Submitted by Mono project founder Miguel de Icaza claims that Microsoft prevented the open source project from holding a meeting at the company’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. Microsoft states on its conference Web site that its ‘Birds of a Feather’ sessions are proposed and voted on by the community. But the Mono BOF was never listed for voting and therefore received no votes, despite the submission being confirmed, according to De Icaza’s blog.
Is anyone surpised by this?
Completely and utterly surprised. Didn’t see it coming. No sir. Not a clue.
Now in all fairness this could simply be an unintentional SNAFU instead of maliciousness on anyone’s part.
Is anyone surpised by this?
No, not really. Now imagine if this kind of misinformation and dishonesty is scaled up where, hypothetically speaking of course, many companies are using Mono. Is that really going to further the cause of open source software, especially when people can actually see that what is being used actually is Microsoft technology? It makes a monumental difference to the confidence that any company, or paying customer, has in any development technology and its acceptance. The number of Gnome applications written with it does not matter one iota, as much as some people would wish it did.
Noone can blame about it. It’s not a public conference. It’s not a Mono conference.
Mono people are simply ridiculous!
You’re 100% right. Even miguel thinks so in the blog entry linked form this “news” post.
However, if what he claims in an earlier blog entry (http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2005/Aug-25.html) is true I feel the sour face is somewhat warrented.
[…]
At the last PDC the Mono BOF had the largest number of votes when half the spots were still available and it got dropped out of the list. When I asked the various people in charge what happened they kept pointing fingers at someone else until it reached full circle.
[…]
Even if it is their show I find such behaviour ridiculous. It gives a SERIOUSLY BAD and UNPROFFESSIONAL impression which is not something a company such as Microsoft should want to tout. It’s better to say “sorry – we’d rather have someone else”. It is their perrogative anyway…
he was all happy that he flew under the radar.. “How you feeling now?”
Imagine that. I wonder if this has something to do with Grasshopper. MS is pushing them out of their space…
poor miguel
Open sores hates windows so Microsoft is supposed to embrace them? Hilarious
PDC attendee Mike Roberts said Microsoft’s customers are unlikely to switch from Visual Studio to the open source project. “There are two types of businesses — the ones that buy into Microsoft and those that don’t. The people who bought into the Microsoft world probably won’t switch to Mono. The other people — those using Java or LAMP might do, though,” said Roberts.
ROTFL
PDC attendee Mike Roberts said Microsoft’s customers are unlikely to switch from Visual Studio to the open source project. “There are two types of businesses — the ones that buy into Microsoft and those that don’t. The people who bought into the Microsoft world probably won’t switch to Mono. The other people — those using Java or LAMP might do, though,”
Well that’s hit the nail on the head right there more squarely than ever. I think many people (including me) could have told the Mono guys that the moment the whole thing was started many years ago. The obviously thought about it as this incredibly cool, technical project, but nothing about the practicalities or business and market difficulties of making it a success.
Given that Mono was started to allow Windows developers to move to Linux and the open source world, it has become clear (and lots of us knew, including at-the-coal-face guys like Mike Roberts above) that Windows developers were always going to stick to a Microsoft technology come hell or high water (unless something different came along). I’ve experienced that attitude out in the world first-hand, and it’s a bit unbelievable that no one associated with Mono has. For Mono to have been of any interest whatsoever (not that Windows developers were going to use it – just get interested), it would have had to replicate absolutely everything Microsoft had with .Net. That is quite clearly never going to happen, and the two will diverge ever more greatly as time goes on.
The part I find really ludicrous though, is for the Windows to Linux migration ploy of Mono to work, in any environment Microsoft’s .Net would have to get there first before Mono, otherwise, what’s the point of Mono? There would then be some sort of faint hope that Mono would somehow switch places with .Net. Mono would effectively be doing .Net’s marketing for Microsoft! To be honest, I don’t know why Microsoft don’t string them along, as they can always gazzump them at a later date.
The only people, as he says, who might move to Mono are people using Java and the LAMP stack. Hands up how many of you have seen people using Java/Tomcat, PHP, Ruby etc. switch to running ASP.Net on a non-Windows platform using Mono. What, nobody? Do you think that might be because they don’t want to use a Microsoft technology, or rely on their development tools in the first place?
I’d give them a big chair in the middle. And then when customers, *cough Massachussetts cough* complain about my lack of support for open standards I’d point out the reimplementation Mono. Then I’d strategically fail to point out that that’s not an open standard, but just a standard I’m letting others use.
eh.
Also, keep in mind….this is the SECOND TIME in a row that Microsoft has farked them over.
MONO was a stupid, bad, disaster of an idea from the beginning and Miguel was/is a fool from the start.
The ONLY THING that mono has ever done is allow Microsoft to say “See! .NET is multi-platform just like Java!”….the Open Source community has been used from the beginning like pawns.
What should have been developed is a competitor to .NET and marketed AS A competitor not marketed as a .NET-compatible solution. Of course if your going to do that then why bother because we already have something great that is an alternative to .NET…called Java.
Milo, no.
