Post a Comment
That is what he mentioned, obviously you don't know what you are talking about.
http://xamarin.com/monoforandroid
This is mono-droid. A toolkit to build Android Applications in C# and Mono.
Xobot OS is another thing entirely (it was a way of testing their Java to C# compiler).
Also a lot of people are taking MonoDroid and MonoTouch seriously because Xamarin have been in profit only 6 months since Miguel started his company.
Edited 2012-10-23 17:08 UTC
The real problem is the terms Mono released the key element of the Mono subsystem under - the section that does all the VM clever stuff and the other parts that make that work when compiled. This is LGPL and they have no "static linking" clause. The native compilation and static linking really affects iOS hard though. If one wishes to create a new version, ignoring the windows dressing access to the API, one must recreate half the VM and core functionality under a "GNU" free license, or pay a lot of money to license the code under commercial terms. This move is very dickish. Other vendows put a "static link" clause in this scenario, but Novell decided to not do that. No one can take the Mono code and ceate a competing product because of this and it pretty much defeats the entire premise that Mono being "open source" implies.
One could also argue that Apple are dicks for not allowing a more open ecosystem, but I shrug really and look squarely at Miguel. If people like PhoneWax, PhoneGap and the other various vendows that have open source products that allow iOS as a target can survive, I don't understand what the big deal is for Mono. especially when the runtime is only a really very small part of the overall picture for iOS. Surely their product is worth the price for the other parts?
As for Android - weirdly the product costs the same as the iOS version. I say weirdly as the justification for the iOS cost was the licese for the runtime from Novell (possibly Xamarin now, not realy checked.) So that implies that either Mono for Android does something with the OS code that is native compilation bound, or someone is making a fast buck. Maybe someone who knows more about the product will care to comment?
I don't see any. The GC may be improved a bit, but what I wanted to see is numbers, something spectacular. Last time I ported mono on an ARM it was sluggish as hell and next to impossible to compile without some dirty tricks. Did they get rid of it?
C# is a nice language, but Mono is killed by poor performance.




