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1. To make charitable investment (donations), to optimize, improve and bugfix
   http://go-mono.com/sources/mono-1.1/mono-1.1.9.tar .gz and their partners tools (xsp, mod, gdi+, gtk#, ikvm, eclipse JDT compiler, openoffice#, ...) until reaching the latest powerful release.
2. To improve and clean
   http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_so urce/experimental/gc7.0alpha4.tar.gz and
   http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_so urce/gc6.6.tar.gz
   for merging the latest Mono's release.
3. To repeat 1. until Mocrisoft is eliminated.

The anti-marketing tip is

"Don't furious Mono-users." and "Do furious .NET-users for no-buying the awful M$'s potatoes.".

"Nonsense. Mono is quite clean of Microsoft intellectual "property". There is no legal threat to the Mono project."

*said by a Novell representative* Oh, wait!

http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=11889&comm ent_id=32499

"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://web.archive.org/web/20030609164123/http://m ailserver.di.unip.....
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)"

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://web.archive.org/web/20030609164123/http://m ailserver.di.unip.....
http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#patents

Jim Miller's off hand email is the *only* assurance anyone has ever 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. Even if Sun changed its mind or was purchased by a less generous company (like MS for example), existing releases of Java and alternative implementations based on existing released specs would always remain free as in beer. The no version of the .net ecma standards ever has been comparably free.

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 and illegal monopoly that used its power to destroy competition. 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 by 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 a

go-mono.com is down from here at the moment, but that's where you can typically find GTK# --
http://go-mono.com/ -> downloads -> latest sources
May I please ask the cinelerra/quicktime4linux/libmpeg3 developers to update their configure/makefile scripts and distribution files they do not include the dependencies... link to their sources elsewhere, but please don't bloat your distfile(s) by including THEIR sources as well... bad form :(

I'm not sure if that would have helped you, but felt it worth mentioning in case you hadn't heard of it.

IS BETTER AND MORE SECURE than

jdk-6_0-ea-bin-b49-linux-amd64-25_aug_2005.bin

;)

By + + + J.C. Pizarro + + + ATH OK.

IS BETTER AND MORE SECURE than

jdk-6_0-ea-bin-b49-linux-amd64-25_aug_2005.bin

;)

By + + + J.C. Pizarro + + + ATH OK.

I'll rest my case here and here.

The only things that you would catch trouble for trying to "make your own home-grown version" of would be things like ASP/ADO.NET and Winforms, which are not part of the ECMA spec.

C# can be compiled without any problems in almost all platforms

There may not be a Microsoft .NET Framework for Unix or Linux, but there is a (largely) .NET-compatible implementation in Mono.

Mono isn't 100% compatible with all of .NET, and may never be (infrequently used parts haven't been implemented, such as System.EnterpriseServices, System.Messaging, COM Interop, etc.), but what it does provide is an implementation of the underlying ECMA standards (for C# and for the Common Language Infrastructure), plus an effort for .NET compatibility in all that is reasonable (I/O, XML, app configuration, ASP.NET support via XSP and mod_mono, Database access, and more). Initial support for System.Windows.Forms is planned for the next release, 1.2, due around September.

Mono also provides it's own extensions, such as a GTK+ binding (Gtk#) and Unix-integration libraries.

Mono is already useful and in use.

Now, I'm not saying that any piece of .NET software will be able to run unchanged under Mono. In general, this isn't possible as it could rely on Windows-specific functionality, such as COM Interop, or rely on Windows-specific libraries. I am saying that Mono provides a portable base to build software upon, much as the ANSI C and the POSIX.1 standards do. You can write portable software, but you are not required to do so. Guidelines for writing portable .NET code can be found in the book Cross-Platform .NET.

you mean you have something similar to this ?

http://www.go-mono.com/images/ikvm-screenshot.png

Oh my ! Perhaps you need to run linux on windows (thanks to cygwin) to launch Java on Mono (Ikvm) and then trying to launch eclipse first.

I don't know. I think it isn't hopeless to try It. But, sure, you won't run Q3. Only the "sort of" uber optimized Q2 Java version. Sorry. And for information, Apple won't ship iQuake.

Unfortunately there's no Mono implementation of System.EnterpriseServices or System.Messaging.

Oh, I'm out of date - looks like they've got a partial implementation now:

Mono's System.EnterpriseServices status

Last time I looked they said "no plans to implement".