In fact, there is a problem. Most of next generation Windows apps will be …. guess what. Not Java. Not “Someone-beatiful-langue”. But C#/.Net. Yeah, I know it is not fair. But it’s how it is. And language by itself is ok.
Mono main target is to ensure that .NET apps could be VERY easy to port to Linux/BSD/Solaris/whatever Mono is ported. And that’s all – and that is serious.
Apps is what matters. If Mono provides that Windows apps could be ported at least in some level – it is GOOD for open source desktops.
It is easy to bash Miguel, but my pick is that he is more like Linus – politics and some kind of bashing some one isn’t for him. He is more coder and like cool, technical things which are useful. And of course, he prefers freedom – otherwise he would be working for Microsoft.
So, we can bash everyone in our community, but hey…better don’t do that, it is our weekness.
Milo, no.
Err. No.
In fact, there is a problem. Most of next generation Windows apps will be …. guess what. Not Java. Not “Someone-beatiful-langue”. But C#/.Net.
Err, yer. And what will the next generation of Linux/open source desktop applications be written in? So we should hope for a clone of .Net which will never, ever be able to actually run those next generation Windows applications? Nice one.
Those applications will be written with Microsoft’s .Net, will rely on a great deal of libraries, namespaces and parts of the Windows OS which Mono will never, ever be able to replicate. It’s taking Microsoft a huge amount of resources to maintain the .Net framework as it stands, and it’s only going to get bigger. You’re not going to run .Net Windows applications with Mono, and certainly, you’re never going to be able to do it in a way which approaches being reliable. Period.
If Mono provides that Windows apps could be ported at least in some level – it is GOOD for open source desktops.
Windows apps are not going to be ported via Mono, that much has become obvious now.
but my pick is that he is more like Linus – politics and some kind of bashing some one isn’t for him.
Don’t know him very well, do you?
And of course, he prefers freedom – otherwise he would be working for Microsoft.
Some would argue he, unknowingly, is.
>Windows apps are not going to be ported via Mono, that much has become obvious now.
ShaprDevelop -> MonoDevelop
If that’s NOT a port it’s still a hell of good way to reuse code.
It’s more like a fork that has had large portions reimplemented to work with Gtk and make sense in a Unix build environment. It isn’t clearly obvious to me that more development work for KDevelop wouldn’t have been a much more useful, far less redundant exercise, and so I’m not certain if I classify it as a “good way” to reuse code. It definitely doesn’t represent how Windows desktop software developers are going to behave. That sort of “porting” is a serious waste of money for them.
Have you ever actually tried to use monodevelop? It is really unusable piece of crap. I’m sure one day it will be nice but compared to the real sharp develop it is just junk.
ShaprDevelop -> MonoDevelop
If that’s NOT a port it’s still a hell of good way to reuse code.
MonoDevelop is a fork of SharpDevelop:
http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.LinuxPort
and they have now diverged so much that code reuse between the projects is now impossible, or at the very least, extremely difficult. Another example of the fallacy of code reuse with the .Net world. Things just aren’t that simple.
In fact, there is a problem. Most of next generation Windows apps will be …. guess what. Not Java. Not “Someone-beatiful-langue”. But C#/.Net. Yeah, I know it is not fair. But it’s how it is. And language by itself is ok.
Thats not a foregone conclusion by any means. On the server side it looks likely because C# and ASP make a cool platform but for the desktop, C# is a poorer choice.
For the desktop, see the VB developer revolt against going .Net and I suspect most of the C++ crowd wont too. Why? Because C# produces inferior bloated apps that need a 23 MB runtime and have really slow startup times. MS has a long way to go before it wins me and a million other software devlopers over to .Net on the desktop.
Why? Because C# produces inferior bloated apps that need a 23 MB runtime and have really slow startup times. MS has a long way to go before it wins me and a million other software devlopers over to .Net on the desktop.
Not. Because the VB.NET is far more complex then VB.
The .NET desktop apps are not bloated (I created a little galaxy-like game, the exe is 23 Kilobyte!). Yes, it needs .NET runtime, but IMHO in the near future the .NET runtime will be on the most of windows based computers. The startup is slower then “native” apps, at least at the first time, but if JIT compile the code to your processor, the second start will be faster. And it is processor-independent, and it can be very important if you want to create apps for 64-bit processors.
The .NET desktop apps are not bloated (I created a little galaxy-like game, the exe is 23 Kilobyte!).
The exe size is irrelevant as far as bloat is concerned. Check out the memory usage of your app – I will wager it consumes over 100MB ram.
The exe size is irrelevant as far as bloat is concerned. Check out the memory usage of your app
i don’t know .Net.
But Mono is the best and most efficiency high level language. Look at the memory footprint[1].
Better than python.perl and free java.
[1] http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2005/Feb-09.html
Thats propaganda for sure. We dont get to see what reference application he is using and I will state a concrete fact – lazy GC needs 6x heap space to minimise performance overhead of GC (which is still 20% slower than native even at 6x heap). Ergo it will almost always be significantly bigger than ref counted languages by up to 6x.
When you add the richness of .net to that 6x heap you end up with a horriblty bloated app whoose memory usage is typically in excess of 100MB ram (for any significant app).
