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DotGNU and Mono Continue

saurik writes "After what has been a strange few weeks of converse between the DotGNU and Mono teams (including a small PR SNAFU that involved the banning of a member from the DotGNU mailing list), DotGNU has now announced that they will be forming a partnership with Portable.NET." Frankly I like that there are 2 efforts going on. Maybe one will succeed.

190 comments

  1. Helping Microsoft? by Andrewkov · · Score: 2

    Do you ever wonder if these open source projects are actually helping Microsoft? I mean Microsofts coding standards are pretty low (check out Windows ME, IIS, well, everything from Microsoft)... They are probably studying the source code from these two projects and stealing ideas from them as far as better ways to implement the same frame work. Implementing any large scale project (and this one is big) raises many technical problems, and there are many different approaches to solving them. I wouldn't be surprised if MS is looking for ways to improve their own code by reading the source from these other projects.

  2. umm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can you count, CmdrTaco? Guess not, since that would imply that you passed grade 2. Including Microsoft, and the companies you mentioned, that's *three* efforts, not two.

  3. Re:Why??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you use squeak as your ST implementation, it wouldn't be too hard to beat it.

    Squeak is the retarded, inbred bastard of the smalltalk community.

  4. Re:Other companies' positions? by Kerg · · Score: 1
    I haven't seen any major announcements concerning C#/CLI from IBM. So far they've been content to create the Web Services implementation (UDDI, WSDL and SOAP) in Java to enable the use of Web Services in their J2EE platform (WebSphere).

    One article I've seen was this:
    Comdex Canada: No Web Services 'Revolution' for IBM.

    The article indicates IBM is going ahead with its strategy to enable interoperability between platforms by the use of XML and Java.

  5. Re:Another reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HAHAHA, you mentioned Cloudscape in the same sentance as Oracle, Sybase and SQL Server? that's rich.

  6. Apple would need to not be at MS Mercy by Tachys · · Score: 2

    What would it take to push apple into making NeXTStep a truly cross-platform development environment again? If they did so, would anyone actually use it? (i.e. which is greater: the dirty feeling coming from using an MS platform, or the dirty feeling coming from using an apple (NeXT) platform.) Or is .NET better than *Step/Cocoa anyway?

    Apple currently needs Microsoft for Office. Microsoft would not like Apple invading Windows by putting Cocoa on Windows or giving Linux a boost by putting Cocoa on that.

    So Apple needs something to replace Office to get out of under MS control. The only real possibility is OpenOffice, but of course there is no Mac Version of OpenOffice and they report they need help porting to Mac OS X

    I alternative to Word that could actually defeat .doc as the "standard" format is AbiWord free and small, so it is a easy download. But, it has the same problem OpenOffice has no Mac Version.

    I think these two programs have no chance becoming wide spread without a Mac Version. Because basically anyone using any Macs can't use it. It is not "cross-platform" to them. Also us Mac Users would be very likely to go preaching the OpenOffice-Abiword gospel. We hated Microsoft before Linux existed, and I believe there are more of us then there are Linux users.

  7. How many... by snerdly · · Score: 1

    people here thing dotGNU will be as wildly successful as GNU Hurd?

    1. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or GCC?

    2. Re:How many... by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 1

      GCC wasn't written to prove that one group could do something 'better' then someone else. Different things being compared here..

      --
      -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
    3. Re:How many... by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 2

      *cheers*

      Damned good point. Yet another example of a group of people wanting to do something to prove that theirs is bigger, longer, and stronger then someone elses.

      Theres no itch scratching going on here, and they sure dont seem to have a focus on 'WHY' they want to do this.

      --
      -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  8. Re:Good idea by brista · · Score: 1

    You know if this .NET thing works out it could lead to truly cross-platform apps. That could realistically lead to it backfiring on Microsoft and allow alternate systems like Linux, like FreeBSD to come in and steal MS's pride and joy, the Windows Market Share. So think about it that way when criticizing Mono and DotGNU.

  9. Re:Another reason... by Lost+Archivist · · Score: 1

    As sometime user of my SuSE distro (no net access but still fun) and avid fan of Linux in general I have to agree that the a big problem for Linux in general is the highly divided internal life of the community. I feel that some sort of "united front" or clearinghouse would simplify accessibility for non-Linux literate souls who are interested. Lost Archivist

  10. Re:I'm too busy with other holy wars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know a holy war has been worth it, once it gets turned into a slashdot banner ad.

  11. Re:Microsoft is winning by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 2

    Make the community look like a bunch of childish "I can do that too" people

    I agree that this seems to be what the DotGNU people are seemly try to do. Mono, on the other hand, is more looking at having alternative langauges, etc, on the *nix based OSs. Porting the CLI means nearly everything else can be ported with ease. They are looking to actual WRITE most of the infrastructure in C# after all, after getting a decent CLI up and running..

    --
    -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  12. Re:Joined forces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    -Well in a sense it is good that the projects have comed together specially when the outcome seems so young-

    Thats correct. And specially when its not very clear what the final outcome is supossed to be.

  13. Re:The dotLife of Brian? by tssm0n0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Reg Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the
    Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
    PFJ Yeah
    Judith Splitters.
    Francis And the Judean Popular Peoples Front.
    PFJ Oh yeah. Splitters.
    Loretta And the peoples Front of Judea.
    PFJ Splitters.
    Reg What?
    Loretta The Peoples front of Judea. Splitters.
    Reg We're the Peoples front of Judea.
    Loretta Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
    Reg Peoples Front.
    Francis Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
    Reg He's over there.
    --------[A single old man sits on a lower seat.]
    --------{Some POPULAR front, eh?}
    PFJ [To the old man.] SPLITTER!

  14. Re:Good choice by Chundra · · Score: 2, Funny
    I liken the phenomenon of having 2 major versions of Mono in the open source community to, say, splitting the vote within a political party.

    Not to mention the potential etymological shift (say in 5 years) caused by the almost subconcious association of "mono" and "two". I suggest they change the name to bino, or something.

  15. Re:Good choice by Darth+Yoshi · · Score: 1

    Alternatively, for example, the KDE and Gnome projects seem to spur each other to develop faster.

    --
    // TODO: fix sig
  16. Interesting effort... by Karma+Sucks · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those who didn't read it through, here's some scoop from the Portable.NET faq:

    3.2. Why not co-operate with Mono?

    I tried suggesting that we divide up the work to prevent too much duplication of effort, but Mono seems set on re-inventing all of the wheels that I already had several months prior. Mono's idea of co-operation at the moment is "do it our way or no way". Therefore, I will co-operate with Mono when they start co-operating with me.

    3.1. Mono

    The Mono project that is run by Ximian has many of the same goals as Portable.NET.

    Mono is oriented towards building a .NET-capable framework that works well with GNOME. This means that their system is unlikely to work well with any other desktop environment, or with PDA's that don't feature GNOME.

    Portable.NET is designed to be more general purpose than that. It has very few dependencies on other libraries so that it can be integrated with any desktop or PDA operating environment.

    Mono's C# compiler and other tools are written in C#. While academically interesting, this will incur a severe performance penalty on the toolchain compared to Portable.NET's use of C. It also means that it will be longer before Mono can natively host a .NET development toolchain on Linux.

    Future versions of Portable.NET will also support compiling C# to the JVM, which isn't something targeted by Mono as yet.
    ---------------

    I think it is really interesting that Portable.NET intends to target the JVM. Now we are getting somewhere. Also their version of .NET does not create needless desktop dependencies, so more power to them. I am a bit surprised at Ximian's attitude at the whole thing though, where is the logic? To read the full faq go here:

    http://www.southern-storm.com.au/pnet_faq.html

    --
    (Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
    1. Re:Interesting effort... by The+Mayor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except that the JVM currently runs on most platforms. Gnome, to my knowledge, is Unixen-only, with some parts of GTK ported to Windows. As such, the JVM can be viewed as something that breaks a desktop dependancy.

      --
      --Be human.
    2. Re:Interesting effort... by miguel · · Score: 5, Informative
      Those statements on the FAQ are incorrect.



      We believe in writing as much code as possible in C# i
      nstead of C, because we believe we can write more code, more robust code which in the end could be reusable as a components if we use C# instead of C for pieces like the compiler and its associated tools.


      This seems to contradict what we have in our web page about the class-library. The class library is being built in a way that would allow the GUI toolkit to be plugged.



      It is also plain FUD that we do not want to make Mono work with other desktops (hey, even GNOME works on other desktops).


      You do not want to get a Gtk+ toolkit on MacOS, nor on Windows. You want to get a native interface, from http://www.go-mono.com/class-library.html:


      For classes that might differ more (for example, the implementation of Windows.Forms), we might have different directories altogether:
      System.Windows.Forms/Win32,
      System.Windows.Forms/Gtk+ and
      System.Windows.Forms/Cocoa.

    3. Re:Interesting effort... by mvw · · Score: 2
      Hold on a second. The architecture Swing uses *is* good. The performance, pre-v1.4, did suck, but that was because Swing was pure-Java. In v1.4, Swing finally utilizes native code to handle optimizations for elements like scrolling. Consequently, jdk1.4 feels much faster, subjectively matching the speed of native GUIs.

      The typical modern Java client application runs well only on Win32. Well meaning at acceptable speed and stability. Modern meaning fast Swing, Java 3d, perhaps WebStart etc.

      Linux and Solaris are already less suited.

      Users of unsupported plattforms, like the BSDs, are left alone.

      This is quite a shift from portable to running well on the top plattforms only.

      My point is just that you should really give v1.4 a chance. It's quite nice, despite changing a few of the APIs such that many v1.3 programs must be ported (very few changed, but just enough that it's not a simple copy-and-run for programs like Forte).

      The Swing scrolling optimization in 1.4 for Win32 is making use of DirectX, featuring a new Swing callback, in case a surface invalidated. If somebody told me such a few years ago about Java, I would have laughed at him.

    4. Re:Interesting effort... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Ah, the irony So Swing now runs at acceptable speed because it uses non-java code.

