VB News has posed the Mono question to Microsoft and gotten an answer. Microsoft’s position appears to be that Mono is an unlicensed attempt to reverse-engineer .NET but otherwise remains noncommittal. In the meanwhile, Novell is conducting a formal patent review of Mono to settle the question once and for all.
Microsoft Speaks on Mono
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
How does coding to published specs constitute reverse engineering? IANAL but I’m wondering what this would mean for the Mono project. Does this mean that MS could haul them to court at some later date (when Mono becomes a replacement for MS.NET) for reverse engineering the .NET framework?
Mono is open source and do not have patent problems i thought.
Lets hope that Mono takes the lead in .Net like development and usage and has MS scrambling to catchup. Then they can take MS to court. All this stuff is BS from MS cause it woud seem that Mono is getting more attention than .Net. I wonder why that might be the case, cross-platform compatability? Nah, couldn’t be.
As is said in the second article, Mono has been broken into ECMA-based and non-ECMA components. Basically alot of whats in the non-EMCA is reverse-engineered. If worse came to worse I’m sure Novell would just drop the non-ECMA componenets, and continue work on the ECMA-based *royality free* parts of there .NET implimentation.
“Does this mean that MS could haul them to court at some later date (when Mono becomes a replacement for MS.NET) for reverse engineering the .NET framework?”
That is exactly what the fear is.
I really want to know what they were smoking when they thought that embrasing a M$ technology was a good strategy. All that time and effort they spent on .NET could have been focused on a project like GNU Classpath. When are people going to finally realize that M$ is the enemy? Also, why do people seem to think that anything Ximian puts their time and effort into is the best thing since sliced bread? Its a bunch of BS. If they wanted to embrace and extend something, why did it have to be a microsoft product? Why give people the idea that microsoft is even viable by making applications run on Windows and their own platform? Why can’t the open source community innovate instead of just jumping on the bandwagon of a company as god damn evil as microsoft?
discuss
tee hee!
> Lets hope that Mono takes the lead in .Net like development and usage and has MS scrambling to catchup. Then they can take MS to court.
How the hell do you think that’s going to happen. Windows is the single largest platform, and Microsoft controls the API’s. The moment that Microsoft perceives Mono as a threat, they will change their on API’s, and make Mono forever play a process of catchup– if it wants to keep compatability.
This is a general question not to mean that I believe Mono is in the wrong…
Why do so many people think that dropping infringing code will stop litigation?
If I steal money from the bank, and leave a paper trail showing that I did indeed have their money, even if I give it all to charity or return the unused porting I still go to jail.
So why do these people think that if they have someone else’s legal intellectual property, give it away for free for a while, then stop. That just because they no longer use the ill gotten goods that they are now free and clear?
This would be like being video taped committing a crime, then pleading innocent just because the crime is no longer in progress!
Until mono can give us 100% assurance about patent issues its my opinion that it will never take off. Mono basically needs MS to come out and say “we will not sue” or something. Cause its just too iffy to most of us.
That being said. Java is kicking some major butt recently. I have 1.5 and its so good i’m starting to think about learning to program in it.
i happen to agree, and i think if non-ecma stuff was dropped it would be embraced very quickly by gnome, especially after a patent review. the reason that the non-ecma stuff was done in the first place was ms .net compatibility. if all it takes to port your .net app to linux is a few line changes, that would be quite attractive for many companys that wouldnt consider supporting linux worth it
This whole Mono project is walking on very thin ice with MS if you ask me.
All the guy said was the Microsoft doesn’t endorse Mono. Surprise, surprise. Notice how this guy was from some “competitive team” at microsoft. He isn’t a developer or any kind of legal authority. The .NET developers at Microsoft have been supportive of Mono.
Java is dead on the desktop. It’s the new COBOL for servers.
It’s funny watching the rabid Microsoft haters get their panties in a bunch because some people wanted to implement good technology from Microsoft.
Mono is being embraced by many gtk+, Gnome developers and no amount of whining about “evil microsoft tech” will change that.
Importantly, Miguel also said that Ximian had a letter from Microsoft, Intel and HP stating that they would offer *royalty-free* RAND licensing to the ECMA-submitted components of .NET. [Aside: He said they were kicking around catchy names like ‘polio’ or ‘cholera’ to distinguish the free and non-free stacks] I told Miguel he should publicize the letter more because it was such a relief to me, but he said it would be premature to promote this before the patent review was complete in case other infringement was uncovered.
So Novell/Ximian already has a foundation for a legal defense if Microsoft was to pursue litigation against the ECMA stack.
“Does this mean that MS could haul them to court at some later date (when Mono becomes a replacement for MS.NET) for reverse engineering the .NET framework?”
And they do get sued too .. serves them right. The OSS commmunity needs to stop trying to reverse engineer everything that MS does and do their own thing. Instead of trying to make an open source .NET, do something that is better than .NET and Java. Since open source model is supposed to be so superior, surely they could pull it off.
Hehe, nice one. I wonder how many bites you are going to get. Very nicely crafted.
If microsoft were to go on a rampage, since I think that the only non-ecma part of mono that I can even think of is the windows.forms gui implimentation for compatability (microsoft has already abandoned it too), and the gtk# apps obviously use gtk for their gui.
If there are any other optional non-ecma parts of mono, I don’t think they’re being used in the OSS cross platform apps either.