Lazy GC languages like c# and java are very badly designed from a memory usage point of view and anyone who thinks they are a good idea on the desktop deserves to be shot. It would kill Linux’s competitive TCO advantage over windows (especially Vista) and prevent older hardware from using software.
If Gnome was written entireley in Mono, I would bet you would need at least 1GB ram to run it and that would become 2GB sooner or later…
lazy GC needs 6x heap space to minimise performance overhead of GC (which is still 20% slower than native even at 6x heap).
sorry, but you don’t have read my post and the link.
No one says that mono (or java too) will be faster than native languages like C and will be the solution for everything. But you also don’t need everywere a language like C, there are also situations were highlevel languages have there advantage and if you compare your options (java, python, perl, mono) you can see that mono has the best memory footprint. And mono still have a lot of opportunities for improvements, mono is still in the stage were adding features is more important than optimizing.
No one wants to write a kernel, a OS or an complete desktop with Mono, Java or Python. But there are tasks were this languages are a really good option and if i compare these languages in the free software world mono seems to be a very good (maybe the best) option compared by the memory usage.
“Ergo it will almost always be significantly bigger than ref counted languages by up to 6x.”
You should probably not just make up numbers like that. It is pretty easy to write a test, and you will find that the memory usage is consistent with the referenced blog post. I know because I also did this when I read that months ago.
Or of course you can just go on believing things that are incorrect, your call.
For a larger test, measure the memory usage of monodevelop which is not at all optimal, but still well below 100MB so your later assertion is also incorrect.
You can keep going on comparing the memory usage of various mono, python, gtk+ apps and find out the truth.
The 6x heap is well known fact about lazy GC.
wrt 100MB I was referring to .Net apps which are typically much more resource hungry than mono (although when mono acquires a compacting GC I expect it to have a similiar memory inefficiency).
The memory usage is not a simple question. If you have many free memory the GC will be a little bit lazy, but if you start another application or your app need more memory, the GC will clean up. But if you want you can force this clean up from your program, but it is unneccessary in the most case.
Actually, he *did* try to go to work for Micro$haft. Serves him right, trying to pollute *nix with that Micr$haft crap.
You, sir, are a complete moron. Thank you for letting everyone know.
Miguel, Microsoft will be at war, like it or not. Better try to protect Mono, because it is one of hell of good piece of software. Just don’t try to talk to them, it is pointless.
Pierino has dug up excelent example for that. So…Just don’t
wow, that was quiet a rant. never mind, forget it. sorry.
When I read such non-presuming suggestions as Mono would be the most popular selection, and without there being any evidence one way or the other as to what happened, I’m just not inclined to just accept this on the word of Miguel. Just how many proposals were there? How many of them had similar passive rejections? How about some information?
Why’s everyone bashing him? There’s a good technology out there and he’s trying to bring a foss version of it to everyone for the benefit of the community. Someone needs to be working on a managed-language solution for *nix and it’s a good thing that java doesn’t have to be the only one.
The community told him it was a waste of time and a drain of the community resources. He didn’t listen …
The community told him it was a waste of time and a drain of the community resources. He didn’t listen …
I didn’t know someone elected Anonymous (IP: 4.18.60.—) official speaker for the FOSS community. Why nobody told me this important news?
The community told him it was a waste of time and a drain of the community resources. He didn’t listen …
Except that it’s not a waste of time. I want mono to succeed and so do many others. You can’t go on developing nothing but c++ applications forever.
That “drain of resources” bit is crap. He’s not forcing anybody to help him. You make it sound like other projects are being unfairly robbed of the resources they deserve.
The community told him it was a waste of time and a drain of the community resources. He didn’t listen …
Without the Mono project, would we have Fucking Sweet languages like Nemerle now?
Static typing, proper generics (not type-erased like Java5), type inference, and able to leverage loads of existing code since it talks .Net. I think it rocks. And I don’t think it’d have happened without Mono.
As for `drain the community resources’, that’s just not how things work.
Without the Mono project, would we have Fucking Sweet languages like Nemerle now?
What? You mean C# version 3.5?
Static typing, proper generics (not type-erased like Java5), type inference, and able to leverage loads of existing code since it talks .Net. I think it rocks.
Wow, exciting. It’s funny how this ‘leverage loads of existing code’ thing keeps cropping up around .Net. It leverages no existing code whatsoever, and certainly no more than any other programming language or technology.
What, like anyone expects Microsoft to play fair. As soon as Mono is considerred a threat they will act anti-competitively against the Mono project. This is Microsoft we’re talking about here. Hello. The convinced monopoly..
If you want to fight them there is only one way. The GNU way. You make a competing project, keep it open, but prevent just anyone (read: Microsoft) from taking your source code and building a commercial closed-source product out of it.
But you could also play their same game of politics and prevent them from setting up a booth at LinuxWorld or any of the other FS/OSS events. Make unfair benchmarks and comparisons between their products on your home turf, AMD64, PPC, whatever. Treat them like “the enemy”. Or don’t.
But if you think they’re your friend, you’re just being a fool. They are proprietary and commercial. They are their own friend. Everyone else is only valuable if they get them publicity, money, labor, or can be used as an example of competition (as long as you will never be able to actually compete) to keep them out of another anticompetitive lawsuit.