    5. Re:Interesting effort... by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      I believe that the only thing that could be remotely called a Gnome dependency for Mono is glib and glib is just a library of data structures and other such things. From what I have seen, the plans are to MAYBE ONE DAY have Gnome depend on Mono but not the other way around.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
    6. Re:Interesting effort... by Xiphoid+Process · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The JVM is as much of a "needless desktop dependency" as Gnome is.

      --
      got drum'n'bass?

      http://mp3.com/vitriolix
    7. Re:Interesting effort... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's always been the intention of Swing to allow you to use native widgets; apparently it's just a matter of setting an option and an entire Swing app changes to Windows or Aqua or whatever.

      I have no idea how well it works and how it deals with the subtle differences between widget sets. But the option is there...

    8. Re:Interesting effort... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +5 Insighfull, without doubt.

      Cheers,

      --fred

    9. Re:Interesting effort... by The+Mayor · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Hold on a second. The architecture Swing uses *is* good. The performance, pre-v1.4, did suck, but that was because Swing was pure-Java. In v1.4, Swing finally utilizes native code to handle optimizations for elements like scrolling. Consequently, jdk1.4 feels much faster, subjectively matching the speed of native GUIs.

      Mouse wheel support? It's in there. Check v1.4 of the JDK.

      Accessibility (support for the disabled, but in a PC way)? It's in there. Check out the Java Accessibility API.

      I'm afraid I don't have any information on how one can utilize the native OS theme for colors and such. Do you have a reference to a bug/feature request in Sun's bug tracker on this one? It may be in v1.4, but I simply don't know. I'd bet it's not, though.

      My point is just that you should really give v1.4 a chance. It's quite nice, despite changing a few of the APIs such that many v1.3 programs must be ported (very few changed, but just enough that it's not a simple copy-and-run for programs like Forte).

      --
      --Be human.
    10. Re:Interesting effort... by His+name+cannot+be+s · · Score: 1
      Wait a freakin' minute. Are you honestly telling me that Swing is GOOD?
      Great Caesar's Ghost!!!
      Swing is the most god-awful thing to ever happen to java. That bastard child not only runs like shit, it brands every crappy application that uses it.
      Mouse wheel support?

      Oh maybe one day soon.
      Support for disabled people?

      nope.
      Support for the my-fsking-color choices, that I picked with the OS?

      not on your life.

      I want my native widgets on my platform Let me say that again for you crack-weasel : I want my native widgets on my platform


      --
      "...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
    11. Re:Interesting effort... by mvw · · Score: 2
      You mean the pluggable look & feel.

      This is no fallback to natve widgets. It just allows for the the widgets to get rendered differently!

      So the Swing controls look more like Windows controls using the Windows look, but they are still realized by Swing routines. IMHO Windows look is mimicked, but not Windows feel.

    12. Re:Interesting effort... by Andrewkov · · Score: 2
      You do not want to get a Gtk+ toolkit on MacOS, nor on Windows. You want to get a native interface

      That's what Sun first thought when it first created Java ... They soon realised the limitations (taking the lowest common demoninatar of each desktop) and created a Java native toolkit called Swing.

  17. Re:Why??? by JanneM · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I know this is a trite argument, but it is appropriate (and no, I'm not trying to flame anybody, or even single you out or anything):

    If you really think another way is the way to go, please start doing it. You don't even need to be a programmer yourself; write up a paper detailing the failings of the current efforts and propose a better way. Disseminate this text, and persuade other coders to join in and implement it. Even if you do not succeed in getting your project started, your work will not be wasted as your analysis will be helpful in guiding the current projects.

    The people working on Mono, DotGNU and Portable.NET are all doing it because they believe their project is the right way to go about it. Any productive feedback - in the form of a design document or a competing project - is very helpful for all involved. A random 'I don't like this', on the other hand, is likely to be ignored.

    /Janne

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  18. Re:Joined forces by scrytch · · Score: 2

    > And what is an objective criteria?

    How fast is it, how fast is it at xxxxx clients (where xxxxx is a big number), how much memory does it take up (and at xxxxx clients), how much code has to be rewritten to support it, how much support does it have for future target platforms, how many platforms require admin intervention to roll it out on (usually in the form of installing dependencies). How many existing technologies in use does it integrate with, how many technologies will have to be migrated to something else?

    A java platform may win on some of these points, and I'd really appreciate seeing those points argued, not vagaries like the Betterment of Society. That along with spelling "Microsoft" correctly, or at least the two letters MS. C'mon, you can do it if you try (though perhaps there's a certain Randroid charm in M$)

    --
    I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
  19. Yet another reason.. by swdunlop · · Score: 1

    ..why I couldn't care less about the efforts to duplicate .NET, or .NET itself. I'll stick to my Smalltalk, where various implementations manage to remain civil with one another, and Free Software flows freely from one to the other.

  20. And I quote.. by methodic · · Score: 1

    Frankly I like that there are 2 efforts going on. Maybe one will succeed.

    A brilliant commentary by Mr. Taco. Thank you sir, for gleaming such insight upon us inferior souls.

    1. Re:And I quote.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, and you contributed to this story how? By posting a snide, sarcastic P.O.S comment? Pathetic.

  21. Re:One reason I'm in favor of Mono... by HiThere · · Score: 2

    Or a single-threaded version of .net for Gnome. G.String.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  22. Variety and Freedom of choice, my friends! by famazza · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, my friends, fight against each other. If you don't agree the way a project is running, leave the project and make another one by your self!

    That's the spirit of Variety. That what keep our Freedom of Choices. I like to choose Window Maker, and I also like that my pal prefers Gnome. That's the variety that I love to see!

    Imagine a world where there are no differences, where all window managers look the same! This sux! I prefer to see a good fight, I prefer to see people getting out of a project and building their own. But I'm sad about that horrible happening about baning (too sad...)

    Of course, freedom is hard to manage. Ditatorial government are much easier than a real democracy. Be fair is much more difficult, look all around is much more difficult, but IMHO is much much much better!

    Let's fight and build several .NET projects. Can I see a third project in the horizon? Maybe I'm right, maybe it's just a dream, maybe everybody fits into dotGNU and Mono. That's ok too, the point is, we still have a choice!


    FREEEEEEDOOOMM!!!

    --

    -=-=-=-=
    I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
    1. Re:Variety and Freedom of choice, my friends! by W.B.+Yeats · · Score: 1

      Free Doom -- hasn't Doom been free for a while, now?

      --

      And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
      Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

  23. good olchannel ops by coaxial · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I've been reading the threads from the archive regarding the banning (oh I'm sorry, "manual moderation").

    I don't like it admins on lists that feel like they need to exercise power over the list in the name of "harmony". You see it all the time on IRC.


    joeuser> Hey I have a question about KDE.
    {joeuser has been banned by @^freak: KDE sucks}


    Whether Martin Coxall was being an idiot or not
    isn't really the point. Everyone should be entitled to read what he has to say, and killfile him if they want. Afterall that's what killfiles are for. I don't like it when someone makes decisions like that for me.

    Also what's the point of "nonpublic" lists when the whole process is supposed to be "open" and allow anyone to join?

    It's this hypocracy that keeps me from joining
    the selfrightous schlong measuringfest that is IRC, or any of these projects.
  24. Re:Seems like a waste of time... by cthrall · · Score: 1

    That's one of the reasons C++ and PHP seem to work just fine for me. A bunch of shell scripts to pack it up, ship it over and unpack it. Or for UI updates, just ship new FastTemplate pages and presto! New look n' feel.

    I guess I can understand that using app servers provides some scalability features, but you can do a lot of that in C++ using the ADAPTIVE Communications Environment (http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html), which has been around for a few years now.

  25. Re:Another reason... by seann · · Score: 0

    freedom, choices
    if you replaced redhat with slackware
    I would be a very disapointed campter, I do not like redhat, or anything about it. I do however like slackware, and the only distribution of linux I would use besides one I make myself is Slackware. Your rant is irrelevant.

    --
    I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
  26. Assertion failed: you != moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This exact same troll post has been cut and pasted into every single article or thread mentioning BSD. It's mere crapflooding, and idiots like you who, after six months of this post being circulated, still reply to these messages only serve to encourage its continued use.

    1. Re:Assertion failed: you != moron by connorbd · · Score: 2

      Crapflooded and apparently astroturfed on top of it...

      /Brian

  27. Divide and ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bill is smart. MS wins again! AC

  28. Shuttup ya mouth by rootmonkey · · Score: 1

    I've been trying to persuade my company to start using open source products. My company will eventually move to .Net, I would love to get them to consider open source alternatives, but how can I convince them that open source can produce superior products when pointless arguments like this contiue and make open source look childish. I'm sure bickering goes on at Microsoft behind closed doors but we don't have that luxury. Come on guys get it together.

    --

    Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
    1. Re:Shuttup ya mouth by rking · · Score: 1

      I'm sure bickering goes on at Microsoft behind closed doors

      And plenty more bickering goes on between proprietary software makers in public, and indeed in court.

      Good luck in your quest for a world of harmony where nobody ever disagrees... actually no, I'm not sure I'd like a world like that at all. Good luck in coming to terms with the world, imperfect as it may be, hope it's not too much of a disapointment to you.

  29. Rantings of a child by Kostya · · Score: 2
    Did anyone else read the supposed "PR snafu" link? The author was good enough to link to it, but I think his summary was a bit off. PR snafu makes it sound like dotGNU screwed up or did something wrong.

    All I have to say is read the link. Really.

    After reading the link, unless you are socially brain-dead, you will see that Martin Coxall (the "banned" member) was being a total ass. No really--read it yourself. Keep going until you get to the end of the thread. You'll see. Unfortunately, the dotGNU people felt they needed to defend themselves on the mono list--and with people like this guy, that is only adding fuel to the fire. He's definitely a Tireless Rebutter.

    Note of clarification: he was put on manual moderation after stiring up trouble on the dotGNU list. Not banned, moderated. Now before you cry "Oppression!", remember that this is exactly what moderation is for. If you don't understand what I am talking about, read the thread and imagine a constant onslaught of email coming from Martin Coxall sniping and being a jerk--as a developer, it would make you pretty upset.

