No, he's being precise: there is no formal spec for Dotnet.
There is a spec for the CLR and C Sharp, which together comprise approximately 10% of the Dotnet APIs.
And as for Miguel's attempts at clarifying the legal situation, a subject on which he is hardly qualified to pronounce, the reality is that the legal situation unchanged from three years ago when he recklessly embarked on his cloning mission. The one thing that has changed is that Microsoft has hired a lot more patent lawyers, and has been filing more patents.
Speculation concerning how much Microsoft wants to give away their platform is starry-eyed at best, wilfully misleading and dangerous at worst.
Yes. It may look like paranoia but the evidence is right there, at least, in terms of UK and EPO patents.
"Technical effect" really is a smokescreen, and there are hundreds of pure software patents to prove it, endlessly reapplying worn-threadbare concepts (caching, read-ahead etc.) to every software artifact that merits a name.
In what ways does C Sharp look "much nicer" than Java, given their practically identical syntax?
Also, would you care to estimate the ratio of FOSS and Linux code written in Java to that written in C Sharp? My guess is that 1000:1 is probably understating it, and that 1000000:1 reflects the relative amount of investment. But I'd genuinely be interested to hear your figures, which I trust you will have made before making your own commitments to Mono or advising others to do so?
Well, the EU Parliament is democratically elected - it is the EU Commission that is acting in a peremptory fashion.
Perhaps the solution is to correct the balance of power in the EU institutions rather than resorting to explosives? A good start would be supporting the EU constitution as that gives some more powers to the parliament.
You're in good company with other Mono proponents in that you are peculiarly susceptible to the logical fallacy of "composition".
In fact your two posts above directly contradict one another:
The first says The.NET API is an open standard
The second says The.NET Framework is divided in two parts: the ECMA/ISO covered technologies and the other technologies.
The fallacy is that, just because part of Dotnet is covered by ECMA/ISO then the Dotnet framework as a whole is "standard". This is no more accurate than for me to say that because my front left car tire is OK then my whole vehicle is roadworthy.
It never ceases to amaze me that, after more than three years of being corrected on this point (literally dozens of times in each Mono/. story, for example) proponents are still as willing to churn it out this nonsense today as they were in 2001. Clearly this delusion is an essential part of the group-think, and the rest of us will have to live with its constant repetition, just as we have to live with the shifting-sands (or, less charitably, the bait-and-switch) definition of what Mono actually comprises.
Whatever the effects on Mono developers rationality, it is unlikely that this flexible approach to the truth will win the confidence of many significant adopters. Until its fan base grows up and faces facts, Mono's penetration of the corporate world is certain to remain negligible.
Developers of significant applications do not think "Mono and GTK+ make a cool platform so I'll develop for that", they seek to minimise their development costs across all their target platforms.
Without true portability, the value of Dotnet disappears in a puff of smoke and embarrassing comparisons with Java ensue.
Miguel realised this right at the start, which is why Mono had to promise total compatibility, otherwise it would have been adding no value over Java, Parrot etc.
Now that Mono development has overtaken Kaffe& co. that bait isn't needed and the switch can happen, leaving everyone much as they were before but with Microsoft in the driving seat.
Mono is not a technical advance over the Java platform, it is (as of October 2004 when the 100% compatibility goal was abandoned) a pointless knock-off.
Mono's goal, indeed its reason for being, is to clone Dotnet. Not C Sharp, not the CLI, but the complete platform. That statement has been there on the go-mono site since day 1.
Now suddenly (that is, since about October last year) the true effort involved in staying on the MS treadmill has finally become apparent to the Mono developers. So we now have the emergence of Plan B, which cheerfully discards any notion of Dotnet compatibility and leaves Mono as yet another bytecode system, of which we had half a dozen long before Mono was an envious gleam in Miguel's eye.
