basically prevented you from revealing the changes, which would presumably include creating an open source version that uses those changes. This was a very big deal here on Slashdot several months ago.

          Come on people - Microsoft has screwed up way too many times in the past to use the argument that "this time is different because they never screwed anybody over in this situation before." Chances are they have (as is the case here), and if they haven't, the screwing-over department is one of two departments where they innovate regularly (the other being their legal department). They have practically always had ulterior motives in the past when announcing things that sounded like they were turning over a new leaf (anybody remember how they said they wanted to fully support Java and free their developers when it first came out?) and it's unlikely that this time will be any different. I'm not touching Mono for as long as I can help it. (Sorry Miguel, it's not a comment on the quality of your software, I just fear what Microsoft has in store.)

    • Re:Oh-oh. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 )

      And look what happened to all the companies Microsoft saw fit to "work with" in the past.

      What, make a huge amount of money? For every one company that Microsoft "crushed", there are probably 100 that made a lot of money (and thousands that make a solid living). It sure doesn't suck to be the Visio guys. Or Norton. Or MacAfee. Or Symantec. Or...

      Of course, I could point out that even Microsoft's enemies don't always do badly. Quicken... Oracle...

      Most of the ones that died had sucky products that stopped progressing (WordPerfect, Netscape, Borland*, etc).

      *Yes, I know Borland still has some backers, and I know that Microsoft hired a lot of their programmers, etc, etc.

  • Umm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:25AM (#5173612)
    Mono's impact will ultimately depend on who ends up controlling it. Microsoft could adopt Mono as a kind of super standard of its own. Or Mono could end up in the hands of a rival like IBM that could use it to undermine Microsoft's power.

    That quote makes no sense. Mono is free software yes? How can it end up in the hands of anything. It's X11 licensed now iirc, which unfortunately means it could be hijacked, but as there is already a .NET implementation I don't think that matters.

    Anyway, Miguel is the coolest guy. I wasn't at all sure about Mono to begin with, but reading the arguments he put forth and talking with him and the rest of his team on IRC has convinced me that he's got the right idea. It's basically a win/win situation, we need a .NET implementation for running Windows apps in future, and if we can use it for writing good apps ourselves then so much the better. I have yet to hear concerns about patents that are actually concrete.

    • Re:Umm (Score:5, Funny)

      by IainHere ( 536270 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:31AM (#5173640)
      It's basically a win/win situation

      Presumably you meant "Win/Win"

    • Re:Umm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jedigeek ( 102443 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:42AM (#5173699) Journal
      It's interesting how quick the article goes into meaningless comments about power struggles - rather than a discussion of the logical benifits of the technology.
      • Because we are very cautious, and too used to anything associated with MS being ruined?

        Doesn't matter what the benefits are if we aren't sure if it will survive.

    • Re:Umm (Score:3, Informative)

      by TummyX ( 84871 )
      Just to carify...

      The Mono C# compiler (mcs) is licensed under the GPL, the runtime is licensed under LGPL and the class library is licensed under X11.

    • Re:Umm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JohnFluxx ( 413620 )
      It's true that nobody can take away what we have already (patents not withstanding) but there are a couple of tactics that could be used:

      First, MS donates time and money into producing some new classes and extensions (ooh, I dunno, perhaps wrappers around the windows widgets to qt or something).

      But MS puts them under a license that is kinda free, but dodgy. But free enough that those who complain are labelled 'rms lovers' and ignored. (Perhaps something like "free to use and run, but MS may claim back rights at any time).

      MS waits until everyone uses their extensions, and everybody builds on top of their extensions, leaving the old version to go to waste.

      Then MS pulls the rug out, and decides they no longer allow anyone to use their code.

      Am I being ridiculous? Sure. Is it likely? probably not. But you asked how it could happen..

  • Simple question. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:28AM (#5173623) Journal
    Do you really want microsoft in your backyard?

    Please think a bit about everything that happends when you get this, and figure out if maybe pushing the giant hard and fast will get you what you want. It might just get you everything you ask for, which might not be the very best thing. Microsoft has a very interesting way of taking over something and making it work just well enough to kill what spawned the idea. Granted linux is not you average everyday software package or bottom rung OS so this may not happen as fast or with as much fanfair. All I can say is if you look at the past you will find they are good at at least one thing. Making the masses think they have the best goods. If they switch gears on the Linux community and grab it with both hands and say "We are sorry, we like it! Lets try to work together" don't be surprised when they take over. The Microsoft juggernaut is not something you want hanging around in your backyard sniffing at the roses. Losts of money to force the issue, and enough very smart people to make it happen.

    Again I have been known to be wrong....

    • backyard? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sirshannon ( 616247 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:39AM (#5173682) Homepage Journal
      Microsoft is in my kitchen! I don't even run *nix at the moment but will soon, thanks to Mono. Does that make me 'the enemy' around here?

      If MS does 'embrace' Mono and decide they can do it better, then it will only help me more, because it will either a) be better or b) I'll still use Mono. That's the joy of open source, right? Freedom of choice? This just gives you more freedom and more choices.

      Rejoice!

      • Re:backyard? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FatherOfONe ( 515801 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:49AM (#5174160)
        This is a double edge sword for the Linux community. If this project continues and is good then people like you will try out Linux and probably use it.

        However, there is a serious risk that Microsoft will help in this development only to crush out their primary competition (JAVA). Once that appears to be done then they will do everything in their power to make sure that Mono dies. Specificaly they would change their software to break Mono.