    Moderation is in place on lists to keep flame wars to a minimum. Martin Coxall was just sounding off and got moderated--that's internet life, kids.

    --
    "Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
  30. Questions questions questions questions. by mcc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What would you say if asked to justify the idea that creating two different .NET implementations is a more valid use of manpower/volunteer time than devoting that same time to the Linux and Windows versions of GNUStep, with the goal of getting them to the point where GNUStep can be presented to corporations as something to develop for one platform & compile for three OSes? The head start given by the work already done on the Foundation would be enough that if the Community was to try to help GNUStep, they would probably have the time to add support for the java and python programming languages. (Cocoa supports java already.)

    Is the c#/.net framework really any better than gnustep would be with a slightly updated objective c or java?*

    Why accept Microsoft's conception of the universe and bring it to linux when you can bring your own conception of the universe to Windows with about as much work?

    And do you think that Sun will recognize the two or three tiny valid threats in .NET -- a VM that is designed to be compiled to from any programming language, things being seen as slightly more "open", a thought-out system for meshing different object-oriented programming languages-- and move to fix these things?

    What would it take to push apple into making NeXTStep a truly cross-platform development environment again? If they did so, would anyone actually use it? (i.e. which is greater: the dirty feeling coming from using an MS platform, or the dirty feeling coming from using an apple (NeXT) platform.) Or is .NET better than *Step/Cocoa anyway?

    Will apple or sun actually move to ensure that they remain with products that are better than microsofts', or will they just assume .NET is vapourware and will fail, and pretend it isn't there?

    In the upcoming war, which product is X and which is NeWS? Is that an appropriate anology? Are there any third alternatives outside of java/.NET?

    What would it take to get the universe to a point where the API and VM for the next generation of operating systems (as well as a system, such as c# offers, where objects can be inherhited across operating systems-- CORBA generation 2, maybe, except actually usable?) is determined by a truly open, inclusive board of experts representing the entire industry, along the lines of an idealized version of the w3c or opengl?

    What would the software industry be like *right now* if at the time that Sun began to release Java, they had had the money, resources and ability to get products installed on consumers computers' "by default" that microsoft has right now? I.E., how much better would java be if Sun had been able to rapidly mature it the way Microsoft will be able to rapidly mature .NET? Or is java just inherently doomed because it was the first product of its type, and microsoft is able to learn from Sun's mistakes with 20/20 hindsight?

    Is microsoft doomed because rather than attempting foresight, they're just trying to replicate java, slap on an authentication mechanism, with little attempt to do more than fix sun's mistakes?

    What the hell is going on?
    I'm going to go curl up now.

    (please do not respond to the following. i am just trying to explain where i am coming from in wondering these things:)
    *(I would honestly like to know the answer to that one. I have used Cocoa and love it to the point i would make my OS choice based on it solely. I haven't looked at C#/.NET because i don't trust MS and believe that if they are given power, any kind of power, they will abuse it. This is nothing more than internal bias and i am not attempting to justify it as "true", or start a discussion on that subject. I just want answers to the questions above. And i am secure, because after programming some Cocoa i know that NeXT will never die the way that the Amiga will never die.) .. here goes nothing.. *submit*

  31. Re:The dotLife of Brian? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    so wish the competitor to M$ .Net was called .Org

  32. Re:Could someone please explain to me by dyfet · · Score: 1

    A gcc front end and back end is certainly a part of the goal of DotGNU. This means both a C# front end that can generate native binaries like was done for Java, as well as potentially a back end tool chain that can generate common runtime out of any gcc supported language.

    What this does not mean is a gcc compiler that can parse source secret binaries into native code (such as bytecode) for that would allow one to create source secret applications compiled thru gcc.

  33. .NET = Good Idea by cthrall · · Score: 1

    Here's the one thing I take away from .NET that looks like new technology to me, and it looks like a good idea that wouldn't be super hard to do: .NET lets you provide a public interface for VB and C# objects ("Windows services", web services - guess they haven't thought of an acronym for it yet) without adding another compile/curse/compile step. That is, the interface you write for the C# class is publicly available without writing a separate IDL.

    This is a good thing, as I'll bet a large chunk of most development projects is spent writing/debugging this damn translation layer. App servers like Resin let you run applets, but you've gotta set up an agreed upon message format, parse some XML/HTML/binary message format, and do reflection (if you're doing Java).

    Why not write a module that maps a XML DTD to a Java interface, then does the RPC for you?

    IMHO, this is what .NET is trying to do. For all the marketing BS in there (the whole certified email thing seems hokey - PGP gives you the exact same functionality now), the general idea seems to boil down to be something small and simple.

    As far as C# goes, the standard MSFT development practice seems to be "prototype in VB, ship in VC++" because of VB language restrictions (OO in VB looks like a whole lotta duct tape). I'll bet C# is an effort to address these restrictions, while continuing to use a VM, which makes it much easier to tie the whole shebang together:

    As one can see from this sample .Net Framework application, what was previously only in the realm of Visual C++ programmers is now possible in a simple, object-oriented program. Although this article focuses on C#, everything written here can also be written in Visual Basic and Managed C++. The new .Net Framework has enabled developers to create highly functional, scalable Windows applications and services from any programming language.

    Note that using a VM also makes it easier for MSFT to restrict developers to use only published API calls - no more hitting the hardware. :)

    1. Re:.NET = Good Idea by Jason+Earl · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Why not write a module that maps a XML DTD to a Java interface, then does the RPC for you?

      You really should take a look at SOAP's kissing cousin XML-RPC.

  34. Re:Joined forces by acroyear · · Score: 2

    One could hope. But that may be unlikely. Again, "Not Invented Here" -- the developers who left the dying project might not go to the surviving one. They'd probably be sick of the whole thing and move on to something else entirely.

    --
    "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
    -- Joe
  35. Once again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    ...the open sourcers are trying to play catch-up with MS.

    Go ahead, mod this to hell, but it's the truth.

    MS is betting the company on C# and .Net, which means they will do whatever is needed to make it succeed. They'll swat Mono, dotGNU, and Project.Net like flies if they have even a hint that it will help them.

    1. Re:Once again... by cthrall · · Score: 1

      > ...the open sourcers are trying to play catch-
      > up with MS.

      In this case, it seems to me it's the other way around. Looks like MSFT saw the possibility of app servers (Resin, Tomcat, etc.) and Java getting more market share, and decided to reply with something similar. C# looks very much like Java, which has been around for years now.

      I think if Apache/Jakarta had been left up its own devices, open .NET would have just happened. The only difference is the pieces of the system come from different places (Jakarta, Sun, Caucho, etc. vs. DotGNU/Mono/MSFT/Evil Flying Monkeys/Whatever).

  36. Why??? by aschlag · · Score: 1

    I'm still wondering why people need .NET, let alone any open source alternative...

    IMHO, wouldn't it be better for the community to create a "internet service" solution (if we even need internet services) that works, rather than try to duplicate the work of Microsoft?

    1. Re:Why??? by RevAaron · · Score: 3, Insightful
      For me, as a developer, .NET isn't about having "internet services." It's about easy interoperability between languages. I program in Smalltalk (and some LISP), and while I've not had a hard time finding the changesets (read: "libraries") to do what I need (db access, &c), I'm sure one day I'll run into a wall and have to reimplement functionality that has been already done in another language. .NET would allow me to use a lib written in C++ or Python in a version of Smalltalk or LISP or whatever language I feel would be appropriate targeted for the .NET CLI. It means I can do this easily, without having to hack together some IPC or write a C wrapper for the functionality in question.

      This has a lot of potential, and I see "internet services" as a small part of it, at least in the way it effects me.

      Then again, I'll probably never bother using it, unless there's Smalltalk and CL implementations as good as or better than the ones I use now. :)

      --

      Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
    2. Re:Why??? by humblefar · · Score: 1

      Good idea! This is the way. .NET has a lot of week points. We need a better alternative not some half-baked, sheepish reimplementation.

  37. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by telbij · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, but Microsoft's strategy here was perfect, because they know it's too much of a gamble for the open source community NOT to make an open source version of .net technology. Certainly if we did nothing Microsoft would have to work that much harder to gain universal acceptance of .NET, but if we have an open source alternative at least nobody has to be under the iron grip of MS. That's not too high a price to pay to avoid MS dominance even if it plays into their hands to an extent.

  38. Why do we need another company? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If we really believe in the whole 'Open Source Community' mythos, then we shouldn't need another company to jump in and help out.

  39. I don't see the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is the point of all the effort and argument over .NET? Its to Microsoft as Java is to Sun, Java has the ability to do everything that .NET can, what is the point? To me this just seems to give microsoft a ton of help for free supporting non-microsoft platforms in some ridiculous plot to overthrow the internet. Serisouly though, what real plus or feature does it have over existing things like java? It's got explicit memory management, networking, security and garbage collection, well whoopdie-do so do 50 other languages. So what is the point of all this? People are still capabale of doing everything with existing software - a new language is not a magical tool that suddenly is making the impossible possible.

    1. Re:I don't see the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .NET is not a new language. Try reading up on what it actually is.

  40. Re:Joined forces by acroyear · · Score: 2
    Then again, the division of effort may lead to both failing because neither can quite reach getting enough outside developers involved to move it forward at a pace that will keep up with M$'s future (expect it, 'cause its how they do things) consistent changes and updates (many incompatible with early versions -- again, its how they work so why should .NET be any different).

    I take as a prime example the issue of the simple email client for GTK/GNOME. A glance @ the gnome software list shows 25 email clients. Do we really need that many? And are ANY of them solid/robust enough to put on someone's desktop and say "you can do anything you want with this that you could do with Outlook, and at the same time be safer than Outlook".

    My opinion: no.

    The "Not Invented Here" syndrome is still pretty rampant, and I feel it'll be the same between these two .NET clones as well (as the "PR Snafu" demonstrated), and that will likely kill both projects in the mid-range, so that neither survive in the long term when M$ really gets version 3.0 of .NET going (knowing again, that their 3.0 is always the first version of any M$ product that really actually works...).

