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Mono Unimplementable?
Prior Restraint writes "According to this ZDNet article, Tony Goodhew, a Microsoft program manager, implies that MS will license C# in such a way that Ximian won't be able to implement the ECMA standard." This comes on the heels of Ximian's announcement of working on .Net aka Mono [?] .
it doesnt matter what he'd do. dave cutler no longer works for M$. he got pissed off.
cutler quit microsoft before win2k shipped. try again.
-1, troll.
posted as the AC so as not to clog up the main thread, but still tweak WinBlowsHead there... revenge is a dish best served stone cold.
And I bet that, if you get some weird bug, he'd personally look at the problem, bang out some code, recompile the modules, and send you the diffs.
Oh, and the Easter bunny is real too.
No, Hemos, he doesn't imply that. You infer that.
I don't approve of spelling _flames_, but I think correct spelling is important. Why? Because I don't think most people read phonetically - they read by some sort of visual recognition. Sure, I can figure out that "sence" means "sense", but it slows me up a bit. I have the same problem with spurious apostrophes - I automatically look for a noun to bind to the possessive, and it throws me if there isn't one.
Oh right, it's microsoft. They like to do this.
Nothing to see here, move along.
--
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Yeah, that must be why nobody uses patent-encumbered standards like mp3.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Most standards bodies will not accept anything patented as a standard unless the holder of the patent agrees to license for a small fee all their patents for this purpose.
It is extreamly common to use something patented in a standard, the owner of the patent just has a standard contract that anyone can agree to: for $x (often $10,000 so it is out of most open source pockets, but cheap for a company) your company can use the foloowing patents in any product as nessicary to impliment y. For instance you would license 8b10b encoding from IBM for fibre channel, but you would not have the right to use 8b10b on your own bus, only in your interface to fibre channel.
There are a couple RFCs which are legal agreement that anyone can as no charge use some patent for IP, so long as you follow some restrictions.
Any standards body that would let Microsoft keep open source out with patent games isn't a real standards body. Most members of technical standards bodies I know of (Members themselves, not the company they represent) are open source aware and pay some attention to these issues.
What this is really about is Microsoft's continued campaign against the GPL. All they are saying is that if there is a GPL'd .NET implementation out there, it may not be legal to mix it with Microsoft's proprietary .NET applications.
It's actually an issue that has been debated on gnu.misc.discuss for quite some time. In particular, the question as to whether distributed computing really expands the impact of the GPL or makes it pointless.
sigs are a waste of space
That's like saying that because somebody mentions ANSI that they are talking about concrete, since they control the standards for concrete testing (as well as the thousands of other things they set standards for). ECMA is a standards body, they control lots of standards.
.NET is not just C#, but a set of protocols and services. That's the whole point of Mono, is to reimplement those protocols and services in a GPL license. They can't use any non-GPL code from Microsoft to do that, so everything will probably have to be reimplemented from scatch. If Mono doesn't use Microsoft's C# compiler, then there is nothing in the C# compiler's license that could effect Mono's viability.
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Why does the summary mention C#, when the article doesn't mention it or any other programming language? Is the submitter interpolating with no basis, or did he read a different article than the one linked to?
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Yes, I'm well aware, but the point is the same. You'd think they'd wants other applications to be able to interoperate. But instead, they throw a fit..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
If that where indeed true, then Microsoft wouldn't have thrown up red flags when external vendors started to look at the modified Kerebros protocol that Win2k uses for authentication..
I only wish that where the case, but Microsoft is a VERY large, political entity, and what would be common sense for some is the complete opposite for their lawyers..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Microsoft is just trumpeting their anti-GPL FUD. They know that this is a hot button issue for many managers an dos they bring it up whether it applies or not. They realize that it doesn't matter what the truth actually is if they can get people to believe their lie.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has trumpeted C# and .NET as open since before they were even vaporware. Microsoft new that submitting the specification to ECMA would guarantee that alternative versions could be created. Including implementations covered by the GPL. In fact, they have publicly lambasted Sun for not doing the same thing with Java.
On the other hand, Microsoft currently has a software license that disallows the use of Free Software tools. So it is still possible that Microsoft will be able to throw up legal obstacles to Mono. But my guess is that it is all smoke and mirrors.
Short term, however, I am still doing my work using Python and XML-RPC, just in case.
I actually was aware of some of these projects (and I even mentioned Jython, which is far and away the most useful).
Jython proves that the JVM can be used as a multi-language, cross-platform, tool, but only if you define "cross-platform" to exclude the BSDs (or is their finally a recent JVM available for these platforms), and if you define "multi-language" as Java, most of Python, and experimental support for Perl in CVS that mostly works using GNU's Kawa. Comparing that to the lineup that Microsoft has for .NET is utterly laughable.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has sorted out some of the thornier issues with Java. On paper Microsoft has designed a development environment with some pretty compelling features. They will support, in a sane unified way, a number of different languages, and will allow components to call other components reguardless of what language they are written in. On top of that they are adding a powerful easy to use RPC system based on SOAP. This will make writing distributed systems much easier than using Corba and its IDL language. Right now, without any real world tests Java still holds the edge because it is currently working in the real world. But if Microsoft's .NET doesn't absolutely suck performance and stability wise Java is in for a hard road ahead.
Now, I am not a Microsoft fan. I am writing this from Mozilla 0.9.2 on My Debian GNU/Linux workstation, but even I can see that Microsoft has really come up with something in their .NET architecture. Java has the potential to do what Microsoft has envisioned for .NET, but Sun's emphasis on Java as a language and their refusal to simply open up Java is hurting them.
I don't know whether or not Mono is a good idea. There are all sorts of projects trying to reimplement Java under a free license, and none of them are particularly useful. Despite what Microsoft says about the Free Software community being good at "chasing tail lights" I have yet to see a Free Software reverse engineering effort that has been wildly successful. As an example the Free Software hackers worked on Lesstif forever without having something that actually worked. When they went to create an alternative (GTK) it didn't take them very long at all to come up with something that was better than Motif in nearly every respect.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
If the MCA bus would have come out earlier we would all be using Apples today.
Early Macintoshes were much nicer machines than their clunky DOS based IBM PC clones, but they were much more expensive because they used proprietary hardware. The reason that IBM designed MCA was because they thought that it would give them total control over the PC market and dry up business for the clones (who wouldn't be able to use IBM's proprietary bus). This would have raised prices for PCs (by lowering the amount of competition). If IBM would have succeeded IBM PCs would have lost the one incentive that they had over Macintoshes, lower price.
