Earlier this year Novell purchased Ximian Software, the primary sponsor of the Mono Project. Novell is committed to providing support for open source development and specifically the Mono Project. There are plans for providing additional services around the Mono Project including support and consulting. Novell is also involved in providing resources for contributors by way of Novell Forge which will become the home for many Mono based projects and a community around Mono. Read the article here.
Update: On other C#/Mono news, the Qt# bindings project is almost on a halt, OSNews learned. Developers wanted to help out the one remaining developer, Marcus Urban.
Mono: Taking the Leap Without the .NET
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Having Novell behind this will help people put a lot of faith in Mono.
And of course, having a full .NET platform ready on Linux will help when MS need to port to Linux to keep mindshare
I am a developer, and I’ve attended a number of .net/webservices seminars. It seems like no one really knows the reason web services are necissary. They are great because they are extremely modular, but the most impressive uses I’ve seen of them are in places that are highly specialized, thus not likely to be reused.
However, Mono is impressive for a few reasons. It looks to me like M$ was planning on using C# and the .NET framework the way they’ve used Directx/3d to create a very impressive developer environment that is not open/portable. Unfortunatly for them, not only is Mono adding that functionality to linux, it is also improving it(!).
If Mono becomes especially slick, we’ll be seeing developers taking advantage of Mono instead of the native .net features, meaning M$ will have to keep up with Mono on a standard they intended to control.
It’s a really interesting turn of events, and I applaud Ximian for seeing this opportunity before it grew beyond anyone’s control.
“If Mono becomes especially slick, we’ll be seeing developers taking advantage of Mono instead of the native .net features, meaning M$ will have to keep up with Mono on a standard they intended to control.”
I am sure that if this were to somehow happen we would see MS somehow kill the mono project.
I still think these resources should have been spent improving GTK+ and its bindings.
/me sighs
#I still think these resources should have been spent #improving GTK+ and its bindings.
The Problem is the .net framework consists of APIs and managed code that would make future windows programs really difficult to port to linux. So even if M$ abandons .net (unlikely anyway) because of Mono, Mono was still necissary to keep M$ in check.
Make me wonder what Novell’s overall Linux plans are. Ximian (Gnome centric), Mono, Suse (KDE centric). What do they plan to do to bridge the gap between KDE and GNOME? And what plans do they have for the desktop environment (as opposed to the enterprise workstation environment)?
However, with their networking and enterprise experience, they could prove to be a powerful leader in the enterprise! In the end, thanks to open source and the GPL, this can only help us all!
Mike’s quote:
It looks to me like M$ was planning on using C# and the .NET framework the way they’ve used Directx/3d to create a very impressive developer environment that is not open/portable.
Mike, don’t you think that if Microsoft really wanted to create a “not open/portable developer environment” they would have more chances to succeed if they did not go through the trouble of standartizing it with International Standrads committees and then releasing it as a royalty free standard ?
The article says:
If your application uses only the defined APIs from the SYSTEM namespace, you should be able to use it as is.
The article also says:
The development of GUI applications is a bit more complicated since Microsoft’s GUI implementation, Windows Forms, is partially built on a Win32 foundation.
So I guess it does everything in the System namespace, minus Windows Forms?
Anyway, if this is a limitation, it would seem like you could get around this by creating C# bindings for wxWindows and just build apps like you do now in C++/WX.
I have the feeling that novell linux plans will greatly rely on mono. I believe that most future software from ximian/novell will be written in c#
mono could be the glue that binds kde+gnome, although I do not believe novell will push anything related to QT
“Mike, don’t you think that if Microsoft really wanted to create a “not open/portable developer environment” they would have more chances to succeed if they did not go through the trouble of standartizing it with International Standrads committees and then releasing it as a royalty free standard”
maybe they did this only to fool people, to make people think it’s portable so people accept the technology instead saying this is a non portable Microsoft lockin technology. Important things like winforms, asp and ado are not standardized and there are patents I think. I think the Mono people should deal carefully with this fact
Mike writes: “I am sure that if this were to somehow happen we would see MS somehow kill the mono project.”
correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe anything accepted by ECMA as a standard can be freely implemented by anyone. (but yes, chunks such as ADO.net, ASP.net and Windows.Forms are not standardized – but they can easily be replaced)
Why Mono is important I think is that windows maintains such an overwhelming monopoly based on the Mount Everest of pre-existing code written for the platform. If new code written for net-based windows can run on other platforms – that opens things up quite a bit.