    Then again, by that point they may realize .NET is a crock of crap and have moved on completely -- .NET is a strategic move to take on Sun and J2EE and ONE, not an effort to really change the world for the better).

    It would be better for OpenSource to stop cloning stuff that already exists (or doesn't exist and has no real driving need to exist) and come up with its own killer app. Apache as a spokesman for OpenSource originality only goes so far. The world is waiting for something new, not a rehash of what's old, or a clone of something that isn't even done yet.

    --
    "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
    -- Joe
  41. Re:I like this concept, however... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unfortunately Microsoft has all the leverage in this particular case because they control the client. We could come up with something a hundred times better than .NET and .NET would still win because the client bits of .NET will be on every new PC firmly embedded into Windows.

    The Samba developers really have the right idea. Instead of creating a network file system and then trying to create a Windows client (which Microsoft could break at every .dll update) they instead took the route of emulating Windows servers. Even with a crufty protocol like SMB this turned out to be the easiest route. Microsoft doesn't want to break their own clients, and so they are limited in what they can really change.

    One of these days Linux (or some other open system) might very well have enough client side market share that the Free Software folks could create a client side standard and actually have some weight behind it. The closest we have ever come was with browser based applications, and even that was marred by Netscape-isms and the even more overwhelming IE-isms that are cropping up more recently.

    Free Software is getting closer, however. My guess is that it is only a matter of time.

  42. Microsoft is winning by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful
    With .NET , Microsoft successfully managed in a very short period of time to :

    Make the community disperse its efforts on copying what is little more than vaporware

    Make the community look like a bunch of childish "I can do that too" people.

    The only thing that comes to my mind when I look at the mono and dotGNU projects is "monkey see, monkey do". One of the projects can't even come up with an innovative name for itself. Well, I'm sorry but copying .NET is just dumb and it plays in favor of Microsoft, who looks like the real innovators that legions of unimaginative free-software geeks always try to copy.

    In short, the community has to stop copying and being toyed with by Microsoft, and begin innovating and proving that there are much better things than what Microsoft comes up with.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Microsoft is winning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's funny when one says a truth that's different from the "Microsoft sucks/Bill Gates is evil/OSS rulez/Stallman is a God" paradigm it's always moderated as flamebait.

  43. I'm too busy with other holy wars by RestiffBard · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm just so involved in evangelizing for vi vs. emacs and gnome vs. kde I just don't have the time to get involved in another holy war. so you guys fight it all out and let me know in 20 years what you came up with.

    --
    - /* dead coders leave no comments */
  44. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Doesn't having two open source versions of .NET validate Microsoft's .NET strategy?

    Yes, it does. And that's a good thing. I agree with the writer of the linked article that .NET is superior to JAVA (for the language interoperability as a major factor) based solutions. So validating it is not a bad thing, as long as MS doesn't get a lock on it.

    That's why it is important to have a .NET implentation for Linux early in the process -- if people program for the .NET standard that Linux, MacOS, etc will support, it will reduce the possibility of Microsoft changing and locking the standard. But if there is no other version but the ones supported by MS, then people will program with the win32 libraries, and we are no closer to an open standard.

    In summary -- keep .NET open by supporting the standard from an early date! Then everyone will win.

  45. Re:I like this concept, however... by Zico · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You're kidding, right? The whole Sun ONE pipedream wasn't even announced until this past February. If you know anybody actually excited about it, please let them be heard, because they're pretty hard to find. Sun's nursing some pretty bitter feelings right now after watching the developer community scramble to support .NET while for the most part having given Java the cold shoulder. Heh, think Sun's now regretting having pulled back so many times from submitting Java as a standard? 'Cause I guarantee you, that's what's caused the big upswell in .NET plans. There are a ton of people working on .NET projects now who would have totally written it off as a Microsoft-only technology if not for Microsoft submittting this stuff to a standards body.

    Seriously, Sun's got a lot to worry about. Where's the excitement about Sun ONE? What happened to the "web tone," the "big freakin' switch," JINI, and JXTA? Most importantly, what happened all those dumb Java-enabled rings that Scott MacNealy used to wear? Anyone actually miss 'em? Sun's just become a follower, finally coming around to SOAP, UDDI, etc., after getting over the bitterness of adopting technology that Microsoft developed. Not sure why they mind now, though -- J2EE's just a Microsoft Transaction Server ripoff, and it's not too hard to guess where JSP and JDBC come from.

    Trivia time: Sun is on ECMA Committee TC39 Task Group 2 (TG2), as well as being on TG3. The purpose(s) of these two bodies is to:

    • (A) Produce a standard for Java.
    • (B) Produce a standard for C#.
    • (C) Produce a standard for the .NET CLI (Common Language Infrastructure.

    If you chose B & C, you're absolutely right! Now remember players, you must've chosen them both to win. Don Pardo, show the people what they've won! :)

  46. Re:This is stupid by NonSequor · · Score: 1
    Oops, I forgot to put

    s in. I generally screw up at least one thing in any post I make to Slashdot.

    --
    My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  47. Who cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .NET? Mono? DotGNU? WGAF.

  48. Re:Another reason... by manyoso · · Score: 1

    What the hell are you talking about. Yes, they have different goals, but DotGNU/Portable.NET do not want to make things harder for anyone. AND, there are very valid uses for a Csharp compiler written in C, namely to compile Mono's compiler written in Csharp. I for one do not want to work with any binary compiler which was compiled from Microsoft's closed source compiler. It is insecure and also presents licensing issues.

  49. Re:Another reason... by elefantstn · · Score: 1
    We fight amongst ourselves so much that we can't present a unified front against (much more organized) Closed Source efforts.

    Right, Microsoft, AOL, and Oracle present a big unified, organized front for proprietary software. In other news, the Yankees and Red Sox are merging to defeat the hated Blue Jays...

    --
    If it ain't broke, you need more software.
  50. Another reason... by Chester+K · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...it's hard for people in business to Open Source seriously.

    This is no different than the Gnome vs. KDE debate, or Debian vs. RedHat, or hell, even Linux vs. BSD. We fight amongst ourselves so much that we can't present a unified front against (much more organized) Closed Source efforts.

    Will somebody at one of these .NET-clone projects get off their high horse and just merge the projects together? All this stupid in-fighting just goes to show that Microsoft has nothing to fear from Open Source.

    --

    NO CARRIER
    1. Re:Another reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You're wrong; it has nothing to do with persuing different paths to similar goals. It has everything to do with pursuing different paths.

      Idiot.

    2. Re:Another reason... by SheldonYoung · · Score: 1

      What good would it be replacing one monopoly with another? The competition between each entity you mentioned above has benefited us all. It's not "fighting amongst ourselves", it's about persuing different paths to similar goals.

    3. Re:Another reason... by nconway · · Score: 2, Troll
      We fight amongst ourselves so much that we can't present a unified front against (much more organized) Closed Source efforts.
      You mean like the "unified" database market -- Oracle versus DB2 versus Sybase versus Cloudscape versus MS SQL Server? Or the "unified" enterprise OS market -- Solaris versus HPUX versus AIX versus Linux/BSD versus NT? Or the "unified" web application market (too many products to list)?
    4. Re:Another reason... by johnnyproton · · Score: 0

      From what I understand, DotGNU and Mono are complimentary projects.

      DotGNU is an open-source authentication service similar to Passport, where Mono is a development environment similar to .NET, and in particular the C# language and compiler.

    5. Re:Another reason... by Chester+K · · Score: 2

      freedom, choices

      How do you need a choice between two open source implementations of the same .NET standard?

      Think of how much more powerful the Open Source movement would be if we didn't spend half our time playing politics with other Open Source projects and instead spent that time coding.

      --

      NO CARRIER
    6. Re:Another reason... by Chainsaw · · Score: 1

      DotGNU and Mono have two different goals. The folks from DotGNU wants to implement everything in C and make life harder for just about everyone, while the Mono projects focus on a native runtime and everything else in C#. That should give Mono more time for optimizing the JIT and therefore making all applications run faster.

      --
      War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
    7. Re:Another reason... by gmhowell · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OTOH, by infighting, the end products are arguably better than if there had been only competition against M$, Sun, etc.

      As with most things in life, a balance must be struck. Yes, Gnome and KDE should have differences. Differences of design philosophy, goals, implementation... As long as they keep in mind the larger goal: world domination.

      :)

      But seriously, there is no way to have a discussion with M$ regarding technical merits. And so what if they get heated? Some of the best discussions I've had have been heated.

      If everyone's itch were solved by one product, we'd all be using M$ Bob. They aren't, so we don't.

      People who matter take Open Source seriously. And in the end, IBM (among others) are a voice that people still listen to, even if the face of M$.

      I do think that some of the fighting (and I went back and read the threads on that mailing list) are pointless, and much along the lines of "I got my feelings hurt". And that is pure bullshit that accomplishes nothing. And yes, *that* sort of argument doesn't look good. Thankfully, most arguments are mostly substantive.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    8. Re:Another reason... by DeathBunny · · Score: 2

      Ah yes, you are so correct. If only we could all get along like the closed source folks do.

      Everytime I see Bill Gates, Larry Elison, and Steve Jobs give each other big hugs and slobbery kisses at their many public appearences together, I know that the open source community can never equal their amazing co-operation and unity.

    9. Re:Another reason... by einhverfr · · Score: 2

      Exactly. This is why (as ESR, AC, and others have pointed out) proprietary software si an unstable model of development and open source will eventaully take over.

      --

      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
    10. Re:Another reason... by rking · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Think of how much more powerful the Open Source movement would be if we didn't spend half our time playing politics with other Open Source projects and instead spent that time coding.

      How about if you were to stop complaining about how other people choose to spend their own time and instead you spend your time coding?

    11. Re:Another reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      OTOH, by infighting, the end products are arguably better than if there had been only competition against M$, Sun, etc.

