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Miguel de Icaza & Nat Friedman On Mono
cg writes "LinuxWorld has an article based on quotes from Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman about Ximian's motives, plans and ambitions for Mono. If you read yesterday's story about "Bad Ximian", you should also read Miguel's opinion on Passport."
Mono is still a useful project and allows developers to move C# projects off the MS Windows platform onto other OS's
.NET will rely on Microsoft libraries, and won't exist on Mono. Ximian cannot emulate them any better than the Wine guys could, and Microsoft is free to change the API at any time.
No they won't, since projects on MS
Mono will not help people to move from Win32 platform to Linux.
You have a class you like in C++, and you want to wrap it in some other language, say CLOS, then if the CLR supports CLOS, you can use it there.
That won't work. C++ is not a supported language. The only resembling language is something they call "Managed C". Remember, C# exists so there wouldn't be a need for C++ on Win32 platform anymore.
We can make use of the code built in C# and port it to other platforms.
No, you can't. You don't have all the libraries, only a small core (most C# code will come from the Win32 platform). Do not ignore this crucial fact. Language matters nothing. The libraries do.
firstly, supporting .NET and passport on a linux platform is just helping microsoft stabilise the dekstop arena and so i find this strange coming from ximian. ximian's has been doing great things for the linux desktop helping it become a useable interface for people like my parents. this is where linux has always had its shortcomings. as a server, we all know it rocks! now basically if linux servers talk .NET and maintain the persistance of a passport - microsoft has its back-end technology all over the place and can use its far-reaching availability as an excuse to promote XP as the desktop operating system of choice. why? because when you first fire up an XP-based system, you go an register for a passport. once again, from my parent's perspective this is a simple and convenient action. considering that both my parents sit on some board of directors or another, their familiarity with microsoft as a desktop platform creeps into decision making for server platforms as well (yes i know they are not the IT directors, but it IS still a FACTOR).
secondly. i find it so amusing what microsoft is doing. about 3 years a go i read an article on microsoft's web site, which i WISH i had saved. it was basically slating the JAVA and J2EE environment and how SUN was targeting networking computing was such a step back in technology. back to the old terminal days of old. now what do they do, they bring out their own distributed platform in the shape of .NET. J2EE has been around for a number of years now. it has a large amount of commercial support. it has had time to mature into an incredibly robust and scalable platform. and now everybody sees the alternative, .NET and jumps onto the microsoft bandwagon.
in JAVA, and J2EE, sun has produced a great "plumbing" mechanism for distributed software. the problem is that they haven't developed the frills around the plumbing (somethign like .NET). i believe they expected the community to use their platform to do such a thing. have we failed them?
You can still use whatever software you want. For example, you can continue to not use .NET if that makes you happy. The difference is that those of us that are interested in supporting .NET clients (or acting as .NET clients) will now be able to do so.
That's what choice is all about. Making options available and letting people decide.
"sitting around the fire like a gang of old Amiga enthusiasts dreaming about the comeback of Amiga and its rise to prominence is not the way to do it."
:)
That has got to be the most insightful comment I've ever seen on slashdot.
What you discribe is called PKI. (Public Key Infrastructure) It would work nicely too. Netscape already supports two way authentication with SSL and certificates. Basically you the user would buy a Verisign type certificate, and load it into you browser. A web server could request the public part of your certificate and use that to authenticate you to the server. Now it would be nice to add roaming capabilites so that you can use a friends web browser but that would be pretty trivial.
PKI does peer to peer trust relationships of independent registrars. The independent registrars don't even need to use the same software. PKI will work as well if not better then DNS.
We lose a company that presents a corporate face to GNOME. We have not lost the developers. The Ximian hackers are so pationate about what they do (if the recent Mono articles haven't made that clear nothing will) that I think they would still hack on GNOME if they had nothing but a cardboard box on Central Ave. and a laptop.
Others have mentioned that Ximian is losing focus on its current projects like Gnumeric, their desktop distrution, and Evolution. In fact, people have shouted this with extreme prejudice. Well let's get one thing clear: Ximian owes us nothing! Ximian can direct their efforts to whatever project they damn well wish. They are OSS developers in their core, and OSS developers scratch their own itches. That's the way it works, folks.