Wherever people make serious investments in time and money, they are not going to consider a platform that promises compatibility one day and drops it the next - the risks and the costs would be enormous. For such projects the "draconian" (complete) compatibility of Java is an absolute requirement, and one which literally hundreds of thousands of developers rely on every day.
Well, that was the original stated goal of Mono*. You and your company are now along for the ride...;-)
*To be pedantic, the goal was originally a "complete" Dotnet implementation, then recently (October 2004) there was some retrenchment and the emergence of two stacks - Dotnet and "Gnome" - now it seems that we're back on track for Dotnet 1.0, though bets are off for anything beyond that. But then that was always the case, wasn't it?
Well now, there is the danger of merely walking through a field with a bull in it, then there is the danger of walking through that field waving a a large red flag bearing the legend "does this API look familiar Bozo?"
I don't think Java or Python developers have much to fear from MS despite the many conceptual similarities.
Slashdot Mirror
No, he's being precise: there is no formal spec for Dotnet.
There is a spec for the CLR and C Sharp, which together comprise approximately 10% of the Dotnet APIs.
And as for Miguel's attempts at clarifying the legal situation, a subject on which he is hardly qualified to pronounce, the reality is that the legal situation unchanged from three years ago when he recklessly embarked on his cloning mission. The one thing that has changed is that Microsoft has hired a lot more patent lawyers, and has been filing more patents.
Speculation concerning how much Microsoft wants to give away their platform is starry-eyed at best, wilfully misleading and dangerous at worst.
Yes. It may look like paranoia but the evidence is right there, at least, in terms of UK and EPO patents.
"Technical effect" really is a smokescreen, and there are hundreds of pure software patents to prove it, endlessly reapplying worn-threadbare concepts (caching, read-ahead etc.) to every software artifact that merits a name.
In what ways does C Sharp look "much nicer" than Java, given their practically identical syntax?
Also, would you care to estimate the ratio of FOSS and Linux code written in Java to that written in C Sharp? My guess is that 1000:1 is probably understating it, and that 1000000:1 reflects the relative amount of investment. But I'd genuinely be interested to hear your figures, which I trust you will have made before making your own commitments to Mono or advising others to do so?
Except that ideas expressed in software are hard to define (and pure maths isn't patentable).
So we have companies with dubious motives producing ill expressed patents approved by unqualified bodies governed by iniquitous targets.
The democratic deficit is the problem, not statism vs. federalism.
Because their governments refused to give the EU Parliament real power, instead sending commissioners to make up a cabal.
Funny?
This was proposed by the previous BBC chairman (Greg Dyke).
Interesting model if the BBC starts to produce more software (current chairman was very careful to talk about "content" and "devices" this morning).
Well, the EU Parliament is democratically elected - it is the EU Commission that is acting in a peremptory fashion.
Perhaps the solution is to correct the balance of power in the EU institutions rather than resorting to explosives? A good start would be supporting the EU constitution as that gives some more powers to the parliament.
Here's a JVM that targets Itanium specifically.
You're in good company with other Mono proponents in that you are peculiarly susceptible to the logical fallacy of "composition".
.NET API is an open standard
.NET Framework is divided in two parts: the ECMA/ISO covered technologies and the other technologies.
/. story, for example) proponents are still as willing to churn it out this nonsense today as they were in 2001. Clearly this delusion is an essential part of the group-think, and the rest of us will have to live with its constant repetition, just as we have to live with the shifting-sands (or, less charitably, the bait-and-switch) definition of what Mono actually comprises.
In fact your two posts above directly contradict one another:
The first says The
The second says The
The fallacy is that, just because part of Dotnet is covered by ECMA/ISO then the Dotnet framework as a whole is "standard". This is no more accurate than for me to say that because my front left car tire is OK then my whole vehicle is roadworthy.