There is an Apache module that allows you to run ASP.NET stuff under linux here. You need the mod_mono, the XSP server, and all of Mono. If you're using a distro with packages you're in luck. I compiled and installed on Slackware, which, although time consuming, was not difficult. Works pretty well once you get it configured.

• GTK+ sharp homepage
• Mono's GTK+ sharp page
• Mono docs
• gotmono

• GTK+ sharp homepage
• Mono's GTK+ sharp page
• Mono docs
• gotmono

Well, as for C#, would take a look at mono or Portable.Net for some enlightenment... pnet is a bit further for desktop/gui stuff, and mono is further with asp.net for web-application hosting... ymmv.

Also, on the editor, I can't say enough good things about crimson .. I use it for about everything.. I've also been using SharpDevelop which is a FOSS ide, not quite as responsive as MS's 2003 VS, but pretty nice..

In fact doing a presentation on NON-Microsoft.Net for my .Net usergroup in a couple weeks... There have been several books published on mono, pnet, #develop and more.. with a few on the way. For desktop applications, it can be pretty nice (check out wx.Net a .net wrapper for the cross platform wxWidgets toolkit... works on win/lin/osx.

I have to say that the MS tools are about the best of their breed, eclips is pretty nice, and I like more of a plain text editor (with syntax highlighting, and programming options) like crimson. Textpad is nice, imho, crimson is better.

The promise
I remember when Chandler was first mooted. Finally an open souce project that has a vision of how to store and communicate small bits of information. Traditionally these types of applications have been lumped together with *ugly* (but accurate) acronymn, PIM.

Free the data
This is an important step in applications. Historically data is trapped or obfusticated into applications. Once you enter the data in it you can only get at it by jumping through the fire breathing coding hoops. Ocassionally its open souce (mozilla mork) but commercial applications take this to a new level - (think MS Outlook Express).

Updated Agenda?
For the younger /.'s this is not the first crack Mitch has had at this market. In '88 Mitch Kapor (father of Lotus 123, Notes) Agenda was released into the PIM market to some success. The runs are on the board. Could Chandler be the answer?

• ... A major lesson learnt from the last two years, is that we took on too much, and had too high an ambition level for the near-term. This "great leap forward" strategy didn't pan out. Instead, we have primarily switched to a "dog food" strategy to quickly develop a first release that is minimally usable, on a day-to-day basis, for us within OSAF and for our info-intensive, techno-savvy early adopters. ...

Release early and often
Well after 0.4 release I dont see anything compelling. It has trouble working on Windows, it's monolithic and appears to be *weighed* down in specifications of how to do things rather than results. Chandler looks good on paper but in clumping email, calandering, PIM and other messaging it has lost for me its original appeal. I want it usable now. Even if it is a little bit at a time. For me like its name sake (Raymond) I'm still searching for a usable application.

Alternative
So there you have it I've trashed a computer industry veteran who has runs on the board but has failed to deliver. Whats an alternative. Well one example is a Gnome app called Tomboy. Its a simple mono, GTK based note taking applet that is searchable. It allows you to click on links according to mime types and load an application. It has spell checking (along with references to various IBM patents). But the single kicker that has moved Tomboy into my sights is the integration of Tomboy with Evolution (unix version that mirrors crappy Outlook in too may ways) and Beagle The Gnome desktop is now using Tomboy as the *PIM* input and building a plugin to Evolution (email, calander), Beagle (searching). So bit by bit it's making Chandler less attractive to me.

lessons
It helps to have access to an open souce platform. Release often and early. Build an application (especially a first version) to do one thing and do it well. Get a result. Dont bloat a product with features if it is not vital and work out how can you work with other applications. Tomboy may only have a short shelf life or morph into something else in as it develops but it works right now and does the job.

"Mono basic (mbas) is a CIL compiler for the VisualBasic.NET language, an extended version of Visual Basic. It's based on the MCS compiler and still in heavy development, though many language features are already supported."

Mono basic will be based on VB.NET, not awful old VB.
Mono basic will actually be rather compatible with MS VB.NET in language and class library.
Mono basic will be able to take advantage of code written in or for Mono/C#, and any other languages that get ported to the mono platform.

So what does this project have going for it over mono basic?
OK, so right now it's a bit further down the road than mono basic, but will it really maintain that lead? I think Mono has more weight behind it. e.g. novell.

You're mistaken.