.NET is an interesting idea, and Mono is an interesting project. Ximian is surely treading in unknown territory but the payoffs could be big in 3-5 years. It's worth a gamble. Ximian isn't dropping their current projects, but if you're worried Evolution or Gnumeric or whatever isn't going to be ready for your desktop as soon as you'd like, then sign up the mailing lists and look at contributing.
This is our community. Take action.
Jason.
So, let's assume emulating .NET is a worthy goal So why is Microsoft helping Ximian? Is it because they need Ximian's help in making .NET a standard? Microsoft has shown itself quite capable of making unilateral standards that are quite popular all by itself. Is it because Microsoft has suddenly become different than it has been in the past and suddenly wants to play nice? They no longer consider Linux and the GPL as cancers? Or because they want to make Ximian go on a wild goose chase that will in the end prove fruitless? You don't have to even have assume that Microsoft is the Mordor of the computing industry to see that it is not in their best interest to help Ximian in any meaningful way. It is easy to see how distracting Ximian from its work on GNOME *is* in Microsoft's best interest, however.
look hailstorm is Microsoft and passport is microsoft YOU DONT HAVE TO USE THEM !
....
I wont and I think there might be problems with the laws in differant countrys so frankly my dear
I care that people seem to think that mono can provide a solution to the libary problem
personally I would like to see a transform from the lib to a native lib rather than doing it @ run time look yes MS has done it for lots of langs but lets face it lots of people worked on it and the boreing libs now they expect people to do the drudgery of cloneing this or should I say writeing it from the spec
sorry but the java VM gets my vote before this IL from microsoft I mean I still dont understand how you can have pointers and make it work well
regards
john jones
p.s. you can target lots of langs at the java/sun virtual machine e.g. python see http://www.jython.org
are you totaly insane ?
where do you live ?
personally I live in a place where I spend my money where I like and on what I like
now you dont have to buy a MS product and SUN does quite well as a company
apple does quite well
red hat does quite well
I dont see china 1/5 of the worlds population guv or people useing many MS product mostly because they are too poor to afford them
now are you argueing that because you live in the United States and most people there use Microsfot products that the world uses Microsoft products ?
its like saying that the intel pentium and x86 is the dominant microprocessor
how many cell phones use an intel pentium ?
get a grip
next you will be telling me that jonathan lebed should give back the money he made beacuse people are dumb
look from a technical point of veiw which is what I WAS TRYING to get mono seems to be a big project that needs lots of full time people working on it OR alot of time and dedication like the linux kernel which didnt appear in the last year (-;
try and look at this in terms of lib's
(you know what you link your programs against or dont you get that ?)
being stupid is forgiveable if you learn from it
regards
john jones
How *much* do we have to read about Mono, a project that only exists in name and hype? If Mono is so good, shut up and show us the code.
okay: here it is.
There should be an anonymous CVS server available soon, too.
Celebrate the finer things in life
You have a really slanted view of how free software in business works. There are two reasons (at least) why Ximian began the Mono project. The first is that Miguel, Nat, and some other folks looked carefully at the .NET development platform and found it be a very well architected software development platform for which there was no free software implementation. The second reason is that the .NET development platform is well-suited to the direction Ximian is moving in and will aid them in developing the next generation of their applications and services. Yes, of course they want developer support from outside the company. This is no secret. This has never been a secret of open source/free software business models. Bob Young of Red Hat fame has said on numerous occasions that a company as small as Red Hat could never produce an entire operating system, documentation, support, and everything else that is Red Hat. They harness the power of open source. Ximian is no exception. Most of the GNOME developers do not work for Ximian. Most of the .NET developers working on Mono do not work for Ximian. Most of the Linux kernel developers do not work for any Linux distribution company. So yes, Ximian wants involvement and they've gotten it, and they'll get more. Why? Because there are a lot of developers that have been using .NET or at least looking at the architecture, and want a free software implementation.
This gained support from the free software purists. Now Ximian is attempting to get free software coders on the Mono bandwagon by spewing crap about how technically superior it is.Compared to what, Miguel?