      Exactly. Why is it that the Open Source market is being "anti-capitalistic"? I mean, besides the utter absence of money, i see there being more of the spirit of capitalism in the open source world, where different products arise on a whim and compete with each other to the death based on individual merits, than i do in the closed source world, where the platform is decided by whoever has the most money. (with the exception of those rare cases where several groups of people with lots of money decide to work together on a platform-- i.e. OpenGL. But those are rare cases. As a rule, people with money don't play as well with others as people without do.)

      In a shoddy high school microeconomics class i took, they told us that you can't call it a state of pure competition if there are high barriers to entry in the market...

  51. Re:Keep dreaming by microbob · · Score: 1

    Mark my words and I'll even save you from the 'I told you so'.

  52. Correction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, there are 3 efforts going on. You neglected to mention the MS .NET effort.

    You are correct in thinking that one of them will win. Sadly The One will be MS .NET

    Life sucks, don't it?

  53. Re:This is a sure path to failure for OSS projects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice Post Limey.

  54. Why all the confusion for so long? by dwlemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mono is a GNU port of C# and the CLI runtime. What people think this has to do with authentication, I have no idea.

    Porting a language means making it available to another platform. With mono, you can develop C# on gnu/linux. Why is this such a terrible and confusing thing to so many slashdotters? Is the availability of another development platform a bad thing? The only thing that would really bug me is if the KDE team decides to write their own separate implementation. The fact that Mono will be tied to Gnome is iffy, but what are you gonna do? Gnome has to make strides of some kind or another to stand out.

    When Gnome says they have customers, I believe them.

    I don't give a shit if my Mono applications don't even work on Windows. I'd like an alternative to Java that doesn't feel like a toy.

    I don't know if dotGNU is needed. I guess if it means I only need one username and password to log into any sites that have accepted their standard, then that's just super.

    But wether or not I am going to be able to go to Amazon.com and identify myself with a dotGNU login, I don't know. Frankly, I don't care.

    Mono interests me, dotGNU doesn't.

    1. Re:Why all the confusion for so long? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That should say "When Ximian says they have customers..."

      anyway, this rant was brought on by Taco thinking dotGNU and Mono are the same thing. duh.

    2. Re:Why all the confusion for so long? by flacco · · Score: 1
      When Gnome says they have customers, I believe them.

      I presume you mean Ximian.

      I'd like to know who their customers are, though...

      --
      pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    3. Re:Why all the confusion for so long? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't know if dotGNU is needed. I guess if it means I only need one username and password to log into any sites that have accepted their standard, then that's just super.

      But wether or not I am going to be able to go to Amazon.com and identify myself with a dotGNU login, I don't know. Frankly, I don't care.


      In 2 or 3 years, when you go to www.BuyStuff.com and want to order something it will ask you for authentification of some sort.

      It WILL happen.

      Now what would you rather have to do, go to Microsoft's web site and get a Passport account, or CHOOSE your authenticator? With DotGNU, any company will be able to set up authentification service (only some will be truly trusted). Without it, MS (or whoever executes Hailstorm) will own you.
  55. I like this concept, however... by kypper · · Score: 4, Interesting
    We are encouraging Microsoft's .NET strategy with it.

    It would be really nice to see other companies such as Sun invest in Mono and push it far beyond what .NET plans to do.

    For once, open source can publicly set the standard and let Microsoft catch up.

    1. Re:I like this concept, however... by Kerg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sun's nursing some pretty bitter feelings right now after watching the developer community scramble to support .NET while for the most part having given Java the cold shoulder.

      I doubt Sun is nursing any bitter feelings. Their J2EE platform has more than 20 commercial implementations available, and several Open Source ones. It seems .NET has some catching up to do.

      Where's the excitement about Sun ONE?

      Well, honestly the Sun ONE looks just like a marketing effort that puts an IDE on top of the already existing J2EE platform. J2EE is the existing platform that .NET is competing against, and J2EE seems to gather plenty of excitement. It has established itself well in the market place, and pretty much taken over the application server market.

      J2EE's just a Microsoft Transaction Server ripoff

      That is not what J2EE is. If you need a comparable Microsoft platform, it used to be called Microsoft DNA, today its .NET.

    2. Re:I like this concept, however... by acroyear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, as I stated before, Sun has their own environment they're developing, Sun ONE, and I belive it was announced before .NET. .NET is a reactive strike against Sun just as its key language, C#, is a reactive strike against Java.

      --
      "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
      -- Joe
    3. Re:I like this concept, however... by scrytch · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It would be really nice to see other companies such as Sun invest in Mono and push it far beyond what .NET plans to do.

      Sun wouldn't touch it with a bargepole unless it was written in the Java language, for the Java virtual machine, targeting the J2EE Java class collection. In short, you can use any language you like as long as it's Java, and run it on any platform you want as long as it's Java.

      (I am well aware that there are many languages targeting the JVM. Not one of them receives so much as recognition from Sun, much less moral support, far less technical support)

      --
      I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
    4. Re:I like this concept, however... by junkgui · · Score: 1

      That is a good Idea though... write mono in java... and you have a neat multiplatform translation layer....

  56. Re:Sounds like the Slashdot "community" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A bunch a primadonna uber-elite developers/hacks/etc who have the social skills of a six year old, unable to come to any sort of agreement.

    Sounds rather a lot like the proprietary software "community".

  57. Re:It's probably because of a single viewpoint... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice Post Martin...

  58. You never know... by kypper · · Score: 2
    stranger things have happened.

    And I didn't mean only Sun. Other companies have much to gain from forcing their own method though, making Microsoft adjust instead; it'll keep them in the running.

  59. Re:do i understand this properly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    passport is not part of .net at all. you obviously have no idea what .net is about. it is a framework for app development, letting you combine languages in ways never imagined before, and speeding up developement 10x.

  60. Re:Joined forces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Moron.

  61. Re:There's something you're forgetting: *BSD is Dy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mod the reply with the 'WTF' _UP_!

  62. Re:It's probably because of a single viewpoint... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Reminds me of the Carlin cheer.

    Rat shit, bat shit, dirty old twat. 69 assholes tied in a not. Yaay, lizard shit. Fuck.

  63. Re:Seems like a waste of time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least using weblogic, it is nowhere near that simple.

    Deploying a new app requires adding a new context, and your choices for that are: use their aweful swing GUI, or modify the config file and RESTART the server (this loses all active sessions).

    I hear they have a command line tool to do this in their newest release, so you'll at least be able to script it.

  64. Joined forces by andres32a · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Frankly I like that there are 2 efforts going on. Maybe one will succeed." Well in a sense it is good that the projects have comed together specially when the outcome seems so young. Later on when the technology does become usable there will be other similar projects even based on the original.

    1. Re:Joined forces by scrytch · · Score: 2

      Then again, by that point they may realize .NET is a crock of crap and have moved on completely -- .NET is a strategic move to take on Sun and J2EE and ONE, not an effort to really change the world for the better).

      Do you honestly think J2EE and ONE (whatever the hell ONE is, I couldn't get any info on what it really was when I worked for Sun) are some kind of philanthropy or some great cultural contribution like Michaelangelo or Shakespeare? Good freakin god, is there anyone left who is capable of evaluating platforms on objective criteria?

      I see Coxall with a persecution complex, Bollow with a control issue over the word "we", and a whole lot of rah-rah Java boosterism on the dotgnu side from people who don't even know what operator overloading and generic programming is. Then gratuitous mono-bashing in the FAQ's (simply saying you have a difference in opinion should have been fine). I don't see a lot of hope for dotgnu, and frankly not a lot for mono if Coxall is allowed to set the tone on the list.

      --
      I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
    2. Re:Joined forces by quartz · · Score: 1

      It would be better for OpenSource to stop cloning stuff that already exists (or doesn't exist and has no real driving need to exist) and come up with its own killer app. Apache as a spokesman for OpenSource originality only goes so far. The world is waiting for something new, not a rehash of what's old, or a clone of something that isn't even done yet.

      I don't think that's ever going to happen. Open Source (at least, non-commercial Open Source) does not have any kind of central authority to tell it what to focus on. Open Source is really a community of people scratching their collective itches. So if someone has an itch to replicate Microsoft frameworks, why not do it? If I were involved with Mono or dotGNU, I'd probably have a very good, practical reason for it, with a far higher priority on *my* agenda than that "something new" you're talking about.

      Well, I personally will not use anything .NET-related at least until it becomes enough of a standard for me to become unable to avoid it in the UNIX world (as any self-respecting Microsoft-bashing Free Software zealot will do), but since there are people working on it I guess at least it's useful to them.

      Now if you were actually talking about commercial Open source, that's a completely different story...

    3. Re:Joined forces by einhverfr · · Score: 2
      Then the developers will probably realize this and coalesce around the one that shows most promise.

      Of course. That is what happened with GNOME and KDE ;)

      --

      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
    4. Re:Joined forces by flacco · · Score: 1
      the division of effort may lead to both failing because neither can quite reach getting enough outside developers involved to move it forward

      Then the developers will probably realize this and coalesce around the one that shows most promise.

      --
      pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    5. Re:Joined forces by scrytch · · Score: 2

      Lemme amend my post about Bollow and Coxall and just say Read the thread (search forward for "dotGNU banning"). This guy has some serious anger issues.

      --
      I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
    6. Re:Joined forces by acroyear · · Score: 2
      Hey, I never said I liked J2EE and ONE, only that Sun put them out, and M$'s .NET is a reaction to them. If ONE fails because of .NET, then M$ comes out a winner yet again, like they did when they cloned Netscape to make IE 3. If ONE falls flat on its own face, then M$ can cut work on .NET 'cause they know (after ONE's example) that the whole idea was garbage (M$'s done that before too -- in some cases the vaporware alone killed the competing product). Take your pick. I personally don't see the use of either of them, and plan on playing with a lot of the stuff from Jakarta in the next few months...