Technologically MCA was much better than ISA, but it wasn't open (and therefore cheap), and so it lost.
In the computer business it is all about being "good enough" at the lowest price. That's why Microsoft is making inroads against proprietary big-iron Unixes and Mainframes, and why Linux, in turn is making inroads against Microsoft.
Yes, Java can do most of what .NET will do. However, with .NET it all comes in one attractive package all ready to go. And it will support more than one language.
And as you point out in your post .NET will even talk to legacy Java code via SOAP.
Do you see where I am going with this? I am not a Microsoft supporter. In fact, I would much rather see Java win over .NET, but the reliance on Java as a platform on the Java language is problematic. Java programmers might wish that the entire world would simply switch to their language, but it isn't going to happen. .NET makes the choice of development language a much less political deal. With .NET you can choose the correct language for the job, instead of simply using Java for everything.
That's what makes .NET so great. It's got all of the advantages of the Java platform, without the downside of only being able to use the Java language.
Of course, in the real world .NET is not even close to being cross platform, which is a serious problem, but that's only because Microsoft isn't interested in building cross platform tools. They want you to use their operating system. It's also worth noting that Java isn't nearly as cross platform as Sun would have you believe. While it is true that they finally have a decent Linux implementation, the BSDs are still waiting.
A Free Software implementation of .NET would solve that problem nicely, and it would quickly become a very cool development platform.
In short: Java Platform Good! Java Language Mostly Good, but not as cool as my favorite language . If your favorite language happens to be Java, then it's no wonder that you can't see the benefits of .NET.
Do you mean to say that Python will not be part of .NET? Heck, all of a sudden it doesn't sound that nifty after all :).
Thanks for clearing that up Malcontent. It sounds like Microsoft's version of .NET is simply more of the same. I wouldn't know, as I don't actually do much work on Windows.
I suppose I was responding more on the "hype" of .NET than on the reality. The idea of having a unified platform that would allow the mixing of components from a wide array of languages and that came "out of the box" with a powerful and easy to use RPC mechanism really is a development Shangrila. Hopefully that is what the folks at Ximian are working on with their Mono implementation. If not, then what exactly is the point. As has been pointed out in numerous posts Java already answers the platform issues. The only benefit of .NET was that supposedly it allowed the programmer to use the language of his or her choice instead of always requiring Java.
If .NET ends up like you say (and I have read enough of your posts to believe what you say) then it will be of little use. The world needs a Microsoft only Java replacement like it needs a hole in the ozone layer. In particular I had heard that VBers would get to start from scratch with VB.NET. They should be used to that by now. You would think that eventually people would learn that following Microsoft's lead guarantees expensive rewrites of your applications every couple of years.
In the meantime I am fairly happy using a combination of Python and generic C for my cross platform development. I have even played a bit with using XML-RPC. It's certainly easier to use than Corba, and it seems flexible enough. I never have like Java much. The platform bits are cool, but I don't particularly like the language. That's why the idea of .NET appealed to me.
Thanks for the info.
The problem with Sun's Java as a platform strategy is two fold. First of all, as you point out in your post, Java is not a *free* language. The standard is completely controlled by Sun, and there are no free (as in free speech) implementations that have all of the features of Sun's version.
The second problem is slightly larger. Java is a nifty platform, but unfortunately it requires that you do all of your programming in Java the language. Microsoft's .NET allows you to pick and choose your language, and it has (supposedly, I haven't actually checked) included support for a wide array of languages. Java, as a platform, really only supports two languages: Java and Jython (and Jython isn't officially supported).
Of course, if you are a Java programmer you probably think that this is well and good, but most programmers are not Java programmers.
For those that have long memories this was completely expected.
;)
.NET in a similar way.
MS said back then that one possible avenue of attack was patents.
Patent a core piece of the system.. Something that can't be missing or implemented differently. Then whoever implements must pay the MS tax umm.. I mean licensing fees..
All perfectly legal too. Charge everyone $x per installation of the system. Closed source can afford to pay, open source can't...
RSA did the same thing for years.. Which greatly crippled the adoption of crypto.
We can only hope that MS's decisions greatly cripple
On the other hand, M$ seems to be creating a software architecture that people seem to still think is necessary. Sure there are alternatives (M$ never seems to be first) but they have clout and people never got fired for buying M$.
(I wanted to use AD as a success vs NDS but I don't know of anyone using it.)
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
But in order to implement that you'd essentially need to implement COM because .NET is actually based on COM. And COM, in turn, is too tightly tied to OLE and win32 API. So .NET is non-portable by design, unless Microsoft suddenly decided to release all those specs, but somehow I doubt it will ever happen. Besides, nothing prevents Microsoft from embracing and extending its own standard -- so, although you may be able to implement ECMA standard, it would be only a subset of what's required for .NET. Given Microsoft's previous track record, does anyone actually believe that Microsoft is about to start promoting open standards? People, please stop deluding yourself.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Wasn't Microsoft's anti free software license for one toolkit that wasn't even out of beta yet? That license didn't apply to everything that can be downloaded from MSDN, does it?
I got the distinct feeling that they were floating that to gauge the reaction from the developer community, that it was a timed and calculated move to fit in with Mr. Mundie's speeches and the other stuff that was being flung around.
As for what I consider the core of .NET (C# and CLR) there is the SharpDevelop IDE/Code editor which is released under the GPL.
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Bleh!
The article was vary vague, and didn't even have an exact quote from the MS guy. Is he saying no C# program can be written under an open source license, or are they saying no-one can make a C# compatible language, or am I just reading it wrong?
If the second point is the case, could Ximian get around all this by doing what the Mesa developers do, i.e. basically saying that their software just happens to work just like the official stuff?
You know what's even funnier? That your own comment perfectly reflects what you were ranting about. But since the significance of Wumpus' last comment was probably lost on some people, I just thought I'd point it out.
And by the way, there are at least five grammatical errors and one spelling error in your post. Now who's the asshole?
With a big foamed-metal board and some fans, maybe you can ski molten lava? The penalty for coming off would be a bit steep, though.
It's a good thing that Microsoft can't innovate, else they might be doing something more effective against Free Software than thrasing about, screaming.
Don't worry, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM - or was that Microsoft?
