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Miguel de Icaza on Mono, Ximian/Novell, XAML
moquist writes "Netcraft has an interview with Miguel de Icaza, of Gnome and Ximian fame. Icaza expounds his thoughts on Mono (the .Net framework for open source), the current direction of Microsoft's .Net, Novell's acquisition of Ximian, Novell's Linux desktop environment, Linux for grandmas and kids, and "the greatest danger to the continuing adoption and progress of open source" (Hint: it's pronounced "XAML".)."
How the hell do you pronounce "XAML"?
interview_with_miguel_de_icaza_cofounder_of_gnome_ ximian_and_mono.html
I, for one, welcome our new naming convention overlords.
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
Can't he talk about anything other than Mono and Microsoft Technologies? I swear he must be an employee.
He's the most visible member of the Linux community who does stuff related to MS technologies. We need people like him, people who are aware of and can help plan counters to upcoming technology that has the potential to bring great change (great as in a large amount of change). Silencing him would be like silencing a sentinel. It's good to be aware of current and future Microsoft stuff, even if you don't like Microsoft.
He acknowledges that the Microsoft replacement for HTML is a rich user experience to come, despite the fact it certainly is dangerous to a certain extent.
Do realize that, GNU/Linux zealots : you can say something is good from a certain point of view (usability), and bad from another (interoperability). Isn't that incredible ?
Really ; isn't that incredible ?
Regards,
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
This new technology is finally going to bring closer to the people with domain expertise the ability to create their own applications, without having to depend on technical specialists. HTML opened the door to many people with limited or no programming expertise. The .Net framework with Avalon and XAML will advance this even further. The Mozilla approach is something the Unix/Linux developers need to better understand and get on board with and contribute towards as the current stack used in the Unix/Linux community is already out-dated. Miguel is right-on-target!!!
.Net framework, Avalon and XAML in my opinion will have no peers unless the Linux community develops a competitive answer!
I've worked in Unix engineering environments since 1984 at HP and Sun (Operating Systems, Networking and Graphics). I've observed over the years that the Unix community took Microsoft very lightly and never very seriously. The unix industry has not traditionally worked with the same user community as Microsoft. But Microsoft has matured very quickly and now delivers some outstanding technology for developing applications! The
The stack that Microsoft is creating will not only empower more people to create more sophisticated applications, but will increase the productivity of application programmers by at least 30% over todays Unix/Linux development stacks!!!
Mozilla is a great start in the right direction, but cooperation between the Gnome, Kde, and Mozilla camps will need to occur in sort order to compete with the Microsoft stack when it comes to application interface development.
GigantanKramePithicus
XUL is more of a standard: there is a specification
which describes what things must do, and there are
a couple of implementations (Mozilla's being the
most popular one).
XAML on the other hand is a serialization format:
every tag in the XML is looked up in the class
libraries, and every attribute as an event or as
a property to be set. So the resulting markup
is just a way of creating instances of your classes.
The idea of XAML can be used with any class
library really, its not limited to Avalaon (for
instance, MyXAML is a XAML implementation for
Windows.Forms). Like I said on the interview,
what makes XAML/Avalon powerful is that it runs
on a sandbox, and it has a set of fairly recent
controls as opposed to those we have grown used
to on the Web.
Miguel.
One thing I really give Miguel credit for; he is more than willing to put up with the political heat and flak for taking MS ideas seriously and seeing how they could apply to the Linux/Open Source/GUI world.
Given the popularity of Perl, Python, etc, it makes sense for a language independent VM and libraries for programming. Is the CLR the best for this? Well, no, but there's a good case that it is best thing right now, or at the least, good enough!
I think a killer Open Source project would be port Java over to the CLR. To be really evil and fun, make it a JVM->CLR rewriter. Of course, Sun will sue you like mad, but that not why it wouldn't happen (it helps MS too much), but it would break Sun's hold on Java a bit more. Especially with Mono in the mix.
And now to for the flamebait (This is a post with MS stuff it in, after all).