Compared to conventional means of developing software. Read the Mono FAQ
Nothing EXISTS that is comparable to this system.
Precisely. I couldn't have said it better myself, nor could Ximian marketing people. Nothing in itself is particularly innovative about .NET--what makes it interesting is how it all fits together. It's a good, clean development platform that allows for a whole lot of interoperability.
Celebrate the finer things in life
Yes, it's subjective. I was stating my opinion of the platform.
They are using OO style programming in C to implement Mono for godsakes!
Actually, Mono is being implemented in C#. Download the code. In some cases, existing GNOME libraries will be used to implement specific parts of Mono such as the GUI elements or database access. The actual .NET classes themselves are being implemented in C#. Your point about OO programming in C seems orthogonal--Once you learn the semantics and conventions of OO programming in C, or any other language, it's not so strange looking. C++ was originally just a set of preprocessor macros built on top of C, e.g. But I digress...
Celebrate the finer things in life
You downloaded the runtime. The .NET classes are C#. The latest snapshot can be grabbed here.
Celebrate the finer things in life
The problem with Hailstorm is that it is intentionally designed to allow centralized control of the service. Making this open source is not a solution ... or rather, it merely postpones the problem (as you said, look at ICANN). The correct answer is to redesign from first principles, with only the provided services being held (approximately) constant.
This probably isn't that difficult. Probably. Various posters have claimed that a collection of currently extant packages provide most of the services. But to make it successful, it would need to be collected into a single package that could be installed on different platforms, etc., and would need well designed interfaces, both user and application. And many other details would need to be solved. Like how to create a distributed trust. Not that these are new, answers to most of these problems have already been discussed, and some of them have been implemented. But they would need to be merged. DOT.GNU has their work cut out for them. But the idea must be the elimination of a centralized control, of the effort is nearly wasted (i.e., it only buys a couple of years of time).
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
From Miguel's comments on Passport:
People might just not care: In a poll to US citizens a couple of decades ago, it was found that
most people did not care about the rights they were given by the Bill of Rights, which lead to a number of laws to be passed in the US that eliminated most of the rights people had.
Does anyone have any idea what he's referring to?
(More so about the polling than the actual erosion of rights)
--
Tweet, tweet.
Some people seem to think that Mono somehow legitimises Microsofts
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
dotGNU isn't a passport equivalent, it's intended to be a complete replacement for .NET, using its own design (unlike Mono, which is a reimplementation of .NET). They also want to have a model with distributed code compliled to a common language runtime.
.NET). In the .NET example, there is no need to use C# for example - a bastardised halfbreed of C++, Java and Visual Basic. The arrogance of Microsoft in thinking that they can just make tens of thousands of programmers learn a new computer language is incredible -- even more amazing is that they seem to be succeeding! In the dotGnu and .NET examples - why do they need to invent a whole new bytecode? We already have the choice of several alternative (Java bytecode, Lisp compilers even, the GCC backend language, Python bytecode, etc). Years of development time spent on something that seems utterly, completely useless.
What's confusing me is why they feel they have to completely reinvent technologies which have been around for years (and that's ignoring debate about the whole design concept behind dotGnu and
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
The problem with this faq-as-press-release is that it really doesn't give us the right view of .NET. What, for example, exactly is an 'XML Web Service'? It's not described in the document you cut+pasted. What is used is about 20 meaningless buzzphrases: '.NET experiences', 'XML Web services', etc.
.NET are Hailstorm and '.NET experiences' using Passport. This shows how central they believe Passport is to .NET, and reveals why they can be happy with a reimplementation of .NET-minus-Passport: with out Passport, you won't be able to provide alternatives to any of the bits of .NET which Microsoft care about.
:)
What is interesting is that the only uses they have mentioned for
Thanks for posting the FAQ, vacuous and empty though it was
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
The way I see it, MS is introducing the abstraction of the CLR as a way to get people writing programs which are portable to the new 64 bit PC architectures around the corner, before they are available. If all Windows apps are already written to the CLR, then Windows XP running on a 64-but Intel/AMD consumer desktop will be an easier sell.