Isn’t the main focus of development on the Mono stack?
-gtk#
-gnome#
-gecko#
-mod_mono
-etc…
If MS were to sue, the important elements of Mono stay intact and are safe.
Is it just me, or is all the yelling and screaming coming from the folks with little or no programming experince? Is it too much to ask for a decent devel enviroment in Linux?
Quote from matt b:
“if all it takes to port your .net app to linux is a few line changes, that would be quite attractive for many companys that wouldnt consider supporting linux worth it”
There is an api that is available on all major desktop os’s.
It’s called Qt. If you use only this api, you don’t have to change any code to make your program run on the supported os’s. You need to recompile though.
And QT is C++, and it’s not true that you won’t have to change C++ source when moving to another OS (there’s always OS depedent bits that need to be abstracted out), and you have to pay Trolltech for licenses, etc….
Yes, indeed, if you develop commercial software, you have to pay a license, which is pretty normal.
I wouldn’t say c++ is os dependent, but rather compiler dependent. It’s true that in some rare cases, a compiler complains about something while another doesn’t. It happend one or two time when building a linux qt program on windows.
This can be easily fixed.
And the same thing can be said about C#.
Note that .net is not a programming language.
Yes, indeed, if you develop commercial software, you have to pay a license, which is pretty normal.
Normal? You don’t have to pay Microsoft for their SDKs and every other toolkit on linux is free. Qt is the exception.
Maybe, not 100% sure though.
But I think you really do pay MS for using their sdk and ddk toolkits. Maybe not directly but I have a feeling a lot of that cost is calculated in the price of windows for example, and other products.
Anyway, I don’t want to start a toolkit war here, just wanted to point out that if someone was interested in cross platform development without a big hassle, that there’s a real and existing alternative to mono.
If MS changed the API they screw the ISVs. If they want to keep the developers on their platform, they can’t really do that.
Do you remember these words:
1- They first ignore you
2- Then they laugh at you
3- Then they fight you
4- Then you win
(Gandhi)
Mono has a long way ahead of the current optimism. Linux is at 4 in many areas already.
Take some, leave some.
1) rand policy is incompatible free/open source software
2) what is required is a patent grant. royalty free can still require individual developers to sign up a license
If you want a platform nurtural API with C# bindings and not pay Troll Tech: http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/
I think one thing we can agree on is that Microsoft *never* stops supporting its APIs. Longhorn is still freaking 2 years off.
I’ve actually used wxnet before on dotGNU before….about a year ago.
It wasn’t bad, but there were still some MFC’isms in there when I used it. I heard they were going to change the API to do a more .NET like event/delegate callback mechanism, but I haven’t checked it out lately.
Do you realize that the article you’re quoting is from March and that nothing has happened since then? You must assume that Novell completed its review and it wasn’t good. Who knows if there really is a letter but if there was why is it still kept secret?
No, to assume that a bunch of lawyers completed anything since March would be to assume wrong.
If you’re worried about it, then I advise you to goto irc.gimp.org and /join #mono, and ask Miguel what the current status is. He’s there almost every day.
Even the ECMA parts of .Net, C# and the Common Runtime Specification, Microsoft holds patents on. And they have not said they will not sue on those ECMA bits, nor is there any legal assurance that they can’t do it.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Microsoft hates open source. Microsoft makes all of it’s money on it’s Windows and Office monopolies. Open source is commoditizing the OS (with Linux), and the Office suite (with OpenOffice.org and KOffice), and in the process is threatening to smash Microsoft’s revenue stream to pieces (if enough market penetration is established).
Not that this is going to happen anytime soon, but MS most certainly recognizes the threat.
And Microsoft has been filing patents at an alarming rate. Of course they are going to use their patents to attack open source, and they’ll do as much as they can get away with, just out of reach of anti-trush and government regs.
So it has to be plainly obvious that MS intends the C# and CLI ECMA standards as trojan horses. Once they attack, they’ll try to swoop up the remaining Mono developers, saying here, write to .Net on our platform and make your life easier.
I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I’m just looking at the facts of MS patents, and MS business practices, and the fact that they will do whatever they can to protect their franchise.
I applaud the efforts of Miguel and the Mono team. I also recognize .Net as good technology (not many of MS products are good technologies, but their development tools are excellent). But anyone considering putting their development eggs in the Mono basket could be shooting themselves in the foot.
And quite frankly, Linux already has excellent development tools. QT/C++ tops that list. Then there’s Glade (can be used with C, C++, Perl, Python, and Java). Then there’s GTK+, and GTKmm. Then there’s, of course, Perl and Python and PHP, and CPAN, and Tk. With all of this great stuff, I don’t see the need for Mono anyway.
And quite frankly, Linux already has excellent development tools. QT/C++ tops that list. Then there’s Glade (can be used with C, C++, Perl, Python, and Java). Then there’s GTK+, and GTKmm. Then there’s, of course, Perl and Python and PHP, and CPAN, and Tk. With all of this great stuff, I don’t see the need for Mono anyway.
1. Are you sure thet this tools doesn’t hurts any Microsoft or other licenses ?
2. IMHO this tools are not comparable whith .NET, except java.
Java is also very good thing (but IMHO .NET is better, swing is can’t give native look&feel on windows (and on linux)). But the biggest problem with java is the SUN. If the SUN goes to bankrupt (and IMHO it is not impossible) what will happen with java ? If any SCO-like company buy SUN/java it can be very difficult situation. And the GNU classpath is also dangerous: SUN and Microsoft agreed, the M$ never will sue SUN with patents, but IMHO it is not true for GNU implementations for java runtime and classpath.
