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Mono Beta 2 Released
A little birdy writes "Less than a month after Beta 1 was released,
Mono Beta 2 has been released. See the Release Notes, or go directly to the download page. It includes a C# compiler, an implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure and two stacks of APIs: a Unix, Linux, GNOME, Mono stack for APIs that takes the most advantage of your Unix server and desktop and a set of APIs compatible with the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 that provides support for ASP.NET (web services and web forms), ADO.NET and many other components." And in a related story: darthcamaro writes "The drive to develop a FOSS implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework by DotGNU and Novell's Mono project is being painted as a contest between the Free and Open Source communities in an article on internetnews.com. The article details the running argument between DotGNU's Norbert Bollow and Mono's Miguel de Icaza on the issues of commercial involvement, software patents and all the 'religious' stuff that the Free software community holds against the open source community."
Is this the same as Stereo Alpha 1?
Does anyone know of any significant applications developed using the Mono Linux API stack yet?
Also will the applications I write with this stack work on Windows?
----
Software patents ARE a real threat to Mono. FTC recently pushed for reform. It's now time for the USA to get rid of them. Patent attorneys will cry, but we know that its all crap.
Please help us in our EU campaign against software patents!
Miguel and Nat Friedmans are dangerous persons (low moral standards). They spread FUD about the KDE project and false news about their Novell role. Of course Suse 9.1 is shipped with KDE and not with Ximian Desktop. As easy as that. "Our customer rules".
Do we like this project, or hate it?
The mono C# compiler is a work of engineering genius.
It uses a program called TreeCC which goes beyond the Lex+Yacc model and provides an aspect-oriented tree programming model. This makes it very easy to write visitor patterns on your tree, and you can do syntax and semantic analysis with ease.
The resulting source code for a full working C# compiler is minute. TreeCC expands it into the real code.
Check it out!
It will be interesting to see what the performance comparisons of MSNET/MonoNET and MonoNet/LinJava. I would also like to see the CLI for Java project gain steam to take over some MS mkt share on the Winserver side (and allow seamless upgrades to Lin/Unix for those). Since C-pound is much like a C++/Java mutant it is not hard to transfer to the language.
I'm quite interested in seeing the first tools to take advantage of System.DirectoryServices, as this should enable us to manage a windows Active Directory natively from Linux.
I agree with Bollow's reasoning and reality, but I fear that his sentiments may fall far short of his dream. He'll have to cope with
With that said, I think it's a very good idea to try to slowly nudge Microsoft developers over to other platforms, particularly if we come out with more advanced and/or convenient features than Microsoft's own standards. Nevertheless, time will tell whether this project pans out or not.
Does anyone know if M$ has gotten or is getting a patent for the way .NET works. If Mono is to close to something like that they could try and squash the whole project.
Evolution or ID?
I would love to see an example of what this has enabled that can't be done with Microsoft's tools, even if it's just doing it for cheaper. I will never buy into this project based on the idea of interoperability. Look at the DOC format and how even slight inconsistencies can prevent other technologies from getting past .5% market share. Basically, if you want to support Microsoft and interoperate with Microsoft, you have to go the Microsoft Way.
So, I think the only chance for this project is if it produces tangible benefits beyond integration and support with Microsoft technologies on another platform. If this just enhances the Linux platform or turns into a platform itself, it may have a chance. However, once it becomes a platform, if you think MS won't try to demolish it the way it has done to every other platform, you are mistaken, especially since the project has shown no leadership and is essentially a clone of what MS is doing. Microsoft is still in the driver's seat, and given the attitude of Miguel, I doubt they can establish themselves as true *independent* leaders in the IT community, even if everything up until now has been an example of extreme bootstrapping and supporting things for highly strategic purposes only.
Supporting MS is a slippery slope, and before you know it, one decision to cater to MS technologies leads to fifty more, and all of a sudden, you have basically enhanced *their* platform and ensured your own long term destruction. These people that are rabidly anti-MS aren't just sour grapes party poopers. They are often astute observers. Every other person MS has reamed had the same idea before they got a taste of the wrath.