        Now Linux people appear not to care about politics :-), and they just develop Linux to work with about anything. So you WILL get your wish.

        I personally think that it is a bad idea to develop Mono, and think that in the long run it will only help Microsoft. I don't think it will hurt Linux though. But I guess that the same could have been said about SAMBA. Don't you just wonder why Microsoft wants to help Mono development so much and yet they HATE SAMBA?

        They didn't use to hate SAMBA either...

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mraymer ( 516227 ) <mraymer&centurytel,net> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:29AM (#5173629) Homepage Journal
    volunteer effort could oblige Microsoft to work with Linux

    In other news, nVidia will be helping ATI develop the latest Raedon drivers, and Apple will release OS X for the PC. Also, the XBOX will now offically ship modded to work with XBOX Linux, and will even include a bootable Linux CD. Yeah... right... ;)

  • Obliged? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skubalon ( 579506 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:30AM (#5173639)
    It seems to me that in Microsoft's position, they are not obligated to do anything. They control the biggest monopoly in the computer industry and they are in the habit of making companies/projects obligated to make their systems work with Microsoft systems. There is no reason for Microsft to be obliged to do anything with a port of their CLR.
    • It seems to me that in Microsoft's position, they are not obligated to do anything. They control the biggest monopoly in the computer industry and they are in the habit of making companies/projects obligated to make their systems work with Microsoft systems. There is no reason for Microsft to be obliged to do anything with a port of their CLR.

      There was no reason for MS to make the CLR an ECMA standard either, nor to port it to FreeBSD, but they did. I believe that Microsoft would support Linux if the endgame involves the elimination of Sun.

      • Re:Obliged? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by SerpentMage ( 13390 )
        1) The EMCA standard means squat. EG, I am going to standardize the language xyz at EMCA. Does that mean anything? Nope....

        2) The FreeBSD port is a non-commercial port of rotor. This means FreeBSD does NOT have any commercial .NET implementation.

        3) Helping Linux is that last thing MS wants to do.

        Lets be very frank here. MS does not give a rats butt if .NET works on the LINUX platform. MS makes its money selling the software attached to .NET which only run on Windows and will always only run on Windows.

        Also consider the following quote from another mailing list:

        *******(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/win_tech_o ff _topic/message/13985)
        It is different as programming paradigm and prowides a lot more features than
        the current Windows Forms. It should be used instead of Windows Forms for
        native Longhorn apps. I don't know what the plans for Windows Forms are, but
        it's quite possible that on Longhorn they will lay on top of Avalon to support
        "legacy" .NET programs. I don't think Windows Forms will go away though, as
        they are the managed UI for Win2K, XP and Windows Server 2003. And I don't know
        (but i highly doubt) whether Avalon will be ported to older platforms.

        You realise that i've already said more than i can, especially considering the
        fact that i am not on the Avalon team and the information above may not be
        totally correct, right? :-) (Put standard disclaimer here...)

        Does that clarify the things or makes them more vague? :-)
        ******

        In the next generation of .NET generics and a new GUI platform will be introduced. How is Mono going to adapt? Oh yeah I forgot it is the old bait and switch routine.

        Seriously though I like Mono and use Mono. BUT Mono is NOT a .NET on Linux. Mono is C# and runtime environment for all platforms. And when I code in Mono I code in Mono, GTK# and other Mono things. I do not even consider what MS is doing since trying to keep up is futile.

        Think about it. People BUYING the product are having a hard time keeping up with the changes. How do you expect a guy with 150 programmers to keep up with several thousand in MS? In other words think of Mono as another platform that happens to have a C# compiler.
        • This is very well put.

          Personally, I would stear clear from everything that is not implemented in the ECMA specs as much as possible. Mono and Portable.NET are good tools, but they should not be thought of as drop in replacements for .NET ... that will never happen unless the likes of IBM get on board (and even then maybe not).

          Just because they are not going to be drop in replacements does not mean Mono and Portable.NET can not be used for native linux development and as a conversion platform for MS developers looking to migrate to Linux. IMHO, the Great Migration will happen, is only a matter of when ;)

  • Move along...nothing to see here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jayteedee ( 211241 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:31AM (#5173643)
    This is a weak story. A point is made about MS being forced into compatibility, but no facts to back up the claim. Journalism at it's finest. I'll make my own conjecture: Microsoft will put out a compatible/standard product when they see SIGNIFICANT decrease in market share or lost revenue. They haven't got X-Box right, nor Windows CE, but a few billion dollars later, a few strong-arm deals later, a few revision later, they'll have a story and a product and the sheep will make it a standard.

  • Mono is a platform (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:35AM (#5173658)
    Mono is doing very well indeed as a platform independent of .NET or the tie-ins that Microsoft is traditionally associated. There are already several independent Gtk# applications popping up and the ASP.NET implementation is showing real promise. There's a new page of screenshots here [go-mono.com]. The Gtk# debugger and documentation browser are fairly complete and have been developed in a minimal time-frame thanks to C#. Other pages worth looking at are gsirc [atoker.com] and Platano [atoker.com].

    Basically, what these pages show is that Mono is less like Wine and more like a complete new development environment for Linux that also has cross-platform ties. There's lots of innovation going on in the Mono community and that's filtering down into projects like GNOME and KDE through Gtk# and Qt#, for example. I say it's all good.

    • Re:Mono is a platform (Score:5, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:46AM (#5173727)
      Basically, what these pages show is that Mono is less like Wine

      Well it's both. Windows apps will still be written using System.Windows.Forms and they will need Wine to emulate them unfortunately. Mono/Linux apps will use the Gnome or KDE .net bindings, and they won't integrate as nicely into Windows.