I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist.
You are a paranoid conspiracy theorist, you hate anything that Microsoft puts out, and you also are completely clueless to any Microsoft future actions.
Thanks for playing. Try again.
P.S. you should’ve just deleted the last paragraph. it just shows your ignorance by claiming you know what tools people should use.
> You are a paranoid conspiracy theorist,
Oh my. If you think he’s one, you need to read *this* post. Personally, my gut tells me MS is keeping the door open to buy Novell down the road. For one thing, they eliminate a competitor, and for another, they pick up some very sharp employees. The Mono folks win too — nice raises or bonuses for staying on with the new management maybe.
That the developers of Windows based solutions are increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the industry. Kids and pros (many of them) are all about browser based solutions nowadays. But at the same time, there are all these ex-Windows developers that want to keep programming desktop based apps as if the standard was still it. Not even .Net or Mono have a single solution for you, i.e., Longhorn will bring another interface and API that won’t even run on old Windows 2000. It’s your fault for not adapting to the new times. Corporate development is fragmented as well. Target your employers’ technologies and study and use only them. Why use Linux on a .Net/Windows shop? Isn’t Windows great and Microsoft great? Then why worry with Linux *at all*? Use IIS, .Net, MSSQL Server, VS.Net, etc. Forget Linux ’cause it won’t represent 1% of your market or employability chance. Now if Linux is serious enough for you, learn how the others are doing it. Be it by ASP.Net with Mono, GTK+, QT, PHP, etc.
OSS developers need to forget about Java and Mono/C#. The only viable RAD language i know of is Python. It is totally unemcumbered by the issues that Java and C# are tied up in.
OSS should focus on c/C++ and Python.
I can’t agree with you there, I think Java has great potential on the desktop now with v. 1.5 – it’s pretty incredible to be able to code simple desktop apps with a native look & feel…true cross-platform “write once, run anywhere” code.
Very incredible…not dead at all.
OSS developers need to forget about Java and Mono/C#.
And OSS developers will promptly ignore you because you are nobody and have no say or influence on what tools they use.
And I absolutely love Python and would rather program in that than Java or C# for most work, but that’s besides the point.
Let’s not forget that Miguel/Ximian/Novell _chose_ to forge ahead w/ mono, knowing in full the legal risks it might entail. why pin MS as the bad guy? they have nothing to do w/ mono, and have every right to defend their IP (if it comes to that). if Mono wants to play victim, so be it…but it’s at their choosing. that being said (and as a longtime .Net developer), i’m all for Mono as it extends the .Net user base…but we’ll see what happens.
MS won’t buy Novell. There’s no value in it for them. They’ve successfully displaced Novell over the last decade in every technology that Novell has pioneered.
You’re about to argue that Novell’s directory is superior. Don’t. MS have surpassed Novell in directory installations, just as they did with NT/Netware 3 style domain installations 8 years ago.
Dangerous, reckless, naive and a waste of time.
Drop MONO and get to work on correcting GNOME’s desktop problems so KDE doesn’t get out too far ahead so the GNOME community still remains relevant.
-gc
The second article is from March 10! I agree with Gregory. All this Mono is a waste of time… Noone trusts Microsoft. Even if they won’t do anything against Mono, people just won’t use it because of fear. The consequence will be that Mono will never reach critical mass, only used by Novell and a handful of developers.
For example, I know Gnome’s won’t ever choose Mono as it’s main development platform in the future. I think they should go with Java-Gnome. See their new site:
http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/bin/view
Also see Havoc Pennington’s opinion on this:
http://ometer.com/desktop-language.html
Microsoft can hit mono only on few parts
1) ASP.NET replaced with php python perl
2) Remoting CORBA
3) Security ??
even if we can’t use that API,there is ever
1) gtk#
2) gnome# gecko# gconf# glade# gtkhtml# panaelapplet#
#gtksourceview glib# atk# pango#
3) evolution#
4) nautilus#
from my point of view,gnome cant be sued by microsoft because they don’t retain any patents, and the work done on that stack (mono stack ) is licenced by GPL.
and btw this is only FUD
I’m against Mono…
The thing with Mono is that if there are legal problems with it, Microsoft will not take advantage of them until .Net has become too established to remove. Personnally, I think this should be around 2009; around two years after the release of Longhorn. The development on the Mono platform from now until then will be simply to entrenched to replace, and Microsoft will be given the right to charge a tax on the Linux desktop.
Strategy Microsoft are only interested in securing a monopoly, and that may not necessarily be the Windows monopoly. It is concievable that Microsoft has already realised that the competition from Open Source operating systems is to great to compete against; or, alternatively, that the operating system monopoly it currently retains is not safe enough on which base it’s future. Ultimately, the next big thing will be intelligent, distributed mobile devices -not the emcumbent PC platform.
Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Microsoft are using the .Net platform to move from a operating system monopoly to a platform monopoly. That way, every program using it, whether on a mainframe, on a webserver, on a mobile phone, PC or VCR, owes them a fee.