A local (West Oz) gummint department has just realised that their M$ re-licencing fees for this year are about $1,000,000.00; they are seriously considering ditching M$ in a test department and replacing it with Linux+StarOffice plus a few copies of Win4Lin for the remaining Windows apps. This with ditching M$ across the whole department in mind. They are already migrating to browser-based software. Many such raindrops make a flood.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You are absolutely right.
You're right, too.
So basically you're saying it's painful to read.
Rather like trying to have a conversation with someone who insists on talking with his mouth full of peanut butter and jelly toast. Makes it hard to concentrate on one's "point". Makes it hard to even care whether or not such a point was made in the first place.
There should be a moderation option for spelling.
SENSE! SENSE, DAMNIT!
I'm having a bad day... Keep your fingers away from my teeth.
If the MCA bus would have come out earlier we would all be using Apples today.
I would agree, but would restate it to read "If the PS/2 platform would have been earlier and more open, Apple wouldn't be using proprietary hardware today." PS/2 was more than just MCA (Plug-n-Play), it was also standard VGA/XGA graphics, the move towards standard SCSI, and a very maintainable case design.
Don't forget that Intel came to Apple and begged them to port their OS to PC machines. I'm not quite sure what Apple was thinking, but the dismal state of PC hardware (including terrible display tech) in the 80s probably had something to do with it.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Don't be too sure -- p-code can remember what language it used to be. I wouldn't put it past MS to phase out the machine-code components in favor of .NET components that run under the VM. This for "cross-platform support" of Itanium and/or other processors that might follow the Pentium as the Windows processor.
Well, I am not shure about .NET in general, but in my testing with C# - it's pretty damn fast.
.NET. ;)
Java sucks for me because it's unpredictable in terms of platform compatability, speed, and version. Writting serious large data set applications in Java seems to lack as well. (Tried loading and parsing 100Mb of data latily?)
Java can definitly do this, and does already. I'm just annoyed at working with java. Having to use JNI to access the "real" system hurts. Repetitive OS calls are somewhat slow as well.. (as in generating decent RC5 keys using SHA1 - this calles time quite a bit, and is very slow)
Java is a great language. And the greatest compliment is that C# mirrors it so much. A good GPL'ed C# compiler on Linux would win me over.
But I don't think you'll be seeing a GPL Java JIT that's good for a while to come. After all, RPC was implemented by Sun, and now it's part of
It's kinda sad that MS came up with it first. I'm suprised that Ximian isn't using more of the code from existing byte-code interpriters or GCC.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Really, any Microsoft comment on this story just has to start with "You fools! Hahahahahaha!", don't you think?
In a way it's kind of cute - just like the other denizens of the software industry, Ximian has started small, done the VC thing, expressed interest in collaborating with Microsoft on an interesting new technology, and then been screwed out of it as it's embraced and extended by Microsoft. Of course, most companies take years to do this, Ximian did it all in a matter of months. Now all they have to do is get bought out by Microsoft, and the circle will be complete :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Yes, and the lack of standardization of VB, VC++, MFC, etc. have resulted in their complete failure to be used in the industry, right? Microsoft makes its own standards whether they have the official seal of approval or not; the only reason they announced a standardization effort for .NET was to one-up Sun in the process. It was all a big ruse, as proven by this exact story in which Microsoft says that they won't let competitors implement the standard.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Remember the Win32 API? That was proprietary and just like those others, it vanished into obscur... uh ...
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Not a competitor, but a replacement. Something that eliminates the bottleneck that Passport intends to become. Centralized controls are a danger. If two competing standards are each trying to be a centralized control, this doesn't eliminate the danger, it merely postpones it. The real answer is to design something that replicates the service provided without creating a central control point.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Microsoft has to take precautions against cancer... :-(
-- Cheers!
I have been doing this for 2 years on Java and Linux. See jython.
Why does everyone here assume C# will be better than Java? It's irrational. Or it's ignorance?
This looks like another reason not to use C#. I feel that is important that we stick to languages where we have at least a hint of control on cross-platform issues, such as C++ and Java. Yes there are other languages but these 3 are the more main-stream.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Dave Cutler did not quit Microsoft. He is now working on Win64, Microsoft's 64-bit API. So he's not in the NT limelight as much, but he still roxxors.
cpeterso
A fully-functioning (ahem) Linux can be compressed down and fit on a floppy disk. (Can you say, Linux Router Project? tomsrtbt? hal91? A full-out Red Hat system with Apache, Samba, NFS tools, Linuxconf-web, IDE-RAID, and all the dependencies for all that stuff, is only 72MB worth of disk fully expanded. Absolutely-fscking-minimal Win95, I mean, just enough to boot the system, is 102MB (IIRC, plus or minus a meg or two), forget about anything useful like a browser or an editor fancier than Notepad. And NT is bigger than that, by how many orders of magnitude, I don't know, when I left that job I quit using Windows for keeps.
NT is too big and too tightly coupled by far for any one man to keep all the twisty relationships between his ears, is Linus' point. There are at least two people on the planet (Linus and Alan) who can keep the Linux kernel between their ears; I don't doubt that Miguel could do the same thing if he tried... but then Miguel's celebrity points up precisely the major flaw in the whole Windows design package: We never tried to integrate the GUI into the OS. (One notices that the folks in Cupertino have realized the error of their ways...) Such strategy produces an extreme case of bloat which is difficult at best to get rid of... much less manage the code for.
The setting: Early 1999, a documents convention in Atlanta (all about printers and scanners and signature verification technology, etc...). On the stage, left to right, are Linus, a senior Microsoft marketroid, Maddog, and a Wall Street analyst. The Microsoft guy was running off at the mouth about all the huge labs they have in Redmond, where they can replicate any problem known to man. Linus jumps into the fray with a case involving the U.S. Post Office. (Those little barcodes you get on the bottom of all your envelopes? Those barcodes are put there by printers powered by Linux. Only thing that would run that reliably and had good vendor support.) It seems USPS was having a performance problem. They called Red Hat. Red Hat looked at it. They scratched their heads, and forwarded it to Linus. Linus looked at it, scratched his head, vi'ed a couple files, had an "aha" moment (discovered a race condition), tappity, tappity, tappity, compile, init 6, diff-pipe-mail, problem solved. Total turnaround time for USPS, 48 hours.
Then he delivered the zinger.
There was dead silence in the room, and I've never seen anyone look quite so uncomfortable as that Microsoft marketroid sitting there in the spotlight between the two most vocal penguinheads on the planet....I must admit, though, it's fun to see other folks catching on to Linus' PR methods...
