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The Mono Mystery That Wasn't
jammag writes "It was shocking news, or so it seemed: Miguel de Icaza, the Mono creator, was switching his opinion about his life's work — he now seemed to agree with the free software partisans who oppose his Mono work and his Microsoft connections. The story flamed across the Internet and even got picked up on Slashdot. But Bruce Byfield reports that 'De Icaza has not changed his opinions.' De Icaza calls the rumors 'a storm in a teacup.' Tracing the misinformation trail, Byfield concludes that 'the FOSS community excels at communication. However, in this instance, that ability was used irresponsibly.'"
Inflammatory headline supersedes mundane content? Say it ain't so!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Didnt you hear? Stallman converted to scientology and Linus is accepting patches from NAMBLA!! Oh and the EFF finally released its spec for its homegrown DRM scheme.
Good news everyone. Icaza is still a whore.
If you make your living exchanging your talents for money, so are you. So what is your point?
Stop being so inflammatory. If you have a logical argument to make, make it and we will decide whether the argument is valid based on its merit. Otherwise you just blend into the rest of the noise of modern 'rhetoric' (with apologies to true rhetoric).
I can see the editor thinking "we already know this is fake news, but let's publish: we are missing a good Mono flamewar since forever!"
That's a shame. I'd thought that after all this time he was finally wising up and accepting what everyone else on the planet was saying. I guess either he hasn't put his fanatical devotion to his employer aside (does anyone really believe that he didn't get the job he applied for at Microsoft?) or that his boss told him to back down. Either way, too bad. He's a talented guy and I wish he would work on something useful and less poisonous.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
We have announced that our upcoming Mono release (2.8) will default to 4.0:
http://www.mono-project.com/Roadmap
For the first time in Mono's history our C# compiler and its supporting engine and core libraries were done before Microsoft released the product, we were usually one to two years behind. This time we are some five months ahead of time:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Dec-09.html
There are still a handful of loose ends here and there, but luckily, nothing major.
From Miguels blog
So in fact Miguel was lamenting time lost under a previous, less enlightened management. Not current problems with .NET.
I remember when Mono was first announced. Miguel at the time argued that the free software world had failed to produce any real competitor to Java or .NET style frameworks despite their absolute dominance of mainstream programming. He didn't think one would appear any time soon either. And guess what - he was right. There is no home grown Linux, Apache or Android equivalent to compete with Java or .NET. And whilst Java is now fully open source, it wasn't safe to assume that'd happen back all those years ago.
So in fact it seems Miguel was right all along - right about the need, right about the solution, right that Microsoft would not attempt to "destroy Linux" by leveraging patents. Instead they specifically promised in writing not to do that. Why? Probably because they don't care about Linux anymore. The world has moved on, what once seemed like a threat to their business no longer is.
Wow, grow up, guys. So he has Microsoft connections? So what? If open source affiliation is a valid reason to hate somebody, you might start rethinking your life priorities.
I don't think it's his "open source affiliations" anyone is worried about, so much as his affiliation with a dangerous monopolist that has been incredibly damaging to the industry and state of the art.
The Mono project gives Linux developers more choice, especially if they have been working with .NET tech for a long time.
Yeah, sort of the same way crack dealers give kids more choice of entertainment.
Would you forfeit years of .NET training and experience because you want to use a Linux platform?
If I wanted to develop for Linux, I'd absolutely learn new frameworks and tools to do it, but then most people already know multiple languages, tools, and methods of programming.
at, or I am missing a bigger picture, in such case maybe someone can elaborate in the implications of said "teacup storm"?
Look up the phrase, "embrace, extend, extinguish". It was MS's strategy and business model to make the Web nonstandard and prevent it from being a viable method of allowing developers and users more choice and functionality instead of being locked into Windows as the only viable way to deliver applications to the majority of users. Now, more than a decade later, if we want to reach the majority of Web users, we're still stuck using most of the same versions of standards as we had then, when MS decided to break the market. .NET is just the same thing over again.
Miguel doesn't care, because that "99% of us" turns out to be less than 1% of the real "us."
I never understood whats so immoral or degrading about being a whore. Certainly there are segments of the "sex worker" community that are unsavory and engage in despicable activity (sexual slavery, mental/physical abuse, unfair exploitation) however, there are also those who work freelance and or enjoy their jobs.
I don't mean to ruin whores for you, I mean, maybe you need to see it as degrading and immoral to get off, your kink is ok I guess. Though, I no more understand that kink than asphyxiation, so it does seem a bit strange to me.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"Miguel at the time argued that the free software world had failed to produce any real competitor to Java or .NET style frameworks despite their absolute dominance of mainstream programming."
Why would they need to? While initially some of the Java trademark and licensing mechanism were semi-unfriendly to open source, the situation was a LOT better than it has ever been with .NET, and is much better now.
Instead of trying to create a competitor, the OSS community worked with Java - A lot of Java's success can likely be attributed to the participation of the OSS community. (Heck, even Miguel's blog article effectively says this with his citations of various OSS "research" projects into JIT that became mainstream.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
As someone who actually knows Miguel de Icaza and someone who was there when Mono began, I can tell you with absolute certainty that he started Mono because he truly believes that it's a good platform. As do I and all of the other Mono developers (none of whom get a "fat paycheck" from Microsoft or anyone else). The Mono team is underfunded at Novell, so I and likely other developers have taken a pay CUT in order to work on what we believe in.
We are not paid to parrot any opinions from Microsoft or Novell. Our opinions are our own and we stand by them.
...I'm amazed at how obtuse (and in some cases, downright insulting) the majority of the comments on this story are. I think it's highly likely that if .NET didn't come from Microsoft, nobody would be getting quite so emotional about the whole thing.