If one thinks about the next generation of mobile devices, the money to be made from software isn’t soley limited to the PC platform, an already saturation market, but every electronic device having internet connectivity and a CPU. Couple this fact that Microsoft have been crooking its way to have windows media adopted for the next DVD standard over H.264, and I think this is a conclusion is too great to ignore.
Therefore, ultimately, Mono is just a pawn that allows this to happen -a port of Microsoft’s technology to the POSIX platform that will eventually be subject to the restrictions that they place on it.
Normal? You don’t have to pay Microsoft for their SDKs and every other toolkit on linux is free. Qt is the exception.
When you consider that everyone pays for Visual Studio, Microsoft’s SDKs are not free as they are versions of the .Net runtime and SDKs are always tied to Visual Studio. You can’t just drop in a new runtime like you can with Java.
Is Microsoft’s software free like you get on a Linux distribution? Are their Client Access Licenses free? Free software development is free as it should be, but proprietary development ultimately isn’t and you cannot pretend that it is. Do Microsoft’s development tools allow free software to be created? Good development tools need to be funded, because that’s what you’re creating software with.
Please don’t dredge up this bollocks again. You’ve consistently proved over a very long period of time that you don’t have a clue about any of this. It’s funny that you’ve ended up calling just about everybody paranoid from your glass box.
To all of you who say Mono is a waste of time – do you know what OSS/Free Sofware is?
Alright, I’ll explain it to you: It is software developed by developers who feel like developing it – they do it because they think it’s fun, then they grant you the right to use it as you please with the GPL. But this means that you can’t talk about “developer resources” and “waste of time” because developers either work on what they feel like or they don’t work. You have no right to rationalize with their time as they donated it to you without demanding anything in return.
If you don’t like Mono, nobody’s forcing you to have anything to do with it at all. So put your arrogance back where it came from, if there are things you want developers to do, either come up with constructive criticism, or learn to program and hack for yourselves.
– Simon
“You are a paranoid conspiracy theorist, you hate anything that Microsoft puts out, and you also are completely clueless to any Microsoft future actions.”
tsk tsk – aren’t you a flamer. 🙁
You obviously did not read the part where I said MS development tools are excellent.
And If I’m completely clueless about Microsoft’s future actions, why don’t you enlighten me with your crystal ball and infinite wisdom?
My speculation about what MS is doing with their patents is based on past business practices. And they’re not filing those patents for nothing. My speculation is both logical and cautious.
Now why don’t you add something substantive to the conversation, rather than idiotic trolling?
The ECMA spec covers the base CLR foundation, C#, and an API that’s not much more advanced than POSIX. Things not covered by the ECMA spec like Winforms, ASP.NET, Avalon, and Generics are not part of the ECMA spec. (BTW, generics will likely be a part of the ECMA spec, but right now they aren’t).
Reverse engineering has to be a part of the implementation of these features (okay, maybe not generics since a spec is out). White box reverse engineering is legal, which is why Samba is legal. Black box reverse engineering (looking at the code) is legally grey. If you reimplement things in exactly the same way, it’s illegal (copyright infringement), but if you “express the reimplementation in your own words” it should be okay by copyright law. But if you look at the code, you can expect legal troubles — whether or not you’re doing anything illegal.
Dangerous, reckless, naive and a waste of time.
It is true for all OSS development. Nobody know what M$ patents can kill java, python, gcc or any other free development tools.
Drop MONO and get to work on correcting GNOME’s desktop problems so KDE doesn’t get out too far ahead so the GNOME community still remains relevant.
IMHO the better problem of gnome (and the full linux) the too many small, unstable and not too deveper-friendly API-s. The KDE is better, because it is based on C++ not only C, and the Qt is give a relative stable and useable class library.
The biggest problem IMHO the always changig API. There are many small discontiuned project which are use old libraries. If you have a win9x (or 3.1, DOS) application, you probably can run it on XP. But the 3-4 years old applications can’t run on modern linux distros. The .NET can give a relative stable and high level and rich API for developers. Java is also a good think but IMHO the java is not more safe for OSS. And there is no any other useable developer tool for linux. The perl, python, php and other scripting languages IMHO never will viable option for commercial developers. And without commercial softwares the linux will hobby-OS.
In the race of platforms in long term the better API, programming language and developer tools will win. And IMHO in this case it is the .NET.
The line that we’re always given about Mono, by Ximian and Novell (although it is highly questionable whether Novell at large really has any idea about using Mono) is that you can use it to interoperate with Microsoft’s technology. You can use it to get .Net Windows applications up and running on other non-Windows platforms. I know people say “Oh, we’re using .Net because it’s good technology” etc., but that is the line that’s always taken and what people always come back to. “Microsoft are doing this, so we need an open source implementation”, “We’re so scared of Avalon – we need to re-produce it” and other bizarre ideas.
I know of a company who has nailed their colours totally to the Microsoft mast for no sensible reason, and they’re going to build the basis of a really mission critical financial system totally in .Net. On the client-side I can just about understand it, but they’re going to write the server components that have to work with a totally unproven technology in .Net Enterprise Services (MTS anyone?) even though one of their clients has a successful and established J2EE solution. There is a pathological fear by many people of any alternatives not just to Windows but Microsoft anything, and they will use any excuse to go Microsoft even in the face of difficult facts.