The only information that is needed for the success of mono is the following: are the relevant ECMA standards 334 and 335 and just RAND, or are they really RAND and royalty free as miguel and others have claimed?
.NET is really very nice and productive. Microsoft will finally have made a valuable and lasting contribution to computer science.
If it is really RAND and royalty free, it will become my favorite development platform. Working with
If not, it is just another poisoned fruit by microsoft.
--
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
"Quick! Get MONO." Now there's a tagline worth pursuing.
Here's what is actually happening. When companies are deciding on .Net or other technologies, these projects are held up as examples of how choosing .Net will not lock you into Windows. Then they go ahead with buying the Windows servers and developing the half working .Net app.
He may think he's giving companies choice to move to Linux. But what he is really doing is providing justification for choosing Windows.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As always, there is a Wikipedia article avalible about this story.
I was under impression that mono has switched to a modern generational garbage collector, the Intel ORP GC. But the current beta uses the conservative boehm garbage collector.
A conservative GC is nice for a quick hack, but it really does not cut it for a modern VM.
So which one will it use in mono 1.0? Boehm or ORP? And if it is the boehm collector, what plans are there to switch to a modern GC?
By the way: the conservative garbage collector is the only real technical flaw of mono. Other than that it is quite a modern VM. Quite amazing for this short development time...
--
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
This seems like a legitimate set of concerns, but I think the ability of Microsoft to change the game at this point is severely limited.
The reason why Microsoft can't radically alter .NET is because of the existance of legacy apps. The company I work for has thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars into our ASP.NET applications. Microsoft can't break these applications. The .NET API has to remain consistant or they'll lose that legacy application support and lose customers. The fastest way to piss off an IT department is to make a change that breaks their apps. Believe me, I know...
So, if Mono can get the .NET 1.1 standards done, they can support all those legacy apps with few changes. Even if/when Microsoft introduces some spiffy new libraries with .NET 2.0, businesses can still say "it's cheaper for us to get off the forced upgrade wagon and move to Mono as a platform for .NET and we can keep our legacy applications." Unless .NET 2.0 comes up with some massively useful new system, there isn't that strong a reason to upgrade.
Granted, Microsoft can still pull out a patent and try to shut Mono down, which remains a threat, but I don't see them as doing that. All Mono has to do is use that as a talking point - don't develop for .NET because of patent issues. This hurts Microsoft by slowing the adoption of .NET. The worst that happens is that Mono has to fall back on its own libraries, and given that things like Gtk# are useful on their own they still have something to show for their work.
The more I think about it, the more I think Mono is in a strong position. I'd be more worried about Microsoft unleashing a patent infringement case than I would about them changing the APIs to shut out Mono. If they did that, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.
It's as if Linux were able to run all Win95 applications just as Windows 2000 was coming around. Yes, Windows 2000 was infinitely better than 95, but if you're a PHB and you have a choice of moving your legacy apps to an expensive proprietary system or a free open one, you're going to be more inclined to do the latter as it makes your bottom line better. Legacy app support is absolutely crucial and right now Mono can do something that not even Linux can do - support Microsoft-based legacy apps with a minimum of changes. That gives Mono a big advantage in the marketplace, and while it helps Microsoft move developers to .NET it also helps make Linux a more attractive platform for enterprise development, especially on the backend.
... let's see those windows.forms! By the release notes it sounds like progress is being made but they said what's shipping with 1.0 will be pre-alpha.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Ive seen MonoDevelop and SharpDevelop and am not impressed with either. The day Novell is able to churn out an IDE like VS.NET for MONO is when Mono will be really able to make waves.
GTK#, is a mono version of GTK, which is the de-facto toolkit for Open Source Software. It even works on Windows, so what are you waiting for?