They aren’t the kid next door. They’re a 900 pound gorilla and they’ll crush you if you don’t protect yourself.
Ways to lose to Microsoft:
– Start a public corporation and make closed-source commercial products to compete with them.
– Start an Open Source project, like any of the BSDs.
– Partner with them to develope any tech standards, that they then extend and patent.
– Start a business that relies on the sale of their products to make a profit, and then attempt to compete with alternative products.
– Standardize on their protocols.
And I’m sure there’s 50 more.
“Ways to lose to Microsoft:
– Start an Open Source project, like any of the BSDs. ”
You’re spreading FUD. The BSD’s haven’t lost to anyone.
“Ways to lose to Microsoft:
– Start an Open Source project, like any of the BSDs. ”
You’re spreading FUD. The BSD’s haven’t lost to anyone.
For those tuning in late, i’ll try to explain the unwritten context here: the BSD license basically says you can use their code, even in commercial applications, as long as you credit them.
The BSD people made a kick-ass TCP/IP stack, and as their license permits, Microsoft ripped the crappy old MS TCP/IP stack out of Windows and replaced it by BSD’s.
And that’s great, that’s exactly what the BSD license is promoting: many many people now can enjoy this nice networking stack. Hooray.
Some would say MS “took advantage” of BSD, but those people don’t understand that the BSD people use the BSD license because they want this kind of things to happen.
Best way to think about it is. The GPL is about freeing the code. BSD is about freeing ideas.
What I think the poster is saying is that when you are competing with someone, and all your competitive advantages are given freely to your competitor but all their advantages remain theirs, you automatically lose.
Peace.
Of course Microsoft controls the agenda at their conference. That’s not the complaint.
Read Miguel’s blog. He is pointing out that Microsoft stated that the attendees – not Microsoft – would select the BoF topics by voting on the submitted proposals. He submitted a proposal. It wasn’t even listed on the ballot.
Microsoft can, and did, set the rules. Then they didn’t follow their own rules. Saying that you are going to do one thing, and then doing something else, shows a lack of integrity. Even an admission that they decided to change the rules would be a step forward.
How would you feel if I told you that I’d give a ride to work, but never showed up? The issue isn’t getting to work, it’s that you didn’t make other arrangements because you trusted my word. And my word wasn’t worth anything.
This is a familiar feeling for anyone – customers, partners, and employees – who trusts Microsoft. Some are just a little slower to catch on.
Didn’t Microsoft invites themselves to the last linuxworld Conference? I don’t remember anyone treating them disrespectfully. But, I guess that was a public conference, not a private one.
I hope that the Linux comunity does not lets MS in the next Linux conference. Maybe that will teach them.
Won’t hapen. Why? We arn’t arsholes.
Microsoft is doing something useful for the open source community. Mono is crap, and I’m glad they didn’t get any votes. The day Gnome becomes Mono-dependant is the day KDE gets one more user: me.
Like someone said, Linux needs a good managed code environment.
From Microsoft’s perspective, Mono will serve to distract Linux coders from Java being this environment, killing it on Linux. Plus, Microsoft will be able to “port” C# coders to the Microsoft platform.
For a long time, I thought that Miguel might be complicit in this, but I doubt it. I just don’t think the poor guy’s decent nature can fathom the depth of crookedness in some of Microsoft’s management.
– Mono can NEVER be .Net compatible.
– Use of Mono will allow Microsoft to sue if you do copy Asp/Ado.Net for example.
– Microsoft doesn’t want you there.
– Microsoft is at war with Linux.
– Asp.Net generates code that only runs on Windows.
if Mono copies it, then MONO is the ENEMY of Foxfire and Mozilla.
Sheesh, how many F’n reasons do you need to Not Run Mono!
More.
Like, “my code doesn’t run under Mono now!”
Unfortunately, it does, so I’m not moving off the Mono platform. Sorry to disappoint you.
– Microsoft doesn’t want you there.
Ever more reason to be there then! (just to annoy em)
– Microsoft is at war with Linux.
We aint cowards – bring em on!
– Asp.Net generates code that only runs on Windows.
We dont need that asp crap! (we have ruby on rails!)
Bill Gate’s worst nightmare is a .Net implementation that allows third party windows apps to run on Linux so lets do it. We dont need to use it in GNOME at all but we should have it as part of WINE so we can scare the living shit out of Bill Gates.
Sheesh, how many F’ing reasons do you need for having Mono around!
Exactly, time to stop winging and play hardball with Microsoft. They need to learn that the general developer community is tired of being played by their antics and want to be able to develop once and distribute many times to many platforms. This is the way of computing and there is Nothing they can do about it.
News like this also needs to be in the mainstream so that more and more people understand how Microsoft operates. All this crap about Democracy and lives being lost yet our corporations are playing like third world dictators. Total Bullshit.
We dont need that asp crap! (we have ruby on rails!)
We don’t need that .Net crap, we have *Insert good alternative programming tool here*.
Bill Gate’s worst nightmare is a .Net implementation that allows third party windows apps to run on Linux so lets do it.