See Drawing / Mono.

Microsoft dont need to port it.

Mono
Portable.NET
DotGnu

So some of the biggest groups in OSS development seem to think that it might be a good idea to have an implementation of the CLI for other operating systems (Linux, OSX, Windows, Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD) and architectures (x86, PowerPC, ARM, Sparc, PARISC, s390, Alpha, and IA-64 to name a few).

What you have to keep in mind is that the CLI (the virtual machine in a sense) is an ISO standard (Java still isnt). The API's such as the System.* namespaces are still in a murky area and they may still be controlled vigorously through MS legal. But that doesnt stop any developer from using API's developed independantly - ie gtk#/Wx.NET for cross platform gui across the above mentioned platforms (still in development.. but it will get there soon).

Except for the fact that .Net code already runs on other platforms see http://www.go-mono.com/ and http://www.dotgnu.org/.

"Secure and reliable cryptographic operations, such as symmetric (DES, AES) and asymmetric (RSA) algorithms are accessible via an implementation of the standard Cryptographic Services architecture of the .NET Framework. This empowers existing solutions that use .NET cryptographic services to be easily modified to use smart cards"

Thanks to Mono, you can implement it now. http://www.go-mono.com/crypto.html

This isn't directly related to BC++, but it's in line with my other post slightly above. It's related to looking for alternatives, in the current age of Java, .NET and Mono.

For the last 8 hours after my other post on this thread, I've been searching the net for information regarding C#, CIL, Mono, comparisons to Java (with usability in mind, not zealotism), etc. And one thing is for sure: .NET and CIL is good technology - I hate to admit it, but MS has something good there. It is not a surprise, as it comes a LOT from the same person that designed TorboPascal, Delphi and now C#. I recommend those interested to read an interview here and pay attention to the ideas he puts forth. It offers a lot of insight into a few things that are wrong with Java, and that most people will probably have felt.

Also, one interesting RAD project is here. .

I've also tryed to learn as much as I could from the state of Mono, its legal status... and I felt important to share that my view has changed slightly, it MIGHT become a player, and it might offer a cross-platform alternative to .NET. I also recommend the GoMono FAQ . There's a lot FUD regarding possible patent threats from Microsoft over Mono, but I believe that to be mostly out of misinformation and lack of knowledge at how it works. The idea of a common VM isn't new, Parrot for instance is just another one.

I'd be most interested in whatever other people might have to say about Java vs .NET/Mono, that comes from careful study and consideration not just hype. Approaches like CIL and Parrot make a lot of sense... where do you see them going?

Speaking of backwards compatibility, I have a story that tops yours. Back in 1988 or 1989, my dad would type his research-papers with a proprietary system called Mass-11 that ran under plain DOS (his PC was an 8088 clone), export them to ASCII files, and run them through TeX. Just a month or so ago, we tested the programs on his Windows ME box, and it seemed to do everything he might want; however, we didn't try printing to the printer he used to use, because he also has MikTeX (which can print to his DeskJet or PDF) installed on that system. I've also run the program on an NT 4.0 box, so I doubt it would have any problems on XP Pro. That's a 15-year program useful lifetime. Of course, my dad would probably be better off just making sure he's exported everything he might possible want to copy and then junk the program.

If a program stuck to the standard C library or the documented DOS API, it probably kept working from then 'till now; same thing for Windows program that stuck to the core API. However, in the DOS/Windows/Visual Basic/.NET programming milieu there's long been an attitude that one needs to use obscure or undocumented APIs to produce good programs. Sure, some of this came from sources outside of Microsoft, but even today articles on MSDN tend to encourage writing to the latest-and-greatest version of Windows using non-backwards-compatible toolkits or still-developing platforms. (This one, for instance, talks about "Avoiding the Win32 API"!). Now, oficially .NET is an ECMA standard, just like JavaScript, but even MSDN encourages Windows-centric ways of doing things (which is bad because of this question about Registry support, for instance). I guess the documentation for gets() has an OK warning to use fgets() instead, but I think the "BUGS" section of the corresponding UNIX manpage is better.

With Mono/XSP you have support on OS/390 too :)
http://www.go-mono.com/

It is impossible to host an ASP.NET site without paying microsoft. Even if you don't pay them for the SDK they still get their money.

I beg to differ.

Must...resist...urge...to...bite.... argghhh Mono Basic, their implementation of VB.NET, can be found here.