The most worrying thing from this is that a guy in this company has heard of Mono, and is simply using it to justify the .Net decision when presented with any other alternatives – “Oh, you’ll just be able to get this stuff up and running on Unix someday”. He obviously has absolutely no intention of using Mono at all, not to mention the fact that much of the .Net technology has, and will have, Windows specific extensions that will prove enough of a barrier. I find that attitude stemming from Mono quite worrying, as it stops people (and gives an excuse) from thinking seriously about moving from Windows. Mono is not going to make Windows developers use Linux!
We then come on to the patent issue. I have no doubt that Mono is separated into different components that are free and potentially encumbered. Have the ADO.NET and ASP.NET etc. namespaces been patented? Well it looks like it, but the thing is so vague it’s not worth worrying about – everything is potentially affected by these sorts of patents. That’s not the patent issue that bothers me though, as it is merely the usual fluff on top. I want to see how the base ECMA standards are affected by the patents Microsoft have on the .Net core standards and the CLR, and how the ECMA allows these patents to be used. As that is the core of what any software will be built on, it is vital.
I see plenty of people saying “Oh, the ECMA standards are under RAND and are royalty free” but I see no one saying that these standards are patent free for everyone to use. The real question is, are the ECMA standards Microsoft’s IP? The answer seems to be yes as they have patents on it already, but Microsoft have to license them under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms as per the ECMA code of conduct. What the people at Novell will have to establish and define (if they ever do) is what those reasonable and non-discriminatory terms are (could mean anything), and whether they affect a GPL/LGPL’d implementation of said standards. Those terms are not defined anywhere. Within the patent declaration (which Microsoft accept anyway, as they are a member) we get this:
This declaration [of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms] remains valid only as long as the corresponding ECMA standard remains valid.
So the question any investigation will have to look at is if Microsoft pulls out of the ECMA as a member and the ECMA standards are no more, where does that leave any implementations of them?
You also have to consider whether any Novell investigation will have the interests of free software at heart. Novell simply licensing these standards at some point works for them, but is not an option for free software.
The most worrying thing from this is that a guy in this company has heard of Mono, and is simply using it to justify the .Net decision when presented with any other alternatives – “Oh, you’ll just be able to get this stuff up and running on Unix someday”. He obviously has absolutely no intention of using Mono at all, not to mention the fact that much of the .Net technology has, and will have, Windows specific extensions that will prove enough of a barrier. I find that attitude stemming from Mono quite worrying, as it stops people (and gives an excuse) from thinking seriously about moving from Windows. Mono is not going to make Windows developers use Linux!
This paragraph says it all.
David, you just convinced me that Mono is not an option for Free Software/Open Source Software.
IMHO OSS should focus on producing some stable APIs for Linux, which is Windows’ strongest advantage. The APIs, people!
I understand that microsoft has to answer questions that will make business sense. However, it really shows how combative they are to change.
Does Microsoft support the Mono project? If it does, then developers like me will not have a problem developing applications or components for .NET. I have been using Linux as my development environment and for regular computing work and I don’t plan to switch. — Sri Thuraisamy
No, Microsoft does not support the Mono product, nor has it licensed anything to Novell/Ximian. Mono is an attempt by Novell to reverse engineer parts of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. It is not an extension of the .NET Framework and it should not be considered as such.
Frankly, Mono is just one example of the level of excitement within the developer community around .NET. At this point there are millions of developers building .NET connected applications, and more than 80 million distributions of the .NET Framework. Microsoft has also worked with partners to standardize parts of the .NET Framework in ISO. — Amanda Morgan, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Global Positioning
the mono project is HELPING microsoft, yet their answer is non-commital and actually rather harsh
What are some the things you like most about LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP), OpenOffice and Mozilla? — Lazhar Bourennani
It all boils down to one thing: easy-to-use solutions to solve customer needs. This is the area where Linux has the biggest challenge. Customers ultimately don’t care about operating systems, they care about a stable platform for running their applications efficiently and with minimal training. While Linux has a number of infrastructure features in the OS, well supported, robust applications are still not there. This will continue to be a challenge for the Linux community as long as there are multiple conflicting distributions with multiple user interfaces. ISVs are challenged enough selling products into a community that favors “free,” let alone needing multiple versions for different distributions. — Amanda Morgan, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Global Positioning
a standard microsoft response – “It all boils down to one thing: easy-to-use solutions to solve customer needs”. in my opinion, easy of use has to be part of the equation. the other part is CHOICE. Amanda/MS answer is point blank stating that choice (multiple conflicting distributions/multiple user interface) is a BAD thing.
*sigh*
while peoples discuss about FUD patent,novell have launched
http://www.monoforge.com
for me there is no problems of using ASP.NET technology
because no patent has been granted or claimed yet.
and btw this is only “patent crackdown” that the
anti-MS crowd are convinced is coming someday….
The q’s were answered by none other than: Amanda Morgan, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Global Positioning
So her job is to position MS, basically marketing the company. This is reflected in her answers:
It is not an extension of the .NET Framework
Ehm, hello, who are you trying to fool here. We don’t think of Mono as an extension, we think of it as a replacement or “the same, but on Linux”.
Frankly, Mono is just one example of the level of excitement within the developer community around .NET
Yeah, ok, next question please…
Actually the next question was about the good things in LAMP, to whcih she responed with some FUD. Great ‘article’, wouldn’t have missed in in the world.
monoforge does *not* look to be from novell but from impulso.it.
Ok, your second post is semi-coherent. So let’s address what you said.