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I'd rather listen to [Sir Isaac] Newton than to [Microsoft's VP Craig] Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less.
-- Linus
Sorry, but Ximian is not using Microsoft's technology, they are implementing an ECMA standard by writing it *from scratch*. Microsoft may be spearheading the standard, but Ximians implementation will be their own (and open source) and will not incorporate any MS "technology" other than the standard itself.
Hmm....M$ using their own "Standards" as IP to zing others with. Sounds a mite close to what Rambus did (sigh). My question is: Does mono have to be written in C#, or can a replica be made in C, C++, etc? IANAC (I Am Not A Coder), but as long as the protocol remains intact, does it really care which language you are using?
Just my $.02,
JoeLinux
Do not mess in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy, and good with A-1 Sauce.
From the ZDNet article: Miguel de Icaza, Mono's founder, said, "The consensus is that [Microsoft] could stop someone from implementing the specs by using patents. [But] nothing in dot-Net is really innovative, so it would be simple to use alternative non-patented approaches."
I'm sure that Miguel understands the technical issues involved here far better than I do, but the more I hear about this whole Ximian/Microsoft interaction, the more it looks to me like Ximian is a skilled but naive bunch of American Indians being offered a sweet deal on some really nice beads.
Whatever "assistance" Microsoft is offering to Mono, they're not doing for altruistic reasons. I don't trust them.
My favorite quote from the article
nothing in dot-Net is really innovative, so it would be simple to use alternative non-patented approaches.
Doesn't that cover all M$ products?
http://Lenny.com
Um, MS would not want to stop people from implementing C#. At most they would want to stop people from implementing versions of C# that would not run a pure C# or pure managed (one that runs entirely in the CLR and doesn't use native hooks) program.
Sun releases Java. Microsoft releases Visual J++. Sun gets upset. Sun sues.
Microsoft releases C#. Mono releases a (non-compliant) C#. Microsoft gets upset. Microsoft sues.
Pot, kettle, black.
deus does not exist but if he does
If this turns out to be true, is it really that surprising or shocking to anyone? History will continue to repeat itself. I'm sure the samba developers have comments on what it's like to try and implement a MS "standard".
jason
I'd be interested to know what restrictions ECMA place on the licensing of the standards they endorse. ECMA do say in the article that "There are no known rights owned by Microsoft that would require a licensing agreement," but who would bet on that in advance? What's the point of having an open standard if no-one is allowed to actually implement it?
:)
Interesting move on the part of Microsoft if they really are going to go through with standardisation. I suppose it's a similar issue to MPEG layer 3 and Fraunhofer... and look at how successful Fraunhofer have been at stopping open source MP3 encoders.
Anyhow, I wish Ximian luck with their reimplementation of Microsoft standards. I just hope they don't get burned like all the other companies in the past which have cuddled up to Microsoft. I would love it if, just this once, Microsoft did something nice
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
Agree ! plus I don't see the interest of having an ECMA standard if no one could re-implement it due to patents !
> There is no point in creating a standard (e.g. ECMA standard) if that standard can only be implemented by (or with the consent of) one corporation.
...
If I'm not mistaken, following that logic, ECMA's specs for CD-ROM (Yellow Book[?]) are pointless becaues the CD Book Standards can't be implemented without the consent of Philips / Sony
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Dunno what article you read Hemos, but the one linked said that Microsoft would only be licencing their implementation - not that it would preclude others.
Capatain Rotundo said:
"Yes I can see that it is copying 'embrace and extend" but what makes everyone think that that will work against the monopoly, solely because it works for the monopoly? I fear there is some flawed logic in everyones thinking on this."
One way to look at it would be by embracing this technology you could extend what you are doing by so much more. For every language that is supported there are that many less wrappers that you have to maintain and less layers to debug to figure why the hell your code isn't behaving as intended.
The other side of the coin is if the system was truly object oriented languages wouldn't be a problem any way because you are dealing with objects not libraries. Is that not what the file metaphore is all about.
Later, seeker
I think that you are extrapolating a great deal here. As I understand it, MS has only submitted a small part of .Net to the ECMA. Many API's, such as WinForms, would not be standardized and would be controlled directly by MS. This means that if Mono wanted to support WinForms, they would have to reverse engineer it. Or, they would have to build their own cross-platform libraries. Either way, the capabilities you are describing are not as easily achievable as you seem to think.
I'd say he probably understands it as well as Linus understands Linux.
And I bet that, if you get some weird bug, he'd personally look at the problem, bang out some code, recompile the modules, and send you the diffs.
But my weird MS bugs get to go to the super spiffy "replicate any problem known to man" lab?
- bridgette
"Yes, Java can do most of what .NET will do. However, with .NET it all comes in one attractive package all ready to go. And it will support more than one language."
.NET does nto support any language except C#. Any other language will have to be seriously bastardised to work on the CLR including giving up some serious functionality like multiple inheretance. NONE of your C, C++, VB, or Java apps will run on it without a very serious rewrite. In fact it will never support JAVA or any other language which MS deems a competitor.
Somehow I would seriously doubt it will come in one package. If it's like any other MS product it will come in an insane array dependencies. When I installed the SOAP toolkit I had to upgrade IE to 5.5 and had to download pathched msxml3.dll set too. Just to be able to post to a soap server I had to download about 50 megabytes of stuff and not only that I had to install this crap on every PC in the shop which was going to run the code.
As for your second point.
How can you say it will support multiple languages when it does not support the four most popular languages on the planet? Look at VB.NET it looks nothing like VB 6.0 you might as well learn a whole new language (I guess ms is counting on that).
War is necrophilia.
Microsft is saying that if Ximian uses any of Microsoft's code (ie .NET runtime, libraries) then they are going to have licensing issues.
Ximian is saying that they aren't going to use any of this code so there won't be issues.
ZDNet is making the whole thing muddy so they get all the Slashdot effect and sell more advertising.
Note that both Microsoft and Ximian are corret here.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
There is nothing to stop Microsoft from deviating from the ECMA standard they submitted. Just like there was nothing that stopped them from deviating from the ECMA standard from Javascript that they passed. MARK MY WORDS: We will implement it, and they will change it. We can't extend them if they have more users than we do. We'll just end up writing a bunch of software that works on the "official" implementations and not end up being able to use stuff from them. (They will eat us alive this way -- and easily).
.NET. I think that all of the grumbling they are doing now is a bluff and is not serious.