      Unfortunately Wine and the SWF effort are currently being screwed around by threading issues, and the new glibc also messes things up even more, so until the threading situation is sorted out I doubt we'll be seeing Windows .NET apps run on Linux.

      • Re:Mono is a platform (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sckienle ( 588934 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:25AM (#5173999)

        System.Windows.Forms and they will need Wine....

        Why? There may be some quirks in the assembly that cannot be directly supported by QT or Gtk, but why can't a smart coder work around these? To be frank, I would rather the developers work on getting the System.Windows.Forms assembly functionality working on Linux using either toolkit than for people to invent new assemblies from scratch. Compatibility first, then efficiency; we need to move developers from Windows to Linux first, then we can move them to more efficient Linux implementations. But to expect a Windows developer to move to Linux by having to support two branches of his code is not realistic.

        • SWF allows programs to hook into the Windows API message queue system, and many many apps use this to achieve special effects, and control things that .NET doesn't directly expose. They did try using GTK to start with, but that solution was quickly found to not work well, just like Wine originally used Tk and dropped it.
        • I'm starting to doubt that there really is any compatibility here. Everyone is going to be doing their own thing - which is going to leave plenty of room for innovation but will make .NET as a "platform" an impossibility.

          And even more unfortunate is that many of these assemblies must rely on native code. Until Java worked out many of its kinks, there were native method classes used to solve these problems. Until .NET has a certain level of maturity it won't have the same level of portability as the now-mature Java, so while Mono might be a platform the MS .NET implementation won't be a platform for quite some time.

          IMHO, MS should have provided a GDI spec that others could plug into. So if someone did decide to implement a Gtk assembly it would be pluggable.

  • Historically... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by borgdows ( 599861 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:35AM (#5173659)
    If successful, Mono will allow .NET programmers to write software not just for Windows computers and gadgets but also for those running Linux and other variants of the Unix operating system.
    It also will simplify the process, allowing developers to use multiple programming languages to write applications that work in many different software environments.     Ask Sun about this!
    Historically, I'd rather think that MS will use Mono for a "switch back to Windows" campaign

    Microsoft could adopt Mono as a kind of super standard of its own.
    MS could have adopted Java (or any other standard MS has embraced/extended) as a kind of super standard of its own...

    Uh.. well... this article comes from MSNBC :/

  • Mono commoditizes .NET (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lodragandraoidh ( 639696 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:40AM (#5173686) Journal
    Mono turns .NET into a commodity - so you won't have to bow to the altar of Microsoft in order to use it. That doesn't sound like a bad thing.

    It looks like just another tool for the developer; don't think its going to make java go away anytime soon...

    Now, Microsoft may look at this from two different perspectives: historically, it has been Microsoft that commoditized other people's standards and reaped the benefit - they might not take to having the roles reversed very well. On the other hand, this could help .NET get more early adopters - in which case it does seem to benefit Microsoft.

    • Re:Mono commoditizes .NET (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blane.bramble ( 133160 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:47AM (#5173729)

      Microsoft Sales Rep to Middle Manager: "Ahhh, I see you are using Mono on your servers. You do realise this Open Source stuff is totally unsupportable. Of course, Microsoft have the solution, you can switch to our .Net architecture which is 100% compatible, and we will support you with any problems."

      Middle Manager: "Sounds good, who do I make the cheque out to?"


      • Microsoft Sales Rep to Middle Manager:
        "Ahhh, I see you are using Mono on your servers. You do realise this Open Source stuff is totally unsupportable. Of course, Microsoft have the solution, you can switch to our .Net architecture which is 100% compatible, and we will support you with any problems."

        You forget a few important selling points.

        "Our "MS Mono" implementation is:

        • fully compliant with the existing ECMA standard,
        • works fully with all your old win32 applications,
        • is TCPA secured from bad historical events like Slammer,
        • works will your legacy apps on Linux that conform to the ECMA Mono standard
        • incorporates exciting new features that will be part of the ECMA standard 3 years from now and which Mono doesn't have now, and they will always be 3 years behind."

        Middle Manager: "Sounds good, who do I make the cheque out to?"

        "Not necessary! You remember how much you complained about how much you're paying for your Software Assurance 7.0 subscription? We heard your complaints! Now it's all bundled in there with Windows/Explorer/Office/Exchange/Access!"

    • "Now, Microsoft may look at this from two different perspectives: historically, it has been Microsoft that commoditized other people's standards and reaped the benefit - they might not take to having the roles reversed very well. On the other hand, this could help .NET get more early adopters - in which case it does seem to benefit Microsoft.

      They are using the second effect (more early adopters for c#) and when it is popular, they will try to kill it.

  • I dunno.......! (Score:4, Informative)

    by curtisk ( 191737 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:42AM (#5173703) Homepage Journal
    I think this is a cool idea and all, .NET is actually not too bad in alot of ways..but I can totally understand why many ppl's opinion of Linux is alot of copying.

    Why not do the same thing, but don't cater it to .NET specs?

    Make the Linux equivalent (or better). Granted there are software packages that are "*nix only" but Soooooooo much time is spent making stuff to conform to MS specs , or "just like..."
    The more that things like that are done, the closer you become to turning linux in a windows re-write IMHO

    • Re:I dunno.......! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by glenebob ( 414078 )
      Make the Linux equivalent (or better)
      You mean such as Java?

