Mono Project Releases Version 1.0

theblackdeer writes "Just poking around the go-mono.com Mono website; it's now the multi-colored mono-project.com. Even better, it updated before my eyes to include the 1.0 release. Screenshots are (slightly) updated, too. Mono 1.0 includes the Mono Develop IDE (based on SharpDevelop, I believe). Download now and start your GTK# engines!" Alliante adds "You can download the Release Notes and the Packages on their website."

Comments

How important is this for Linux?

[Pengo]

A open source RAD evironment sounds like it could have a huge impact on the number of apps that could be rolled out.

Not so much for the enterprise market, but also for the 'shareware' class applications. Most of my Windows specific applications are programs that are from very small development houses or shareware products. (I love to support a small shareware author!) . I use open source when prudent, but I also love to use a nice simple tool that even if it costs $15-$20 bucks to a pay-pal account, is money well spent in my opinion. Maybe Linux will start to attract this development base with Mono.

Another question, I have a pro version of C# I picked up at staples last year. Anyone know how realistic is it for me to build an application in Windows using my copy of C# and compile it and run it on mono?

Re:How important is this for Linux?

[arvindn]

I cheer your voice of sanity in crowd of ideology and narrowmindedness.

When the windows desktop market was the size of the current linux desktop market (not in terms of percentage, of course, but numbers) there was a huge market for shareware. Why doesn't that market exist for linux today?

One reason could be the technology, which you've addressed, but IMHO the main reason is the economics. A while back, in a newsforge article I analyzed the situation and suggested how to create such a market. I was quite taken aback by the feedback, which consisted mainly of semi-coherent rants saying "shareware is teh evil!!!" and "kill anyone who dares to suggest proprietary software for linux!!" and so on, despite the fact that what I proposed would have the side effect more open source software getting written.

The linux landscape is changing, its going mainstream, and there are a lot linux users who don't like that. I must humbly suggest to such people that you cannot do anything about it, and you should therefore either accept the reality or start moving to another system where you can feel more "l33t".

Why .NET and not Java?

[Sanity]

This may seem like flamebait, but they throw the first stone right there on From the Mono website:

...However, the Java runtime systems commonly available on Linux lack the performance that customers demand, and Java applications do not conform to the Linux GUI look and feel.

If these are the best justification for .NET over Java, then they are pretty weak.

As has been pointed out ad tedium in various Java-related discussions on /. - Java's early reputation for poor performance may have been justified in the 1.0 and 1.1 days, but modern Java VMs employ sophisticated JIT compilers which gives it comparable performance to natively compiled languages like C++, and easily matches .NET's CLR performance. Java's bytecode and .NET's bytecode are not that different, the main differences are in the APIs.

Which brings us on to the second justification for .NET over Java, native GUIs, which is even weaker. Java-Gnome does the same thing as Mono's GTK bindings, offering exactly the same GUI abilities, and SWT offers a truely cross-platform GUI API with a native look and feel on each platform it runs on.

Re:Why .NET and not Java?

[danheskett]

First, Java as a client tool is not popular for Windows development. .NET of course will be. And it is rapidly becoming that way. If a properly written CLR and Class Library was constructed for non-Windows, any app written to use the provided libraries would run immediately on Linux/etc. This a big thing. If any old user can run any old Windows app natively on Linux, that's good (TM).

Second, .NET isn't as language specific as Java. Though the .NET CLR is slightly or moderatly biased towards some languages it is vastly more friendly to new compilers. The whole point of the .NET CLR is to encourage new languages to compile to it. This means that a single CLR can support any number of new languages. It means that a Ruby# program compiled to CLR on Windows will run under .NET. This is a "good thing" that Sun can't really with Java.

Re:Why .NET and not Java?

[LDoggg_]

You know Miguel, you've honestly ticked me off in the past with your anti java sentiment.
That said, this is the first time I've seen a post of yours that has some merit.

I've been coding in Java for more than 6 years now, and I guess I've just gotten really comfortable with the language. I've also been using linux for several years now. The last few years has seen good JVMs & IDEs available for linux, so I've kept developing with it.