Wow. Very interesting - I'd not thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense. They are going to have to transition their user base over to IA64 eventually (and it'll be a long, slow process): and given that IA32 code would have a major performance penalty on IA64 anyway, they can see a CLR as providing a great way to move between platforms. I've been wondering for ages what the advantage to Microsoft is in moving to a bytecode, and IA64 seems like the factor that would have kicked it off.
Microsoft released all the specs to ECMA so that any idiot can write a compiler to compile any language to the CLR (gcc2clr anyone?)
The problem with this, just like the problem with the Java bytecode, is that the CLR isn't language neutral: some languages are a much better fit. There have been reports, for example, that ActiveState are finding it very hard to get a
I suppose a project would be to put the CLR as a GCC backend (given that bytecodes are just virtualised processors). It would probably be horribly inefficient, though.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
But, once again, this isn't a matter of Gnome vs KDE. Ximian are deeply involved in Gnome, it's true, but .NET and Mono are seperate from that. There is nothing stopping KDE from using the work of the Mono project (as a slightly seperate example, people have already produced working code which adds a SOAPDCOP layer to KDE, which would make remote KDE administration much easier).
Who has been claiming that Ximian are evil? They are misguided idealists, and will probably be very disenchanted in a couple of years after Microsoft has finished playing with them, but they are not evil at all.
Please try and seperate GNOME/KDE and 'for Mono'/'against Mono' in your mind. THEY ARE DIFFERENT.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
"1. How does a schema copyright limit a competitor?
2. Can't this be circumvented using a clean room approach, much like the clones did with IBM BIOS in the early days?"
DMCA.
"can't blame me for being skeptical in believing Microsoft is going to get away with screwing over all of these corporations without offering a competitive service."
They have been doing it for years why not now?
War is necrophilia.
Assumption 1: Mono will have good performance
I am labeling this as an "assumption", because for some strange reason Mono's expected performance is not discussed here, even though there are multitudes of people consistently bashing Java for being slow.
Since the CLR is essentially identical to a Java VM in terms of high-level design, the execution of CLI code would be performed by using much the same approaches that are used for executing Java bytecode. If you look at Ximian's CLR implementation roadmap, you will see that it follows exactly the same path that the Java implementations took, except that it stops short before the last step -- runtime optimization. (Just to note that this last step is the most difficult one, but it is exactly what allowed Java to get close to C/C++ in terms of performance. JIT helps, but it simply does not cut it -- it is not enough).
Now, it took more than 5 years of intensive work for the JVMs to reach their current level of performance. How long will it take for Ximian's CLR impelementation to become fast enough and not be branded by the people on /. as slow? Obviously they can benefit from some of the Java work, but personally I feel that it would be very unlikely if that happens within less than 3 years. (although it would be nice if it did)
Assumption 2: .NET is standardized, so we can do multi-platform development
By now we all know that C# and the CLR have been submitted for ECMA standartization. What is important to realize is that while the C# language may be standardized, most of its libraries would not be. if you look at the list of libraries that are submitted for standartization, you can count 257 entities (classes, interfaces, delegates, etc.) defined in there. On the other hand, if you count the entities provided by the libraries in .NET beta1, and exclude the server-specific stuff, the OS-specific stuff, and even WinForms, you will get a number that is very close to 2000. So in effect Microsoft is standardizing at most 13% of the libraries it provides to Windows developers (the figure would be even lower if we include WinForms and other libs that might also be of interest).
What are the implications of this fact? The standardized libraries might allow OSS developers to build more extensive libraries base on pure CLI (w/o native code) and thus create an environment for multi-platform development. The suggestion to use the .NET libraries for this purpose, however, would fly in the face of everything that we have learned about Microsoft in the past -- as long as they have a monopoly, they will play games with the API, and will turn the whole endevour into a perpetual tail chasing.
It seems to me that Ximian do recognize this fact, but I am not very clear how they plan to counter the problem. In the article Nat said "I hope it doesn't happen" in reference to Microsoft changing the API, and that an open source version would "reduce the chance that Microsoft will be able to do that". If that is their strategy, well... good luck.