Microsoft does have true innovations in Longhorn. (See, I told you). And it is worth paying attention to and evaluating. Passing it off as vaporware or FUD isn't wise, considering the bits are getting into people's hands right now.
XAML is nicely balanced and really seems like the first truly usable markup-based GUI language (XUL was close, but not close enough. I think it'd be much more popular otherwise).
Avalon is nice, not totally groundbreaking, but it does kill bitmap-based windowing, and I haven't seen anything that suggest that Linux world is pulling that trigger yet. (X being a obstacle in the way) Apple did, and the results speak for themselves I think.
WinFX has some very interesting ideas in how you structure components, and has the chance to become the next big thing in components (after COM. Another Microsoft innovation! Flames rising).
Finally, WinFS is very, very cool stuff, even as vaporware. I'm not surprised they had to scale it back, because what there are doing is nothing short of rethinking the file system from the ground up. This is a bold thought to take seriously. The notion of extensible metadata alone is powerful. (Before, file metadata was fixed.) Add in searching, extensible relationships, etc and you have something worth paying attention too.
This is innovation, in my book. Invention is coming up with those rare new ideas. I see innovation is taking those ideas and making them applicable, or practical, affordable, widely available, better, used by many and so on.
I think Ford was an innovator for creating a practical way to mass-produce cars. He didn't invent the car, he made it a reality for many.
Microsoft has done that, for better or for worse. Not all innovation is a priori good for all.
Of course, one should never obsess with what MS is doing to the determent of all else. Pay attention, but focus on doing what you can do best, and let the chips fall were they may.
Helloooooo, anyone home ?, once you get into creating 'elaborate' stuff in 'markup' then you are smack back into programming and code. Its that kind of thinking that gives us unmaintainable Excel or Word macros, JavaScript, ASP, Perl, Expect/Tk,...list goes on.
It IS programming and it IS in CODE because it has a syntax , a grammer and a vocabulary. Unless it is a natural language parser then its still a computer language.
I'm not knocking the language - I just think its being oversold by saying its not code.
I am still a realtively new coder, with only around 4 years under my belt all in Microsoft shops, and even newer to the linux world about 3 months.
/. I was excited at the possibility of using the development tools and environment that I am familiar with and be able to deploy my code to Linux. The most exciting thing to me was the possibility of running ASP.NET on Apache. In the last 2 weeks I have really began to experiment with this particular aspect and was able to copy my compiled C# ASP.NET web app from my windows box to my Fedora Core box and everything ran with no problems.
When I first heard of the Mono project here on
I welcome further the possibility to continue to use the development environment I know while being able to deploy my code across windows and linux platforms. (I am not a fan of Java and say what you wish about C#, but I find it to be a very nice language.)
I wish the mono team the best of luck.
I am so creative, look at my cry for attention in my sig.
> Why the need to counter what Microsoft do?
Because Microsoft has something on the order of 95% of the desktop market. If Linux ever hopes to achieve a greater penetration into that market (which would be a *good* thing), they need to counter things Microsoft does or they become even more marginalized.
> Why not just drive in an own direction?
Yes, it has worked so well for Apple. Their marketshare went from what, 10% to 2-3% over the past decade or two? You need to provide some sort of migration path. I develop applications on FreeBSD, but I do my development on a Windows machine because there are a few Windows programs that I have trouble doing without. I've finally moved over to Firefox/Thunderbird and Open Office, and almost done doing the same for my wife (as a web developer she still needs IE for testing) but games aside, there are a few applications that I use that I don't want to do without.
> Looking at MS at all times is just going to make Open Source spending time following MS instead of going our own way.
Open Source has a potential to do both at the same time... provide a migration path AND compelling reasons to switch over. But without the migration path, it's a scary change. Linux and other open source operating systems don't have enough marketshare to drive serious change in the desktop. I want to see open source innovation, but without that marketshare, it will be ignored and marginalized.
> Now that MS is starting to focus on getting patents and such on everything they do its a disaster waiting to happen if we do like them in everything.
