Nat Demos Dashboard

pheared writes "Nat Friedman from Ximian gave a fairly in depth, quite hilarious (got embarrassing screensaver?), and somewhat impromptu, talk about his project "Dashboard" at OLS. From his blog: "The dashboard is a piece of software which performs a continous, automatic search of your personal information space to show you things in your life that are related to whatever you happen to be doing with your computer at the time." Neat stuff, but I don't think I will be warming up to Mono and C# any time soon."

Comments

Unnecessary commentary?

[Osty]

From the submitter:

Neat stuff, but I don't think I will be warming up to Mono and C# any time soon.

Was this commentary really necessary? This software looks like neat stuff, just as pheared said, so why the barb? Could you at least give a reason for your statement? What, if anything, does it have to do with the article, save that the software in question was written using C# via Mono?

Editors, I know you've explained why you won't edit user submissions before, and I know it's a losing battle to suggest you change, but this is a perfect candidate for editing. That remark had no business being left on the submission, and removing it would not detract from the story one bit. If there has ever been a perfect example of why editors should take their jobs seriously, this is it. Was pheared so unsure of the quality of his submission that he needed to try to stir up debate over Mono and C#, rather than let the story stand on its own? Or worse, were there really no other submissions for this story, or did the editors purposely choose this one submission because of the added barb at the end?

Re:Unnecessary commentary?

[CurlyG]

...What, if anything, does it have to do with the article, save that the software in question was written using C# via Mono?

Err, it's written in C# via Mono. The author of the article is interested in the app but has reservations about that technology.

What is so inappropriate about stating that? If anything it provides a good starting point to the discussion here.

Getting your knickers in a twist because slashdot isn't a traditional media source and doesn't try to ape that style *is* inappropriate, and somewhat silly.

Re:Unnecessary commentary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahahaha. Yes, just as SCO were concerned about their IPR three years ago, when Project Monteray collapsed on them. Just as Unisys made it clear right from the start that they wanted royalties for LZW in GIF. Yeah, I'm sure they would have done something by now. Thats right. Microsoft would never wait until a developer base had grown around C# among FOSS developers and then pull the rug out from under them and leave them with no choice but to switch to Microsoft .NET No, they'd never do exactly the same thing as they've done to countless others before, for example OS/2. No. Never.

Pull my head out indeed.

Re:Unnecessary commentary?

[Taurine]

By writing Mono, and by writing unique and interesting software using it, these guys clearly have an agenda of creating interest and demand for C# on Linux. This is a big win for Microsoft, and pretty much of no help to Linux. Mono is always going to be on shaky ground legally, but it will let people begin their critical application development on Linux before deciding that for safety they need to move to Windows. If they wrote their application for Java instead, they would have less need to move off Linux, and should they wish to, a far greater choice of hardware and operating system environments to move to.

Essentially Ximian are developing this software to grab some market share for something they hope will become big, without regard for the impact such a product could have upon the free software environment they will be sitting on top of. They are happily giving a leg-up to Microsoft while claiming to be purer than white due to the standards submission by Microsoft of a portion of the platform. Nothing prevents a full free software port of Java, and Sun would not risk an enormous loss of credibility by making substantial incompatible changes or moving against other Java providers. Standardising part of the C# environment is a marketting exercise, in practical terms it doesn't give your C# code a longer life than your Java code.

So I'm happy to see the /. editors reminding everyone that this isn't just another piece of warm, fluffy, cute free software to configure && make && make install with open arms. Think before you endorse C#.

Re:Unnecessary commentary?

[IamTheRealMike]

these guys clearly have an agenda of creating interest and demand for C# on Linux

Uh, no. The guy pushing Mono is Miguel, Dashboard is written by Nat. Large parts of Ximian are not using Mono, or not sure about it. Nonetheless, Nat decided to use Mono because he wanted to try it out, and decided he liked what he saw.

This is a big win for Microsoft, and pretty much of no help to Linux

I fail to see how having a language that doesn't suck and is good for writing desktop apps in is "no help at all to Linux". We have to move beyond C and C++ sometime, you know.

Mono is always going to be on shaky ground legally

What, just like Linux itself? Need I remind you that Linux is a reimplementation of a once proprietary OS written in a once proprietary language?

If they wrote their application for Java instead.....[snip]

Yes, but they didn't. Java had its chance at being the choice of desktop apps, and failed it. I'm still not sure why Java is any better than C# - both languages/environments have had to have their compilers and class libraries cloned by the free software community, except that Java is not ratified by ISO.

Essentially Ximian are developing this software to grab some market share for something they hope will become big

Er, no. Why don't you read up on how it got started? It started as Nat trying something he thought would be cool, and then a load of people helping out. There are enough conspiracy theories as it is, no need to invent more.

Think before you endorse C#.

The people writing this stuff aren't stupid. I can tell you, they are thinking about C#, and have decided that most peoples fears are groundless. That doesn't mean it's risk free! Oh no. It does mean that they think it's no more risky than any other part of free software is (cloning a UNIX kernel? reverse engineering Windows? GPLd MP3 players?)

Re:Nice to see the sideswipe at .NET (not)

[nepheles]

It's maybe a little ironic that large portions of the OS community are generally against C# and Mono, as it is a Microsoft technology. Mono is an OS clone of a mainly proprietary technology.

...Almost like a certain Operating System

Yeah, Like That's Proof

[reallocate]

>> As always, if you think something doesn't suck then prove it.

Says who? You?

>> Everything I've seen of .NET has looked retarded...

Oh, there's the proof.

>> I don't like most things Microsoft...

..and, therefore, anything and everything associated with Microsoft is beneath contempt, by definition.

Have you ever considered the possiblity that you might, sometimes, be wrong?

Re:He is reimplementing the Remembrance Agent !

[avdi]

Not exactly. While RA is quite a nifty tool, all it does is index your home directory and run searches against what it finds their based on the current document in Emacs. RA doesn't have the ability to note that you're having an IM conversation with someone, and automatically show you: their email address and other FOAF contact information; their last few blog entries; when you last talked to them; their schedule; etc. That's the kind of thing Dashboard is intended to do. Dashboard integrates semantic information from many different applications, rather than just doing a smart grep against your home dir.

Ah, but that's exctly the point!

[Lysol]

So what exactly is wrong with .NET? If you need to work on the Windows platform it's a godsend!

Precisely. And that's where it will stay - on a Win platform. At least until Win is made much smaller (think Novell) and the platform becomes less important compared to the app and development technologies.

Anyway, I have to say that I'm a huge Ximian fan. I think they've contributed a great desktop. So my hat's off to them.

However, as someone who has done some hacking on dotGNU, I am pessimistic about the whole .NET thing.

Besides domination, what is m$'s ultimate goal: lock in. This has been documented and has hit people over the head for years so I don't need to go into a lengthy discussion about it.
Coupled with the fact that even from a clean room implementation standpoint, m$ will pull ip claims. No question about it. Especially when GNU/Linux starts making more and more inroads. I mean, if it's (.NET) supported on *nix, why go with costly m$?

Like I said, I think Nat, Miguel and co. have done an excellent job. They're doing great things. But unless there is some strict, free, licensing agreement submitted along with the .NET ECMA stuff (to my knowledge, only C# has been submitted), then I just can't see how m$ will stay away from shutting Mono down.

Also, while I think Mono is cool, I still have a problem supporting a language/platform that was created by a company such as m$ for the reasons they did. It still feels tainted and dirty to me. m$ has not become the largest software company in the world by being 'compatible'. There's a documented history that goes back well over a decade that proves this.

Good luck guys! The dashboard looks reall cool, btw.