      Mono is a good thing precisely because it makes programming for Windows and for Linux so similar. Like Java, but better supported at the Windows end. Like Wine but... well... not so yucky.

      MS just has too much clout in the industry right now. It took a court order to get MS to ship a Java VM with Windows, and it took Sun to get that order. With that much resistance from MS to anything it doesn't control, the Linux community is forced to play copy-cat for awhile.

      I think things may get very interesting in a quick hurry as Mono matures and the number of shipping .Net apps reaches some sort of critical mass.

  • Seems Ironic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xNullx ( 635439 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:45AM (#5173718)
    I'm taking part in a Microsoft sponsored contest at my university currently, the rules dictate that we have to use one of the .NET technologies (ASP.Net, C#, VB.net etc). However the rules specifically state that we cannot use open source CLRs such as Mono and/or Rotor. I just find it odd that the article talks about how Mono may help gain MS support, but at the same time MS seems adamant at keeping us from using it.

    Then again, I go to Ohio State. What do people out in Ohio know :)
    • A company sponsors a contest to advertise themselves, not their competitors. If you were to do something on a Linux box that you couldn't on a Windows machine, and then you won... You would basically be advertising for Linux over Windows.

      When a company offers to give you something for free in return for your efforts on their platform, you can either enter the contest or not, it's not a big deal. When I send in Campbell's Soup labels, they don't allow me to substitute other companies' soups, even though they work together very well.

    • You go to OSU? Then you should be glad that they aren't making you code in Resolve. The last contest I participated in there we had to do all of the code in Resolve. The fun part is we found a bug in the GUI toolkit that prevented anyone from completing the third and final task of the contest.

      For those who don't know, if Java and C++ had an illegitimate mutant child that was locked in a dark room and was never seen in outside its home, it would be Resolve. It's worse than C# because at least C# is known outside the university.
    • If you win, they may want to hire you. If they hire you, and you've looked at Mono dev tools and code, your mind poisons MS product.

    • This native Buckeye knows that MSNBC is partly owned by Microsoft, and that the Mono article could just be a piece of disinformation to pretty up their image. The rules of their contest support their aim, which is to lock student programmers like yourself into Windows.

      Go check out the Ohio Supercomputing Center [osc.edu]. Just about everything there runs on Linux or Solaris, and they support some complex research projects. Open source is unstoppable, Microsoft knows it, and this is just their way of getting developers on the hook. I wouldn't bite.

    • The contest sponsor has plenty of MS cash (Score:4, Informative)

      by Cerlyn ( 202990 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @03:57PM (#5176476)

      As yet another Ohio State person, I wonder why no one seems to have linked to the contest in question [ohio-state.edu] yet. I'm not too worried about OSU's bandwidth since I have some idea of their network topology (multiple backbones, etc.).

      Personally, I've always wondered how NTsig (the group running the contest), can claim "not to be fully funded by Microsoft(tm)". [ohio-state.edu] Even when charging $5 per year per person, NTsig will be giving away over $10,000 in prizes for this contest, has regularly handed out thousands of dollars worth of MS software, and gave out a few Xboxes last quarter too. Furthermore, it is known that at least one NTsig officer is paid by Microsoft to run the club. Hence, I cannot say that the club is unbiased.

      I attend a class at OSU where the professor teaching it has a large Microsoft grant. He has more MS servers than he knows what to do with (one hit by the latest SQL worm), a Tablet PC, a video projector, etc. -- all allegedly paid for by Microsoft. While he seems to be teaching the course fairly, he did add .NET alongside the Java portions this year. The same professor freely admits he still sees plenty more Java than .NET use, however.

      Just to be fair, I'll link to the Ohio State Open Source Club [ohio-state.edu] too, although on a $300 per year budget, they can't be that significant, can they? :)

  • .NOT (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kadagan AU ( 638260 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <nagadak>> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:46AM (#5173728) Journal
    That [.Net works with Linux] could be a big breakthrough for Linux...

    At least it would work somewhere then. I've been trying to develop with .NET for a few months here. As far as I've seen, it doesn't work on Windows. They took VS 6 and decided to get rid of anything that WORKED and replace it with non-functional things. I think that .NET is something we really don't want or need on linux. I'm far happier with Java and tcl/tk and c++.

    the above was the opinion of a pissed off developer, these views are not necessarily the views of the slashdot.org editors.

    • Re:.NOT (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SL33Z3 ( 104748 )
      If you have been trying to develop .NET for a "few months" and haven't got anywhere, you might want to consider another business. In all seriousness, even the biggest Microsoft skeptics here at work have admitted just how easy the language is to learn. While they throw in their complaints about some of the features (or lack thereof) they all resoundingly admit "I picked it up in a few days".

      Minus learning the libraries, the syntax is a no brainer for any C++ or Java developer.

  • Let's get one thing straight ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by The AtomicPunk ( 450829 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:47AM (#5173736)

    Microsoft isn't obliged to do anything.

  • If IBM can back Mono (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nyc_paladin ( 534862 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:49AM (#5173745)
    Or Mono could end up in the hands of a rival like IBM that could use it to undermine Microsoft's power.

    Having someone other than Microsoft to back Mono would help the project immensely, otherwise it will get lost in the shuffle at Microsoft. We all saw what happened to Java when Microsoft released their version. No matter what though, Microsoft will adopt Mono and then release their own version of it. I just don't understand why they can't see the bigger picture, maybe Bill needs to get his glasses checked again.