Assumption 3: You need .NET (Mono) to implement or use Web services
This is one of the reasons given in the article as to why Mono is necessary, and I am sorry to say this, but it is complete bull. The Web services that MS is advocating are based almost entirely on SOAP and XML, which are completely platform-agnostic and language-agnostic -- that's what MS has been touting as an advantage all along. You can communicate to a Web service using C and a set of SOAP libraries if you want to. If Ximian wanted to have a safe development environment to implement and use Web services, there is already a very mature one in existence that provides superb SOAP and XML support -- Java.
There is only one objective reason that I see for selecting .NET over Java, and it is not mentioned in the article at all: the CLR is designed to support multiple languages, unlike the JVM. The catch here is that the JVM already supports a hell of a lot of languages other than Java and that languages have to be bastardized to be used on the CLR, but still, I guess it does hold some marginal advantage.
Finally, as you can see above, the whole supposed licensing advantage of .NET vs. Java is a complete red herring. In fact, Java holds some practical advantages in that respect: In Java concrete specifications are provided not only the main libraries, but also for many optional ones. Changes in the Java API must be approved via a fairly democratic process as part of the Java Community Process, of which OSS groups such as the Apache foundation are also members, and is open to entry by others as well. All this has allowed a lot of implementations of the various Java libraries by a lot of independent vendors. Will this happen with .NET? Anyone willing to bet money on that one?
I started reading Miguel de Icaza's article about Passport but had to stop halfway through. I'm sorry but I don't have the patience for clueless opinions.
Every one of the links he points to in his section on "The problems of Passport" fails to support his argument!
First he talks about a single point of failure and says "Such a failure was predicted, and we recently witnessed got a lot of people worried." While a single point of failure is a problem with Passport, the link he points to is a problem with MSN Messenger and NOT with Hailstorm or Passport which had no problems during the period.
Next he talks about trust and how "This is not unheard of, as the Microsoft Internet Server had a trojan horse built into that allowed anyone that knew about this to control any server running IIS." Of course as anyone who has been following stories knows that there was no trojan horse involved there - just a comment digging at Netscape and some bad test cases.
Finally he talks about Security and points out "Hackers have already broken into Microsoft in the past. And the company was unable to figure out for how long their systems had been hacked. " However, anyone with any clue should realize that an internal corporate network is a completely different thing from an external service. Getting into one doesn't get you into the other, for starters and both are used by very different users for very different purposes.
I couldn't get any further than that. Sheesh!
Mmmm.. Donuts
There was a comment, I'm not sure if it was in this discussion or the one from the other day, but it really takes the wind out of my sails. The idea that we'll need .NET and passport the same way that we need MS Office in the business world. What MS seems to be doing is bypassing the server all together. They're saying "We can't win on the server the way we have on the desktop, not with Linux being free. How can we make the server a totally moot point?" Passport seems to be the answer.
.NET isn't just a new platform the replace java, but a whole new platform to replace the internet itself as we know it. MS wants all services to communicate via .NET, be it clients and servers written on the platform to do custom transactions or ASP pages. They want to make it as easy as possible for you to write your apps in it (any language you want!) just so long as you're on their platform. Internet Applications will be written in .NET. This isn't about downloading Office as a service, it's about getting the news online or checking your bank account info or any of the other things that are replacing classical style services.
MS is looking to control the net itself (hence the name) and they are going to let everyone else do the work for them. Mono is an important project because it gives Linux the chance to succeed in MS's brave new world (and I'm certain MS will succeed) but it's not Mono or Ximian or even Passport that scares me. It's where MS is going.
We've known for a long time that MS wanted to control the internet. It was the first real platform challenge to them ever, and that's why they pushed so hard with IE. But that's not really enough, and they realize that now that they control the browser. You can't control the internet as a platform just by controlling the browser, it's still bound by the same rules as before. So what do they do? They make a new platform.
And MS is going to control all of it.
Granted, this could all be paranoia here, but I truly believe that MS wants nothing less than total control of the internet, and they've built a great platform in order to do it. This isn't just about privacy or Ximian or Java or any of it, it's about preventing total control of the future (and present really) of communication by a single entity with a penchant for crushing anything in its path. No single corporation should have control of something so important as the platform for the digital world. And the really terrifying part is that I have no idea how to stop it.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Choice is a good thing.