They did that to try and get a lead over sun. Otherwise they could of standerdise many of the .net libraries that they havnt., like ADO.
I bet they didint expect a kickass project like mono.
I still don’t get it really why people are jumping on projects like Mono & DotGNU. Personally I think if Linux developers aren’t happy with what you have then you should write a new framework to meet your needs.
Also it looks from code examples there are more instructions you have to issue to get the program to work that you wouldn’t normally have to even touch in Visual Studio .NET.
I do a bunch of Windows & Mac OS X programming and was thinking of getting into Linux development, but if this is the way many are going, im not sure I want to go there.
Well, judging from the memory footprint of the .net/mono apache asp.net module on our computer club server claiming (215!Mb) compared to the java/tomcat footprint(41Mb), .net/nono could *really* need some more developers.. :}
And people are whining about java being a memory hog? Think again..
The biggest issue with Mono is patents. Microsoft could shut it down whenever they want.
Novell should be spending their time making sure Mono is defensible IP before going crazy with features.
Microsoft has standardized all things about .NET. They don’t have any legal rights to shut down Mono unless Mono starts reverse engineering the System.Windows.Forms namespace right out of the .NET redistributable.
I still don’t get it really why people are jumping on projects like Mono & DotGNU.
Because, a lot of people like C#; it’s very clean and easy.
C# and some standards that Linux developers really follow are some possible benefits that can come out of the MONO project.
Standards in many areas are needed, they help the users and the developers.
MS has done a nice engeneering job in C# and some of the .Net pieces. I really like C# as a programming language.
.Net “architecture” is needed for portability, not just to bring stuff from Windows to Linux/Unix but very much to permit many diferent hardware platforms to be used, 32 or 64 bit Processors from many different brands.(not just IA32, please…)
You may say that your C++ code can be compiled for many platforms, that is true, but for distributing a product it is a lot easier if the Mono/.Net implementation takes care of the diferences and I do not have to generate many packages, one for each platform/OS combination.
C# is nice, Mono is a fantastic project.
I hope that Novell/Ximian/SuSE will evolve Mono to be “the” development environment for the Linux world.
I hope that MONO becomes what Kylix could have been, but I am still missing the IDE for Mono and hope the community solves this problem also… (I know of SharpDevelop, have still to see it run on Linux, not just as a code editor, but also as a “Project environment” and full support for debugging) (I do not want to use VS.net to develop Mono applications, and I do not need nor expect 100% compatibility with MS .Net libraries).
Just about “patents” … If you read the Ximian/Novell requirements to join the Mono project as a developer you will see on the requirements that Miguel and his team know very well what they have to avoid to not let MS-Legal destroy this nice idea.
Alex.
“I still don’t get it really why people are jumping on projects like Mono & DotGNU. Personally I think if Linux developers aren’t happy with what you have then you should write a new framework to meet your needs.”
this comes up whenever Mono is in the news, the Mono founder self replied last time to it. It looks like you forgot to mention what’s wrong with it and what’s your ideas for a better solution
“Unfortunatly for them, not only is Mono adding that functionality to linux, it is also improving it(!).”
What do you mean imporving it. If they start changing how the interface works we will run into many of the problems that Java developers currently face. The write once test everywhere method of deploying software. If you mean improving it by adding extra libraries that is not really anything that couldn’t be done under Windows. In addition not being any more of an imporvement that adding a 3rd Party library.
“If Mono becomes especially slick, we’ll be seeing developers taking advantage of Mono instead of the native .net features, meaning M$ will have to keep up with Mono on a standard they intended to control.”
You are very un informed by this sentance. What do you mean by native .net features? Like the System.Windows library? Well I don’t think QT# or the other displays are really fully managed. They are more considered native to Linux since most Windows boxes won’t have them. In addition very little of the .Net framework accesses native (un-managed) code. Few things like Windows Authentication, and Window Forms. I also don’t think Microsoft will ever be playing catch up to Mono, because currently keep changing the compiler and adding new features for C#.
After all these years, I am surprised at how gullible people are. Microsoft’s business model and company is based on owning APIs, not using open standards.
Bzzz! Wrong, try again. If Microsoft’s business model revolved around owning the win32 api, they would have been out of business years ago.