Read this
But... it this something that is a serious effort, or is it just an "If Microsoft can do it, Open Source can do it better" thing? Is there really a need / purpose / use for this other then to "one-up" the hated M$?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
MONO is a very exciting concept. Having some degree of compatibility with Microsoft but with the current SCO-like strategies of litigating competition out of the picture and with the general feeling that Microsoft will use patents as a way of stifling it's biggest threat why should I feel good about the project?
Maybe someone can help me out here? What is going to prevent Microsoft from playing the patent card when it suits them?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Too many abbrv's and wordcombines makes my head spin.
"We do support two stacks of APIs today in Mono: the Microsoft compatible stack..."
Please do not lie. Mono is partially compatible with MS stack and will never be fully compatible . That's a huge difference.
Shouldn't the Gates/Borg icon have been used with this posting???
""The Bazaar can only go so far selling indulgences.""
That was the big showstopper and why my last project used java. Has it changed?
"RAND" is generally considered a bad thing by the open source/free world. As another poster has pointed out, it does not mean "royalty-free" -- it means "reasonable". This means that, yes, royalties may be charged for any software using said patent (which obviously creates barriers for anything that is distributed free-as-in-beer and is incompatible with the GPL/LGPL).
The W3C is one of the tech standards organizations that does *not* allow RAND (thanks to outcry from the community when HP, Apple, Microsoft, and a couple others tried to stick royalties into W3C policy) -- it requires that *anyone* with a patent allow royalty-free use.
The W3C's policies are *still* GPL/LGPL-incompatible, though, as the W3C allows royalty-free licenses to disallow derivative implementations that do not implement the exact standard. This means that even the W3C (one of the more open folks out there) will happily endorse a standard that may not be implemented in GPL/LGPL software.
May we never see th
Can anyone get this to compile under BSDi? It's been an absolute nightmare for me to get it and its dependencies to compile properly. To get our ASP.NET (sorry!) pages to render we have to redirect from our Apache webserver to a IIS system.
Take a look here and see if this is what you're looking for.
May we never see th
...an implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure...
So let me guess, this is going to get abreviated to CLI, isn't it? Just fucking great.
So if I am to start developing a new desktop GUI application, what should I use to make it cross platform? And don't say "java" or "wxwindows".
It cannot be C#, Windows Forms combination because Mono does not have real support for Windows Forms yet.
Would I be able to package GTK# in some kind of installable form for distribution on Windows so I can do C#, GTK# on Mono? Is this the right way to think about this?
Can I use Visual Studio to develop Mono, GTK# applications?
Although the official reason that GnomeBasic was dropped was because of "stagnation", the real reason that it died was because Mono was supposed to take it's place.
If that happened, I've seen no evidence of it.
While you can write Mono code in Java, PHP, Logo, Oberon, Pascal, Forth and Lisp, VB is still unavailable.
It's a pity such a popular language appears to be entirely ignored.
going to properly set up Mono?
p ; \Open to open the connection
. dll
After installation:
C:\Mono-Beta2\bin>setmonopath.bat
Mono version Beta2 Build 1
Prepending 'C:\Mono-Beta2\bin' to PATH
C:\Mono-Beta2\bin>sqlsharp.bat
Welcome to SQL#. The interactive SQL command-line client
for Mono.Data. See http://www.go-mono.com/ for more details.
Type: \Q to quit
\ConnectionString to set the ConnectionString
\Provider to set the Provider:
{OleDb,SqlClient,MySql,MySqlNet,Odbc,DB2,
Oracle,PostgreSql,Npgsql,Sqlite,Sybase,Tds)
&nbs
\Close to close the connection
\e to execute SQL query (SELECT)
\h to show help (all commands).
\defaults to show default variables.
Provider is not set.
ConnectionString is not set.
SQL# \Provider Sqlite
The default Provider is LOADEXTPROVIDER
Assembly: Mono.Data.SqliteClient
Connection Class: Mono.Data.SqliteClient.SqliteConnection
SQL# \Open
Attempt to open connection...