Oh, yup, yup, it is!
But, like you pointed out, it's hard for non-aware users to know about choice when everyone's forcing Hailstorm and Passport down their necks.
But that is the crux of the problem with the MS monopoly - most people are unaware. If we wish to have a hope of an open and standards-based web, we can't rely on people making decisions based on the best technology - we have already seen plenty of examples of superior technologies (i.e. V2000 video) going to the wall or being excluded from certain markets due to heavy duty marketing by a competitor.
And if people don't know or understand a problem, they can't be expected to care about the result, even if they are 'harmed' by that ignorance.
So, I think we agree, except you still fail to address my point about the way MS will leverage wide acceptance of .NET/etc to give them a stranglehold on the identity market!!
MS knows that - MS Passport is a master strategy by Microsoft - it gives them control of web services and a huge slice of the web commerce pie. However, MS will only see this happen if MS Passport is the only accredited Identity server. Hopefully dotGNU will make that nightmare fade away - given the widespread need for authentication services, I don't see Unix web development servers wanting to authenticate exclusively against a MS-solution. Mono's existence will not make any difference to the MS Passport strategy. Mono does not have to use MS Passport for it's authentication - in fact Mono does not require authentication for general use either. Mono is a much more general project than just web services - it is, in essence, a development layer.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
So this is about:
Actually it is just the CLR and C# parts, plus libraries to support these bits
You really haven't understood this bit have you? There is NOTHING in Mono that deals with Passport and Hailstorm. Sheesh!
Mono is saying .NET/C# technologies are great for us hackers to copy. We can even get MS to agree and help us!
I don't see any signs of MS helping the Mono project. Far from it - MS will be quite happy to watch it develop at arms length. All the communication between MS and Ximian reported has been clarification of the specs, rather than support discussions.
Mono is saying, we don't care about the second bit: Passport and Hailstorm. We can even do our own, super-groovy, hacker's version!
Actually, Ximian probably does care about the Passport and Hailstorm stuff. But they don't need to - the GNU project had dotGNU to counter that part of the MS strategy.
The problem that I and many others have been trying to point out to people is that MS' strategy is indeed to 'open up' the technologies and platforms - because, like in the case of Windows, it buys leverage and dominance on the layer above.
Yes - if you have an Open standard that relies entirely on some closed, unobtainable server layer, then you are totally at the mercy of that server layer. If you'd actually bothered to read the information floating around, you would have realised that the Mono project does not require Passport or Hailstorm to be of use to developers. On it's own, Mono is still a useful project and allows developers to move C# projects off the MS Windows platform onto other OS's, plus you get all the integrated Common Language runtime with the advantages of integrated garbage collection, exception handling and cross-language class re-use. You have a class you like in C++, and you want to wrap it in some other language, say CLOS, then if the CLR supports CLOS, you can use it there.
But with the dotGNU project as well, that unobtainable server layer suddenly has an open source rival. So you can write .NET-style web applications and authenticate against a distributed dotGNU server set without having to round trip anywhere near a MS-authentication server.
As more and more CTOs and dull technical managers buy into the rapidly-spreading .NET platform (whether MS or open source), and more and more CEOs and dull government departments buy into the easy-easy Hailstorm community, it will be as impossible to do anything in your daily personal life without Passport/Hailstorm as it is now impossible to do anything in daily business life without Office.
And if we didn't have dotGNU and Mono, where would we be? Look at it this way - lets assume that we drop dotGNU and Mono now. Corporations that rely on Windows will be implementing Windows NET OS's as part of their normal upgrade cycle. Most people-in-the-street customers will buy it without knowing anything about the debate raging in technical circles. Microsoft will have at about half of its users using .NET services within two years of launch, regardless of whether there is an open source alternative which is not controlled by MS. At this point, MS has effectively balkanized the web - you either have MS Windows .NET and can use the newest web applications and services, or you have a platform such as Linux which is locked out of this. If you thought that the Internet Explorer monopoly was bad for the HTML standard and lead to IE-only web sites, wait until .NET rolls out. Then you will understand just how exclusionary the .NET plan is.
