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Miguel de Icaza on Longhorn
An anonymous reader writes "In Miguel de Icaza's latest blog entry the Mono project leader discusses the threat Longhorn's new technologies and frameworks pose to Linux and open source. He also directs users to this recent USENET post about the goals of Mozilla, which is a very interesting read.
Originally seen on OSnews." Mmmm...Miguel smart. Seriously, good commentary - and ripe for discussion/flame wars.
Having something similar to the Microsoft platform would encourage developers to develop cross-platform. If a usable subset is developed on mono, the restriction to that subset is the price for a cross-platform application - better than a reimplementation.
Although I don't think the OSS community should be making descisions based solely on Microsoft's heading, I don't think ignoring them is the way to go either. I do think the fact that something like mono exists makes one less argument *not* to make the switch to linux. If you support .net the Linux platform can attract developers which would otherwise be coding for and on Windows only.
Just my 2ç
> There's no reason for me or anyone else to buy Longhorn EVER
Just as there was no reason to buy Windows XP. But still, many people did it. And new computers come with Windows XP, so there is no easy way to avoid it.
Especially when the first applications are written that only run on that version of Windows. (Either XP or Longhorn.)
That was quite an interesting read. While I don't totally agree with every point, the gist of the blog is right on target. I think one of the keys to Linux fighting off such threats is to get better cohesion between GNU projects, outside the Linux distro. This weekend I went to install some GNU software on my WinXP Pro laptop. I get to the download page, and ooops! I also need to install 3 other GNU projects just to get the software I want to work. Then I get to one of the other projects, and ooops! I have to install another program to get it to work. To install one app, I had to install 4 others, which meant a lot of navigation and downloading. No sweat. I am a coder; I can do this. But it did take extra time. I started wondering why these were not all packaged together, or why the installer could not simply detect they were not there and install the needed apps. This is one advantage MS has over many GNU projects and the Linux community. They are one company, and can enforce product compliance, etc. The point I am leading to is this: if the GNU community wants to beat MS in the long run they need to make sure more of their apps can easily install on MS boxes without having any knowledge of programming, IT, etc. Once you get people using this software, the switch to using this software on Linux will be much easier. Open Office is a great example of this. I know most GNU projects compile on Windows (or will with some modifications) but it has to be easier for the Windows user to get said applications.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
For example, why is everyone trying to get 2D vector icons when it's obvious 3D or even 4D (fourth dimension is time) icons are the way to go? Why on earth would 3D or 4D icons be the way to go? It's a simple picture that reperesents an application or idea. The simpler the better. Nobody cares if their word processor icon has phong hilights and the like.
I'm all for Mono, software should be cross platform, and and it would be nice to see this succeed where Java unfortunately didn't.
.Net/Mono, C et al will be for the overseeable future. (Dont give me the "C is portable too" crap, just today I found differences in the behaviour of strtok between platforms, not to speak of "compile everywhere").
.Net", hopefully they will interoperate more or less seamlessly, something that there is already work in progress on in more than one place.
Its always interesting to see people dismiss java as a failure out of hand with no real arguments for it. Did it fail? Depends on your point of view. Is java cross-platform? Most certainly is! And will continue to be so to a bigger extent than
Is java a failure on the client? Well, as far as circulation goes, probably, but that has three main reasons:
1. Higher learning curve, VB will always be easier to learn.
2. Old myths die hard: yes, Java was slow and java interfaces where ugly and clunky. 5 years ago! Newsflash, Java has moved forward in great leaps since the days of Java 1.1
3. Applets are mostly useless. But: Java != Applets!
Java is a great success just about everywhere else BUT on the desktop computer though, there are millions of java-enabled handsets, there are tens of thousands of java server deployments etc etc.
But.. Hopefully in the future I wont have to choose "java or
XUL does not have the potential to do this for one simple reason. Almost nobody runs Mozilla. Yeah, I know we all do, but in the real world, on the desktops of people doing their internet banking, their web based email and so on, nobody uses Mozilla, so people cannot ship a web based app using Mozilla tech (XUL). It would have to run on IE to have even a chance in hell of nullifying Avalon, and XUL simply does not, and will never, work on IE.