And if everyone believes that Microsoft is doomed any day, then open source will never get the momentum it needs to be a 'real player' on the desktop. Microsoft is a competitor for the desktop market... and you can't afford to ignore competitors.
> We dont need to follow MS every move any longer as long as we stick to open standards.
I'm sorry, but that's just naive. When they have 97% of the marketshare, they CREATE the standards. Open standards don't mean a damn thing if there isn't a serious choice in applying those standards.
> If we follow MS in implementing closed or patented standards on the net we are doing MS nothig but favours and helping the acceptance of closed systems.
And if the open source 'market' ignores those closed or patented standards, they will become further marginalized and the rest of the market will be forced to accede to reality: that those closed standards are where the action is at.
Maybe it's time for the open source movement to do a little "Embrace and Extend"ing of their own.
GreyGore
Now how are they going to force people to give up millions of dollors in investment. Both software and training, let alone the new hardware that may be required (WinTel). For the so far unproven benifits of LongHorn?
Shiny things. IT management loves shiny things. As long as there are lots of nice shiny features that they can market to death it will sell. The reason the uptake of XP and Server 2003 has been so slow is because they don't really do a hell of a lot more thna Win2k. Yes, there are some nice new bits and pieces, but I don't know of any major shiny new features that actually break any ground.
On the other hand, Longhorn is their chance to fianlly add some of these "new groundbreaking" features - it's an all out overhaul rather than the incremental stuff that XP and 2003 have been. Of course Longhorn is, for now anyway, the vaporware repository too: "Objected Filesystem? Sure, in Longhorn.", "Graphics card accelerated desktop with scalable graphics? Sure, in Longhorn", "Uncrackable security model, Dancing bears and World peace? Sure, in Longhorn."
Some of the talked about features will undoubtedly make it in. Avalon, I gather, is making reasonable headway. Some of them might not - every time I hear about WinFS it has been scaled back even further, and will do even less. The point is that there are potentially enough shiny things to impress managment.
The thing to remember is that management cares about shiny things. Vendor lock in and ensuing extortion, security issues, and pretty much anything that requires contemplating more than a quarter in advance are irrelevant. Look! Shiny things... oooooh.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Here's how I'd guess at the state of things:
1) Miguel recognizes the fact that Microsoft is big, doesn't play nicely, and doesn't like having other people in its sandbox.
2) Miguel presumably believes that Linux is a superior system -- that given the opportunity, users will prefer Linux.
3) Miguel presumably believes that a primary reason Microsoft retains its position is because of barriers to interoperability established by Microsoft. By promoting their own, closed file formats and protocols, Microsoft makes it difficult for customers to move to other systems.
4) Miguel improves interoperability between Windows and Linux, reducing the barriers that Microsoft has worked so hard to establish, that prevent people from using Linux as a full or partial subsitute for their own products.
Then, once barriers to transition have been eliminated, as long as OSS developers and distro providers are providing a superior alternative, users can and will switch.
May we never see th
Hmm, and I almost could have sworn that mono means monkey only to those who do speak spanish.
You never know these things, do you.
People who upgrade to Longhorn and
It is a complete waste of time to copy Microsoft and expect to survive, innovative products survive. Apple only outlasted OS2 because of its innovation. It only lasted this long because of innovation.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Moving to Linux is not "free". Nothing is "free". There are distinct opportunity costs in switching to Linux. There is the time spent learning about Linux. The time spent getting any data that needs to be preserved into a portable form. The time to actually reinstall software on existing hardware. The inevitable troubleshooting required. If you are a company there is probably a lot of time spent to train employees. There is lost productivity due to system unavailability during the transition and due to "ramp up" time as people get used to working with the new software.
:)
Depending on the size of your company, this could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. In fact, it might be easier to buy Apple computers for many reasons. Each company or individual must make its own decisions about any changes to existing IT infrastructure based on a lot of these factors, but simplistic statements like "Linux is free" are misleading. It sets up extremely unrealistic expectations.
However, there is one way in which Linux beats all the alternatives: It is Free (as in speech).
I do not have a signature