Your first three paragraphs are a description of your bitterness about some random company choosing .NET over Java. This is the second time you’ve written that little story. I’m assuming you are not employed by this company, and if not why do you continue to worry about this?
Your next 2 paragraphs address patents and the ECMA. Guess what, Java is just as patent encumbered as .NET, but also hasn’t been submitted to a standards body and is completely controlled by Sun. Sun has a precarious future, is a strong supporter of IP, and is just as likely as any other fading company to pull out its patent portfolio in a last-ditch effort to save a sinking ship.
Guess what, if you write a thousand lines of code, there’s a good chance that your infringing on some idiotic patent somewhere.
So the question any investigation will have to look at is if Microsoft pulls out of the ECMA as a member and the ECMA standards are no more, where does that leave any implementations of them?
Valid point, but are Java developers losing sleep over a dying Sun?
You also have to consider whether any Novell investigation will have the interests of free software at heart. Novell simply licensing these standards at some point works for them, but is not an option for free software.
And who defines the “interests of free software”? Richard Stalin? And why should Novell have the “interests of free software” at heart?
“Java is just as patent encumbered as .NET, but also hasn’t been submitted to a standards body and is completely controlled by Sun. Sun has a precarious future, is a strong supporter of IP, and is just as likely as any other fading company to pull out its patent portfolio in a last-ditch effort to save a sinking ship. “
Wrong Sun nas made a legally binding patent grant on the Java language consequently any clean room compiler or interpreter is under no potential patent threat unlike Mono. This is what makes GNU/CLASSPATH and GJC so important.
You haven’t proved nothing that Novell has gone GNOME-centric. They updated their Novell Linux documentation to make it clear that they will support Kopete, Kontact with no less than 100% Novell Groupwise support, plus many other KDE applications and KDE-fied applications like OOo on the KDE desktop by default.
I’m surprised you even had the balls to address me after I bitch-slapped you and was proven right about Novell going Gnome-centric.
Desparate….. You think that if you want.
Where is Novell Gnome centric? All I see at Novell at the moment are people desperately trying to justify themselves through politics.
All I see is some half-arsed documentation on the NLD that tries to make it look as if they are becoming Gnome-centric, even though Novell’s Enterprise Linux Division (that would be Suse *LOL!*) is still successfully selling KDE-centric Suse Linux Professional and it is making good revenue and a tidy profit. Maybe you just like to paint over such things, I don’t know.
Now that’s a bitch slapping if ever I saw one.
Anyway, the last I heard Novell had difficulty rolling out even their own desktop across their organisation.
Once again you prove your utter ignorance on all matters that you speak. The SDKs are not tied to Visual Studio. Ever heard of Sharpdevelop or Borland’s IDE. They use the .NET runtime and if you so desire you can code with Vim.
The vast majority of people won’t code with SharpDevelop and Borland though (mindshare), as there is more in with Visual Studio than the bog-standard SDKs.
Versions of Visual Studio are tied to a particular runtime version and SDK – which you would have gathered from my comment about being able to drop new Java runtimes in with old IDEs. When you want to use a new version of the .Net runtime you need a new version of Visual Studio.
Now you’ve sunk to a state of meaningless babble.
Thought you might come up with that – don’t post again until you understand it. This is elementary intelligence in how to fund software and the business models around it.
Who pays for people to hack on Mono, and how is it funded for you to develop everything for free? It certainly isn’t funded any business Mono generates.
Are you brain damaged? Of course Microsoft’s development tools allow free software to be created. Microsoft doesn’t dictate licenses unlike your beloved Trolltech.
Free software is GPL’d software – in case you don’t know the definition. Where’s the free software infrastructure, desktop and applications that these development tools create?
I can see you’re yet another clueless idiot who peddles free software development for businesses and “the LGPL is the best license for business” without the first clue as to how to fund that. Who the hell, and what, do you think funds the salaries and resources of the people who mainly develop with Gnome, Evolution and especially Mono?
You must’ve been so embarrassed to be proven wrong about Novell NDS.
Proven wrong about NDS? Can’t remember making too many comments on NDS, if at all. It hasn’t dropped off the face of the Earth has it?
Then again, some of us do have a life
.
Your first three paragraphs are a description of your bitterness about some random company choosing .NET over Java.
Nope – you think it’s bitterness, but it is cold hard reality. They’re trying to use Mono as justification for using .Net without any intention of actually using it. You don’t think that’s a bad attitude? That’s dangerous for Linux and free software, and you’re about the only person here who doesn’t realise it.
Be in denial all you like, but it’s happening.
This is the second time you’ve written that little story. I’m assuming you are not employed by this company, and if not why do you continue to worry about this?
Reverse psychology – as everyone but you has realised, it is not a little story.
You’re one of these people incapable of holding down a conversation without going off on a tangent aren’t you? Then somebody has to politely remind you to shut up, listen to what’s been said and and reply to what’s actually been said. If you do this away from a keyboard then you’re certainly not employed, and probably never have been.
Guess what, Java is just as patent encumbered as .NET, but also hasn’t been submitted to a standards body and is completely controlled by Sun.
Nope – Java is different to .Net.
The point is, the base implementation and specification of Java isn’t encumbered in the cast-iron way .Net is. No one can point to a set-in-stone ECMA standard with Java and say “That’s our IP”. It is possible to create a cleanroom implementation of Java without fear of anything being a definite threat to you. Mono is following the base ECMA standards, and there’s no getting away from that. If Microsoft pulls out of the ECMA and is not subject to the reasonable licensing terms, that will spell disaster for free software built on Mono.
