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DotGNU Ported to PocketPC

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the little-yellow-different dept.

t3rmin4t0r writes "The Pocket PC# group has ported DotGNU Portable.net to PocketPC. This is a significant step because the .NET Compact Framework SDK is heavily licensed, unlike the .NET SDK available for free from MSDN. Thanks to PocketPC#, now you can build Window.Forms C# applications for PocketPC without submitting to Microsoft's exhorbitant SDK licensing fees. Portability to embedded/low-end hardware is one of Portable.net's stated goals. DotGNU Portable.net also works on 9 major CPU architectures according to gentoo's portage. The Darwin-ports features a cool package with Windows.Forms for Mac OS X. Handhelds like iPAQ or Zaurus have also ports (the iPAQ one features Windows.Forms). Esoteric hardware like the Sony Playstation 2 or the Microsoft XBox can also run Portable.net."

2 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Good News! by CommanderData · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is great for people looking to develop on handhelds and smartphones such as myself. Programming for these devices really brings me back to the good old days in the 80s where one person could create a killer app or game!

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  2. A dangerous idea by Decaff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is using open source to provide free marketing for Microsoft. First, take a microsoft technology (.Net), then spend a lot of time and effort duplicating a subset of .Net, which will never be a complete implementation as Microsoft haven't given out all the libraries. Microsoft then have cut-down versions of '.Net' distributed on a range of systems, with no effort required from them, and they can say 'for the real, full, professional .Net experience come to Windows'. I view the .Net clones as persisting the (wrong) impression that open source software is an amateurish attempt to copy professional software.

    There are better ways. Why not use Java? Its free, and there are many Java clones that are full-featured and run on Pocket-PC and PalmOS.

    If you don't like Java.. why not actually be innovative and develop a new portable bytecode and languages to run on it? If not a new bytecode, why not help the work on parrot? Why not show that in VM technology open source coders can do more than simply play catch-up with Microsoft?