Have you read about why running Windows apps on Linux is not feasible in the slightest, and will continue to be even less so?
We dont need to use it in GNOME at all but we should have it as part of WINE so we can scare the living shit out of Bill Gates.
And how long do you think Wine’s been around? It still can’t run Windows apps reliably, and even as a commercial Codeweavers project, it can still only run a select few apps.
[i]Asp.Net generates code that only runs on Windows>/i>
I understand that already real world asp.net applications have been ported to Mono.
Bottom line of all this, forget about all this Mono garbage and use Java…
Java is dead. SUN (or anybody) never can inverst enought money to develop java. Yes, there are many FOSS project for java, but building a business application for this projects is very dangerous (there are many discontinued FOSS projects).
Really? How do you figure that Java is dead?
With IBM investing heavily into Java with Eclipse and their own JVM. A completely Free Java toolchain is now possible, with Jikes/Kaffe, and if you want native compilation, there is GCJ.
Java isn’t going anywhere. And while there are dead open sourced apps that use Java, the truth is, there are loads of dead open sourced apps on the internet, and programming language used has got nothing to do with it.
Face it, Java is here, it’s mature, and it’s going to be here for a long time.
The design of java language is totally stupid. Basically the concept of java is stupid: this system was designed to run in it’s own processor (java processors), but this concept is failed. The second stupid thing is the language: when SUN designed the java they are created a very primitive language: no properties, no operator overloading, etc. There is no useable database-handling interface – yes, JDBC rulez, but it is very poor thing if you compare it to ADO.NET. No databindings, cached datasets, etc. Yes, there are many existing inconsistent solutions (from Borland, Oracle, FOSS) but there is no one widely accepted, one project use the Borland, one use the Oracle, etc libs. On the desktop side the swing is relative portable, but a little bit alien on every platform. And after 1 years of 1.5 the basic problems of desktop java (every java apps use their own JVM) not solved.
The free development environtments (Eclipse, Netbeans) are very pretty, but both of this tools you can’t create visually designed JSF forms (with Eclipse the JSP also problematic without any external plugin), and without databindings the creation of data-heavy apps is very expensive.
And IMHO the growing of .NET faster then java, because the M$ can spend far more money to develop .NET then SUN.
Depends on what you want, isn’t it? None of the problems you ascribe to the Java language affect most of the developers. For myself, only the lack of operator overloading affects me, but then I mainly deal with scientific code (matrices, vectors, etc) and would find those handy. But it’s no big deal.
As it stands, your post looks more like a rant about Java, showing no real substance (i.e. Java runs on it’s own processor and has failed?!?). Show me evidence of .NET growing faster than Java, or just shut up about the ‘death of Java’. In the enterprise right now, Java looks like it’s going to be the next COBOL. It will be here for years to come.
None of the problems you ascribe to the Java language affect most of the developers.
The properties makes your life easier. You can cleaner program, the system can be more RAD-friendly and the code is more coherent. But the biggest problems is the missing databindings and other similar things in the java classes.
Show me evidence of .NET growing faster than Java
Compare the difference between Java 1.4 and 1.5 or .NET 1.1 and 2.0. M$ can develop many new classes, many new features in languages, buy the best developers, because they have enought money and because their survive depends on .NET.
Java looks like it’s going to be the next COBOL. It will be here for years to come.
Yes, it is probably true. But is anybody start a new COBOL project ?
IMHO if the FOSS want to survive the race against M$, they need to clone .NET or create any far better.
Bottom line of all this, forget about all this Mono garbage and use Java…
Actually, Mono is getting pretty nice. For example, Java5 is implementing Generics, but for sakes of backwards compatibility, they are forced to do it in a crippled way (google for ‘type erasure’).
Mono, having less legacy around, has the freedom to Get It Right, and indeed they’re implementing proper Generics right now.
So not everything is perfect in Java (generics).
That does not mean that Mono is better…does Mono have an optimizing compiler like java (hotspot) that can run interpreted, compile, then de-compile when things change and re-compile later?
Better generics is not a reason to ‘bet the farm on M$’. There is probably a ton of stuff that Java does better than Mono.
Novell/Ximian decides to embrace .NET and look how things turn….Microsoft doesn’t want to play. Shocker!
1. It is not illegal to use mono or to develop mono.
2. C#/.net libraries are ECMA standards
However,
1. Microsoft has the right to charge a RAND (reasonable and non-descriminatory) fee at any time for the use of these standards.
2. They have never, ever, stated in any binding way that they would not do so in the future.
3. *any* fee, even minimal would result in the instant death of any OSS project dependent on those standards.
4. RAND can (and frequently does in the proprietary software world) mean several dollars per download! Or requiring build licenses for all developers producing binaries (every end user of gentoo for example!) that are in the hundreds of $ range. These are all reasonable and non-descriminatory in that context!
Miguel De Icasa and Ximian/Mono people *know* this full well but don’t want to admit how dangerous mono adoption is for the gnome community. They cite a BS casual mailing list post from the head engineer of .net as their claim that MS will never sue.