Look at the free Java implementations of Java like Kaffe, and look at what Apache are doing with Java and Jakarta and Tomcat. Look at the free J2EE solution Jonas. Mono and .Net don’t have that kind of community, nor does .Net have anything like the Java Community Process where pressure can be brought on individual members – even Sun. Pointing to an ECMA standard just isn’t good enough. Would Microsoft change their licensing to be compatible with Apache’s like Sun did with their Java implementation?
Anyway, many companies are doing their own thing with their own Java implementations away from the JCP. If Sun decides to do anything (which they can’t, as they don’t have a leg to stand on) they’re going to have to take it out on an awful lot of people, open source projects and whole companies – none of them small. Mono quite simply doesn’t have that, and it is one its own.
Mono is a directionless disaster for the open source community, and actually a minority of the open source community when you look at this. As you’ve said before, no one gives a damn about the minority and no one gives a damn what you think.
Microsoft were extremely clever in defining a clear ECMA standard that would have dodgy reasonable licensing terms. Instead of people creating cleanroom implementations that are extremely messy to get at legally, they have something clear to point to. Mono uses the ECMA standard and is therefore subject to any patent licensing Microsoft decides on in the future outside of the ECMA.
The fact that Miguel has even needed a letter from Microsoft Intel, HP et al (if it even exists) proves that the future licensing of the ECMA standards are not set in stone to be on reasonable terms in the future.
The fact that Miguel has mentioned this letter at all proves this pretty conclusively, and was actually an extremely bad move if he wanted to re-assure people about Mono.
Guess what, if you write a thousand lines of code, there’s a good chance that your infringing on some idiotic patent somewhere.
Certainly, but if the base runtime environment you are using is subject to a cast-iron patent that was licensed reasonably but now isn’t, you’re in trouble. Therein lies the difference, and that’s why I wasn’t bothered about Microsoft patenting namespaces like ADO or ASP – it’s terribly vague. It’s the core stuff that matters.
Valid point, but are Java developers losing sleep over a dying Sun?
No, which then begs the question – if Java is so patent encumbered, and if Sun have so much control over it why are people just not bothered and are doing their own things and their own implementations? That kind invalidates your argument against Java.
And who defines the “interests of free software”? Richard Stalin?
The people who define the interests of free software are the developers of Gnome and other projects at large not employed by Novell (which is just about everyone) – and a lot have serious and justifiable concerns.
And why should Novell have the “interests of free software” at heart?
Well, if Novell doesn’t have the interests of free software at heart then it starts to kill off the free software projects that have enabled it to switch to Linux. They now rely on these free software projects to maintain their operating system (now Linux), and not having their interests at heart is very bad for Novell.
In case you hadn’t noticed it, Novell is modelling itself as an open sourcecompany.
Nope – you think it’s bitterness, but it is cold hard reality. They’re trying to use Mono as justification for using .Net without any intention of actually using it. You don’t think that’s a bad attitude? That’s dangerous for Linux and free software, and you’re about the only person here who doesn’t realise it.
Be in denial all you like, but it’s happening.
The cold hard reality is that you have no influence over aforementioned company, and for whatever bizarre reasons you are bitter about business decisions they’ve made that are of no concern to you.
“Bad attitude”… “Dangerous for Linux and free software”.
Get a freaking grip on reality man. To be able to extrapolate them using .NET, Mono, or both to a bad attitude and dangerous for linux and free software is demented.
Mono is a directionless disaster for the open source community, and actually a minority of the open source community when you look at this. As you’ve said before, no one gives a damn about the minority and no one gives a damn what you think.
So what group represents the “majority” in the open source community and if Mono represents the minority and no one gives a damn about it, then why are you and the FUDsters so threatened by it?
No, which then begs the question – if Java is so patent encumbered, and if Sun have so much control over it why are people just not bothered and are doing their own things and their own implementations? That kind invalidates your argument against Java.
Which begs the question, if ecma 335, 336, and the rest of the framework is so patent encumbered and troubling, then why are there two different implementations being done by the open source community? – one of which is OFFICIALLY UNDER THE UMBRELLA OF GNU!
Well, if Novell doesn’t have the interests of free software at heart then it starts to kill off the free software projects that have enabled it to switch to Linux. They now rely on these free software projects to maintain their operating system (now Linux), and not having their interests at heart is very bad for Novell.
In case you hadn’t noticed it, Novell is modelling itself as an open sourcecompany.
Novell has the interests of Novell at heart like any rational company does, and if that means using free software to its advantage then so be it. There can be a symbiotic relationship between the two, but the bottom line is that Novell cares about Novell. Haven’t you ever worked on a cross-company developer project. You collaborate, but that doesn’t mean you have the best interests of the other company at heart.
Bottom line is that you and the fudsters know that for once Microsoft put out a decent framework and you don’t want anybody else to implement it whether it has iron clad patents or not. The reason is that it’s Microsoft tech. Once you’ve crossed into the “software as religion” realm then it’s time to step back and re-evaluate what’s really important in life.
Microsoft reverse engineered Java, don’t forget.
and nobody came?
That’s the problem that software patents are – not a problem that they solve, not a problem they cause.
