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Miguel De Icaza Forms New Mono Company: Xamarin
rubycodez writes "After being thrown out on the streets by Attachmate, the purchasers of Novell, Miguel De Icaza has formed a new company Xamarin to make .NET development tools for Android and iOS. The company will also provide commercial international Mono support. There are those who would say Mono poses a risk of drawing Microsoft patent or other IP litigation for its inclusion in some major Linux distributions, and that these recent events might be the beginning of the demise of widespread use of Mono and other .NETiness in open source software, a good thing."
They failed in their first attempt at making Mono a ubiquitous development platform by keeping their mobile ports behind a paywall. Now they lost access to those proprietary parts and decided to start again, in exactly the same fashion... brilliant.
...that the submitter should just state his opinion rather than hiding behind weasel words.
Doesn't Apple have a prohibition of using a framework other than Objective C for their iOS apps?
Apple has since rescinded this provision, apparently because it was causing Apple to lose money as games and other popular iOS apps that use internal scripting engines were getting kicked off the App Store.
it's not a good thing that Mono should go away
it is a good thing from the point of view of ideology, however
but as a working programmer, i like getting things done. to hell with the ideologues
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Surely thats a matter of opinion?
Most companies won't touch it...if they're running on Linux, they're going to go with a language that's native to the platform, like Java. If you're a home user, most relevant software written in .NET isn't going to work with it. This just seems like an extremely futile attempt. Is Miguel hoping that one day Microsoft will say "hey, we really like what you've been doing...come work for us!"?
Miguel's obsession with creating an open source version of .NET borders on mono-mania.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
It is not a "good thing" to have Mono or .NET interoperability taken out of reach of Linux users. Interoperability layers such as Mono allow Linux systems to participate in networks that are dominated by Windows and other commercial systems. If it weren't for software like this, Linux systems may not be invited into some corporate networks, and would not get a seat at the table.
The idea of a "pure" linux or no linux is going to continue having linux sitting out in the cold all by itself. Interoperability is crucial.
If anything, we need more software like Mono, not less.
Seriously, isn't it a little juvenile to rally against a software platform just because it's based on something created by a company you don't like? And isn't it hypocritical to bolster Java when it's supported by Oracle, which has a reputation for destroying everything it touches?
1st of all:
Quit picking on Miguel. You may not share the same opinion as he on bigger issues, as do I, but treating him the way the majority here does is primitive. He deserves all respect and professional merit you can give. Unless you are Linus Torwalds, RMS or someone other of the rare few on which who's work his work is based on, you are not entitled to picking a fight with him or destructively ragging about his decisions and/or motives. The others actually aren't either, but at least they have a track record to back up their ego.
He's done considerable contributions to the cause of FOSS, more than most of humanity anyway and way more than anybody of the wannabees here on slashdot could ever dream of accomplishing, so suck up any stupid and/or ignorant and/or snide remarks you may have ready and just STFU. Thanks.
2nd: Mono may be a controversy in broader issues, but that's not to say it's not a good project. As for the product itself and products based of it: I know at least one that is a game changer and a major leap forward in its industry, that is based entirely on Mono and wouldn't be possible without it ( http://www.unity3d.com/ ). Cudos to Miguel and the Mono team for making it possible. I know for sure that the other large x-plattform around, Java, would have been beyond pointless as a foundation for realising this and would have failed miserably. Mono and Monodevelop are cool cross-plattform toolkits, and as far as I can tell they get the job done.
Who can say that about their pet FOSS project?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Since Attachmate didn't sell Mono to this Xamerin group are there not two versions of Mono? That would then be a Duo. Because two Mono's don't make it right.
That reminds me, Miguel already has a dual personality with his proclaimed love of open source yet his constant admiration for everything made by Microsoft.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Ximian was a company founded by Miguel in 1999.
And also, what has this got to do with Miguel "not seeing this coming"? The thing people were beating him over the head with was the theory that Microsoft would step in and sue people left, right and centre. This isn't that, this is Mono's supporting company failing of its own accord, it has nothing to do with the viability of Mono.