Loading external provider...
Error: unable to load the assembly of the provider: Mono.Data.SqliteClient : File 'Mono.Data.SqliteClient' not found.
SQL# \q
C:\Mono-Beta2\bin>dir c:\Mono-Beta2\lib\mono\1.0\Mono.Data.SqliteClient
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 9CD5-08A1
Directory of c:\Mono-Beta2\lib\mono\1.0
05/31/2004 03:08p 47,104 Mono.Data.SqliteClient.dll
1 File(s) 47,104 bytes
0 Dir(s) 17,612,621,824 bytes free
C:\Mono-Beta2\bin>
I'm sure it is heresy to ask, but am I the only one who's confused by the Mono and DotGNU difference? I read the internetnews article, and the controversy is still pretty opaque. I don't use .NET, and don't have any imminent plans to do so, but if I did, why should I prefer one implementation over the other? Is it purely a religious issue?
To paraphrase Life of Brian: The only people we hate more than Microsoft are the f*ing Mono developers. Or the f*ing DotGNU developers. Take your pick.
Splitters!
"Is Novell pulling the strings on Mono? Of course they are. They're paying 16 developers," de Icaza said. "It happens to be me who is setting the direction today. I'm a Novell executive. Yes, we pull the strings because we write the code . The strings are pulled in the direction of those that are doing the work."
That made me a little queasy...First off , we don't want anyone pulling strings on Mono ...
..
... coz there's always a tomorrow, and god knows what it'll bring.
... didn't they write code ?, for free ?.
:- 16 programmers and they still can't do Windows.Forms properly (yeah, DotGNU runs Gtk# *and* Windows.Forms and they still don't get paid ?).
secondly when did the "Gnome founder" start calling himself a "Novell executive"
I don't like the "today" part
And what about the community ? don't they pull any strings ?
and last of all
I don't know
which is worse,
reading or
writing comments
for slashdot on
my cell phone.
Keep up the great
work Miguel.
Its the simple case of Meritocracy dude! The one who contributes the most does have the most say and does end up pulling the strings. Whats wrong with that? Sun is pulling the strings on OpenOffice. And its 16 programmers only recently, since a few months back. Until then it was just some 3-4 developers, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Is it just me or does Mono for linux sound like someone is trying to infect linux with a disease.
Rob
Unfortunately I've been too busy in the past 3 or 4 months to really work much on WoodPusher, however, I do have a plan to continue work very soon. The code you find in CVS doesn't run with the current Mono/Gtk# and my first priority is to update it to run. If anyone is interested in working on it, feel free to drop me a line. Currently it's a one-man show.
Celebrate the finer things in life
I've written free, open, and closed software; I've accepted money from companies big and small, and I've also been paid to work on non-commercial free projects. I try, very hard, to be an agnostic when it comes to conflicts of religion -- such as the debate of Windows vs. Linux, or KDE vs. Gnome, of C# vs. Java. Tools are tools, and it is how they are used that matters.
And given that case, I do not like how Gnome is being used. Money drives everything, so Novell's involvement only bothers me when I consider their past history of screwing up good things like WordPerfect.
Foremost among my concerns is how Mono can be used as a wedge by Microsoft; if they can not "beat" free software with legal trickery (e.g., SCO), they can slip behind the lines via involvement in Linux via proxies. Microsoft has proven itself untrustworthy, in my personal dealings with them as well as their highly-publicized run-ins with anti-trust law.
I'm not against .NET or C#; I've written some C# code, just as I've written Java and C++ and Python and Fortran and COBOL over the years. I dislike proprietary standards (like .NET and Java) because they trap people, limiting choices and input form the community at large. Give me the chaos of C and C++ over the corporate machinations of C# and Java; I will accept a bit of chaos if my tools can evolve based on conceptual and community diversity.
All about me
Where would you be without corporate sponsorship of open source projects? No Mozilla. No GNOME. No KDE.