I've more or less stopped trying to show people that IE is stunting their growth. It makes them onery and defensive. Instead, I like ignoring IE's faults, and show them nifty things in Opera they never knew they needed. Things like mouse gestures, linked windows, tabbed browsing (as you mentioned), customizable interface, crash-recovery, etc etc. Easiest thing to do is link to this Opera zealot's site:
Click
The pacing is well-done. He encourages people to try the browser for a month, because that's how long it takes to really get yourself out of an IE rut.
You know, I just accidentally closed the window before I copied over the link address, but instead of having to search for it again, I just hit ctrl-alt-Z to re-open the last window I closed. Little things like this is why I can no longer stand IE. No offense intended to those poor souls who still like using the back button, or can't turn off images with a single button, or natively block popups without a third-party app.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Let's just hope that never happens... Is there anything around at the moment that ONLY runs on XP?
I help blind users with access to computers, and the evil JAWS screen reader package ($1800!) comes with limitations; you can only install it on win95, 98, ME (why?), and XP home only. No win2000 of any flavour, and no XP pro. The reasons for its restrictions are not technical though; they are built in to ensure that corporate users are charged more than personal ones...
I've started teaching one of my clients some linux skills as X can now talk... the Linux revolution is here for the blind community, as it is for the rest of us!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
I doubt that Microsoft's newest OS will have anything drastically new that the Linux community does not already have, or that can easily be added.
.NET apps seems to be a really good idea from a security standpoint -- patch the runtime and all .NET apps benefit, be it performance benefits or security benefits. No more of this "patch a single app" stuff. Microsoft is definitely on the right track with this.
.NET runtime IS faster than Java, meaning it's actually possible for them to make most of Windows's user apps run in the .NET VM without a huge performance hit. As much as Slashdotters lambast Microsoft for not "innovating", they're definitely taking radical steps with Longhorn. And, as usual, I predict that Linux users will remain stubborn and say "Oh those features are stupid, no one will use them. Linux can already do that with this ugly hack. RTFM" until about two years after Longhorn is released, at which point suddenly you'll see GNOME and KDE emulating all those things that Longhorn has been doing for years.
I wouldn't be so sure. Integrated XML user interfaces? Sandboxed VM execution for user-mode applications built in to the OS? Longhorn's got em, Linux doesn't. In particular, the emphasis on
It's attitudes like yours that Icaza is talking about. "Oh, XYZ huh? Yeah Linux has that, if you follow these seemingly endless instructions to get this kludgy hack working." I hate to say it, but just watch. Microsoft's XML UI technology is going to be faster than Mozilla's XUL, and their
Imagine delivering an app via website that used native widgets and looked and felt like part of your OS, all while safely sandboxed.
.Net functionality on Linux, we would make peace with Sun and pull Java into the OSS world.
.Net apps. The Pluggable Look and Feels allow this; this site has a gallery of some. We've benchmarked real apps with Java and .Net, and the execution times are within 10% of each other. They both suck about the same. :)
This capability has been available with Java WebStart for a while now. Like many Sun and Apple products, they are consciously ignored until Microsoft "invents" them and the fanboys come running into my office to show this "new" technology on MSDN. Yawn. Trying to keep up with Mono is a Microsoft-sponsored hamster wheel, IMHO. If we really wanted
You can make really good Java Swing desktop or browser apps that look every bit as good or better than
I don't know nor care much about whether or not going to support Avalon and XAML is a good idea if your goal is nuke Microsoft and Redmond.
However
My goal for Mono, being an active supporter and a small contributor, is not to try and kill Microsoft. My goal is not like most slashdot zealots to wipe and replace Microsoft. My goal is to provide Linux with a platform for developers that they can and will enjoy.
The point is not to compete with the Java world nor to compete with the Microsoft world. The point of Mono is to create both a self hosting platform and a platform that will be somehow compatible with Microsoft.
The point of Mono is not the be 100% compatible! It has never tried to be 100% compatible. The main point of Mono is to create a self hosting platform.
People often argue that it would be better to implement our own kickass framework. Well, Mono is just that. Agreed they are filling in the specifications which Microsoft made. But Mono is doing much more than that. And the specification is not that bad at all. Why throw a way a nice specification just because you hate the creator of it? That doesn't make any sense. And I don't hate Microsoft, nor do most Mono developers (oh by the way, Miguel is not the only developer).