      And what is an objective criteria? Application-development platforms are judged on something that varies greatly : developer opinion. Because that opinion varies greatly, the vendors of them try their damndest to bypass the developers and sell to project managers of companies instead, letting them mandate the platform. And certainly that's objective criteria that manager might use...but its not going to be the most informed because he's not the one who's going to have to use it.

      Developers rarely respond well to "marketing". They respond by using the product, then judging "how much easier was my project because of this product?" against "how much did this thing cost, and do my end-users have to pay extra to use my product because I used this thing in it?"

      The .NET clones have removed the cost factor (if they actually ever work), but at the same time, nothing M$ has done has shown that .NET itself will make anybody's development job easier.

      --
      "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
      -- Joe
    7. Re:Joined forces by acroyear · · Score: 1
      You forgot "Can I do what I want to do without it?". That seems pretty high on my list, personally.

      And I've been using M$ to represent that company for years now, before /.; Deal.

      --
      "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
      -- Joe
  65. Re:Validating .Net strategy? No, defeat it! by ciurana · · Score: 2

    Dan,

    I couldn't agree more with you. It's disheartening discovering that many people in the Open Source and a great many in the Free Software movement lack the maturity to approach this as a real-world problem. They don't realize that they could take the cause further by showing some restraint where appropriate and focusing their energy in their creativity.

    I personally agree with the term and precepts of Open Source rather than Free Software. There is a rather childish quality to their public announcements (tantrums?) that I don't see as often in people adhering to the more open-minded people in the OSS movement. In general I can present something produced by a non-GNU but open sourced group to a customer and have it accepted. I cannot always do that with GNU products, Linux itself included. I think it's a shame that hollering distracts the intended audiences from the substance.

    Thanks for your response to my comment.

    E
    --
    http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
  66. Re:Good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    High profile and public to the Slashdot crowd [who already hate Microsoft], not to the actual general public.

  67. Re:Someone please clue me in -- why care about .NE by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. XML RPC. You can debate the value of XML over other RPC methods, but the .NET model appears to be simpler than CORBA and more easily extensible.

    2. Pervasive Object Model. Looking at the ActiveState site, you can see the power of being able to bind to .NET services written in any of the supported languages. Yes, you can compile Python to the JVM, but Sun won't officially support this type of activity - Microsoft on the other hand is funding cross-language support from ground zero.

    3. Mostly open architecture. C#, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI are all open specs. Some of .NET is not open, such as the source of the compiler, but at least with a spec you can write your own, and perhaps even influence the design.

    4. A nice OO language. You get this with Java too. Hopefully memory-managed languages can become the norm for application development with all these tools available.

  68. it's all in the name by aturley · · Score: 1

    DotGNU? Come on guys. .Net was a stupid marketoid wet dream. If people are going to chase after tail lights, the least they could do is try to come up with a decent name.

    But hey, what do I know. I'm not working on the project, and I guess if I'm not part of the solution then I'm part of the . . . (fizz)

    andy

    --
    Life is life . . . everything else is just a stupid T-shirt slogan.
  69. This is a sure path to failure for OSS projects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's up with that list admin? Pushing people away that want to help, yeah that seems like a great idea to succeed with an open source project!

    I forbid you to use the term 'we' from now on... What a joke!

    If you haven't read the conversation between the admin and the guy who got kicked off, do it! It's so unbelievable it's hilarious.

    Replace that admin immediately for god's sake! He is a danger to any project...

    Seriously, how do you expect any open source project to succeed if there is such hostility within the project (against people offering to help) and between projects?

  70. Poll: How many times will MONO be re-written? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well as the subject says, I would like to people
    to guess how many times will MONO need to be
    re-written before it "looks and feels" even
    remotely decent given that it is led by
    GNOME ppl??? :)

    Person to guess closest, wins an Authentic
    .NET client brought to you by none other than
    M$...

  71. Other companies' positions? by kriemar · · Score: 1

    Does anyone know how e.g., IBM plans to approach C#/CLI? For example, are there plans on the part of IBM to create JIT compilers for the framework as they have with Java?

  72. FIVE people. Puh-lease. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure Microsoft is quaking in their boots at the prospect of facing off against DotGNU's five core developers. Scary.

  73. Re:Just a troll... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice Post Norton.

  74. Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Fizzlewhiff · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Doesn't having two open source versions of .NET validate Microsoft's .NET strategy?

    --

    'Same speed C but faster'
    1. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Jason+Earl · · Score: 2

      Microsoft's .NET vision is very cool. Imagine all the advantages of the Java platform, without the one huge disadvantage of that platform, you don't have to write everything in Java. It's even possible that their implementation of this vision will work as advertised. If that is the case then having a competing implementation isn't just a good idea, it's going to be critical to the success of Free Software.

      Even if .NET is horrific, there will undoubtedly be some sites that use .NET technology, a useful .NET client would therefore be useful even if .NET turns out to be less than Microsoft is advertising.

    2. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Kerg · · Score: 1

      Sun has a death-grip on Java and refuses to loosen it at all.

      There is no death-grip and Java Community Process (v2) seems to be working quite well.

    3. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong.. As long as Microsoft controls what goes into .NET you're not in control of anything. Dump .NET, support Java. At least Java is open! And if you think .NET is so much better than Java, send your suggestions and they will be incorporated.

    4. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Kerg · · Score: 1

      But if there is no other version but the ones supported by MS, then people will program with the win32 libraries, and we are no closer to an open standard.

      The majority of people programming on .NET platform will code to the win32 libraries. They've been using libraries like ASP and ADO for some time now, and they will migrate to use ASP.NET and ADO.NET and WebForms. These libraries aren't openly specified nor submitted to ECMA, and there has been no indication from Microsoft that they would be anytime soon.

    5. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Kerg · · Score: 1

      Imagine all the advantages of the Java platform, without the one huge disadvantage of that platform, you don't have to write everything in Java.

      Well, there is still no chance of building anything serious with .NET that is cross-platform, unless we see libraries such as ADO.NET, ASP.NET and WebForms being openly specified or standardized. Until that time, Java has one big advantage over .NET.

    6. Re:Doesn't this help to validate Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is it that use of Java forces you to lose your ability to think rationally? You're as bad as those Javalobby freaks (motto: "If you're not 100% for us, you hate Java and baby seals!").

      .NET is standardized with a third party standards organization. Sun has a death-grip on Java and refuses to loosen it at all. Fortunately, rational thinkers know the definition of the word "open."

  75. It's probably because of a single viewpoint... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But it sounds like the DotGNU camp (or at least the list admin) is a bunch of assholes.

  76. Rather out of touch by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    Judging from your previous posts you're obviosuly a die-hard Microsoft supporter, but even so this statement:

    "Given Java the cold shoulder"?

    I was with you on most of the rest of the post (SunONE? Who Cares?), but I can't see that. I've seen a lot of people switch to Java development and a things like a myriad of J2EE app servers. I personally don't know of any Java developers jumping to .Net yet. (Do you know any Java developers to start with?)

    I think the battle will be lot more evenly fought than you make out, and not based at all on which one submitted something to a particular standards organization. Frankly, the ECMA origazization seems about as good as the Java Community Process stuff to me. Also, for all of those interesting standards like SOAP and UDDI Java provides the leading implementations at the moment (and Sun is the company heading the UDDI effort!!). JSP and JDBC are indeed similar to MS counterparts except that they work and are pleasant to use (OK, actually JSP's suck as much as ASP and neither should be used by anyone). As for J2EE being a Transaction Server ripoff, I don't know where you got that from but you'd better buy a new J2EE book and re-read things a bit harder.

    .NET has a long way to go over ground that Java, J2EE and other standards have already broken - the winner is my no means predetermined yet, either way. At this point Sun is pretty much obviously the leader and MS is struggling to keep up or overtake them. Just because Sun is helping them define the language and common set of libraries is no reason to think they are even close to abandoning Java - more like making sure that the final standard can be easily implemented on top of the JVM so they can dump .NET and have a clear strategy of running legacy .NET code in the Java VM.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  77. Re:do i understand this properly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    That is my understanding as well -- I don't think building an open-source .NET clone will do anything to take Microsoft out of the picture... but it do two things:
    1. Reinforce .NET and Microsoft's position
    2. Take talented developers who could be using their time on better tools and putting them to work helping MS.
    I cannot possibly see how this will help. All it will do is put Microsoft-compatible software on all OSes, then Microsoft can run the world. Hurray.
  78. Re:I don't see the point - Yes! by humblefar · · Score: 1

    Your post actually suddenly enlightened me. This is it. That's why they do it! The only reasanoble explanation is that they hope MS will finance them down the road (if not buy them). That's why it becomes a dog fight at this point. The squirels fight for the tiger's attention. Miguels' tail points to the sky and we the fools look up - trying to swallow his higher technical/political arguments for Mono.
    Sorry if that was disilusioning
    HF

  79. Sad, but true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please moderate the parent post up, it's sad news, but true nonetheless. It should be spread in the hopes of picking up momentum before it finally stops.

  80. Wasnt Mono supposed to work together with dotGnu? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wasnt Mono supposed to work together with DotGNU?

  81. Re:This is stupid by pnatural · · Score: 1

    Or do we lack the intelligence to come up with something unique and inspiring?

    written by someone with the nick "gillbates". oh, the irony!

  82. Someone please clue me in -- why care about .NET? by kenshin-h · · Score: 1
    Someone wanna tell me why anyone should care? .NET sounds like a lot of Microsoft hot air designed solely to remove Java from the marketplace.

    For instance: What compelling features does it offer the customer? Why would I want those features, as a customer?

    Miguel seems to think it's a way to escape the GTK/GNOME/Bonobo architectural limitations, from what I've read -- but so what? Why not fix GTK/GNOME/Bonobo instead?

    Seriously, please clue me in, cause I don't understand the fuss.

  83. Re:Good choice by pmz · · Score: 1

    KDE and GNOME have a genuine competitive spirit between them. However, the free .NET replacements are not competing against eachother; the are competing against MS. In this, they somewhat dilute the Open Source side's efforts in the matter.