Software patents are like the Maginot Line – fixed in concrete, immovable, and anyone with any sense goes around it and gets there just as quickly.
Even worse from the POV of the Americans, is that it’s probably the major reason why outsourcing is so popular these days – suddenly it’s so so much cheaper to simply get things done overseas, instead of wading through immeasurable reams of bureaucratic toiletpaper in the US of A.
Microsoft would have to be suicidal to pull out patents and try to stop Mono – but then, they’ve caught themselves between a rock and a hard place on this matter. The best thing they could do now is to set themselves up as a programming tools supplier with a particular tool set and license it as freely as possible to others, and explicitly permit the kind of reimplementation we see in Mono. Their monopoly in desktop OSes and office software won’t last forever.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you write a thousand lines of code you’re probably infringing on someone’s patent. The Chicken Littles around here just throw out the patent scare as a red-herring when the real reason they hate Mono is because it’s Microsoft tech. These people are very transparent.
Microsoft didn’t get to where they are today by being stupid. They most likely see the writing on the wall concerning their “monopoly” status. I would also see them as being more of a tools/solutions provider in the future, but we’ll just have to see how good Longhorn turns out. There’s a lot of smart people at Microsoft. Don’t be surprised to see Longhorn turning out to be pretty good stuff. XP rarely crashes, it’s biggest problem is spyware. You don’t see as many of the fanboys screaming BSOD anymore.
….anybody.
it might also be that they _need_ mono, cause when/if linux or other free OS replaces windows, it will be a strong selling point for m$ that they handle .net quite well. they can then sell it as a “.net-platform”, instead of being out in the cold alone.
ummm – that’s crazy talk, even taking into consideration the existence of rotor. Maybe Microsoft needs mono to better understand the culteral divide between open and closed source (yes-yes, for good/evil/prey upon). One thing there is little doubt of in my mind is that at the average developer level (me) it’s awesome having both around. The amount of resource sharing (for lack of a better word) is mind-blowing.
The cold hard reality is that you have no influence over aforementioned company, and for whatever bizarre reasons you are bitter about business decisions they’ve made that are of no concern to you.
Not on topic – as usual. You learn from what’s around you, and what happens around you. You now as well as everyone else that this is relevant, and it is exactly symptomatic of how Mono will be used to promote .Net – at the expense of Mono and non-Windows based alternative software.
Which begs the question, if ecma 335, 336, and the rest of the framework is so patent encumbered and troubling, then why are there two different implementations being done by the open source community?
Because people have got scared about .Net and haven’t thought it through? The key here is that there is no threat at the moment because of the reasonable terms Microsoft is bound by (however stringent they are), but the ball is certainly in Microsoft’s court as to what do with their base .Net specs.
I give Microsoft credit – this flies right over everyone’s heads.
Haven’t you ever worked on a cross-company developer project.
That relationship is not at issue here and not part of the topic. The issue is relations outside of Novell – which Novell needs if it is to continue to use Linux.
I suggest you read, comprehend and learn – in that order.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you write a thousand lines of code you’re probably infringing on someone’s patent.
Base ECMA standards – everyone uses them, RAND at the moment, subject to any patent Microsoft puts on it outside of the ECMA should it decide to leave. Microsoft owns the standards but has chosen to let people use them reasonably for the moment. Very, very different to writing code and potentially infringing something.
Once you’ve crossed into the “software as religion” realm then it’s time to step back and re-evaluate what’s really important in life.
Don’t be a .Net rentboy then. I actually use and program in .Net and it isn’t that great – merely what Windows programming should have been to start off with copied from Java. The GAC and dependency management side of things is an absolute joke, but that’s another story.
I actually went out and did some research on the ECMA standards, and though I didn’t know about them before I didn’t like what I saw. Standards are set and remain around for a long time – Microsoft can revoke ECMA whenever it feels like. Quite frankly I don’t think DotGNU or Mono have ever looked at them and ever asked “Will this last long into the futuer, and will there be no threat for free software?” DotGNU is to worried about the threat of .Net taking over the world and Ximian needed Mono as some hype to get them sold.
.Net using base ECMA standards is a non-starter. Seriously (religion aside *LOL*), Microsoft dictates the ECMA stuff, and decides whether it stays inside the realm of the ECMA body.
Relationships between Microsoft and standards bodies like the W3C? I’ll leave that as an exercise.
Bottom line is that people will continue to use .NET/Mono and we’ll continue to have morons like you ineffectually try to spread FUD. It’s comical seeing you and the other idiots trying to tell other developers what and what not to use.
Bottom line is that people will continue to use .NET/Mono and we’ll continue to have morons like you ineffectually try to spread FUD.
No people will continue to use .Net. Mono usage is an open question, and given your pro-Microsoft comments elsewhere I think you’re just frustrated I’ve blown the lid off it.
It’s comical seeing you and the other idiots trying to tell other developers what and what not to use.
Don’t tell other people who want to use Python or anything else that they are in a minority and no one gives a damn what they think then.
It is Mono who is in the minority. Absolutely none of Gnome is written in Mono, and there is no Mono anywhere in Gnome at the moment until questions are answered. The Java community around projects like Apache is huge, and they are never going to run ASP.NET or anything else using Mono.
This is fun
. It has become clear even to me that I’ve won this argument, and what I’ve pointed out has really touched a raw nerve and given you nothing left to say (if ever).