See how much crap this is for yourself (from official Mono faq):
http://mailserver.di.unip.” rel=”nofollow”>http://web.archive.org/web/20030609164123/http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#patents
Jim Miller’s off hand email is the *only* assurance anyone has every received that MS would never charge a RAND fee! If this were truly MS’s commitment then they could release a statement or legally commit themselves to that! This email is not not not legally binding people! Until MS makes a legally binding agreement to never charge for use of these standards, it is not ok to use mono!
See also Seth Nickels’ blog on this subject “Why Mono is currently an unnacceptable risk”:
http://www.gnome.org/~seth/blog/2004/May
The two main arguments against what I’m saying are realy crap also:
1. Java is also proprietary: Yes but Sun has licensed Java in such a way that they are legally prohibited from charging *any* royalties at all for existing releases of Java. We know with 100% certainty that Sun will never try and collect any RAND fee. Ever. The situation with Java is totally different for this reason.
2. You are always infringing somewhere, worrying about this is wasting your time: True, there is always a danger of unknowingly infringing. However, in this case mono is knowingly using patented software. If MS decided to collect or sue, mono and gnome would have absolutely zero defense! Furthermore, MS is well known for destroying threatening companies when it suits them to do so! They have done this many times in the past. Remeber how they *lost* an anti-trust lawsuit? It is because they are agressive, unscrupulous and incredibly rich. They can and will crush gnome if gnome threatens MS! Mono is the ultimate submarine. We build it, integrate it so gnome can’t live without it, then they kill gnome by charging for builds. Bam. Gnome is dead on that day.
Take Away: Mono is cool but way too dangerous. Smart people and companies are staying away from it (which turns out to be *most* companies bye the way. That is why Redhat and others are pushing Java as an alternative). People who back mono either have motive (ximian), are misinformed (most of the people on this forum), or just dumb (people who are really drooling over the potential of mono so they are ignoring the risk, probably ximian and some gnome developers again)
We know with 100% certainty that Sun will never try and collect any RAND fee. Ever. The situation with Java is totally different for this reason.
But SUN’s Java propably hurts many microsoft patents. M$ and SUN agreed, this companies are never will attack the other with their patent portfolio. It is very nice until the SUN is exists. But IMHO the future of SUN is not too clear, and if SUN is out of business the state of java can be very unclear. If any $CO-like company buy the company (like Caldera) the java developers will be in very big trouble. And the FOSS java implementations (like gcj, kaffe, etc) are not safer then mono.
And if you a software company, you can choose between the dim future old java, and the stable and more advanced, more modern .NET/C# what do you prefer ? And the 95% of customers want windows applications – good-looking windows applications with support of newest windows technologies (avalon, etc).
What nonsense about the dim future of Java. I suppose you have some sort of numbers that show Java is in decline? Let’s just ignore the fact that Oracle and IBM are two large companies apart from Sun who have a large Java portfolio and will do anything to protect their investment should Sun look like being on the verge of collapse.
Sun isn’t going away anytime soon either. Just look at their new software and server offerings. It may have taken them some time, but they are slowly on the rebound.
<blockquote>And the FOSS java implementations (like gcj, kaffe, etc) are not safer then mono.
</blockquote>
It boils down to who do you trust: Microsoft or Sun? I’d say none of the above. If you want an environment safe from any bizarro IP crap, use LISP.
But I’d have a lot more confidence that Sun, however erratic they behave, would hurt themselves more badly if they destroyed the open source Java community, than Microsoft would, if they destroyed the open source .net community.
cheers,
dalibor topic
“It boils down to who do you trust: Microsoft or Sun? I’d say none of the above. If you want an environment safe from any bizarro IP crap, use LISP. ”
Or Smalltalk.
Sun has given us no reason to distrust them, other then you don’t like there Open Source contract.
Microsoft, has given us numerous reasons to distrust them.
I wish Smalltalk did have a resurgence. That would be cool.
I don’t want to split hairs over this, but there is no real reason to trust one over the other. Free Java is in a more precarious position in my opinion because Sun explicitly grants no rights unless they are 100% compatible (which includes no extensions). See:
http://www.mackmo.com/nick/blog/java/?permalink=Java-SE-IP-Issues.t…
You may recall Java was not submitted to an external standards body.
Parts of mono are covered by Ecma and ISO standards which are more reliable in my opinion. The terms are pretty well spelled out and known industry wide.
“Parts of mono are covered by Ecma and ISO standards which are more reliable in my opinion. The terms are pretty well spelled out and known industry wide.”
Well since the original goal of Mono was to make it easier to port a Windows .Net program over to Linux. Just how much of a Windows .Net program will consist of Ecma and ISO standart parts? And how much will not?
“Well since the original goal of Mono was to make it easier to port a Windows .Net program over to Linux.”
That was not and is not “the goal of mono”, even though I can not speak for the project, it has many goals and possible uses. You can read their FAQ to find out their motivations straight from them. In my opinion, this is a secondary concern.
“Just how much of a Windows .Net program will consist of Ecma and ISO standart parts? And how much will not?”
Surprisingly a lot. But many of us are more interested in writing good open source applications, or sharing code for projects that work both on .NET and mono. Both of these can be done with ECMA portions and open source libraries only.