  • Not very likely (Score:3, Interesting)

    by will_die ( 586523 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:50AM (#5173751) Homepage
    The only people from microsoft who will be working on Mondo is the legal Staff.
    Thier is noway that microsoft is going to allow mondo to duplicate enough of .net that it is worthwhile to even look at mondo.

  • The Microsoft response (Score:5, Funny)

    by petard ( 117521 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:58AM (#5173796) Homepage
    Microsoft declined to make a spokesman available but issued a statement saying it supports open standards.

    Typical. The author must have contacted the security team instead of the .NET team. (Seriously, though, you'd think an MS-NBC reporter could get a little more than that!)

  • We have a "Scorpion and Frog" story brewing here. The Mono Project is basically a case of flirting with disaster. "No guys, it's okay! He's a nice fire-breathing dragon now! He wants to play nice!" Yeah right... >

  • Microsoft doesn't care (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ChicagoDave ( 644806 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:04AM (#5173832) Homepage
    For the most part, MS doesn't care about the Mono project, but if they do, it's a win by letting it procede.

    Even if Linux has a weaker implementation of .NET, some developers in the the Linux world may still find that the Mono c# compiler is better than using Tomcat and Java. They might stop innovating for the Java world.

    Then, MS can combat Java directly by saying, here's a Linux implementation of .NET and so the main purpose of Java, which is cross-platform, "seems" to go away.

    Any effort that sneakily moves the focus _away_ from Java is a good thing for MS. When they have to compete with Mono/Linux, they win easily, because their implementation will _always_ be boatloads better.

    Personally, I think .NET is a better implemenation of the Java concept. I can use multiple langauges (VB.NET is much nicer for string handling crap, C# is better for syntax, Perl.NET for regexp) and it all works together whereas in Java, there is no reuse at all. You have to _rewrite_ everything. Heck, there's even a COBOL.Net (http://www.netcobol.com/IBuySpy/).

    So in the end, Mono is an excellent diversion for Java developers to stop innovating. And besides, using Java on the client side has never been very interesting or usable. .NET does clients _and_ servers both very well.

    MS doesn't care because they've built a better platform than Java and they throw $5 billion a year at R and D. No one comes close to that number.

    Go Miguel and go .NET!

    David C
    • whereas in Java, there is no reuse at all. You have to _rewrite_ everything.

      I've always wanted to say this: Are you on crack?

      I won't be yet another poster who points you to the webpage that lists all the different languages that can target the JVM, but I will mention that the standard API contains about 24000 methods and properties.
      Also please look at the level of reuse that happens at places like http://jakarta.apache.org [apache.org]. Java seems to lend itself to this, enhancing the increased reuse affect that open source provides.

      - Brian.

  • The Purpose of Mono (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ChaoticCoyote ( 195677 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:07AM (#5173851) Homepage

    Microsoft has many reasons to support Mono:

    1. In terms of public relations, Mono allows Microsoft to appear "cooperative" with the "Open Source" community. This is an effective tactic for derailing accusations that Microsoft is a monopoly.
    2. In terms of Java, Mono could prevent Java from finally attaining a foothold in the Linux world. Microsoft is taking advantage of Sun's failures to support and actively promote Java on Linux.
    3. Microsoft obtains free help and knowledge from the Mono development; they can examine the Mono code for possible improvements to Windows.Net, without having to do much in return. In essence, Mono is providing free labor for Microsoft.

    I respect Miguel and his efforts; it is a shame that he and his talented followers insist upon cloning dubious Microsoft products. Nothing about .Net is innovative or new; it is merely a rehashing of existing ideas for the purpose of expanding Microsoft's influence.

    We make fun of Microsoft's use of the word "innovation" -- but where is innovation in the Open Source / free software community? All this talent, used to copy designs that are dusty with old ideas and solidified paradigms... somehow, I find it all a bit sad.

    • Re:The Purpose of Mono (Score:5, Informative)

      by PigleT ( 28894 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:14AM (#5173922) Homepage
      You're missing out on the single fact that Microshaft have actually submitted a whole standard to the ECMA - the C# specs.

      Sure there's nothing new, though. There's been nothing new since the 1960s with lisp, but that's a different rant. ;8)

      • I'm not impressed by an ECMA standard. Again, it is more PR by Microsoft to make it look as if they are "open". The ECMA C# standard is limited in scope and political in nature.

        There have been many new ideas, but few have found their way out of academia and research labs.

    • # In terms of Java, Mono could prevent Java from finally attaining a foothold in the Linux world.

      In what sense? If you mean in terms of desktop apps, then you may be right. Swing is slow on all but the higher end machines. On the other hand, I've spent the last 2.5 years or so developing Java-based websites that are hosted on machines running Linux; it's the core of what my company does, and I don't believe for a second that we're unusual in that.

      Java already has a foothold on Linux, on the server. I don't see Mono or .NET making much of a dent in that any time soon. C# is a nice enough language, but I don't think I'd want to swtich (if only because of the lack of checked exceptions, although that's not the only reason).

      • Indeed, I was refering to client applications; I should have been more precise in my original wording.

        C# seems focused on desktop applications (i.e., vertical market and IS department software), an area where Java has never realized its potential.

        I agree that C# and .Net are unlikely to unseat Java on the server side, at least in the near-term.

  • Lots of reasons why I want .NET to fail (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:16AM (#5173939)
    This note was originally published at John Munsch weblog on January the 14th.