Do not presume that MS's past use of patents for defensive purposes only means there is a low probability of threat to the Mono project...
MS has hired an IP manager who not only believes in but has spearheaded IP rampages.
"Marshall Phelps has long been a vocal advocate of the need for companies to take IP licensing seriously."
"...he inspired at his previous company, IBM, which is now reaping almost $2 billion a year from licensing its patents."
"At IBM we did a lot of it. We had lots of lawyers doing preparation and prosecution around the world. At Microsoft, we don't have anyone doing that, but we are going to start."
"According to Phelps, managers too often fall into the trap of seeing patents as a purely defensive measure, a tool with which to stop the competition in their tracks.
Phelps says he is pleasantly surprised by just how understanding Microsoft's executives have been. "On these IP issues I don't have much of a problem getting anyone's attention at Microsoft. It starts at the top, and if you've got a guy like Bill Gates who's really concerned about IP and really likes it then you don't have much of a management problem."
Make no mistake about it, Microsoft has learned to do business by using its capital to get what it wants. Microsoft cannot buy out FOSS but they sure as hell can litigate FOSS directly or indirectly to "stop the competition in their tracks."
As most everyone here knows, FOSS has been on the Microsoft radar for several years now and they have been very active and very unsuccessful in halting the progress of FOSS.
This is the last ditch effort on Microsoft's part to stop what is becoming an unstoppable force. It will not matter if the FOSS community produces a better and more technologically advanced product because Microsoft will not be competing based on the merit of their products.
Whether or not the patents that are filed are frivilous and ridiculous, they will be used offensively to diminish the threat of FOSS to the Microsoft revenue stream.
Be prepared, there is more of the SCO syndrome to come.
burnin
Benchmark: Mono vs. Java vs. C++/C
./test2.exe
/opt/jdk1.4/bin/javac test2.java && /opt/jdk1.4/bin/java test2
This is a benchmark which tries to simulate a real world application written in Java executed as a) native code and by the b) SUN und c) ECMA VM. The execution time and memory size is compared against a C and a C++ version.
The C and C++ code was developed with Kdevelop, the java code with IBM's Eclipse. The java code has been compiled into 1) native code using GNU GCC, 2) into SUN bytecode using Sun JDK1.4 and 3) into ECMA bytecode using MONO 1.0.
The following table shows that GCC compiled java code is a little bit slower than GCC C++ code (84%), while the ECMA VM is twice as slow as C++ code, followed by the SUN proprietary VM at 26%.
For me it is very surprising that the first version of a free ECMA VM already beats the SUN VM which is available since ~5 years. Please also note that the ECMA bytecode was generated from the SUN proprietary bytecode (using the commands below), so SUN bytecode and ECMA bytecode are directly comparable.
Even though Mono and GCJ both use Boehm's GC, the Mono VM consumes much more memory than the code generated with GCJ.
Execution times on a 1.5GHZ Athlon XP 1800+
256MB memory,
RedHat EL3,
gcc (GCC) 3.3.2 20040119 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.2-8),
Sun jdk1.4.2
Mono version 1.0 (beta2)
All times measured withthe unix time command.
TIME % MEM/KB
c: 0m4.503s --notOO-- 4188
c++: 0m46.639s 100% 20276
gcj 0m55.606s 84% 39620
mono:1m59.153s 39% 54708
java:2m56.491s 26% 50152
c: compiled C into native code GCC
c++: compiled C++, GCC
gcj: compiled java code GCC
mono: ECMA VM, MONO 1.0 (beta) JIT enabled
java: SUN VM, Sun 1.4 JIT enabled
Compilation/execution instructions:
gcj:
gcj --main=test2 test2.java -o test2.exe &&
time
java:
time
mono:
mono ikvmc.exe -reference:./classpath.dll test2.class &&
time mono test2.exe
java code:
public class test2 {static final int size = 1000000; Integer vec[] = new Integer[size]; int I; public int func() {for (int count=0; count20; count++) {for (int i=0; isize; i++) {vec[i]=new Integer(i);} for (int i=0; isize; i++) {I+=vec[i].intValue();}} return I;} public static void main(String s[]) {int i; for(i=0; i10; i++) {System.out.println((new test2()).func());}}}
C/C++ code not shown due to a slashdot junkfilter problem. I think you can easily convert the above java code into C and C++. For the C++ version take care to release the alloced memory at the correct place or your computer will run out of memory.