Or we can support the Mono and dotGNU projects. We can make use of the code built in C# and port it to other platforms. We can take advantage of the cross-language abilities of the CLR in our own programs without having to pay even lip-service to MS. We can authenticate against dotGNU servers and move MS .NET projects out into the open.
Choice is a good thing.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Could it be because Ximian is causing a lot of hype over vaporware? Could it be because Ximian is trying to get other Open Source developers to assist it in wasting time in its goal of finding the holy grail? Could it be because Ximian is more talk than action? Could it be because Ximian is being detrimental to GNOME, if not KDE?
How *much* do we have to read about Mono, a project that only exists in name and hype? If Mono is so good, shut up and show us the code. Instead Mono is nothing but a publicity stunt.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
> project that only exists in name and hype? If
> Mono is so good, shut up and show us the code.
Chill dude, if you bothered looking at the go-mono website you see that there already is code available. (http://www.go-mono.net/download.html)
> implemented technology in
> OLE/COM/DCOM/whatever - but that doesn't mean
> that we should blindly follow in their
> footsteps.
No, but it doesn't mean we should automatically decide that everything Microsoft does it useless for us either. Unlike what some people seem to think judging by the way they argue here, is that we have some sort of power in the desktop market currently. This is bullshit, M$ still controls well over 90% of the desktop market and if we are to take them on we have to do what we always done on the server side, implement interoperability. Samba is a much used example, but lets also look Apache for instance which has support for Frontpage extensions and ASP.
Ximian wants GNOME to become a serious contender to M$ in the desktop arena, and they are smart enough to realise that sitting around the fire like a gang of old Amiga enthusiasts dreaming about the comeback of Amiga and its rise to prominence is not the way to do it.
People might just not care: In a poll to US citizens a couple of decades ago, it was found that most people did not care about the rights they were given by the Bill of Rights, which lead to a number of laws to be passed in the US that eliminated most of the rights people had.
This point is very important. It is a major blind spot that a large portion of the population just wants to be comfortable, and actually likes the simple games of a stable job in servitude to large corporations, etc. Without knowing it, alot of folks like comfortable slavery.
(If you're happy and you know it clink your chains ... )
This can drive they people with a more independant streak batty
The industry will move way too slow: Microsoft's implementation is out in the open now: it is being deployed, and soon it will be insinuated to many, many users. The industry needs to get together soon if they care about this issue. By the time the industry reacts, it might be too late.
Unfortunately the two problems are interelated. The industry is led too often by the same people who lead their lives of quiet servitude.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
With rubbing of the hands and insanely glaring eyes, is how.
So this is about:
.NET technologies including C#
Passport and Hailstorm
Mono is saying .NET/C# technologies are great for us hackers to copy. We can even get MS to agree and help us!
Mono is saying, we don't care about the second bit: Passport and Hailstorm. We can even do our own, super-groovy, hacker's version!
The problem that I and many others have been trying to point out to people is that MS' strategy is indeed to 'open up' the technologies and platforms - because, like in the case of Windows, it buys leverage and dominance on the layer above.
With the Windows platform, that layer above was Office and everyone developing software for their OS. With .NET, that's... Hailstorm and Passport.
As more and more CTOs and dull technical managers buy into the rapidly-spreading .NET platform (whether MS or open source), and more and more CEOs and dull government departments buy into the easy-easy Hailstorm community, it will be as impossible to do anything in your daily personal life without Passport/Hailstorm as it is now impossible to do anything in daily business life without Office.
So now do you get it??? It's your bluff that's being called, pal! And it's considerably more scary to have MS own your identity than simply owning your business desktop!!
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If Ximian makes a .NET compatible implementation but doesn't require you to pay money, they are evil.
But if KDE implements ActiveX in Konqueror, it's allright.
Some developers came up with a way to use WINE to use ActiveX in Konqueror. To me, at least, that seems hardly the same as the Gnome project leader flying around the country talking about how .NET is the greatest thing since transistors, and his company sinking a ton of effort into reimplementing much of it.
If TheKompany makes commercial, closed source software, it's allright.