Hating Microsoft is foolish and stupid. You don't have to love them (hell I don't) and you don't have to agree with their marketing point NOR technical point of view (mostly for the marketing part I for sure don't), but that doesn't mean that you also have to ignore them completely. I even dare to say that you are a fool and an idiot if you do so.
I would very much support introducing support for Avalon/XAML in Mono if Avalon/XAML is a nice technology. And yes, it looks nice to me. So if it's possible to implement that technology (using Mono or using whatever) then I think that we as an OpenSource community should do that. We should, indeed, (re)implement it, at some point in time.
Not because we can then compete with Microsoft, thats not the point, but because we want to provide developers (and in the end, users of our softwares) with the best technology, the best platform and most choices.
Our users will have the benefit of not having to get locked in that Microsoft monopoly because WE recreated a part of that Microsoft-world.
Lets not forget that we are doing this because of the love of the art of programming, not because we HATE Microsoft. Thats what those stupid newbie Linux usies think why we do it. We love the art of programming. We love to show our art and the best way to do this is by making it public. And we, OpenSource developers, think that the best way to make things public is by licensing it using for example GPL, MIT or whatever OpenSource license.
Just like a lot musicians release their compositions for free, so that students can learn using their materials. I often compare such (classical) music with software code. The author thinks that it's art, the listener mainly enjoys it. But for a lot people it's art, okay?
For software developers, our code is our art. Our users don't give a shit about that code. They want to use our code. We want to distribute our art and show our skills. THATS the main reason why OpenSource exists. NOT because we HATE Microsoft.
Regretfully most people think we are doing this because we hate Microsoft. We don't. (And I speak for a lot OpenSource developers, I am confident about that).
Mono means they can stay in their comfort zone, but still produce software that will work for people moving to Linux. You're not likely to change the minds of all those Windows programmers who are just doing a job because they are being paid to do it, but you can at least open a path of least resistance towards portability. Go Mono!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Off topic, but ... Are there any examples of actual projects using mono that I could try out right now? (On Linux.)
.. Anything?
Web apps, desktop apps, utilities
Or, with Mozilla or Opera, you can use the current window as your base for tangents, and then open the links you wish to explore in new tabs (shift-click, or right click --> Open In New (Active or not) Tab) or even new windows. When you're done with those tangents, you can close the tabs and you still have the original page there.
Opening the same window with CTRL-N is something I've never understood about IE. It makes no sense, particularly when you're on a secure site and you ended up logged in twice or force some other odd cookie-based error.
-Augie
Here's a question. How do we copy Microsoft and get our "working something" out the door first? Do we go back in time?
Here's another question which nobody on the "We must clone Microsoft's products at all costs" lobby has ever satisfactorily answered: how are we contributing anything to the world if our product is just a (poor, it has to be poor, because Microsoft's technologies are not lumbered with having to run on a platform that was never designed to run them) clone of something that already exists? Do we improve music by producing "free" versions of Brittney Spears and the Spice Girls? Do we contribute something new and wonderful by making a movie with the exact same plot as Terminator 3, but with even poorer acting? Do we ensure that everyone has something that caters for them by spending a lot of effort cloning the writing style of Jeffrey Archer and writing predictable thrillers, then redistributing them for free?
As long as Microsoft defines the product, Microsoft will be ahead. Icaza ignores this because Icaza likes Microsoft's technologies, they suit him, he lacks the imagination, will, and talent to produce anything better than what Microsoft produces, so he's content to spend the rest of his life in perpetual catch-up, pretending that he will in some way be able to produce something better than his mentor and rival without ever knowing ahead of time what it is that mentor and rival will be producing and so being unable to produce his clone before Microsoft's original.
The truth to the statement "The central point was that paying too much attention to Microsoft simply allows Microsoft to define the game. And when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS win." is self-evident. You cannot both follow and lead.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
With Firefox, at least, shift-click does open a new window, and ctrl-click (or the middle mouse button/wheel) opens the link in a new tab, which is preferrable to me.). It has done so for months and months, I don't even know how long.
Now, no one (I hope) is saying you have to use a different browser, but the reason given doesn't hold anymore.
philcrissman.com.
I do not think you read my whole message,
because I stated that there were two options:
to implement Avalon, or to build our own.
We are in the process of specing out what
ours should be (the platform we call
"salvador").
Miguel.