    Lots of reasons why I want .NET to fail and fail badly

    It's benefits a criminal organization. Not one that's been found guilty of crimes once or maybe twice, but lots and lots of times. Those crimes are many and varied, but here's just a few of them: Stac Electronics v. Microsoft, DOJ v. Microsoft, Sun v. Microsoft.
    P.S. If you want to split hairs, Stac v. Microsoft isn't a criminal action, it's doesn't stem from a criminal abuse of their monopoly like the other two cases. Instead it was just a case of a small company being driven out of business by willful patent infringement, theft of trade secrets, etc.

    Microsoft isn't just one thing anymore. It's too damn big for that. I'm sure even Bill himself knows better than to think that he truly controls the whole ship because it's become big enough that he can't possibly know all the projects, people, etc. anymore. But even a really large company still has a kind of collective personality that it exudes and a large part of the personality both internal and external to Microsoft for many years now is that of a total control freak.
    If they don't own it, if they don't control it, if they didn't create it, if it doesn't have a broad stamp from Microsoft on it, then they don't want it. Sometimes it's sufficient for the thing to merely exist and they'll refuse to acknowledge it, other times they need to actively stamp it out because they can't control it.

    When was the last time you can remember Microsoft saying they supported a standard? That is, not something they invented and submitted a RFC for, an actual, take it off the shelf and re-implement it without renaming it or "improving" it so it doesn't work with anybody else standard. C++? Basic? HTML? A video or audio codec? Java? Anything?

    I'm sure there's something, somebody will point out their excellent support for TCP/IP or something and I'm sure that's true. But if you were to look at Microsoft as a person in your life, you'd wonder what was wrong with him or her such that so much had to be controlled by that person.

    When your business is selling the operating systems that 90+% of everybody uses, software development tools should not be a profit center.
    Why should I have to plunk down a couple of thousand dollars for a "universal subscription" in order to have access to compilers and basic development information? Sun doesn't have to do that? On this point I'll quote from the .NET "rebuttal" that I linked to above, "For non-profit use VS.NET can be had pretty cheaply, especially if you know anyone that is in college somewhere." Pretty cheaply? For a non-profit (that means charities, churches, universities, the hobbiest who is going to give away his work for FREE)... pretty cheaply? Wow. That is well and truly pathetic. To try and justify it, and say, oh well, you can try to scam an educational discount so it won't be so dear, is even more pathetic.

    Marketing. Have you been "lucky" enough to catch one of the .NET commercials with William H. Gacy telling you how great it is without really ever telling you anything about it? Microsoft doesn't trust .NET to stand on its own technical merits and it knows it may go like cod-liver oil down the gullets of a lot of people who have seen how the company works behind closed doors even if it were the tech shiznit.
    So they are going to pull a page out of Intel's bum-bum-buh-bum "Intel Inside" playbook and try to sell the brand like it's sneakers and cola. Trust us, you'll look cool if you use it, and we'll keep hammering the brand on TV so somebody who doesn't have much tech savvy in your organization will ask you if you are using it, or have plans to port to it, or whatever, even if he hasn't got a clue what "it" is in this case.

    They don't trust you. They don't like what they can't control and they can't control you. They can try and they always will keep trying but ultimately you are going to see them keep trying to do things and always keep a step towards the door just so they can bolt if they have to. Want to see what I mean? Go visit GotDotNet sometime if you haven't already been there. It's the grassroots community website that Microsoft put up to support .NET just in case there wasn't any grassroots community who actually wanted to do it. Or maybe just in case there was and they couldn't control it.
    Ever been to SourceForge? Of course you have, everybody has because that's one of the hubs of all open source projects. You can go there and get the source of thousands of cool open source projects and it really serves the community well. There's even hundreds of projects now that list C# among their programming languages. So why did Microsoft feel compelled to create their own GotDotNet Workspaces that is clearly just a ripoff of SourceForge?

    A few reasons are fairly clear: First, at many of their workspaces you don't get in unless they know who you are. Ever been stopped at SourceForge and asked for a name and password to look at a project? What about download binaries or source? No? At GotDotNet you will, lots of projects are marked with a lock. Second, forget about all those messy licenses that Microsoft might not approve of, you don't need to worry your little head about BSD vs. GPL vs. LGPL. You've got the one true workspace license that you have to agree to, or else you won't be putting your project there. Lastly, well it's kind of obvious, but it's really all about control isn't it. After all, if you aren't under their thumb, that has to be a bad thing. So a SourceForge that they control is pretty much a requirement, isn't it?

    It's a really sad way for a lot of people to waste a whole lot of time rebuilding that which already exists. Wouldn't the whole computing world be a lot better if there wasn't a team of people, maybe a couple of teams of people building complete copies of .NET for other platforms? If those same people were working on giving us new libraries and new tools for an already existing language instead of pouring in the thousands of man hours it's going to take to build a copy of the C# compiler or a .NET version of Ant and JUnit?

    In the end, we'll all just be left with another way to do the exact same thing only in a different language. Lord knows the world benefits now from being unable to share media between France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the US, and Japan because we can't all speak the same language. I benefit every day from the fact that I can't read a Japanese manga I might enjoy or understand a TV show from Europe. Once you are done building this tower, go build a few more right beside it using Perl, Python, and Ruby too. They're all trailing behind in certain areas, we need to make sure the same set of stuff is reinvented and rewritten for all of them too.

    • It's benefits a criminal organization.

      So does paying your taxes. The Federal Government has broken many more laws than Microsoft has. Most companies break laws just like MS does, MS is just the favorite punching bag of the Slashdot trolls.

      When was the last time you can remember Microsoft saying they supported a standard?