All things considered, I think I like the idea of Mono more than Java, because 1) it's free from the ground up, and if you want it on Linux, you have to use the free version, and 2) the people working on it, like Paolo Molaro, are sharp people I trust.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
And I guess courtrooms are "churches", and lawyers are "priests" and cease'n'desists that force you to throw away most of the work you put into your business or software are "hymns".
.NET, I will use Windows (which I do for certain clients). Especially with Microsoft holding the patents.
Get real, how many SCOs does the world need until people realize THE LEGAL STUFF MATTERS for open source. The legal stuff is more important than the technical stuff.
RMS may seem like a wacko, but the FSF has had the right idea all along: contentrate on the licensing and legal details FIRST.
Mono may be interesting to some, but I'm just not going to depend on it. If I want
If Open Source starts winning more against Microsoft, these "religious" arguments will suddenly be viewed in a whole new light...
The article details the running argument between DotGNU's Norbert Bollow and Mono's Miguel de Icaza on the issues of commercial involvement, software patents and all the 'religious' stuff that the Free software community holds against the open source community.
You know, it's funny, but all things considered i've noticed more ire coming from open source people towards free software people than the other way around. I've heard at least seventeen thousand rants on slashdot regarding the 'utter flaming stupidity' or 'rotten worthlessness' of RMS, but very few free software 'zealots' as they're so often called blasting the open source community for their beliefs, or lack therof. I've never heard anyone on slashdot call Linus a wanker.
why is that?
i'll tell you why, it's actually very simple. open source advocates are hobbyists at heart. It's true. even if your job, career, whatever focuses on OSS, you're almost inevetably doing it because you enjoy playing with computers. And i mean that in the most positive way; i enjoy playing with computers, i think they're very fun and interesting things. But the software... doesn't really matter as long as you can play with it and do something interesting -- usually meaning that you can see the code. but either way, you're good, as long as there's something interesting to mess around with.
Free Software 'zealots', on the other hand, are not hobbyists, they are activists. They want to change things for the better. They are very serious, and operate on principle, not interest. That is why they don't flame the slashdot trolls, because the real FS guys -- they're to busy trying to enact permenant change for the better.
So, the next time anyone (you) talks about, 'oh, the free software people are such a bunch of zealots, i wish they would just calm down'... i hope they think about that ire and from whence it really comes. And then i hope they tell me, because i don't know -- i wish i did. What i do know, is that you're mad, but it's not me you should be mad at.
~dijjnn
These simple rules should help you:
Then I learned about C# and Mono, gave a cheer and have since been watching Mono's development to see which utilities I can reimplement in C# for both the Linux and Window users. While it will be a long time before any major companies look into it as an option, for a small, part-time developer like myself who needs a quick, cross-platform utility, its great.
Hopefully, this competition between dotGNU and Mono will only result in a better final result for all of us, much like the way that the competition between the X Windows development teams has resulted in better features for both products.
Most insightful comment I have ever seen concerning this issue.
All C# is, is Microsofts answer to java. As history repeats itself, I'm sure we will rue the day we ever heard about Mono, C# or .NET, or ever tried to get it to run on Linux. Much in the same way we all rue those wonderful little macro/vbscript inventions that were so cool years ago.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Why .NET and its clones? Why C# and all of its brethren? I want to know why people are getting nail-pounding erections over them. Non-religious answers please!