They will LOVE that Linux developers are doing their work for them in pushing
Also, why not work with a standard that doesn't change? Java is here today, and is VERY open about its future direction. Do you think Java is slow? Well. . . how fast do you think IL interpreters will be on Linux for the next 3 years? (not as fast as Java during that time, I guarantee). Java isn't open source? That may be true, but Sun has a reputation for creating open standards if not open source software(NFS, NIS, their hardware spec, etc.) Microsoft doesn't have this reputation and have already screwed around with developers by "standardizing" ECMAscript and then turning around and breaking it. We know Microsoft isn't trustworthy, so we are going to help them and then try to trick them out of their own game???? What????
If we continue to fall for this, we are too stupid to compete with Microsoft. (So we shouldn't even play with them. . . competing with them wasn't the point anyway - the point was serving our own needs with great software).
So, what, are you saying that Dave Cutler doesn't understand NT?
Just because Linus Torvalds doesn't think he can keep the NT kernel in his head, doesn't mean that no-one else can.
Remember, NT has a modified *microkernel* architecture.
And, remember that Dave Cutler and his team implemented RSX-11 in 32KB, in fact 16KB with the other half for overlaid utility programs. He is smarter than you give him credit for.
Microsofts internal name for .NET is SOAP on a rope. Simple Object Access Protocol. It's easy, it's standard. If you don't like it, use XML RPC. If you don't like that, quit programming.
Err, not really. See:
It is amazing how many Slashdot readers will slam things without understanding them. I suggest you read Mono's .NET FAQ and see if there is anything in there that would lead to "Lost Privacy. Stupid Security bugs. Pay-to-play software."
The very first two questions address your concerns.
In an article I read, the MS rep. said that MONO would "probably" have to use MS IP. And, in the situation where MS IP was used, MS would have to look at how they license their IP because the GPL is so scary.
.NET implementation will also be scary.
This is total FUD, because MONO is only implementing the EMCA standard and would never use MS IP to do it. After all, how could you make quality software if you filled it with/based it on crap?
MS is just creating FUD again by saying that the GPL is scary, so thus this Open/Free
ZDNet reports this propaganda like it's fact.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
You misunderstand what Mono is. It is not the "services" part of .Net, like Passport or Hailstorm. It is just the development environment. C#, a JIT engine, a GC system, and the class libraries. There is no pay-for-use or passport requirement. As for security, there are just as many security holes as one would find in any development envrionment. Probably fewer, because C# is takes a managed approach to memory.
Before anyone gets carried away, read the article. Jan van den Beld, the ECMA secretary general stated clearly that any license Microsoft were to claim would cover only Microsoft's own implementation. Quote:
"There are no known rights owned by Microsoft that would require a licensing agreement" --Ruhk
--
404 Error:
JBoss Enhydra Jakarta Jetty jUDDI pUDDIng Resin
Just pick a project and start contributing ;-)
On top of that they are adding a powerful easy to use RPC system based on SOAP
.NET has over J2EE.
.NET architecture
.NET so great? What can it do that I cannot do in Java?
SOAP works perfectly well with Java too. This is not an advantage
has really come up with something in their
People keep repeating this but rarely come up with any technical arguments for what it is that makes
but in my testing with C# - it's pretty damn fast.
.NET any different in this regard? I've been extremely happy with Java's compatibility btw. I know exactly what I can expect with each iteration of the SDK.
Micro benchmarks mean very little. Some people claim they've seen 50% speed improvement in C#, some say they see Java performing alot better. There are some legit arguments that can be made about C# approach to compiling at install time which will decrease the performance in comparison to an adaptively optimized (HotSpot) Java.
My personal guess is they're pretty close to one another. There's no single technical issue on either side that would make one faster than the other.
I'd be interested to see any legit benchmarking though.
unpredictable in terms of platform compatability, speed, and version
What makes C# or
A good GPL'ed C# compiler on Linux would win me over.
Not me. Java the language matters very little. The language can't do squat. The same applies to C#. It's the libraries that count, having JDBC, RMI, JNDI, EJB, Servlets/JSP is what drives me to use Java. What language they operate on makes no difference. Having a huge, cross platform libraries is a blessing.
Having a C# compiler in GPL means squat. If you get ADO+, COM+, ASP+ then you may have a case. I doubt Microsoft will let you have all that on Linux though.
GPL Java JIT that's good for a while to come
I don't need one. I'm not interested in writing compilers. I'm interested in writing other applications though.
However, with .NET it all comes in one attractive package all ready to go
.NET will even talk to legacy Java code via SOAP
.NET so great. It's got all of the advantages of the Java platform, without the downside of only being able to use the Java language.
.NET would solve that problem nicely, and it would quickly become a very cool development platform.
.NET platform under a Free Software license. The only parts Microsoft has made available is the C# language and the virtual machine.
.NET platform.
Ready to go and do what?
I mean, if you look at IBM's Java offering for example, they heavily tie their VisualAge IDE to their WebSphere application server and other tools. That's a ready to go package to do pretty much everything you need, web apps, middle tier, web services, EJB, JDBC, whatever. All bundled with an IDE with version control, debuggers, help blah blah blah.
The matter of fact is most people tend to not want this kind of tie up. Some people like it, and I bet they're all happy IBM customers and more power to them, but I for example would not even want a package like this for my Java development.
A ready to go packages are available for Java. They even let you pay lost of $$$ for it. I personally like it much better where I can choose the different components for development myself.
And as you point out in your post
And Java uses SOAP to talk to legacy Windows platform with apps written in C#, VB, whatever.
That's what makes
I'll buy this if I ever see a cross-platform ADO+, ASP+ or COM+. Until then, Java is much much more attractive solution to me. Not to mention it is much more mature platform.
It's also worth noting that Java isn't nearly as cross platform as Sun would have you believe.
It's good enough for me. I've written apps that people deployed on Windows (NT and 2000), Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, MacOS and possibly others. I can tell you I don't know much anything about the Unix/Linux platforms. But my apps work in those environments and that I am happy about. As far as I'm concerned, Sun made good on their promise of cross-platform and WORA.
A Free Software implementation of
But there wont ever be a full blown
That's a far cry from the
You're confusing two different aspects of .NET: The application environment and the ASP tools.
.NET object model. Despite the source of these components, I am looking forward to being able to use Mono. This half of the .NET project is actually something I am looking forward to.