We don't need to wait for an enterprise-level app framework for Python, we've got one: Mono (or .NET for you suit types). With Iron Python on Mono, you have a fully-featured industry standard framework library (this should please those buzzword bingo types), and an implementation of Python that's even faster than the standard CPython implementation. Even Microsoft has taken note, they've hired Jim Hugunin, the developer of IronPython, giving him a spot on the CLR team. This is going to be big (IMHO).

Ideology aside .NET is likely here to stay simply because of MS's market penetration, never mind that is actually happens to be (IMHO) pretty good.

Having a non-MS implementation that allows .NET applications to run on either MS or non-MS platforms is potentially the holy grail of Linux adoption. If more and more apps Just Worked on Windows or Linux, why keep paying the MS tax? (I'm talking average user here, not people who know enough to use things like WINE)

But herein lies the problem. Platform independence was always the claim/goal of Java. One it has had mixed results in achieving. MS's dirty pool with the JRE is certainly a big reason for its less than stellar success on Windows.

Sun hates .NET. .NET could become what they wanted Java to be... IF projects like Mono are successful. So, what would they likely do? Kill it in the name of Java.

Granted Mono is GPL'd, so they couldn't kill it entirely. But taking funding away from Miguel de Icaza and his team would certainly slow its progress dramatically. I'd hate to see that.

.NET already works on Windows (obviously), and with Mono it's starting to work pretty darn well elsewhere. It would be a shame to lose that.

Blockwars: free, realtime, multiplayer game similar to Tetris.

I count 10 mentions of .NET but 0 of Mono. I believe your concern is valid and share it for the most part, but shouldn't you mention what is being done about it?

Just curious: have you taken steps to inform other users that Mono APIs are not based on, and thus incompatible with, Dotnet APIs?

The Mono Project itself is pretty clear about it. Like, on the left, you get the non-.NET stack in a BIG RED BOX, and on the right, you get the .NET stack in a BIG BLUE BOX. You can install one, the other, or both, depending on whether you need .NET or not. Most Linux developers and most open source developers don't need what's in the BIG BLUE BOX.

I ask this because one could easily form the impression from Mono promotional material that it is a complete and compatible implementation of Dotnet. For example, the first sentence in the Mono FAQ reads: "The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Ximian that is working to develop an open source, Unix version of the Microsoft .NET development platform."

And what is wrong with that? Ximian is sponsoring the Mono project to develop a UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform. That's their business interest in it. It doesn't mean that that's all it's good for. Plenty of companies have sponsored gcc development for their purposes, but your use of it is probably completely different.

It doesn't claim that it is "complete" yet (in fact, the roadmap tells you how complete things are), although they are clearly aiming for that.

what exactly can Java do that C,perl,python etc etc cannot ?

and with projects like Mono the need for Java becomes less and less each day

Miguel mentioned this in his weblog about placing all the code that was MS tainted into a separate branch with the intention of dropping the code in case of MS intervention or in the case of Debian. I'd add the link but monologue disappeared in domain name change over.

It has been a binary install for win32 since about 0.3, but are you referring to a *runtime* install? If so ~ there are no such offerings. But I can report mono installs (and uninstalls) on my win2k box fine.

when I read this I think *outlook express*. think of all those outlook express users that switched to the commercial version of outlook. VWD Express Ed., lets everyone use a polished app, but the catch is, nothing you develop works with the *real developer* tools.

the tools are good news for those who want low cost tools to play with. but lets not kid ourselves that express is anything but a try it, like it, but must buy it MSVS pro, enterprise. right in time for Mono v1.0, the free alternative.

Sun are not "testing the waters". Instead they are continuing to follow their extremely successful strategy of the last few years. What Sun really don't want is a viable open source clone of Java, whether it is gcj or IKVM. So, every so often they make noises about open-sourcing things. This means that people think working on the open source Java clones is a waste of time. People also carry on working on open source Java applications, providing Sun with help that Microsoft can only dream of.

Why do you think Mono is now days away from a 1.0 release, while gcj and classpath are still lagging the current Java? Because everyone knew that Microsoft would never open-source .NET. The .NET system is probably better than Java, and we knew that if we wanted a free version we would have to write it ourselves.

This is the reason why Sun's strategy is, ultimately, misguided. .NET and c# are very nice to develop with, there is a high quality open source version, and the platform has Microsoft's marketing clout behind it. Oops...