For the record, I'm categorically not Microsoft's greatest fan, but you cannot deny that .NET/C# is a damn good platform. Having a portable version of said good platform is therefore a Good Thing. It doesn't matter if Microsoft decide to fuck Mono over; it's still a good platform and therefore still a Good Thing. If you disagree and you don't like it, then fine; don't use it and stop whining.
Run fast, support multiple languages, provide 99.9999% secure code environments, support more than one thread executing at a time, etc, etc.
But... Java and Python are two drastically different technologies. Python is great at what it does but it's a scripting language not a virtual platform like Java. .NET is more comparable to Java since .NET was basically cloned feature for feature from Java with some additional features added.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Five months ahead?
How can you maintain and guarantee compatibility? Divination, or do you actually work hand in hand with Microsoft .NET developers?
And, has Microsoft added ASP.NET and its other IP to the EMCA 334 & 335 specifications, so that you can legally add them to MONO?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
You thought wrong.
First parties posting is one of the strengths of the dot.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I'm sure that as long as companies follow in Novell's footsteps they'll be fine.
The slash however is a slippery slope.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
What's more, Mono is undeniably Free Software, and it follows the grand tradition of GNU software in that it re-implements someone else's proprietary software (while mixing in its own completely Free Software extensions).
I am by no means a fan of Mono, but I fail to see how it is any different than gcc or the many GNU utilities that are basically work-alikes of any number of proprietary software products. Cloning commercial software products is hardly a new theme in Free Software. What is it, precisely, that makes Mono a special case.
The difference, apparently, is that Microsoft is especially evil.
The problem with that, of course, is that Microsoft is not really that particularly evil. Especially compared to AT&T or IBM in their respective heydays. Sure, patents have changed the game somewhat since the early days of UNIX, but Free Software's defense against patents has always been the same. Pretend that they don't exist until threatened, and then write the functionality out of the effected software. Mono is not appreciably more vulnerable to attacks from Microsoft than the Linux kernel, or any other major piece of Free Software.
So really, why all of the hate?
Java's virtual machine (specially Sun/OpenJDK) is much more advanced than Python's (CPython).
Python takes a bytecode and then executes the one or more native instructions it takes to fulfill the purpose of the bytecode instruction. And that's basically all it does.
Java takes the bytecode instruction and compiles into a native format and uses thats for future executions. In addition, it does many other types of optimizations to increase the execution speed. You can run Java in a purely interpreted mode like Python does, pass the -Xint argument on the command line to the java instance. You'll notice it's 10000x slower than the optimized execution paths.
Java's class library is primarily Java code, whereas Python wraps native libraries for much of this work. Both methods have their pros and cons, but it means Python can be prone to more issues regarding different system libraries, etc. Since Java provides it's own virtual platform with most of the code in Java, you don't have these issues as often.
Java also allows for true threading, whereas Python threads are limited by the global interpreter lock preventing you from getting real performance gains from asynchronous execution. You have to resort to multiple python processes to take advantage of multicore processors for example.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Visual Studio 2010, a core flagship MS product, is written in WPF.
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
It's very clear. The part in bold I find most damning. This indicates that he knew all along that you couldn't create an open source implementation of even the CLR without permission from Microsoft. There is a lot in here, but people like Bruce Byfield obviously havent read it properly. He's tried top backtrack and cover up a bit by saying that it's all nothing, but it most certainly is something.
I am by no means a fan of Mono, but I fail to see how it is any different than gcc
Ah well that makes sense. Here it is in a nutshell:
Gcc is, as far as anyone is aware, free of all patented technology, in particular patents owned by companies hostile to free software.
Mono is most definitely encumbered by patents owned by a company that is very hostile towards free software, and has been recently becoming more vocal about alleging patent violations in Linux and threatening legal action.
Mono is not appreciably more vulnerable to attacks from Microsoft than the Linux kernel, or any other major piece of Free Software.
Yes it most definitely is! Because the vulnerability is not hypothetical, it is not a made-up FUD tactic. It's plain as day and undeniable that these patents cover things in Mono, and it is not a simple matter of recoding if MS ever becomes aggressive. There are aspects of the framework that simply cannot be implemented to spec without running into these patents.
Microsoft has no interest in anything cross-platform excepting those that are owned by MS. They have promised not to enforce patents against Mono, but this is not a legally binding promise. The only reason they have to let Mono exist is to waste the time of Linux developers, and to encourage adoption of a framework that is ostensibly cross-platform but can be instantly made Windows-only any time they want.
Oh and I think you're wrong. MS is just as evil as IBM and AT&T. Main difference is that today MS only controls the software while IBM controlled both.
This is absolutely a time bomb and MS is just waiting for the right moment to set it off.
The enemies of Democracy are
And it shows.
If the danger to Mono is so obvious, then please point out the patent numbers that Microsoft owns that would apply to Mono (and that don't, at the same time, apply to Free Software tools like OpenJDK, or gcc). Additionally, you should only use patents that don't apply to the ECMA specification.
What? You don't have access to such a list? Imagine that! My guess is that this is because (to my knowledge) no one has come up with such a list of patents. It is possible that you have access to such a list--in which case your accusations could *potentially* stop being FUD. Until then, however, you have no evidence that Mono is particularly vulnerable to attack from Microsoft.
Microsoft has already stated that it believes that Linux (for example) violates hundreds of its patents. In fact, it has even signed patent deals that supposedly cover Linux. Patent attacks on Linux are definitely not FUD. Should I stop using Linux as well?
If Mono is a trap, then it is quite likely to be the stupidest trap in the history of the world. At the very best Microsoft could force the Mono developers to be less compatible with .NET. Since Mono is not particularly compatible with .NET in the first place this is hardly a huge threat.