The Mono project will be implementing the Common Language Environment, C# compiler, and the
The cool part is that I will be able to use the graphical form designers to create the visual parts of my programs and then implement those in any language I choose: since I don't like C# or (ugh) VB, I'll use Python.NET. If necessary though, I can write some parts in C and subclass them from within python; no more worrying about tools like SIP and SWIG which are by nature imperfect since they must be reimplemented for every language pair.
Unfortunately, taking advantage of this would in the past have limited me solely to Windows, which IMHO outweighs all my possible gains. With Mono, however, I will be able to do all of the above in a cross-platform manner. Even if the Mono project does not release a graphical form designer, I can do that part in Windows and develop the rest in Linux, in my favorite programming language. The resulting program will then be able to run anywhere with only a recompilation.
The part you're worried about includes the Hailstorm initiative and other Microsoft muscle-flexing. Mono is not interested in this at all. Rather, the project implementing this half is GNU.Net, which is going to directly compete with Microsoft even as Mono complements it. If you are worried about this, GNU.Net is the project to watch for a Free (in all meanings of the word) replacement for it.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
.net is not based on COM.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but AFAIK .NET is (mostly) a virtual machine plus some standartized
"interprocess" communication channels. So running
piece of bytecode on it is entirely different from linking to it, shared or static. It's more like
executing proprietary binaries on a linux system. And nothing in GPL prevent doing this.
./lxnt
Just but why do you think it would be illegal to run .NET-created binaries on GPL-licenced implementation?
.NET development tools' licence that states that stuff created with those tools shouldn't be run on GPL/like-licenced
.NET. So it would be one of two - either they don't open it, or don't conform. Phew. Nothing new, really.
Not that MS can't do such sort of thing - by including a clause in their
implementations. Other way, by 'extending' standards pretty much the way they tried with Java.
Anyway, such restrictions would divert developers from MS devtools to other ones, this won't be any good for MS.
Also, MS can theoretically ban any binaries developed not with their tools from running in their implementation. But there's no point in submitting to ECMA this way.
More, if they open the standard (i.e. go through ECMA) and conform to it themselves, there is no way they can retain control over
./lxnt
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
Since it is the "kissing disease", its rare to see a geek with mono.
More
> Miguel de Icaza, Mono's founder, said, "The
> consensus is that [Microsoft] could stop someone
> from implementing the specs by using patents.
> [But] nothing in dot-Net is really innovative,
> so it would be simple to use alternative
> non-patented approaches.
No one says "We're gonna screw you, and take over you own architecture, oh, and, you can't innovate either" quite like Miguel.
Dunno about the first, but the second was already covered a while back.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Where they thinking that this time Microsoft would play nice? Gimme a break, I could see this a mile off, only I didn't think it would happen this soon.
Ok, let me get this straight. Micro$oft says that the ECMA will protect its "copyright" or whatever. However, ECMA says that it'll do no such thing. Is it just me or is Micro$oft just acting immature and trying to intimidate Ximian by making stuff up. It's just like being back in middle school :(.
By the way, as said in so many other posts, why is Ximian even trying to clone this? Everyone already knows Java, so why doesn't Ximian trump that? Ximian could get Micro$oft to shoot itself in the foot by trying to get developers to learn another language for a platform that people have to rent!
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
I think it would be benificial to MS to have other implementations of the platform that ran on systems other than intel/windows. I think MS knows this as well.
I guess what I'm saying is that its in MS's interest for mono to exist and that the licence should only give the rights for MS to make standards for what constitutes a deficient implementation and restrict its distribution if the standards aren't met. I don't think MS should be given the right to choose whether or not an implementation is sufficent to meet the standards though for numerous reasons.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Microsoft have been doing their best to eliminate open source for quite some time now. The chances of them actually doing anything to forward it are eqilivent to a ski resort opening in hell!
As long as there are enough PHBs out there to buy Microsoft becuase its Microsoft then Microsoft won't see a need to become interoperable with open source.
However, Jan van den Beld, ECMA secretary general, said the licence would cover only Microsoft's own implementation, not the standard itself. "There are no known rights owned by Microsoft that would require a licensing agreement," he said.
Miguel de Icaza, Mono's founder, said, "The consensus is that [Microsoft] could stop someone from implementing the specs by using patents. [But] nothing in dot-Net is really innovative, so it would be simple to use alternative non-patented approaches."
This says nothing about Mono being "unimplementable" as the /. headline questions. It's just Microsoft's implementation of the submitted standard that is in question, which is dealt with in the last sentence of the article quoted above.
AFAIK Microsoft cannot patent a "standard", unless it's one of those unofficial standards that they create through their monopoly.
Of course, that's not to say that Microsoft was stupid by using ECMA. They can claim that C# et al is an open standard while not actually allowing anyone to implement it.
Most likely, Microsoft will withdraw their submission from ECMA. If they do not, people will just implement based on the standards, at which point Microsoft will not be able to sue because the standards are open.
Regardless of what Microsoft does, the open-source folks will go ahead with their implementations of C# et al, even if Microsoft withdraws from the ECMA standards process.
--
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Alternatively, you could look at this as the Open Source community's attempt to use Microsoft's own "embrace and extend" philosopy against them. Microsoft will be using its considerable resources to push this forward. Whether you like it or not, .NET will probably be a significant technology that we'll be dealing with for a long time to come. If an open-source "variation on the theme" can be created, I'm all for it.
BTW, I've had the opportunity to see Tony Goodhew speak. He's an impressive individual who really seems to know his stuff. While de Icaza and van den Beld seem to be dismissing his warning about licensing problems, I hope that they take the issue seriously.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Think back in history. Think City-State. Think of a heavily fortified city at the cross roads of some very heavily travelled trade routes. .NET is the paving on the roads, while the fortified city is MS-Passport. And to move your goods through Passport, you have to pay a tax. Do you think given that model that billg cares whether he owns the roads or not? I don't think so. If I was in bill's shoes, I'd be all for people building roads to my kingdom.
And so who cares if .NET is proprietary or not? If it's easily available for, or ships with, 90+% of the desktops in the world, what does it matter? All of this Mono hype misses the point: what is really needed is a credible competitor for Passport. Forget .NET. Building a .NET work-alike merely reinforces the MS monopoly. We should really be setting our sites on building a competitor to the Passport services.
I hate to break this to you guys, but Microsoft has the clout to shove .NET (and Hailstorm) (and Passport) down everyone's throat, and they will do everything they can get away with to make it so. It'll take them a while (the hit always comes on the third strike with Microsoft), but they will do their damndest.