For example, the SharpDevelop to MonoDevelop port could have only changed about 10-15% of the code had it wished, and this is one of the largest .NET apps that I know of. The only non-ECMA part that it now uses is System.Drawing very sparingly. Keep in mind their will probably be more libraries included in the next version of the specification also.
Surprisingly a lot. But many of us are more interested in writing good open source applications, or sharing code for projects that work both on .NET and mono. Both of these can be done with ECMA portions and open source libraries only.
For example, the SharpDevelop to MonoDevelop port could have only changed about 10-15% of the code had it wished, and this is one of the largest .NET apps that I know of. The only non-ECMA part that it now uses is System.Drawing very sparingly. Keep in mind their will probably be more libraries included in the next version of the specification also.
To bad you feel that way.
Your efforts could be used on the Java side, with no conflict with the open source community.
That was not and is not “the goal of mono”, even though I can not speak for the project, it has many goals and possible uses. You can read their FAQ to find out their motivations straight from them.
It was and is a primary goal of the project, and anyone who knows about Mono or has read any of the Mono developers goals on the project knows it. If you saw a presentation at Brainshare they took a very simple .Net application written with Visual Studio and ran it on Linux and a Mac. If that’s not a goal I don’t know what is. If it is not a goal, why ASP.Net, why ADO.Net?! Write your own namespaces and be done with it.
Sorry, but you’re just changing your tune and saying it’s now not a goal because you can see that it’s just not working.
Surprisingly a lot.
Rubbish. You cannot get a working CLR and framework up and running with just the stuff that’s in ECMA alone. The Mono guys know that full well.
But many of us are more interested in writing good open source applications, or sharing code for projects that work both on .NET and mono.
I thought you said moving code and applications back and forth between .Net and Mono was not a goal? *ROTFL*.
And if you take out ADO.Net, ASP.Net, Windows.Forms, and the other libraries, you can still get stuff that works?! This is a horse that just won’t get out of the stalls.
Yeah, otoh this has been discussed already in the context of Harmony. See
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/200509.m…
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/200509.m…
from a real lawyer (Larry) and
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/200509.m…
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/200509.m…
from Geir.
Given that Kaffe, for example, exists (and Sun knows it, McNealy, Schwartz, Gosling, I’ve even seen bug reports from Sun employees a few years ago, …) since 1996 without any threats from Sun Microsystems, for all I know, I’d doubt they’d want to start now. There is only a lot of wasted time down that road, without a 2bn dollar prize at the end. There is no money to be claimed at Kaffe.org or FSF for sure.
Someone at Sun probably felt the need to reassure himself that Sun has a big stick, if necessary. IP sounds like a pretty big, nebulous stick.
If some people at Sun need to convince themselves that they carry a big stick in order to talk softly, so be it. As long as Sun does not decide run amok a la SCO, I can live with it, just like Miguel can live with Microsoft.
The major difference is that is Sun was desperate enough to kill off open source development on Java with frivolous lawsuits, that would hurt them. Badly.
Pulling off an SCO would spell instant death to OpenSolaris, GlassFish, OpenOffice.org and whatever else Sun has its finger in it. See SCO for how well that strategy works in selling one’s products.
So, as I said, if you want to avoid bizarro IP issues, avoid both Java and .net. There are many much nicer alternatives, that don’t suffer from such damocles sword setups. O’caml is nice, so is python. And of course LISP, and Smalltalk. And C and C++, if you are into curly braces.
cheers,
dalibor topic
No one forces any one to use Mono, if you don’t like it don’t use it, you have that freedom. If you’re worried about Mono ‘contaminating’ linux, then all the whiners on this thread should back a mono free distribution and create a technology that is more interesting than Mono/.NET and no I don’t mean python or ruby or php or Java etc. Either do something about it or keep quiet.
“No one forces any one to use Mono, if you don’t like it don’t use it, you have that freedom. ”
Just like one is “free” to use the NV driver instead of the nForce driver.
“If you’re worried about Mono ‘contaminating’ linux, then all the whiners on this thread should back a mono free distribution and create a technology that is more interesting than Mono/.NET”
What’s “interesting” about a Java wanna-be?
“and no I don’t mean python or ruby or php or Java etc.”
Funny how you ask for something “interesting” (whatever the heck that means?) and then excludes *everything* that’s NOT a microsoft technology, or a clone of it.
“Either do something about it or keep quiet.”
We can’t. You basically said that nothing but MS or a MS clone is acceptable to you.
Microsoft sees Java and Linux as their competitor. After supporting Java partially for a while, it sees the advantage is on the Linux side as many companies are earining a lot from Java and Linux.
Microsoft does not like this and want to kill both in one shot. That’s Microsoft.NET . They say that it is open standard and any one can implement that. But you can only implement that as far as it increases their propoganda and supports .NET’s cause. But you can not implement that when it comes on par with their own market.
Because Mono is far superior to .Net and MS knows this.
And, you can’t shut down OSS and MS also knows this.
All MS can do is play dirty.
LMAO…..
If I were paying mega bucks to host a conference you can bet your ass I would be controlling the content.