Looking back on twenty five years of computing, I cannot recall any language that has EVER had this much hype behind it. Not even Java. It suddenly appeared out of nowhere and five hours later there are job listings specifying ten years experience.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Sun is the one who should really be worried about Mono. C#/.Net are a beautifully crafted technology that are clearly superior to Java. Once Mono is available, the argument for not using C# instead of Java will go away since you won't be able to claim anymore that you are locked into Microsoft.
Frank W. Miller
Actually, I wasn't waiting for anything, neither for this story to be released, nor for any other, for that matter. I just hit the front page like I do few times a day, I saw the headline and I posted this joke. I didn't even realize it would be the 5th post total and the 1st post modded up (to Score:5, Funny, I might add, but then sadly modded down as Overrated) in a story with 250 comments and 30 Score:5 ones. Now I wish I hadn't posted as AC, but I thought it was a lame joke and I would only loose karma... Now I know how wrong I apparently must have been, for this supposedly "lame" joke seems to have been absolutely hilarious, according to the moderation thereof. Anyway, what do I win?
--
Sincerely,
P.T.H.
You don't have to look to hard to find FS rantings. Just look at the FSF's pompous, obtuse description of the difference between FS and OS or RMS's silly rant on why Linux must be called GNU/Linux. I don't recall anywhere in the GPL where it says that RMS reserves the right to approve of the name of your product. RMS is called a kook because he is one.
Perhaps the thousands of rants targeted at RMS are simply reasonable observations or your perception of imbalance reflects your own biases on the issues. One thing's for certain, your characterization of FS contributors as "serious" as opposed to OS "hobbiests" is absurd. I wouldn't characterize BSD contributors as any less serious than GNU people. I would say, though, that they feel their OS license should not be burdened with a political agenda. Quite the contrary, I think many that most support the concept of the GPL are ones who don't contribute at all but like the idea of a license that burdens future software with RMS's personal idealisms.
I think I would rather see the Free and Open Source software (FOSS) communities come up with something better than following the java and .NET camps...
As much as I hate Perl, Perl 6 - and in particular the Parrot VM is looking very promising.
Mono is Spanish for monkey and is pronounced with long "o"s. It's not the sickness you contract from kissing your high school girlfriend or being a resident in VA Tech's Pritchard Hall dormitory.
You are not fully understanding the issue. If something were only Windows, they would not go for it. They do want some portability. Mono gives the illusion of such portability, thus they move forward with projects which in the end are really stuck on Windows because of libraries and tools and experience.
Then of course it only half works (have you seen what most ASP.net projects end up looking like?), but all of the people of any skill have moved on by the time anyone knows that and it's left for some poor fool to keep it all working and adding what changes they can, until they get fed up and quit or convince someone else to take on the old man.
I have made it my mission to never to be that fool, and have made quite a success of it so far. But I still feel great pity that the whole cycle ahd to happen and lead to this horrible result which easts people up. It doesn't have to be that way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Look, I don't develop for either Windows nor Linux, but I did see a few ASP.NET projects, Windows Forms projects etc - and they're just fine. I don't get the point in dissing .NET - even Java fanatics admit it is a fine technology.
:)
Now, back to the original point:
You say that if someone has no option for portability, then he could possibly choose Linux because it might be the better system to develop his project on. Alright. However, you also say that if he DOES have an option portability, then he'll develop on Windows while knowing that Linux is always an option. But why would he pick Windows over Linux when he has the option to develop for either one and still keep the portability? It has to be because Windows is the better choice for his specific project. Otherwise, he'd pick Linux, wouldn't he? So the point is - you get a choice, and yeah, maybe most people will pick Windows over Linux, but the only reason for is that they have a staff which might be more experienced in Windows, or they need the Microsoft support, or they just don't know anything abotu Linux but think they might need to know in the future.
Mono is not pro-Microsoft, it is pro-Choice.
Anyone remember Win32s and OS/2? The Win32 extension for Windows 3.1 gone through about 4-5 revision in less than a year, each revision comes out weeks after IBM supported the earlier version in OS/2. Until eventually IBM gave up.