IMHO the server side is one thing, but the biggest problem will be the client side. I hear plans about client side .NET to replace FLASH and similar things in browsers. If it is really happen the linux (and MacOS, etc) will be totally unuseable on desktop without mono or dotgnu.
I must first say that it’s tough to get used to the knee jerk censorship that occurs on this site.
To help people understand the matter at hand, in the hope that it will help avoid further censorship:
Here’s one of the .NET patents —
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&…‘20030028685’.PGNR.&OS=DN/20030028685&RS=DN/20030028685
It is obviously extremely general and covers much outside what has been submitted to any standards committee by Microsoft.
Here’s an interesting discussion of Microsoft’s strategy —
http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/426?page=last&x-showcontent=off
So far I haven’t seen anything from Jim Miller at Microsoft indemnifying Novell/Mono (or any other complete implementation of .NET) from all Microsoft patent claims.
The standardization process of .NET only covers the basics of .NET — C# and the CLI. It doesn’t cover anything else.
If you have trouble understanding this simple fact, you can look at Microsoft’s own site —
http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ecma/
You can also look at the ECMA site for confirmation —
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/TC39.htm
If you look at the ECMA website, you can see the standards group TC39 is controlled by Microsoft and Intel.
With the obvious subset of .NET that is bouncing around inside of ECMA, until Microsoft makes it 100% clear that they will not use any of their .NET patents to protect ALL OF .NET from being implemented by others, there is patent risk.
During the recent competition between Linux and Windows, Microsoft used the argument that patents put GNU/Linux at risk and that companies are on the safe side only if they use Microsoft Windows.
At a CeBit speech event together with chancellor Schroeder, Ballmer says that Microsoft owns lots of patents which cover its new DotNet standard and that it aims to use them to prevent opensource implementations of DotNet.
The key phrases read, in translation:
Responding to questions about the opening-up of the .NET framework, Ballmer announced that there would certainly be a “Common Language Runtime Implementation” for Unix, but then explained that this development would be limited to a subset, which was “intended only for academic use”. Ballmer rejected speculations about support for free .NET implementationens such as Mono: “We have invested so many millions in .NET, we have so many patents on .NET, which we want to cultivate.”
The above is from —
http://swpat.ffii.org/players/microsoft/index.en.html
In sum, patents are a very important issue to 100% resolve. If the CEO of Microsoft doesn’t think .NET is a 100% open free standard… why would anyone else think it is?
Until they are resolved, any implementation of .NET beyond the scraps that have been submitted to ECMA is at risk.
There is no other alternative. IMHO the .NET will spread on the client side and will replace the java applets and flash and other techonlogies. In this case the desktop linux (and IMHO THE LINUX) will die.
And Microsoft will have accomplished its mission and killed off its main competitor.
Microsoft knows full well that whoever controls the desktop controls the server. That is why Microsoft’s server share is so rapidly increasing.
You can see the media already knows what is going to happen:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/29283.html
”
Microsoft knows full well that whoever controls the desktop controls the server. That is why Microsoft’s server share is so rapidly increasing. ”
Um are you sure about that? According to a number of sources:
MS on Server: +2.5% compared to 2002
Linux on Servers: +48% compared to 2002
Yes, it’is a real problem. But if you can’t see the most of web pages via Mozilla in your linux box the M$ patents will the smallest trouble… And because the most of companies didn’t care cross-browser compatibility now I don’t think that they will be more mindful in future.
Being a .NET developer using Visual Studio 2003 I am keeping an eye on Mono. I want Mono to succeed so bad its not even funny. I can’t wait until Mono is on par with .NET 1.1. I use ASP.NET and I truly love it. The programming model just makes so much sense to me. Lets just hope that Mono will give me as much pleasure developing with it!
Long live Mono…
While Microsoft faces a number of lesser competitors, the software giant continues to garner share in server operating system markets.
IDC said Microsoft will hold its dominant position in the worldwide market for providing operating systems for server environments through 2007.
The Framingham, Mass.-based research firm went on to say that despite continued competition from Linux, Microsoft’s share of worldwide server operating environment (SOE) new license shipments grew from 50.5 percent in 2001 to 55.1 percent in 2002. The company’s client operating environment (COE) new license shipments inched up from 93.2 percent to 93.8 percent of the worldwide market.