When are people going to understand those with the gold make the damn rules. The rest just pray those with to gold don’t decide to stomp on them.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/240989_pdcmono16.html
“Before the Microsoft conference, the Mono group applied to host a meeting to talk about Mono during the after-hours gatherings known as “Birds of a Feather” sessions, organized by the independent, non-profit International .NET Association.
But the Mono meeting wasn’t listed among the proposed sessions on which attendees voted in advance of the conference. It’s the second time the Mono group has tried unsuccessfully to host a session at a Microsoft PDC.”
“…said Microsoft specifically removed the Mono proposal from consideration.”
It sure doesn’t look like the International .NET Association is independent, if Microsoft makes the decisions.
… someday we would come in the difficult position to say `I told you so …’.
Why waste your time on something that can NEVER LEGALLY be 100% compatible, and by the way, where are the Mono Extensions?
Why be at war with Foxfire and Mozilla?
Apache/Tomcat/Java could certainly use your talents and you wouldn’t be DIS-Respected in the Java community.
Mono is one of the most colossal wastes of time ever.
Just think if all the effort that went into Mono went into an OSS Java! We could have a stable, *complete* OSS implementation of Java now without all the legal problems.
Following M$ was just flat ass stupid. I hope Mono dies and the mono developers put their talented efforts towards OSS Java.
Hey, that’s a great idea! I wish I would have thought of it. Oh, but wait, what if the people that put time and effort into mono have little to no interest in java. What will we do then?
It is a fundamental mistake to think that if A didn’t exists B would get more attention, but this is not the way the world works.
“It is a fundamental mistake to think that if A didn’t exists B would get more attention, but this is not the way the world works.”
hmmm…so if there hadn’t been an IBM PC, then Apple would have gotten more attention?
maybe, maybe not
The point is it is not causal. There is always a
“do nothing” choice.
>>”Either do something about it or keep quiet.”
>We can’t. You basically said that nothing but MS or a MS >clone is acceptable to you.
That’s my point, many in the FOSS community are unable to think of anything more interesting than the traditional existing approaches. The reason why .NET has aquired a following is because it is different, it is immaterial that it came from Microsoft. If the FOSS community managed to create something just as innovative then I am sure there would be a lot of interest. But whining won’t solve the problem.
Um, no. Basically you stacked the deck against any “solution” by ignoring it. “Innovation” by the OSS community really has nothing to do with it.
Yes .NET came from MS and yes it succeeded because it’s different. That however doesn’t mean that “innovation” was part of the equation. More like what came before was lacking.
“If the FOSS community managed to create something just as innovative then I am sure there would be a lot of interest.”
Well considering the rather exclusionary definition of “innovative” being used by you. I don’t think you will ever find what you’re looking for.
“But whining won’t solve the problem.”
It’s not whining to consider that Mono/.NET may not be everything it’s supporters wish us to believe it is. And while complaints may not solve the underlying problem. Having nothing to do with Mono on the Linux side most certainly will. So keep that in mind next time you accuse the people you’re trying to get to accept Mono of “whining”.
Any one know of any patents on C/C++. None of their creators are interested in patents? How are they standardized?
Have you read about why running Windows apps on Linux is not feasible in the slightest, and will continue to be even less so?
WIN32 and WINE is different to .NET and MONO. Everything is standardized and you donot need to worry about a hidden bug in WIN32 and mimic them in your implementation for the programs to be ported easily.
btw even Microsoft seems to like 100% MANAGED application for Vista and not ones with WIN32 code. They implement OpenGL on top of DirectX reducing the efficiency of OpenGL 50% and say that it is not 100% managed and they want every thing MANAGED IN VISTA.
Even M$ is now seeing alternatives for portablity on Microsoft platform between x86 and x64 architecture which is .NET and I dont think many developers targeting only Windows platform will write with WIN32 API calls sprinkled.
WIN32 and WINE is different to .NET and MONO. Everything is standardized and you donot need to worry about a hidden bug in WIN32 and mimic them in your implementation for the programs to be ported easily.
Everything is not standardised in the slightest, and I don’t know where you get that strange idea. Windows .Net applications will take advantage of (and does) more and more Windows technology behind the scenes, or on just the platforms Microsoft chooses.
Since you still use Win32 (well, exclusively behind the scenes) these days in a lot of .Net applications, I also find the above quite funny.
and I dont think many developers targeting only Windows platform will write with WIN32 API calls sprinkled.
You don’t develop with .Net, do you? In many situations, there are simply no alternatives to using the Win32 API and then there is also the issue of backwards compatibility.
Wow, some people sure carry around a lot of fear of IP litigation of Microsoft. That must be hell. For all we know, MS could be sitting on software patents that could kill off not only mono, but Mozilla, OpenOffice, GNOME, KDE, GTK, Qt, Linux, BSD .. you name it. And some people actually expect Microsoft to step out and say “We will never make IP claims against project X.” I’m sorry folks, but Microsoft is *not* in the business of giving credence to competing technologies (especially ones they can’t buy and bury). The only way to guarantee you’re using software that Microsoft won’t sue out of existence, is to use *only* Microsoft software. Good luck with that.