.Net is entirely a different story.
I think the Xbox will tank, at least initially -- the early buzz is vague and not too promising for delivering a quality product on schedule.
/Brian
Passport is not a bad idea in and of itself, but in its current form it's not suitable for anyone but casual net surfers. If MS wanted to license the code behind it (MS Passport Server?) for server use, it might be different, but any business that would put its authentication services in the hands of a company like Microsoft is just asking to see their name up on fuckedcompany.com.
Hailstorm is EVIL.
/Brian
I wonder if it's symbolic that the everything2 link to "mono" only talks about a really bad disease...
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Because those binaries would have to link to GPL code. A big part of .NET is the libraries of common functions you call in your programs. It is illegal to link to a GPL library with a non-free binary; this is why the LGPL was created. Read Stallman's "=Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library for a better explanation than I can give.
If Mono is released under the GPL non-free binaries cannot legally run on it.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Here's the kicker, though. If Ximian releases Mono under the GPL, what happens when you run binaries created by .NET? You wouldn't be able to legally run those on Mono, or at least you couldn't distribute those binaries to Mono users. Basically Ximian has an opportunity to create a version of .NET that is incompatible with non-GPL versions of .NET.
I think Ximian would be shooting itself in the foot by doing so, but there's no reason they can't. It wouldn't benefit Mono users by doing that, but it sure would fracture the .NET community. I'm sure this is the scenario Microsoft wants to avoid. Frankly I think I would see this as being childish on Ximians part if they do release Mono on the GPL. They should keep it under a BSD licence so any program created by any .NEt compiler can run on it.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
air and light and time and space
Yes I can see that it is copying 'embrace and extend" but what makes everyone think that that will work against the monopoly, solely because it works for the monopoly? I fear there is some flawed logic in everyones thinking on this.
Am I the only one who thinks it would be much smarter for a competitor to use their own technology. MS has alway been a tough competitior, why does Ximian think they will succeed with this? They should be pressuring Sun to GPL Java (would make sence on the heels of recent news about MS abandoning it) and build an architecture based on that. I think that our own Free .NET type implementation (that also runs on Windows) would be a better strategy than trying to play catch up to a Huge multibillion dollar company that controls the market to start with.
booyah
aztek: the ultimate man
No sig for you!!
what does the future bring with the .Net strategy? Lost privacy? Stupid security bugs everywhere? Pay-to-play software?
.NET (no, you do NOT have to use passport).
.NET.
.Net vulnerabilities will have reprocussions across all Internet services and platforms?
Typical anti-MSFT FUD.
I haven't lost any privacy using
Security bugs? Yes, IIS has had and still has a HUGE problem with these rediculous buffer overflows, but it doesn't look like MSFT is the only one with recent major security problems.
Pay-to-play is a business decision, and is not an inherint attribute of
what are the chances that
What are the chances that the same goes for J2EE with Sun ONE? It's the nature of the interconnected beast.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
BZZZ wrong. The M$ WORM for IIS that the origonal post refered to had a patch released TWO WEEKS AGO (I know because we patched). People just didn't patch their machines (neither did a lot of M$ departments either, ironically). I'm not trying to prove that linux is just as insecure as M$, but it's hogwash to state that M$ is so completely insecure in comparison.
.NET. (Beta 2 is very stable, almost a release candidate - no where near "heavily beta"). For example, go to the boycott adobe site and try to buy something from them - their entire storefront is ASP.NET.
/., I'm not a religious zealot, and neither should you be one (esp. if you are moderating). I've built many solutions using Linux/PHP and Perl. I just choose what's best for the job. For my current business, .NET looks promising, and I'm sick of people bashing it without even knowing what it is other then the "hailstorm" initiative.
And there are a lot of sites already using
It's also BS that I get a flaimbait moderation when posting to an anti-M$ FLAIM that got modded up (but, although mine was purely factual and the other was sensational, since mine wasn't pro J2EE (which I personally like as well) I got modded down).
Common
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Wow, update(), you are a one man Slashdot!
A monodot!
(yes I know mono is Spanish for monkey...)
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Well the first was news as of July 20th, i.e. today, and the second has only now made it to Slashdot immediately after update()'s posting...
Bzzzt, as they say.
Perhaps the initial Gnome usability study was covered, because that took place in March, but the report was issued today.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Microsoft anouncing thier earnings for 2001 yesterday...
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/
Huge amounts of cash, but I guess it is expensive to have an infinite amount of monkeys on keyboards to make thier software.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
That must explain why people keep sending me all these files that end in .doc, .xls, .ppt....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Prior Restraint writes "According to this ZDNet article, Tony Goodhew, a Microsoft program manager, implies that MS will license C# in such a way that Ximian won't be able to implement the ECMA standard." This comes on the heels of Ximian's announcement of working on
Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure why one would want to implement .Net without needing to. Sure, the collaborate concepts behind it are great... but if we think Outlook is dangerous now, what does the future bring with the .Net strategy? Lost privacy? Stupid security bugs everywhere? Pay-to-play software?
Similar to the way that Outlook's address book vulnerabilities put at risk everyone with an e-mail address, what are the chances that .Net vulnerabilities will have reprocussions across all Internet services and platforms?
I'm hoping that .Net will finally mobilize the consumer to ditch Windows and get some competition back into the OS field. After all, Microsoft apparently can't even get IIS right, and that sounds a lot less sophisticated than what .Net attempts.
Bobo hates cans.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
A freely implementable standard is a successful standard. Examples are TCP/IP and the PC architecture.
.NET is already well on it's way to becoming a failure as a standard.
However, there are many technologies that never became standards. Remember MicroChannel from IBM? It never succeeded because IBM held the licensing rights.
You can't have it both ways. Either it is freely implementable or you have to pay, whether it is in the form of licensing fees or other restrictions.
If Microsoft want to tightly control implementations, then in my opinion
I think the dot GNU folks at FreeDevelopers have the right idea... "clean room" implementation that doesn't involve MS in any way. Once MS has become involved, they have the right to cry "IP foul", because of their own involvement! I thought of this a few days after reading the original MS working with Ximian article, but by then it would have been lost in the noise.
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets; Speak in secret alphabets;
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Surely there must be some real development going on in the free software world that could be covered instead. A Linux-powered robot that recognizes human faces or Sun's study of Gnome usability?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This should be a vary interesting story to follow as it develops.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
that will prove that M$ is only trying to get marketshare from this stupid .net thing. If M$ writes the license such that noone else can serve in a .net enviornment or noone else can use C#, then noone can be at fault but M$, thus they orchestrated that situation, thus proving that this is a big ploy so that "all your base are belong to us".