    If the different Open Source efforts cooperate to reduce risk of failure rather than dilute themselves to increase the risk of failure, everything will be fine. Cooperation doesn't necessarily mean consolodation but reinforcement. They need to reinforce eachother.

  84. Good idea by microbob · · Score: 1

    I still think this is a good idea. Eventually MS will make a huge public blunder by trying to stomp out MONO. Unlike the Bristoll case (and countless others) MS has entered a very high profile and public 'partnership' where EVERY move will be watched.

    Sooner or later MS will eat crow or this.

    1. Re:Good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see how anyone could make a blunder stomping out the kissing disease. Mono is no fun to get and if MS can diversify and treat Mono then the court ordered split up won't affect them as severely.

  85. This is stupid by gillbates · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Open source software has lost its creativity and usefulness. DotGNU and Mono are just clones of a bad design in the first place. Must the OS community copy everything that Microsoft does? Or do we lack the intelligence to come up with something unique and inspiring?

    It is rather unfortunate that nothing new and interesting has come out of the free software movement. It seems like open source projects are nothing more than cheap knockoffs of existing commercial software.

    --
    The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
    1. Re:This is stupid by NonSequor · · Score: 1

      Could you support your arguments? Tell me why .NET (specifically the parts being implemented by Mono and DotGNU) is a bad design. Mono and DotGNU both have produced support for their arguments. The argument from Mono is that .NET contains some very useful ideas. Since C# and the CLI have published specifications to work from, it will be many orders of magnitude easier to implement them than to come up with a new standard and implement it. It may not be original but it is simpler to do it this way. Also, even if Microsoft breaks the standard after Mono is finished, Mono will continue to be a useful tool. Mono is not entirely dependent on compatibility with Microsoft. Also, do you have any unique and inspiring ideas to contribute? I believe that open source projects have done lots of innovation. People have said that both Gnome and KDE have imitated Microsoft too much. Both Gnome and KDE allow one to change aspects of the environment that can't be changed in Windows. The fact that I can go into the Sawfish settings and change every single detail of how it does things seems pretty damn impressive to me. I think the flexibility of the Gnome panel is overwhelmingly cool (it's hard not to notice that the Gnome panel is more than just a foot icon, yet many people seem to do just that when bashing Gnome). If you can support your arguments and refute mine you might have a chance of convincing me that you are right.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
    2. Re:This is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Got any specific criticisms? It looks like quite an interesting design to me.

      There is no question, even amonst those who have a strong vested interest in Java that CLR is far better than Java's byte-code. As for C#, it looks OK if you're the type that likes Java the language, but I'll stick with C++ and python.

      In terms of providing a lingua franca, CLR looks to be a far better solution than Java, which was just an underhanded attempt to lock people into yet another platform, all the while pretending that it did the exact opposite.

    3. Re:This is stupid by Xiphoid+Process · · Score: 1

      How is C# a bad design specifically? Or are you just dismissing it because it came out of Redmond? the RMS and Miguel have shown great insight in being able to look objectively at the technology instead of who designed it. As a programmer, I really look forward to a lot of what Mono is going to bring (mmm... define an object in C++, extend it in C#, instantiate it in Java... yum)

      --
      got drum'n'bass?

      http://mp3.com/vitriolix
  86. It won't work out... by Jim42688 · · Score: 1

    It won't work out because of things like this. Everyone wants their piece of the glory of being the next 'big thing' by being able to replace .NET, but because they are greedy, they lose sight of the real purpose and try to twist is to their personal gain instead of trying to write code that will actually help users and developers

  87. Sounds like the Slashdot "community" by duffbeer703 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    A bunch a primadonna uber-elite developers/hacks/etc who have the social skills of a six year old, unable to come to any sort of agreement.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  88. One word by Seanasy · · Score: 1

    I have just one word for both projects:

    Porn

    Seriously, target the porn web-sites with their technology first to get established. I'm sure more money is spent on porn sites and more sites using authentication are porn sites. Get a foothold in porn and work from there.

  89. terrific by skotte · · Score: 1
    excellent. not bad at all. but i see fFlaws in the whole idea, here.

    the basic basic thing: i think it's great that a major project is getting a lot of counter-steam fFom the linux world. and two or more groups working on the same thing can be potentially bad, but often quite good. i worry about the duplication of effort, and the dividing of resources .. but 2 against 1 is a good thing.

    but i still say picking this, of all M$ products, only adds fFuel to M$'s fFire. it allows them to say "Look at this product! it's so good of a communication method, even those who outright oppose us want to adopt it! See?? it really is the best possible way to go!" I can fFeel ol' billy smirking now.

    A better idea would be to fFocus efforts on mimicking every proprietary MS fFormat, such as the outlook *.msg and generally anything else required to get people out of outlook, and into linux.

    yes, obviously that this is indeed a MS fFormat .... but it's a fFormat built to be compatible. what if no-one cared to be compatible with it in return?

  90. Use the Source Luke... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS designed .Net to fit into its own software framework status. It retained all its strongs features and corrected its weakness. So why is Open Source coping the .Net ? Open Source has a totally different background ! Rewritting everything its just stupid. Its trowing thousands man-hour of designing and debugging. Open Source must use what its bigges strength, the open source code. It has to make stimulate and make it easy to integrate other peoples source. Maybe using xml to map the object models. The good thing about c# is its INTEGRATION capability, that is the only thing that open source should persue.

  91. Knowledge is Power by e2d2 · · Score: 1

    You are uniformed sorry. The framework SDK is out in beta. It's gonna happen. simply because there's a lot of steam behind this. MS is betting the farm on this, it's not just another software release. And the fact that someone outside of MS is trying to replicate it gives the idea even more credibility. At the very least know the target you attack.

    I code in Java and C# by the way and I know one thing..computers suck.

  92. Re:Seems like a waste of time... by cthrall · · Score: 1

    The funny thing is that most of their comparisons with respect to saving time, development productivity, etc., seem to stack .NET against the current MSFT web development practices.

    For example:

    According to Khater, the .NET Framework is helping his team to shave close to 90 percent off deployment time by using "XCOPY deployment," which means that developers design, code, and debug on the development platform, and then simply copy their code to a staging server. Once there, the code is ready to run without requiring that the developers register DLLs or build COM or export packages--that is, without anyone having to worry about dependencies.
    Of course, you could also be using C++/Java server-side stuff, in which case you write a script to push a tarball to the server, untar, setup permissions, etc. Deployment on the last project I worked on was one command that pushed everything instantaneously.

    They also talk about IDLs:

    Unlike in the current version of Microsoft Visual Studio®, C# interfaces can be explicitly defined in any language, removing the need to create and compile IDL files.

    One of the nightmares that .NET is supposed to make go away is the whole COM/COM+/ActiveX/DLL rat's nest that makes MSFT development a headache.

  93. *** JAVA IS NOT OPEN *** by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was never open, and never will be as long as Sun remains in business.

  94. Re:Keep dreaming by microbob · · Score: 1

    8/31/00. Judge Hall issued a ruling giving Bristol an award of punitive damages of $1,000,000 and an injunction. 2/21/01. The parties announced a settlement, but did not release its terms. read: MS WAS GUILTY

  95. that was a realy wierd by seann · · Score: 0

    article

    --
    I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
    1. Re:that was a realy wierd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, how did they get the information on Jan-08 if the disks have just been released?

  96. Just a troll... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    If you read the mailing list thread it quickly becomes obvious that the guy who claims he was "banned" was just put on the "manually approve" list because he kept trying to start flamewars.

    Choice quote from the troll in question:

    "Morally, I believe that using a closed standard (Java) is wrong. You and your control-freak cronies tried to ban me for expressing this position."

    Seems as though the list manager was just doing his job by stomping out erupting flamewars, and the troll (quite typically, as trolls go) can't seem to deal with that, so he's trying to make trouble everywhere else.

  97. Re:Another reason... KDE/Gnome specific by BluFinger · · Score: 1

    If I'm corp x, the only reason I care is because I want the apps I write on KDE to work on Gnome and vice versa. I don't care if there are two desktops so long as they have a common API I can code too. They should cooperate at least that much. After that, let them do whatever the hell they want so long as they don't break my apps.

    --
    Lib.BENCH the only site you'll ever need!
  98. The dotLife of Brian? by ink · · Score: 5, Funny
    The Portable.NET project becomes the "DotGNU Portable.NET" subproject of the DotGNU meta-project.

    Am I the only one that thought of the gladiator scene in the Monty Python's The Life of Brian when I read that? The bit where they are bickering over the 'splitters' and changing their names from the Liberation Party to the Party of Liberation or some such nonsense. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled /.

    --
    The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
  99. dotGNU has a plea for a skilled compiler engineer. by small_dick · · Score: 2

    > it's probably a _lot_ simpler to write a GCC
    > frontend.

    If you go look at the dotgnu.org website, you will see a plea for a volunteer to write the gcc bytecode backend for a stack-based vm.

    This is not a simple problem, and no one has volunteered to date.

    --


    Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
    See my user info for links.
  100. One reason I'm in favor of Mono... by kriemar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is their name--"Mono". At least it's not G.NET or Portable.NET or Opensource.NET or Somethingelse.NET.

    The name might seem like a lame reason, but to me it makes all the difference in the world. .NET is a huge cloud of MS initiatives, some of which I am interested in, others of which I consider dangerous.

    The choice of name, as far as I'm concerned, says a lot about the mission and mindset of a project. I'm much more interested in a project with a function goal than an emulation goal. "Mono", to me, would beg the question, "what are they trying to do"? X.NET would beg the question "how are they trying to copy .NET?"

    Trying to emulate .NET as a vague entity, I believe, will fail.

    Trying to emulate or provide alternatives to elements of the .NET initiative, on the other hand, might work well. A good open source CLI implementation, for example, seems great. So does a good authentication system. But trying to do everything at once in one project I have problems with.

    Maybe I'm wrong here, and maybe I really don't know enough about the projects (I _know_ I don't know enough about the projects, actually). But I'd rather see one project trying to accomplish X, another trying to accomplish Y, etc. than one huge project trying to copy MSs latest vision of world domination.