For me, [the Java vs .NET debate] is pointless unless .NET somehow becomes cross-platform, at which point I expect Bill Gates to burst into flames.

Mono contains a number of components useful for building new software:

• A Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) virtual machine that contains a class loader, Just-in-time compiler, and a garbage collecting runtime.
• A class library that can work with any language which works on the CLR. Both .NET compatible class libraries as well as Mono-provided class libraries are included.
• A compiler for the C# language. In the future we might work on other compilers that target the Common Language Runtime.

Repling to my own post..
But this helped. mono faq

An this quote explained why its hard to figure exactle what it its...
The ".NET Initiative" is a somewhat nebulous company-wide effort by Microsoft, one part of which is a cross-platform development framework.

We did this because we primarily use Discreet's 3dsmax (with Brazil and V-Ray) and Eyeon's Digital Fusion. We have found that most existing render farm solutions do not support these two packages very well -- thus we decided to develop our own custom solution. We also support After Effects, Alias|Maya, AIR and other RenderMan compliant rendering packages.

Of interest to the general Slashdot crowd may be that this Deadline Render Management Solution is based on the open source (BSD License) Exocortex C# library originally released with this C# 3D Engine. Deadline is built with C# in the hopes that using Mono we will be able to start supporting Linux with minimal extra effort.

I'll be reading all the posts on this Slashdot thread but I would also appreciate any direct feedback on our current beta product. We also found solutions such as Rush and Smedge to be less than user friendly in many respects. Thus we have tried as best as we could to increase a 3D package that is not well supported by most render farm management solutions -- except for Discreet's Backburner (which we found not that that scalable.)

It will be even more interesting when all of Gnome is implemented with Mono.

When will that be? References, please?

The GNOME project is not Miguel de Icaza, and Miguel isn't the GNOME project, and there are no current plans to junk the C code base and replace it with Mono.

Miguel thinks there is so much prior art that Microsoft cannot shut down Mono. At worst MS can wall off the .NET compatible libraries, and Miguel doesn't really care about those.

Maybe I'm the only one who finds it ironic that a desktop environment founded because the KDE license wasn't free enough is falling over themselves to implement Microsoft technology.

GNOME isn't Miguel, etc. And Mono is a free implementation of some Microsoft ideas.

If you are right, and Miguel is wrong, then yes Mono is a huge mistake. Obviously Miguel doesn't agree with you.

Given that Miguel can point to prior art dating back to the UCSD P-System and maybe older, it's not clear to me that you are right and he's wrong. Microsoft could sue, of course, but it's not clear to me that they would win.

See also the FAQ:

http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#patents

steveha

make their own virtual machine and bytecode, and then make mods to existing language compilers to complie to bytecode the OSS virtual machine can run

We've already got one, and it's built on ECMA standards too!

I dislike proprietary standards (like .NET...

Have you read the Mono FAQ?

That's keeping me interested...and yes, let us hope Novell has lost it's golden touch :)

peace
si

Taft

Although the official reason that GnomeBasic was dropped was because of "stagnation", the real reason that it died was because Mono was supposed to take it's place.

If that happened, I've seen no evidence of it.

While you can write Mono code in Java, PHP, Logo, Oberon, Pascal, Forth and Lisp, VB is still unavailable.

It's a pity such a popular language appears to be entirely ignored.

I'm quite interested in seeing the first tools to take advantage of System.DirectoryServices, as this should enable us to manage a windows Active Directory natively from Linux.

Java is slow and getting dated. C# is a more mature language and runs faster. Yes, Microsoft did do something right this time... Projects like DotGNU and Mono are being developed for linux machines and other unix variants. Plus, the JVM Gui really really sucks. Tell me now... how many java apps have u seen that have shitty GUIs? Too many to count. So, i think people should start using C# and perhaps DotGNU and Mono should start writing GTK/QT/X versions of the System.WIndows.Forms class, so it doesnt have to use wine. That said, I really dislike microsoft (as most others on slashdot do). Peace.

Mono is free and open source. So is DotGNU. Rotor is made by MS themselves, free and "shared source". And the Microsoft Official .Net SDK is free as in beer as well, and free to distribute with any programs you make with it.

With all these free implementations, and Lots of free Open Source IDEs out there for it, implying that C# development costs money is pretty much the dumbest argument you can make against it.

right here

you've heard of the mono project? (consequently 2 posts prior to this one)