Slashdot Mirror

Not to start a flamewar but

You just did. It wouldn't hurt to do a little Google research, as most of the things you say are so untrue that I'd mod you -1 Flamebait/Astroturf if I had the points.

Does it even support winforms yet?

Yes.

.Net 2.0 is coming with VS.net 2005 and Mono has still not caught up with VS.net 2003.

Most of the 1.0 code is complete. 2.0 isn't complete, but what's implemented should work.

But cross platform it is not and its a MS technology just like win32 is, though you can have limited success with wine.

I'd hardly call 4210 applications "limited". Now, I have no clue how many of those work, or work well without tweaking, but between Wine and Cedega, I rarely run into legit apps that don't work. Of course, tools for pirating stuff like Daemon Tools causes problems...

But maybe try it before you knock it? Recent Wines are actually getting pretty damn good. It's amazing how often I'll just download some random free app off the Internet and have it work flawlessly.

More importantly, are you familiar with the history of Linux? Unix was as proprietary an OS as they come, yet they actually published APIs and stuck to them. The GNU people were essentially doing what the WineLib people are doing -- reimplementing the APIs. They weren't shooting for binary compatibility, but they wanted people to be able to take any Unix program and, with a minimum of tweaking, recompile it for the GNU system.

And really, you don't need 100% compatibility. Getting 99% compatibility probably means you get 99% of people able to switch to Linux, which means the 1% stuck on Windows are about as relevant as the 1% currently stuck on DOS.

Mono is even easier, because it was designed to be cross-platform. The actual, official Microsoft .NET code has been ported to Linux, so we know it can be done. And no sane opensource person is afraid of it because it's Microsoft's tech -- if it comes to that, we can always fork it. The fact that it was designed by an evil/incompetent corporation doesn't necessarily mean the tech was a bad idea. Think about it -- how relevant is the original AT&T Unix compared to Linux these days?

Just use Windows. If the server is cracked its the ISP's problem. Not yours if you outsource the server.

I wouldn't count on it. If the server is cracked, the "ISP" (hosting provider, most of them don't sell Internet access) certainly has a problem. But who's going to answer why you went with that provider?

OET: Let's talk about actual use of Mono by enterprise developers. Many of them are concerned about the lack of standards in some of these new areas. When you say Mono's 'ECMA core' is complete what do you mean? Do you have actual ECMA certification?

de Icaza. There's no such thing as ECMA certification.

OET. So how do we know you're ECMA core complete?

de Icaza We've gone through the entire spec and we implemented everything in the spec, we believe. It might not be the case, but there is no certification.

OET I see. So if a vendor has an issue that Mono may not be ECMA compliant, would they say anything?

de Icaza Well they can report a bug...

Don't lose hope, brother.

Remember, Word started its dominance in the 90s. It took them nearly 10 years to get to that point. So, don't give up, your work will be rewarded in the afterlife. :)

A quick search found that there is Open Source compettition for the blackberry also (albeit at the protocol level -- maybe at the server level also).

There are also Open Source applications available on the blackberry (and other phones that support J2ME & MIDP).

Also, if you ever run into a corporate project in its early stanges (or even if it is past due and overbudget already) contact your local open source integrator and at the same time call in the big guns: Red Hat, Novell, etc. They may be able to save the project and show how open source companies could have helped solve the problem in the first place.

I actually didn't know the official release date until I saw this, I guess I don't obsess about release dates as much as some:
http://www.oetrends.com/news.php?action=view_recor d&idnum=425

So, don't hold your breath but fairly soon, you will all be able to start bitching about the existence of an abhorrent competitor to Linux which you will never even consider using, rather than bitching about the nonexistence of an abhorrent competitor to Linux which you will never even consider using.

I've talked to some people who are in advertising, and they love the penguin. They think it's the greatest logo ever. And it's funny thinking back. Because we made it for, I think, the 2.0 release. Like, in '95 or something? And a lot of people hated it because it wasn't serious enough. But it's great. The advertising people really like the fact that you can do things with it. "That's the stroke of genius! The guy who came up with the penguin is a marketing genius!

Sun had to completely revamp its Java licensing model in order to create a separate license for TCKs. "That's what all this negotiation was... they [Sun] had all these various licenses. Their whole business model used to be that they'd license the [reference implementation] RI, the TCK, the trademarks, all in one big bundle, and you couldn't just get the Test Kit as an independent implementation."

Sun had to change all of that and work with the Apache group to arrive at a new TCK license that was acceptable to the Open Source group. "Sun changed their business model to now allow [developers] to just have a TCK license," Hunter told OET.

There should be a small, secure graphics driver in the kernel, with libraries or shims on top that implement virtual consoles, the framebuffer device, SVGAlib, X11 driver, etc. Oh wait... sounds like KGI. Too bad Linus flamed them to a crisp.

And now Linus says Linux on the desktop is 'the only part I care about'. I laughed out loud at that. Desktop = graphics, and graphics under Linux sucks big time.

In this interview (posted on Slashdot a few weeks ago) Linus says he is most interesting in desktop Linux. He says servers are not very interesting. He says Linux on the desktop is the only part he cares about. Just look at the article I linked to and read the question about Linux and the Desktop.

My point is that Linus, for me, kind of debunks the idea that Linux is intended for the server. Linus clearly says it's not. And now we have IBM giving a thumbs up for Linux on the desktop too. This is cool.

I think Linus put it best recently..

"But for some reason I just noticed that the KDE people consider it more important to have it working, and sane. Instead of trying to aim for perfection, which the Gnome people are trying to do."

replace gnome with pretty much all open software projects, and there you go. release often and release early! it keeps developers and users interested in your product.

What's with the Penguin?
Q: One question you have (on the slide) is "What's with the penguin?"

Linus: I just have that because a lot of people ask me about it. I actually don't have a good answer. It just is, right?

There are a lot of reasons for the penguin. I was bitten by a penguin. And it's a true story. It's funny, because there are a lot of Web sites about the penguin. There's like The History of Tux, and things like that. And some of these Web sites have some of my explanation. And they almost universally say, "It's a great story, but it's not true." That I was bitten by a penguin.

It's true! I was bitten by a penguin! I mean, really! Take it from me! I'm wounded. Okay, so he wasn't six foot tall.

(Laughter.)

Q: Is it true he was radioactive? Is it true you killed it afterwards?

(Laughter.)

Linus: Okay, some fo the rumors aren't true.

I've talked to some people who are in advertising, and they love the penguin. They think it's the greatest logo ever. And it's funny thinking back. Because we made it for, I think, the 2.0 release. Like, in '95 or something? And a lot of people hated it because it wasn't serious enough. But it's great. The advertising people really like the fact that you can do things with it. "That's the stroke of genius! The guy who came up with the penguin is a marketing genius!" (Sarcastically) Yeah.

(Laughter.)

So, whatever.

A lot of people want to polish it for 2.6 [dollars] And the thing is, we don't want it polished. We want it solid as a rock. And it is okay to be scruffy-looking like a rock too. But it has to be solid.

Linus Torvalds, talking about his penis.

The author of the Inquirer article wrote an earlier article three weeks ago about what a jerk Marc Fleury, the head of JBoss, was. There was also an article a few days ago in Open Enterprise trends, about new profit-sharing and stock-purchase plans at JBoss, which might have been either a cause or an effect of dissension there.

The use case is not compelling.

Those who spend money developing code in this space will at least have a prototype when they need to reimplement it in a language that has a long-term, portable future.

And no, this does not mean C# is still not fundamentally proprietary.

-- Multics