  101. Re:do i understand this properly? by Ross+C.+Brackett · · Score: 2
    i mean, things like the samba project cannot be done anymore, thanks to the DMCA.
    please, someone correct me!
    Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? Samba is alive and well. If I recall, the DMCA outlaws reverse engineering for the purposes of bypassing copy protection. Now I know SMB is a little crufty, but it is ostensibly an open protocol. It may be de facto copy protected in that it's near impossible to get at the data, but as far as I know, Microsoft has always maintained that it's an open standard. Sheeah! Right! And monkeys might come flying out of my butt!

    For those who are keeping track, that's two (2) Wayne's World references. Thank you.
  102. Re:There's something you're forgetting: *BSD is Dy by NewbieSpaz · · Score: 1

    2 things:
    1. Isn't the parent off-topic?
    2. Isn't BSD the core of MacOS X?

    WTF?

    --
    ------
    Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
  103. Good choice by Palshife · · Score: 1

    Frankly I like that there are 2 efforts going on. Maybe one will succeed.

    I disagree. I liken the phenomenon of having 2 major versions of Mono in the open source community to, say, splitting the vote within a political party. It's just not smart when we know that the Open-source share will likely already be less than Microsoft.

    I hope the consolidation of these projects benefits the effort on a whole, and, if people do it right, it will.

    --
    Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
  104. .Net+Mono kill java and then .Net kill Mono? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are open source helping MS ? .Net was create with only one purpose: kill competitors. In order to kill its current biggest competitor Sun's Java, MS is using its own .Net and Mono. so what happens if it really kill java ? will it be benevolent to the Mono ? wake up guys !!!

  105. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  106. Java Community Process by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those mistaken enough to think that Java the language and VM are not open, take a look at the Java Community Process.

    Are you saying there can only be one standards body? Personally I think the important aspects of a standard are that a consortium of many different companies and people from all over (including individuals) be involved, true of the JCP. The Java bytecode is a standard, and other VM's have been written by many people. The Java langauge is a standard, anyone could write a compiler and feel safe knowing what to expect.

    What is the difference to you between the JCP and ECMA? Why do you consder changes through one body open and the other not?

    At JavaOne, a speaker was moaning about an aspect of the language not going in until later than Sun wanted (Generics - not out until 1.5) - but he was also happy that the JCP was working in that it was going against Sun's wishes on the matter and the community process was in control.

    Those of you siding with MS and imagining it will be more "Open" than Java are in for quite a rude shock!

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  107. Could someone please explain to me by randombit · · Score: 2

    why all these projects seem hell-bent on writing thier own C# compilers, when it's probably a _lot_ simpler to write a GCC frontend.

    Now I know, GCC is not perfect (by a long shot...). But it seems reasonable (to me) that C# be part of GCC. I mean, not all compiled languages are supported by GCC, but it seems to do a decent job of supporting C-like languages, C, C++, Java, Objective-C, plus odd and ends like Fortran, Ada, Pascal (?), etc. And as a bonus you immediately get native code generation.

    And the whole idea of writing a C# compiler in C#... I mean... c'mon people. Must we repeat the lesssons of Sun's JDK and Jikes once again?

    I image that the (hypothetical) C# GCC frontend and the (already existing) Java GCC frontend could probably share a pretty decent amount of code, as well.

  108. So what is it? by streepje · · Score: 1

    The dotGnu folks seem to want you to have as little exposure as possible to .NET but, as one who has had zero exposure to .NET, the dotGnu web page tells me nothing about what the project is about except that it's kinda like .NET but it isn't.

    Infrequently asked but apparently difficult to answer question number 1: Without any reference whatsoever to .NET, what is the dotGnu project about?

  109. No you don't. by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 2

    You clearly don't have much of a clue about:
    .NET
    Microsoft Passport
    DMCA
    I'd suggest doing some reading. There's plenty of freely available information about all of these topics.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  110. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  111. DotGNU by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 2

    I've been looking at the DotGNU projecft recently, and something occured to me..

    They're not interested in anything their doing for technical reasons.. They just want to build something simular to snub their noses at Microsoft, and prove a point. This is absolutly the WRONG reason to be doing this effort.

    Proof is in the pudding. Heres some excepts:

    This list (the DotGNU "arch" list) on the other hand is about
    creating a something much more powerful than what Microsoft has,
    something that Microsoft cannot easily copy because it is
    totally incompatible with the business model they've chosen for
    .NET



    Mono will have a place in DotGNU for providing ".NET emulation
    functionality", but I don't see .NET or Mono doing anything that
    comes close to the Distributed Execution Environment that we've
    been talking about for DotGNU.


    Oh, and heres something where they aren't quite getting this, I think:


    Microsoft has an advantage over us at this point because they hold the
    keys to the client OS. This allows them to insert their authentication
    and .Net framework at a low level and distribute the entire thing with
    their OS. This allows the .Net infrustructure to be entirely
    transparent to the user. Dotgnu, by it's very nature, will not be
    entirely transparent to the user because we don't have access to the
    source code - and because of the increased control we're going to have
    to give the user.


    I mean common, someone has to send a message, tell them that theirs are quiet long enough, and they can stop it with the rulers.

    They're not looking for a good, sound, technically superior product. They're looking to prove their right, and someone else is wrong. I truely hope it succeeds, but at this rate, we're gonna end up with the Windows Terminal Server of the Open Source world.

    --
    -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  112. GNUstep and reinventing the wheel. by pschmied · · Score: 1
    GNUstep seems like a great idea that already has been carefully planned out. Not only that, but they are a good portion of the way toward having a useable system.

    Not only that, but Objective C is apparently pretty bad-ass. It already runs on more platforms than C# is planned to run on, and C programmers apparently like it.

    I love the idea that OS APIs be defined by a standards body, but I don't know how it would apply the same way as HTML or XML or OpenGL.

    Still the W3C has made the web suck a whole lot less. Maybe it would be worth seeing how a standards body could be applicable.


    -Peter

  113. Validating .Net strategy? No, defeat it! by ciurana · · Score: 2

    Portable.net and Mono don't validate Microsoft's .Net. They are a reaction to it, and perhaps the only chances we've got to wrestle control of the Internet from Microsoft.

    Many Open Source projects tend to be re-implementations of someone's commercial products. In this case, Microsoft designed a framework that is likely to become the standard in years to come. It's not a matter of whether we like it or not. It's simple economics. Microsoft has the following advantages going for it:

    • Market penetration
    • PR mindshare
    • A coherent plan
    • An almost endless supply of cash

    Rather than complaining about "validating Microsoft's position", we should all take this as an opportunity to do what Microsoft does best: Embrace and extend. The products from DotGNU meta project, and every subproject or related effort, can be leveraged by us to wrestle control from Microsoft.

    It won't be an easy battle, but we may win it. We need to achieve the following:

    • Participate in a coordinated, constructive and coordinated manner. The in-fighting only hurts our chances.
    • Focus on delivering products and services as fast as possible.
    • Companies have evangelists; some of us will get to evangelize (and educate) the uncultured IT masses. Are we up to the task? We need to create mindshare, high-visibility commercial projects, and promote our success stories.
    • Most important, don't fight with Microsoft. Let them get comfortable. Focus our energy on improving our results, not on pissing contests with the Redmond Giant. Remember: If you wrestle with a pig, the pig just has fun and you just get dirty.

    Remember also that this is not only a technology fight. Hailstorm/passport are services. That means that, after we implement the technology, we must convince real world organisations (businesses, non-profits, government, whatever) to adopt it instead of .Net et. al.

    Let's charge on!

    E
    --
    http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
  114. Got a better idea. by e2d2 · · Score: 1

    troll or not.. I'm sick of slashdrones. If you have a better idea than Mono or DotGNU then stop talking and make it or STFU.

    Wanna innovate? Put your money where your mouth is and do something!

  115. You think it needs validating? by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 2

    Marketing dollars and a virtual monopoly provide pretty much all the validation they need. There's no point in waiting for it to succeed before implementing it, you'll just give them a bigger head start. Better to start early and have something credible to show earlier.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  116. Re:I don't see the point - Yes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even if ximian is hoping to get finance/bought from ms down the lane as you suggest , this wouldn't be a problem - from what i have seen on the mono list most of the developers are not even employed by ximian so this wouldn't be a problem!, though my opinion about why they are doing this is that they found out that the .NET environment is the future ( well i thought so after hacking on it for a couple days anyways) , it resembles java alot , but one thing that differed from java was the speed of the thing, you actually can make desktop applications that is infact usable , this is not the case with java ( try out JBuilder to see what i mean! ). well anyways you all should test .NET and make up you're own opinions about it , please disregard that it comes from redmond and think that this is an open ECMA standard, i think you'll all will be surprised :-)

  117. LOL, it's funny 'cause it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hehehe

  118. .NET is evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When will you people wake up and smell the coffee?! Just because .NET is supported by Linux doesn't make .NET any better than what it really is, a huge venture by M$ out to eat up the rest of the competition INCLUDING LINUX.. Dump their technology and support Java instead!

  119. do i understand this properly? by gol64738 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    isn't it true that no matter who provides the front end, the back end authentication will be done with microsofts passport? isn't this a bad idea? is everyone hoping that an open source version of passport will be available at some point? doesn't anyone else feel that if someone designs an open source passport app that microsoft will sue using the DMCA?

    i mean, things like the samba project cannot be done anymore, thanks to the DMCA.
    please, someone correct me!

  120. Seems like a waste of time... by xZAQx · · Score: 1

    Is it just me or is .NET the most amorphic peice of vaporware shit to come out of Redmond since, well, ever? Seriously WTF is it? All we ever get is soundbytes from Gates and Co. about "framework" etc. AFAIK, it's a suffix to append to existing bad software, such as ASP.NET and VB.NET (which I hear is even WORSE than VB!!!). Seems like the OSS Community is wasting our time even being worried about it. And now we've got inner battles because of it? Come on, who cares?

    --

    We dance to all the wrong songs.
    --Refused.