      Might not be the 'last' time, but it's one of them... [microsoft.com]

      When your business is selling the operating systems that 90+% of everybody uses, software development tools should not be a profit center.

      Why the hell not? The primary purpose of a company is to make money for their shareholders, not to provide charitable donations to software developers. If Microsoft sold Visual Studio at a loss (as you seem to advocate), you'd be whining about how they're trying to drive other software development tools out of business! So you hate them if they do one thing, but you hate them if they don't, as well.

      Marketing.

      You're whining about marketing? It actually surprises and annoys you that a large technology company that sells a very widely used product is advertising its products? IBM advertises their 'Linux' servers without telling you what Linux is, but you don't whine about that. This isn't some neo-socialist Star Trek utopia, you know.

      They don't trust you.

      And you don't trust them. Good way to keep each other on your toes. :-p If you trust any major company, you're pretty damn naive.

      So why did Microsoft feel compelled to create their own GotDotNet Workspaces that is clearly just a ripoff of SourceForge?

      I thought the OSS community was all about 'choice'? Maybe it's a good thing to have more than one? You know, kind of like having, say, more than one operating system?

      It's a really sad way for a lot of people to waste a whole lot of time rebuilding that which already exists.

      Apparently, the people in the Mono project want (and maybe need) what they're working on. They're putting in countless hours of their freetime because they'll benefit from it, and they maybe think others will, too. Who the fuck are you to tell them what they should and shouldn't work on?

      Hell, Linux itself is in many ways "rebuilding something that already exists". That's a good thing.

      In the end, we'll all just be left with another way to do the exact same thing only in a different language.

      Should everything be written in machine code, then? After all, assembly code is just another way to do the exact same thing. And don't even get me started on that C++ shit. </sarcasm> (for the humor impaired)

      If you're going to oppose .NET, at least do it for good reasons, not because "I hate Micro$uck and I'm bitter".

  • deja vu all over again (Score:4, Insightful)

    by paranoic ( 126081 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:17AM (#5173943)
    What will happen is that MS will figure out if a program was compiled using their .NET or mono. When a user tries to run a mono version on Windows, a dialog will appear saying that this program may not run correctly under Windows. MS will also figure out how to make Windows versions of .NET programs run poorly or not at all under non-Windows OS's. They did the former with DR-DOS and the latter with Java.
    • MS will also figure out how to make Windows versions of .NET programs run poorly or not at all under non-Windows OS's.

      They can't do that since they have no control over the execution environment. The program data is the same in both cases, so how well it runs is completely up to the implementation on each platform. It's up to Mono how well the programs run, and you can bet that they'll want to squeeze out as much performance as possible.

      With Java they could do as much (or as little) optimisation, and a poor JVM implementation could taint Java's reputation (wasn't the JIT JVM implementation in IE much faster than the Sun equivalent anyway?).

      The only chance MS have of crippling the performance is if they write the Linux implementation in place of Mono, and that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
  • It's not that MS is now 'obliged' to work with Linux -- they proactively encouraged the development of Linux.NET from the very beginning, long before the actual release of .NET.

    And a good thing too -- .NET is *so* much better than Java as a framework, and with any luck the Linux versions of it won't have all that rubbishy 'everything's a web service, and all the world uses ASP' layer on top.

    It's all good news, folks! Until Palladium destroys us all, that is.

  • Mono allows developers to switch (Score:5, Interesting)

    by manyoso ( 260664 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:24AM (#5173992) Homepage
    Mono [go-mono.org] and Portable.NET [dotgnu.org] really shine in allowing former Windows developers to get involved with Linux and still have a comfortable and semi-familiar place to start.

    I don't see Mono or Portable.NET as cross-platform technologies (unless you mean cross-platform across Unices) because Mono and Portable.NET grew up on Unix and will be used here the most. Besides, Microsoft has simply created too many API's and hence the barrier to a *quality* cross-platform development environment is too great.

    Rather, Mono and Portable.NET will be good for rapid prototyping and as a conversion tool for Windows Application developers. Is also important for providing an alternative when the great migration begins of Smart Clients begin from Windows [windowsforms.net] to Linux [sf.net].

    As for the rest of the article: Yah, I'm sure the Microsoft developers who created .NET are enthusiastic about Mono, but the higher-ups (see: PHB's) have no love for Mono or Linux.

    • Re:Mono allows developers to switch (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mrkurt ( 613936 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:56AM (#5174208) Journal

      I am speaking as a recovering VB programmer, and the way that I see .net is as a way for MS to lock developers and their companies into Windows. Frankly, I can't understand why Ximian is wasting their efforts on Mono; it would be better spent improving GNOME and giving Linux/Unix a superior desktop. One change in APIs that Judge CKK allows MS not to document and, POOF! Compatibility disappears.

      As for your comment that Mono might be a useful tool for helping Windows programmers move to Linux, it might be so for C++ developers, but IMHO, for VB hacks, .net, and, by extension, Mono, are a whole new ballgame. Previous editions of VB abstracted away a great deal from the details of applications, and .net involves getting more involved with the nitty-gritty. It's more "C++ like", and the approach to building programs through "assemblies" is different as well. But this is not the real reason I chose not to adopt .net...

      I see where things are going on the server side, and my preference is to migrate to open source tools that will allow for real multi-platform development-- Python, Perl, and Java. While it essentially means that I had to retool, I would have had to do that anyway if I moved to .net. I would have chosen C# as primary language since it is a standard and there are third parties that plan have released C# compilers . But by choosing true multi-platform tools, it makes the choice of OS irrelevant to my skillset. With .net or Mono, the choice of OS drives the decision to use one or the other, or vice-versa.