Recently I've become involved in setting up K12LTSP networks. I started a project that's windows companion CD of software the students will be using at school on linux.
I wrote the graphical installer in Java and it took me no time at all. Its XML based and exactly what I wanted.
One problem, I have to bundle a vm to make it autorun.

Your mono stuff looks like it can do this and totally open source. I'll have to get use to some new libraries and what not, but if this works out, I'd be really psyched about your project.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and congrats on 1.0 !

Re:Why .NET and not Java?

[mrtrumbe]

Java-GNOME is completely dead. Java on the desktop, except for Eclipse and SWT (no thanks to Sun) is completely dead. GTK#/Mono has a lot of momentum and Ximian/Novell throwing their weight behind it which is not to be underestimated. Guess which is more likely to have support two years from now, Java-GNOME or GTK#?

Smells like trolls 'round these parts.

Here are sourceforge's statistics on GTK#.

Here are sourceforge's statistics on Java-Gnome.

What criteria are you using to proclaim Java-Gnome dead? From the statistics on sourceforge, it seems that there is interest in the project and far more reports of bugs than for GTK#.

I agree that Sun hasn't been as cooperative as I'd like to see in terms of Java's relationship with the open source community. However, I think you are making some baseless assertions about the current and future relevence of projects supporting Java in the open source arena.

Also, I think it is laughable that the mono team claims "Java applications do not conform to the Linux GUI look and feel." Which look and feel is that, exactly? KDE? Gnome? FVWM? The majority of Linux apps that I use do not conform to any single look and feel. OpenOffice? Looks like Windows 95. Mozilla/Firefox (by default)? Completely different (though skinable). Sure, Mono, with GTK# looks like a Gnome app, but that really isn't going to help a KDE or FVWM user, is it?

Much of the anti-Java sentiment around slashdot seems to originate from rabid pro-open source ideology. I wish people would evaluate these technologies on their capabilities and applicability rather than whether the companies supporting them conform to their particular ideology.

Taft

Go Cross-Platform!

[krmt]

I've been looking for a good way to write a crossplatform GUI for an app I'm working on. Java is not a good choice for a variety of reasons, so Mono is looking pretty tempting right now. Since Mozilla-The-Platform hasn't taken off as well as it could, Mono may wind up being the best option for a totally Free Software approach to cross-platform work. On the other hand, wxWidgits is a great toolset as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if they get C# language bindings for the library.

Dashboard

[Mr_Silver]

After viewing the screenshots I was really impressed with Dashboard (especially if it works).

Given that my main OS is Windows (sorry), is there anything like this for it?

Free as in 'Free from vendor lockin'

[NigelJohnstone]

Look, mono have cloned an enviroment & language whose direction is steered by Microsoft.

This is a problem, Microsoft is not nice.

Microsoft can take it into a direction where MS holds patents & IP protection (if it doesn't already which is very unlikely). Mono will either have to follow and lock its user in, or go in a separate direction and abandon any pretensions at cloning MS .NET.

What I think they should do is embrace and extend the the .NET framework *NOW*, add features and support for things that the Windows .NET does not have. But also bring the extended version to Windows itself.

That way the MONO implementation of .NET becomes the real one, not the MS one.

Runtime Distribution

[Nurgled]

This Mono 1.0 release seems to be developer-oriented. Will they (or someone else) be creating smaller runtime packages which only include the stuff necessary to run applications?

It would be nice if there were an easy install package for Win32, too. This might seem pointless on the surface, but Microsoft.NET won't install on all Windows systems due to deliberate barriers, plus Microsoft's distribution does not come with GTk# and so forth.

I'm installing the full release on my main system, but it'd be nice to have a smaller runtime package that I can put on my other boxen to run any apps I create. Perhaps in a few hundred years Debian will have a runtime package which can be depended on by mono apps without having to pull in the whole development environment. (mono-runtime vs. mono-devel, both depending on mono-common)

(I see a page about the Mono runtime but it's talking about the runtime portion of the project rather than a specific runtime distribution.)