Where do people get this idea that Gnome and KDE have to be mirror oposites? The Kompany is in no way comparable to Ximian; they make some KDE based apps. If anything, they're comparable to the companies that are going to use GTK for commercial apps -- you know, the ones that GTK zealots are always saying guarantee an LGPL library's superiority over a GPL one?
Anyway, like I said, I don't care whether Ximian uses a MS technology or not. (As though KDE and Gnome aren't both total clones of the Windows desktop already....) But I can't help but think all these folks shouting, "But what about KDE and ActiveX!?!" seem awfully defensive about a project they claim to love.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I think that it is good to offer an alternative to MS in these areas. For these reasons, I think that MONO is necessary.
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Personally, I think a lot of people have been giving Passport and Hailstorm too much credit. These webservices essentially add very little value to most applications, websites, and other webservices.
.NET is RAD for the server (webservices, web apps, etc.)
These technologies don't provide nearly the functionality or the vision that Windows and Office provided to establish Microsoft as a monopoly.
Remember, Office and Windows were a big deal in the early 90's as it allowed many of us to network offices, printers, databases and user friendly applications running on commidity hardware. The functionality that these two suites provided were considerable remarkable giving what was available before.
What does Passport and Hailstorm do to get everybody jump on the bandwagon? Provide authenication services and store your contacts on an MS server?
1. A lot of people don't need these services and don't feel compelled to use them. (Over time it will change)
2. Any company can build thier own Passport and Hailstorm clones. I would be surprised if a lot of companies don't provide thier own Hailstorm like services like Lotus, Act, Yahoo, AOL and other company who want to retain thier large user base.
3. Websites can use zero or 10 of these authenication services if they so elect.
If anything, I see webservices becoming a commodity, which is what Microsoft is gambling on in the first place. They've spent the last 4-5 years developing a platform which is aimed to compete against Java, and the angle Microsoft has been touting is that
My prediction, webservices are going to become commidities, especially authenication and personal information management services.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Chuck, could you expand on your previous assertion, please?
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This is great stuff and I think it really puts Miguel's motives down in a clear manner. I think we should all thank them for even trying - I was amazed after all the anti Hailstorm and .NET stuff that's been posted, how folks reacted negatively to Ximian tryin gto start MOno because they were working with Microsoft.
Yes, they might get crushed, but again, they might just glean enough info that they can develop a working alternative without being sucked in. Lets give Ximian credit - they are OSS developers after all and I expect any 'agreement' Microsoft tried to get them sucked into would be picked apart with a fine tooth comb before it was signed to be sure they didn't back themselves into a corner.
Sure, right now Mono is only the .NET side of things - it doesn't deal with Passport. But you can bet that other folks are already working on it - Seems like a sweet deal to me. With Ximian working to develop Mono, more resources are available to work on Passport alternatives - seems like a good thing to me.
So lets not trash Ximian and Miguel for trying - at least they are - more power to them!
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Again, as one person pointed out here 85% of the posters here on .NET know nothing about .NET. Mono understands the difference between .NET and HailStorm/Passport. When people write about the evil .NET/passport thing, they really mean Passport/HailStorm only. .NET is a completly free-standing open development environment for developing Internet and non-INternet apps. As such it is a rich development environment with Web Services, rich class libraries, language interoperability coupled with resource managment, SOAP services and WebForms - a rich browser independent way to create great looking web applications. This is goodness and Mono deserves our support to make sure that Microsoft delivers on its "open" message - they have given the CLI, CTS and CLR over to ECMA. Now they need to follow through on their promise to open process. And we have implemented lots if .NET projects over the last year and not a single one of them has anything to do with Passport/HailStorm.
Passport is an SRO authentication. Insome cases its useful. I have one logon for the dozens of passwords I used to have for Microsoft sites. But I am worried about Passport beyond Microsoft and so should others. But Mono and O'Riely haven't turned. There are some good ideas in .NET and as a user of both platforms I would love to see the rich developer platform on both of my platforms. HailStorm/Passport only comes into play with e-commerce sites and only if you pick it. By staying just with the development tools and environment, that's not a possibility.