Now, if anyone (IT managers, etc.) will understand that....
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
According to RFC 2795, an integral part of the Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite is the Protocol for Assessment of Novelty (PAN). PAN v 1.0 is incapable of accepting anything new from the monkeys. Evidently Microsoft has embraced and extended this protocol as well by allowing for grudging acceptance on the part of the CRITIC...
Sig: Warning The following may be illegal under the DMCA (rot-13 decoder):
ABCDEFGH I J KLM
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Who's in anticipation are the MicroSerf contracting firms, who are being paid to push it. I work with an associate from one firm who has told me that he has been asked to spend time learning the M$ way because they're going to push the .Net initiative, likely to the exclusion of Java and *nix.
.Net down the corporate throat if they wish. Frankly, this scares me much more than the Redmond rhetoric.
These firms, who are often hired because they're the "experts", can do a lot to shove
- Sig this!
Microsoft funded an interesting preliminary implementation of Python for
So you are just the unwittingly conveyor of more MS propoganda: THAT
It turns out that if you like to program in VB or C#,
Q: Complete the following sequence:
.NET
Xenix, the Windows Sound System, Microsoft Bob, __________
A:
It seems to be saying that even thought M$ is submitting .NET to EMCA, it can still license IT'S OWN implementation to others. M$ will have no rights to license the interface (which is all that really matters, as Miguel de Icaza said). All this means is that if Ximian wants to use any of M$ existing code, it will have to go through M$, and since M$ can't use 'Viral' licenses, that would kill Mono's ability to be GPL. Since the C# project they are building is being started from scratch, i assume the rest of Mono is from scratch as well.
"So you call this your free contry, tell me why it costs so much to live?" - Three Doors Down
"success" is a wonderfully fuzzy word.
.doc, .xls, and .ppt docs will be pretty near worthless (you can 'strings' for the data from them!), except amongst some wireheads that run those wacky 32 bit processor machine emulators to play the "good old games."
in 20 years, those
though the format might be popular enough that there will be companies specializing in data migration from those old file formats they reverse engineered to newer ones (btdt... pays really damned well).
TCP/IP has been around for nearly (if not more than) 20 years now. TCP Illustrated Volume 1 is still very relevant today, as it was when WRS wrote it 8 years ago. Things have changed, yes, but nearly everything in the book is still applicable.
That kind of staying power is what i consider "success." What the MS file formats have achieved is "ubiquity." Not everyone runs TCP/IP (though almost everyone does), but all correct TCP/IP implementations can and will work together.
the point? just because something is everywhere doesn't mean it's a "successful standard" in many peoples' books
It's just not written by Microsoft.
.NET site.
ActiveState are bringing out their own version of ActivePython, a Python distro for Windows. And yes, it will be kept up to date. A Perl.net has already been released in numerous betas, and it rules. I've been writing GUI Perl applications is Visual Studio for a fair few months now. Very impressive.
For more info, visit their
Just when I was begining to trust that kind big bear Balmer, just when I was begining to think this would become a better world....
I think this serves Ximian right, dont get me wrong, I have many reasons to be proud of the work they do, but this was just nonsense...
And your mother too.....
NO SIG
I didn't read anything that said MS was trying to stop anyone from doing anything other than not distrubuting another implementation under the GPL. I can't help but think that publishing everything under the GPL is not good for business, while it is good for coders. This seems like paranoia really.
My theory is
.net open source/FSF ends up with nothing.
a) Mono will be crippled and a half baked attempt in the same vein that gnome is a nice desktop but
isn't as useable as MS windows.
b) Microsoft will threaten Mono/FSF regardless
c) Mono/FSF accuse Microsoft of making Mono unusable because of (b) and also changing specs and anything else that Microsoft normally does
FSF can't afford a DOJ type court case to fight (b) that runs for *many* years. Even companies that have had judgements against Microsoft have had hollow victories, viz Sun/Java
Result, Microsoft get to keep
Have you tried any java apps lately? Most all of the speed problems I experienced went away when I upgraded to v1.3. (...and If Sun's propaganda is to be believed 1.4 is even faster than 1.3.)
In the article, ECMA's geral secretary refutes the MS claims. It's probably some lame misunderstanding. And if not, they've dug a nice big hole for themselves.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Now where is this going? Simple, if Microsoft starts making these things like .NET where one has to sign up for an account to use their software on a monthly basis or some such nonsense, then getting free software becomes a moot point if you have to sign up for the account.
I think that this is a bad move for Microsoft; one, not collaborating with open source people, and two, making sure that their products become service based. No one is going to pay for this, or at least I'm not, not that that will really matter. - a disheartened H. Simpson
Sounds okay to me... it just means you can't infringe on their implementation. How could you get "unimplementable" from "simple to use"??
501 Not Implemented
isn't this only a day or so after MS announced its support of MONO?
From playing with the beta, .NET is pretty sound. Passport will die an untimely death (like Bob) unless something happens to gain more support; interesting idea, but who will trust it?
Hailstorm I am up in the air about. I like the idea of services, but the web has largely been a game of FREE stuff. To make large scale web services work, you need a service specific enough to benefit businesses, but generic enough to get a large enough market share. Not sure how this will pan out.
--Greg
No, I am not an Air Supply fan, but this particular post is about as airheaded as Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blond.
.NET, but has no actual comments from anyone from MS.
I read the ZDNet article and responded in kind there. This is not news. A quote was taken from Tony Goodhew, but the quote is not printed. It is alleged to have suggested that Microsoft might hinder Ximian from implementing
From this conjecture, a whole article is created. Hell, Dorothy, your house might fly out of Kansas and land on the wicked witch. Sure, it is more likely that MS will hinder Ximian, but it is still just an OPINION and not news.
What appalls me the most is when intelligent people I normally agree with, start acting as stupid as those I disagree with. I have come to expect idiots opposing me, but to see those on "my side" acting like idiots turning conjecture into "hard news" is really appalling.
Most likely, I will be flamed for suggesting that this is not really news, but a bunch of snippets pieced together, but I really don't care. I am tired of everyone high fiving anytime MS steps, even when there is no evidence that anything is happening. I will stand behind you when you catch them at work, but I cannot stand up when the story is not a story.
Peace!