  • .Power (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:27AM (#5174009) Journal
    In the end Microsoft will still weild terrible power. Microsoft will continue to spread across the lands of Earth, engulfing small and large business alike, admin and developer, open and closed source. The only way to find peace is to toss Bill Gates into the fires of Mount Doom.
  • "Want to use .NET but afraid of catching viruses that afflict Microsoft software? Expose yourself to Mono."
  • I have to say I don't know much about .NET or Mono. I have carried out significant amounts of Java developement and embedded C/C++ development.

    Everyone here is talking about Windows vs Linux. What about other OSs, OS-X, the BSD variants, IRIX, Solaris, vxWorks to name a few. Is Mono *NIX software or Linux software as so much development now is? All to often lately software is advertised as *NIX but try compiling it on something other than Linux. It should be described as Linux software.

    Also what's the over head of .NET and Mono? Ignore the Sun and MS JVMs, there are some extremely lightweight and efficient Java VMs out there in embedded land. Insignia's Joede is one example. Add to that emdedded processors which can run byte code natively. I don't think .NET will kill off Java that easily unless it can succeed in this arena too.

    Will we see .NET in phones, set top boxes and the like, and if so, when.
  • IMHO Microsoft allows the development of Mono for the purpose of changing the license terms of a later version of the .NET platform in a way that will not allow Mono to coexist with other open-source software.

    Imagine the harm done if this happens after many developers adopt .NET as their Linux development platform.

  • just installed Mono... (Score:3, Informative)

    by esarjeant ( 100503 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:00AM (#5174242) Homepage
    Well, rather than slamming .NET without actually tinkering with it, I thought it might be neat to install it.

    On a Linux box with Mono and a W2K server with the .NET framework, my little hello.exe worked perfectly. Granted, less than half the .NET spec is implemented yet in Mono, but performance was quite good. It took approximately 5-6 times longer for the equivalent program to load and execute using the Sun 1.4 JVM (no performance tuning with either).

    If they can continue to maintain this edge, Mono will be quite attractive once completed.

    With that said, I'm concerned about Windows.Forms being dependent on WINE. While it's great they can leverage another oss project like this, it makes me wonder how solid the MS Windows.Forms assembly specification really is.

  • talk on .net (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pamri ( 251945 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:16AM (#5174381) Homepage
    Some people from Microsoft gave a talk on Shared Source Implementation of .NET [linux-bangalore.org] in Linux Bangalore 2002, a conference abt linux related technologies held in bangalore. You need to appreciate their balls. The presentation is in star office format.

  • Where is Richard Stallman in this debate? (Score:3, Informative)

    by puppetluva ( 46903 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:12PM (#5175316)
    Here are a few terrifying things I see popping up in this debate:

    1) I'm a little concerned about the dependence of Windows.Forms on WINE

    Well, be a lot afraid. Microsoft is tricking you into writing native apps for GNU/Linux and making them dependent on the WINDOWS API (Windows.Forms are part of the new Windows API). . . and the mono guys have fallen for it hook line and sinker (and are helping).

    2) C# has been submitted as an open standard, so .NET must be too, right?

    Wrong! A majority of .NET is under dubious patent protection and doesn't have a real compatibility/performance adherence test suite like Java. Microsoft already screwed Netscape this way with Javascript (submitted to ECMA as ECMAscript) and then simply changed it to screw up their browser efforts. The Mono guys are simply not paying attention to history here.

    3) Mono is helping Linux compete.

    Isn't anyone looking at the scoreboard? GNU/Linux is already competing and is kicking Microsoft's ass (and everyone elses for that matter)! Microsoft started with a huge lead on the desktop and server and GNU/Linux has had a faster adoption rate than any OS in history. Why? Because GNU/Linux changed the game into one where we build an OS that we want, unfettered by the dubious interference of monopolists and people with ulterior motives. .NET is a way of playing Microsoft's game. Why dedicate all or your efforts to a strategy that your competitor and enemy controls? (Note to purists: you may not be into Linux to compete with Microsoft, but if you think that MS is not your competitor and enemy, think again. . . or just ask them)

    4) We will get Windows converts to GNU/Linux this way. . . and make great apps.

    What great apps and what converts? There aren't many .NET programmers, folks. . . Is the platform even out of beta on windows? Windows people are still learning .NET and there isn't much software even out for it. On, Linux, we've got an IRC client and a media player (that most of us wouldn't use over XMMS). .NET adoption is marketing, not reality. There is a huge difference (and a lot of trolls/astro-turfers trying to confuse the two).

    5) "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

    There is a business history-lesson in the making here. If we help MS kill Java and our own platform efforts (by switching to .NET praying for some kind of compatibility that won't happen), they'll thank us by killing Linux by enforcing their patents and control of the Forms and Windows API as soon as sun is out of the way. I guarantee that this will happen.

    If we like their platform and research, we should be incorporating the best ideas into our own projects (like Parrot), Qt, Gnome. . . but not at the risk of binding our code to the Windows API (WINE and Windows.Forms anyone)?!*?

    Miguel de Icaza is a good programmer with a lot of charisma, but he is doing a very dumb thing by leading a lot of people down the wrong path. Judgment in engineering and judgement in product/legal management aren't the same thing. Didn't we just get that harsh lesson over the dot.com fiasco the last few years?

    I never thought I'd have to say this, but: why is Richard Stallman so silent on this issue?

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