Microsoft’s market preponderance in the client operating environment give it extraordinary power to control pricing for its millions of dependent customers, IDC said. …
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/news/article.php/3103441
Microsoft continues to grow. Linux is growing faster, but from a much smaller base number and is displacing UNIX more than it is displacing Windows.
In the near future, Microsoft make become a triple-monopoly company — desktop OS, office suites, server OS.
Has the SCO fiasco not tought people ANYTHING? There is a (very real) possibility that linux and openoffice will eat quite a bit of MS’s margins. Do you think MS will just sit and watch if that happens? Just because they haven’t used patents much before, doensn’t mean they will continue that way. Watch the recent FAT licensing.
The quotes from MS people in the post above (i do hope it’s not moderated down) clearly indicates that this is something MS is prepared to do.
Mono developers argue that this will never happen because C# is an ECMA standard. This is not true.
ECMA has no power to reverse a patent. All they can do is withdrawing the standard. It doesn’t have to come to this, as ECMA doesn’t recquire that patents that standards builds on to be free of charge. It only recquires them to be “Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory”.
From http://www.ecma-international.org/activities/General/presentingecma…, Page 17
“Ecma does not define the term Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory”
“Licenses are not necessarily royalty-free”
All it would take is a $1 royaly and an open-source implementation would be impossible.
Make your own conclusions…
Linux isn’t starting from a much smaller base. IDC estimates that Linux has 25% of new server shipments, while Microsoft has 50%. Linux’s isn’t going to keep growing at 50% forever, but if it keeps up for a couple of more quarters, its definately going to get close to Microsoft’s share. Also, consider that Novell has made major Linux moves, by buying SuSE and porting Netware to run on top of Linux, which means that the 12% of the market that belongs to Netware could move significantly towards Linux. Combine that with Linux’s eating away at the 11% share the UNIX market has, and that places Linux well over 30-35%. At that size, they will definately block MS from a server monopoly.
As for Windows servers, IDC said revenues increased 10 percent compared to last year and accounted for $3.4 billion in the third quarter — 32 percent of the overall market revenue. IDC said upgrades from Windows NT to Windows 2000 or 2003, as well as growing sales of scalable servers with four or more processors on Windows 2003, all contributed to the Windows growth.
Linux servers grew in both revenue and shipments by about 50 percent from last year — the sixth consecutive quarter of growth for the open-source system in servers, IDC said.
“Linux servers generated $743 million in the quarter, demonstrating their traction in the worldwide server marketplace as they take on more and different types of workloads from other types of servers,” said IDC vice president Jean Bozman.
Aberdeen Group research director Bill Claybrook said he expects even more traction for Linux servers as the operating system makes inroads onto the desktop because customers are looking for consistency in both ends of computing.
“When Linux on the desktop starts becoming similarly popular, we’ll see a hefty spike in the sales of Linux servers,” Claybrook said.
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/32259.html
I think you raise an important point that the Linux server market has good growth characteristics. Growth in Linux server units (not dollar volume) continues a blistering pace. It shows that Linux server units are taking more and more share at the low-cost bottom of the market, typically where Microsoft has been strong in the past.
However, do note that in terms of “how much money” is being moved in the server market, Linux is currently only about 1/5 the size of Microsoft (22%). Microsoft is able to sustain higher pricing *and* volume, likely due in part to the support effects of their other two monopolies (desktop OS and office suites).
If Microsoft is able to get their server market share from the current 55% up to about 75% or 80%, there will be strong monopoly effects that will start helping Microsoft shut out Linux, especially from anything above the very bottom of the market which has been and will always be very sensitive to price.
I agree with Claybrook’s assessment (and have for many years) that if Linux can start making inroads onto the desktop, that is when Microsoft’s continued growth in servers will truly be at significant risk.
The next few years will be interesting as it is all a prelude to the next generation of Windows OS. As I know Microsoft’s plans for the next 5 years, all I can say is that there is the potential for much change, most of it pro-Microsoft, depending on how well Microsoft’s executes.
IMHO at this moment the mono project is helpful for microsoft: increase acceptance of .NET. And when .NET is appear on client side in browseres M$ not will risk a new antithrust trial.
The bigger problem is the compatibilty: if mono not will 100% compatible with .NET you can’t use .NET applets in your browser under linux. And if .NET applets will spread the most of web pages will be unavailable under linux.