It never ceases to amaze me that, after more than three years of being corrected on this point (literally dozens of times in each Mono
Whatever the effects on Mono developers rationality, it is unlikely that this flexible approach to the truth will win the confidence of many significant adopters. Until its fan base grows up and faces facts, Mono's penetration of the corporate world is certain to remain negligible.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Maybe you can put these guys right too?
What is potentially vulnerable? Everything
You mean everything that didn't come first.
But Mono isn't a bridge, it's a platform.
The strategic direction of that platform is under the control of Microsoft.
There were already other cross-OS platforms, Mono's sole differentiator was that it was Dotnet compatible. Now that goal has been abandoned.
a great and enormously useful project
No.
Developers of significant applications do not think "Mono and GTK+ make a cool platform so I'll develop for that", they seek to minimise their development costs across all their target platforms.
Without true portability, the value of Dotnet disappears in a puff of smoke and embarrassing comparisons with Java ensue.
Miguel realised this right at the start, which is why Mono had to promise total compatibility, otherwise it would have been adding no value over Java, Parrot etc.
Now that Mono development has overtaken Kaffe& co. that bait isn't needed and the switch can happen, leaving everyone much as they were before but with Microsoft in the driving seat.
Java was a technical advance over C++ etc.
Mono is not a technical advance over the Java platform, it is (as of October 2004 when the 100% compatibility goal was abandoned) a pointless knock-off.
Balderdash.
Mono's goal, indeed its reason for being, is to clone Dotnet. Not C Sharp, not the CLI, but the complete platform. That statement has been there on the go-mono site since day 1.
Now suddenly (that is, since about October last year) the true effort involved in staying on the MS treadmill has finally become apparent to the Mono developers. So we now have the emergence of Plan B, which cheerfully discards any notion of Dotnet compatibility and leaves Mono as yet another bytecode system, of which we had half a dozen long before Mono was an envious gleam in Miguel's eye.
Wherever people make serious investments in time and money, they are not going to consider a platform that promises compatibility one day and drops it the next - the risks and the costs would be enormous. For such projects the "draconian" (complete) compatibility of Java is an absolute requirement, and one which literally hundreds of thousands of developers rely on every day.
My suggestion is that your first step should be to decide exacty what you include under the "Mono" banner. Is it:
- The CLI and C Sharp implementations (core)
- The Dotnet compatibility libaries
- The "other" libraries
- 1 & 2
- 1 & 3
- 1, 2 & 3
I think this would be a lot less confusing for people encountering claims of Mono standardization, Mono compatibility etc.And we don't want to confuse people, do we?
That's a "no" then?
I'll probably still think that Java and Python comfortably preceded Dotnet.
Without time travel or the purchase of somebody else's portfolio it's hard to see how MS could concoct a claim.
Well, that was the original stated goal of Mono*. You and your company are now along for the ride... ;-)
*To be pedantic, the goal was originally a "complete" Dotnet implementation, then recently (October 2004) there was some retrenchment and the emergence of two stacks - Dotnet and "Gnome" - now it seems that we're back on track for Dotnet 1.0, though bets are off for anything beyond that. But then that was always the case, wasn't it?
Well now, there is the danger of merely walking through a field with a bull in it, then there is the danger of walking through that field waving a a large red flag bearing the legend "does this API look familiar Bozo?"
I don't think Java or Python developers have much to fear from MS despite the many conceptual similarities.
Possibly a misunderstanding?
I guess OP is referring to the portability of programs developed now on Dotnet 1.2 or 2.0 without consideration (at the time) of a move to Mono.
Parent is probably referring to the continued support of programs that were written with Mono in mind.
So you're both right - the real issue is the proportion of programs being written for Dotnet with consideration for Mono.
That's "extend" in the sense of "give up and try something else".
Hope those new readers are keeping up...
For new readers, this means free with Gnome rather than free of patent lawsuits.
It's important to keep these distinctions clearly in mind.
(And vice versa).
But he didn't say CLI, he said .NET. .NET is the 90% of the API that's not standard, remember?