.NET if they deem Mono to be enough of a threat. MS just keep making new revisions to .NET, each adding a few nice-to-have API. The subsequent FUD fest of how Mono is "not very compatible" be very hard to fight off.
None of the revisions broke any existing apps, but any new apps written with the latest revision will not run without the latest Win32s installed.
It will be trivial for MS to play this game with
Oliver.
Look, I don't develop for either Windows nor Linux, but I did see a few ASP.NET projects, Windows Forms projects etc - and they're just fine. I don't get the point in dissing .NET - even Java fanatics admit it is a fine technology.
.Net. Not even with Mono, and in reality probably never with Mono.
Parts of it are fine, but large parts are not. The language is a nice update for a slight improvement on Java (though again the extreme waste of having two languages that are essentially the same really bothers me from an efficency standpoint).
ASP is not at all fine. For the record I think JSP is all a terrible mistake as well.
You say that if someone has no option for portability, then he could possibly choose Linux because it might be the better system to develop his project on. Alright. However, you also say that if he DOES have an option portability, then he'll develop on Windows while knowing that Linux is always an option. But why would he pick Windows over Linux when he has the option to develop for either one and still keep the portability? It has to be because Windows is the better choice for his specific project. Otherwise, he'd pick Linux, wouldn't he? So the point is - you get a choice, and yeah, maybe most people will pick Windows over Linux, but the only reason for is that they have a staff which might be more experienced in Windows, or they need the Microsoft support, or they just don't know anything abotu Linux but think they might need to know in the future.
I didn't say anything like that. What I said was simply that some management like having options for platforms to develop and delpoy on - that only makes sense. Mono gives the illusion of choice while providing none, as in the end between library lockin and tool lockin, the whole thing just really has to be deployed on Windows as it's too much work to make it work with a "compatible" system. That's because people pushing the project usually prefer Windows and deliberatley mislead management into thinking they can use Linux in the future if they wished. I'm not talking theory, I'm just talking about what has actually happened for real at the company I work for. I'm saying that Mono lets the duplicitious worker at a company sway a choice based on misleading facts.
This choice of development/deployment platform has been shown again and again in real projects at work to not be true of Java, where we really can develop or deploy on pretty much anything - moving from Sun boxes to linux was a non-event, moving from iPlanet ot BEA as an app server only slightly less so. I have a Linux and Windows box at work that are about equivilent development wise, and an OS X box at home that I sometimes do some work on.
That is real choice of movement you just don't get with
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I envy you and your small penis
Whoa... "deliberatley mislead management".
.NET Framework as well, and Microsoft does not object - it just might be enough. Free .NET based libraries which will work on Windows and Linux both, will give the portability that people need.
The problem here is NOT the technology, it's the people who are pushing the project and prefer Windows (If it is not a better choice for the specific project).
And you are right. I developed a Windows Forms project and to use a certain library, I had to use legacy Windows HANDLEs. This means it won't work on Linux without a change or a port of the library. Portability did not really matter, for that project. It does matter, however, for certain projects - using OS-neutral libraries is a must for those projects.
If Mono port the
Sorry the post is a bit disorganized, I'm really tired right now and don't have the will to invest too much time in this answer...
Whoa... "deliberatley mislead management".
.Net itself is a shadow-clone of Java in the first place, and all MONO brings to the table is a proclamation that the bastard king is legitimate. I'm not sure why anyone would care to work on a project that in the end was only a pawn in a giant game.
The problem here is NOT the technology, it's the people who are pushing the project and prefer Windows (If it is not a better choice for the specific project).
I'm not saying Mono itself is bad or good, quality-wise. What I am saying is that the EXISTENCE of mono is simply a tool used by some to justify a choice they wish to make, one very hard to properly counter to someone not very technically literate.
That is simply the reality of corporate programming, you have things like this going on all the time. MONO is being used for this purpose for more than any legitimate project, as far as I can see, which is my real beef -
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley