Every 5-6 years these things come out. Every 5-6 years they flop. These are almost as dumb as the speech processing fad.
People are always suckered in by two fantasies: 1) Writing is more efficient (or easier to perform) than typing. What everyone (re)learns is that keyboards are _incredibly_ efficient input devices. I don't think that writing will ever surpass them for anything but drawing and bitmap graphic capture. 2) Speech processing will be easier to use and more efficient than keyboards. This is only the case when the interface is incredibly simple. . . (single-app) based, or the user has special physical impediments. Until computers become intuitive and understand cultural inflection and nuance, speech processing will have limited usage.
I don't get it. I've heard about Linux' packaging problems for a while.
Linux needs a good packaging system to compete with Windows? Windows has almost NO packaging standards. And what standard it does have installs everything important onto the C: drive in the/winnt directory!
The Mac might be slightly better but doesn't really deal with dependencies on the order of Linux rpm.
I just don't get it. Linux got big because of its packaging advantages (rpm and deb). . . now people can't get enough of saying that its packaging needs to be changed to "keep up".
This isn't about Microsoft, govt. corruption, or open-source, this is about not sh*tting where you eat.
Maybe the "world event" that DARPA was referring to was the event where Theo shot his mouth off about the war while taking money from the defence department. No one is curtailing Theo's speech, they're curtailing his funding.
Although the US seems a little 1984 these days, I'm still glad that our government agencies aren't paying people to make fools of them. I wasn't for the war either. . . but if my needed funding came from the defense department I would have thought twice about openly criticizing them in public forums without having other funding waiting in the wings.
It's never too late for adoption of a new product or idea. . . if its better. People are born every day. They experience the world as it is presented to them. If a young person learns Linux/KDE at the same time as Windows they will probably form an independent decision.
Anything can be changed with time. Anything. . . look at the stories surrounding Rome, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Napolean, wind and water.. ..and RMS.
Embedded Systems makers beware, supporting this will eventually invalidate the reasons you chose linux in the first place!
This move by Microsoft is to prevent Ogg Vorbis and other free codecs from dominating the Linux embedded market. Once Microsoft has the dominant codec, they'll stop supporting Linux and force you to buy some flavor of embedded windows or other platform they control to stay in business.
As soon as Microsoft has finished using its codecs to control the media-format choices in the embedded and desktop market, they will charge out the wazoo for this stuff and pry your Linux options out of your hands. DON'T FALL FOR IT. This is not a new strategy, most people LEARN of it through Micrsoft.
Sun deserves respect and attention when it comes to server reliability. . . we should give them their due.
When it comes to their insisting they should be heard re: desktop usability and XWindows performance. . . we should give them the finger.
Sun and other committee members managed to take great ideas from HP (Openview) flush them down the toilet along with a commitee of other buffoons and then come up with CDE -- A lowest-common-denominator utter failure of a desktop. Now their trying to do the same with Gnome and X-Standards. . . forget it.
As far as Sun playing coordinator between X.org and XFree86. . . XFree86 _IS_ X now (yeah there are a few commercial guys - they'd be nowhere without XFree86 doing all the font work etc, ). If Sun had been paying attention to X over the past 8 years they would have known that X.org's attempts to commercialize X almost killed it and XFree86 brought it back from the dead with the free software stuff. Sun OWES XFree86 for the fact that X has moved at all. . . not the other way around.
Message to Sun: 1) work WITH the free community - especially if you want to use its desktop managers. You are no longer the authority and your credibility on the desktop has long been squandered. 2) work WITH the free community if their J2EE servers are some of the most deployed implementations YOUR standard. they are keeping your standards growing. 3) work WITH the free community if you are going to sell your own linux distro(LX50) instead of selling a weak/hobbled/over-priced version to make Solaris look good (it only makes you look like you can't configure linux right, btw). Figure it out or you will increasingly be replaced BY the free community.
Sun's arrogance is infuriating and counter-productive. I've been a big fan of their engineering and it is truly a strength, but the boys in executive better start reading periodicals labelled "2003" and earning their keep, or Sun is going to bite it.
The only way to make this work would be to make the person buy the stamp from the mail receiver. Maybe a middleman would take a little cut, but I wouldn't mind getting a penny or more for receiving each email. I pay for the bandwidth anyway. . . its not like its free for me to get the mail (unless it is at work where the corporation should get the money since they fund the system)
Not only would it cut down on SPAM, people would think through their emails before writing as many flames and time-robbers.
The WINE project was sponsored by the Canopy Group as well. The Canopy Group is not the problem.
When SCO bought Caldera, they bought into the Noorda franchise. . ..SCO came from outside the Canopy Group and bought one of the companies that belong to that group.
Don't blame the whole Canopy group for the idiots from SCO.
I've had a number of discussions with folks about this over the last few years.
1) Sun can still afford it. 2) They gain instant credibility in the x86 market. 3) AMD gains credibility in the enterprise (luring really big enterprise customers with real service) 4) Sun gets 2 of the leading 64-bit processor platforms, plus some control over the Windows hardware platform. 5) Sun gets to own their chip manufacturer (rather than rely on stinky TI and Fujitsu for the Sparc line). 6) Sun can control the cost of its Linux platform.
Do, it Sun. . . you know you want to. . . buy them.
here are a few more: 1) Sybase (MS SQL Server is mostly Sybase SQL Server) - the core database engine was Sybase's (even the API and the product name are the same - the tech was stolen in a "joint-marketing" agreement that Microsoft never held up its part in) 2) IBM (They basically paid M$ to build OS/2 and M$ built Windows on their dime and stalled OS/2) 3) Apple (They refused to release an update to M$Office for 8 years for the Mac to punish them for being succesful with their OS) 4) Sun - Polluted Java Anybody? Now they are trying to dupe the system and call it "innovation" 5) Alternate DOS makers - they made Windows 95 "check" that is was running on top of MSDos and give specious error warnings to sabotage those products (some of which had license-rights) 6) Their users - look at the new licensing schemes - changing the EULA AFTER the product is purchased - 7) Mono - offering them help an encouragement only to patent the very class-structure. 8) The JavaScript community (ECMAscript) by submitting standards and then intentionally shunning them to waste everybody's time. 9) Spyglass - taking their code on a revenue-sharing basis and then giving it away free as IE.
Here's how it works: 1) Sign Contract with Microsoft so you can profit. 2) Microsoft breaks either the spirit or letter of the law to steal your money 3) The Profit!
Why anyone partners with, or uses those crooks' products I can't quite understand.
Seriously: Microsoft explicitly names the.NET base class hierarchy in the patent. That should worry the Mono guys. If the patent is even extremely narrowly enforced, the Mono guys seem to be in breach.
Wrong. ..SPAM is a social problem, not a technical one. If the technology changed, there would still be parts of society that would try to circumvent it.
If you have thieves next door who hop the fence and steal your stuff, raising the height of your fences won't stop crime.
In other words, technology can't solve social problems. ..although it may reduce their symptoms.
I did a consulting gig with ClearChannel a few years ago and a fellow consultant suggested this to them then. There are many reasons this is a good idea:
1) Artists own their own performances. This is the reason why Record Labels don't really make money off of concerts. It is up to them and their artist representation as to what they do with their recordings of them. 2) CDs distributed at street-level and concerts are an effective form of promotion - one that is very effective. . . The Wu-Tang Clan and The Grateful Dead know this cold and they did great even though they NEVER got airplay. (CCU is diluting their radio prowess a bit here - but don't thell them that). 3) Music has a great "hook" into your memory. How many times have you heard a piece of music and it reminded you of some past situation when you heard it? How great would it be to have the EXACT rendition of that concert and the good time your friends had? Bill Graham (the famous San Fran concert promoter) both understood this and encouraged it. 4) If you love a band (say RadioHead), and you go to more than one of their concerts (say MSG and Philly Spectrum), wouldn't you like to buy them both if they were unique experiences? How about a digital season's pass (over the web) to ALL of their concerts? (with video). Would you pay the equivalent of a box-set to have that kind of access? I would. . . most people would for their favorite band (if they have the coin).
The sky is the limit with these opportunities and there isn't much that the RIAA can do about it. This is the kind of liberation tha technology makes possible. . . There is more value because there is more PRODUCT. There is more product, because there is more access to the ARTIST. Let's hope this catches on before the Label's start asking for exclusive rights to concerts and concert-proceeds.
Oh Please.. talk about knee jerk reaction. I bet you say the same thing about Wine..
I would say the same thing about wine. Don't develop native Linux applications that depend on WINE for their GUIs. (Unless you are Codeweavers).
I'd much rather have mono fail than to ignore.Net completely and then be blindsided.
Blindsided how? How can someone be blindsided by something you have to invite into your house?
I am a mono developer, and who are you to tell me what to spend my time on? I am not telling you how to spend your time. In fact, THANK YOU for working on free software. I do wish you were working on something that has better bedfellows. . . for both your and your users' sakes.
The point of.Net is NOT to be crossplatform, but to provide a nice programming environment. If Mono isn't compatible with.Net then so be it.. it doesn't make Mono any less desirable as a development platform.
If compatibility is not the point, then why make it.NET compatible at all? Your point that compatibility doesn't make Mono any less desirable as a development platform flies in the face of those who say that Mono: can lure Windows developers, can interoperate with Windows, can promote reuse, and "can help Linux from being blindsided" (your words).
I respect your free-software work (and wish you luck in it). . . I just don't want it to go to waste because you are building your house too close to a neighbor known for sabotage.
Here are a few terrifying things I see popping up in this debate:
1) I'm a little concerned about the dependence of Windows.Forms on WINE
Well, be a lot afraid. Microsoft is tricking you into writing native apps for GNU/Linux and making them dependent on the WINDOWS API (Windows.Forms are part of the new Windows API). . . and the mono guys have fallen for it hook line and sinker (and are helping).
2) C# has been submitted as an open standard, so.NET must be too, right?
Wrong! A majority of.NET is under dubious patent protection and doesn't have a real compatibility/performance adherence test suite like Java. Microsoft already screwed Netscape this way with Javascript (submitted to ECMA as ECMAscript) and then simply changed it to screw up their browser efforts. The Mono guys are simply not paying attention to history here.
3) Mono is helping Linux compete.
Isn't anyone looking at the scoreboard? GNU/Linux is already competing and is kicking Microsoft's ass (and everyone elses for that matter)! Microsoft started with a huge lead on the desktop and server and GNU/Linux has had a faster adoption rate than any OS in history. Why? Because GNU/Linux changed the game into one where we build an OS that we want, unfettered by the dubious interference of monopolists and people with ulterior motives..NET is a way of playing Microsoft's game. Why dedicate all or your efforts to a strategy that your competitor and enemy controls? (Note to purists: you may not be into Linux to compete with Microsoft, but if you think that MS is not your competitor and enemy, think again. . . or just ask them)
4) We will get Windows converts to GNU/Linux this way. . . and make great apps.
What great apps and what converts? There aren't many.NET programmers, folks. . . Is the platform even out of beta on windows? Windows people are still learning.NET and there isn't much software even out for it. On, Linux, we've got an IRC client and a media player (that most of us wouldn't use over XMMS)..NET adoption is marketing, not reality. There is a huge difference (and a lot of trolls/astro-turfers trying to confuse the two).
5) "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
There is a business history-lesson in the making here. If we help MS kill Java and our own platform efforts (by switching to.NET praying for some kind of compatibility that won't happen), they'll thank us by killing Linux by enforcing their patents and control of the Forms and Windows API as soon as sun is out of the way. I guarantee that this will happen.
If we like their platform and research, we should be incorporating the best ideas into our own projects (like Parrot), Qt, Gnome. . . but not at the risk of binding our code to the Windows API (WINE and Windows.Forms anyone)?!*?
Miguel de Icaza is a good programmer with a lot of charisma, but he is doing a very dumb thing by leading a lot of people down the wrong path. Judgment in engineering and judgement in product/legal management aren't the same thing. Didn't we just get that harsh lesson over the dot.com fiasco the last few years?
I never thought I'd have to say this, but: why is Richard Stallman so silent on this issue?
Hear that Houston IT Managers? When SimDesk fails, it is time to DEMAND that all alternative options are explored. This is the perfect time for "We aren't just going for Microsoft, we are looking at all the options so that we don't get into another 'SimDesk' situation. . . . We hear that some county/city/country governments are actually saving money (the stated goal of SimDesk) with Microsoft alternatives." Bring in MacOS, bring in OSS. . . you can get Apple and RedHat to pony up for labs and do the initial demos/tests FOR YOU at no cost.
If you must go Microsoft, at least people will have a firm idea that there were alternatives. . . the worst thing is for Microsoft to look like the "fair-business saviour" just becuase the SimDesk blind-nepotism decision was even worse than the Microsoft monopoly/nepotism/payoff one. (And please don't fall for the 'We'll pay your hardware costs for the first 2-5 years if you promise to upgrade every version for 10 years' ploy from Microsoft, the deal sucks).
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Every 5-6 years these things come out. Every 5-6 years they flop. These are almost as dumb as the speech processing fad.
People are always suckered in by two fantasies:
1) Writing is more efficient (or easier to perform) than typing. What everyone (re)learns is that keyboards are _incredibly_ efficient input devices. I don't think that writing will ever surpass them for anything but drawing and bitmap graphic capture.
2) Speech processing will be easier to use and more efficient than keyboards. This is only the case when the interface is incredibly simple. . . (single-app) based, or the user has special physical impediments. Until computers become intuitive and understand cultural inflection and nuance, speech processing will have limited usage.
It'll be worse.
Your name will be Winston Lights.
. . . they have pictures of the analysts. You're description of them is right on the money.
goatse . . . . if the DOJ case was conducted properly, Bill and Steve would have been good models for that site. . .
I don't get it. I've heard about Linux' packaging problems for a while.
/winnt directory!
Linux needs a good packaging system to compete with Windows? Windows has almost NO packaging standards. And what standard it does have installs everything important onto the C: drive in the
The Mac might be slightly better but doesn't really deal with dependencies on the order of Linux rpm.
I just don't get it. Linux got big because of its packaging advantages (rpm and deb). . . now people can't get enough of saying that its packaging needs to be changed to "keep up".
come on.
enough with excuses, dude, CHANGE YOUR PANTS.
This isn't about Microsoft, govt. corruption, or open-source, this is about not sh*tting where you eat.
Maybe the "world event" that DARPA was referring to was the event where Theo shot his mouth off about the war while taking money from the defence department. No one is curtailing Theo's speech, they're curtailing his funding.
Although the US seems a little 1984 these days, I'm still glad that our government agencies aren't paying people to make fools of them. I wasn't for the war either. . . but if my needed funding came from the defense department I would have thought twice about openly criticizing them in public forums without having other funding waiting in the wings.
Maybe the Microsoft legal and patent team can co-present with them. Their part of the project is what everyone wants to know about anyway. . .
Maybe Sun's Java crew can finish up with a "roadmap" slide or two.
It's never too late for adoption of a new product or idea. . . if its better. People are born every day. They experience the world as it is presented to them. If a young person learns Linux/KDE at the same time as Windows they will probably form an independent decision.
.and RMS.
Anything can be changed with time. Anything. . . look at the stories surrounding Rome, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Napolean, wind and water.. .
Embedded Systems makers beware, supporting this will eventually invalidate the reasons you chose linux in the first place!
This move by Microsoft is to prevent Ogg Vorbis and other free codecs from dominating the Linux embedded market. Once Microsoft has the dominant codec, they'll stop supporting Linux and force you to buy some flavor of embedded windows or other platform they control to stay in business.
As soon as Microsoft has finished using its codecs to control the media-format choices in the embedded and desktop market, they will charge out the wazoo for this stuff and pry your Linux options out of your hands. DON'T FALL FOR IT. This is not a new strategy, most people LEARN of it through Micrsoft.
Sun deserves respect and attention when it comes to server reliability. . . we should give them their due.
When it comes to their insisting they should be heard re: desktop usability and XWindows performance. . . we should give them the finger.
Sun and other committee members managed to take great ideas from HP (Openview) flush them down the toilet along with a commitee of other buffoons and then come up with CDE -- A lowest-common-denominator utter failure of a desktop. Now their trying to do the same with Gnome and X-Standards. . . forget it.
As far as Sun playing coordinator between X.org and XFree86. . . XFree86 _IS_ X now (yeah there are a few commercial guys - they'd be nowhere without XFree86 doing all the font work etc, ). If Sun had been paying attention to X over the past 8 years they would have known that X.org's attempts to commercialize X almost killed it and XFree86 brought it back from the dead with the free software stuff. Sun OWES XFree86 for the fact that X has moved at all. . . not the other way around.
Message to Sun: 1) work WITH the free community - especially if you want to use its desktop managers. You are no longer the authority and your credibility on the desktop has long been squandered. 2) work WITH the free community if their J2EE servers are some of the most deployed implementations YOUR standard. they are keeping your standards growing. 3) work WITH the free community if you are going to sell your own linux distro(LX50) instead of selling a weak/hobbled/over-priced version to make Solaris look good (it only makes you look like you can't configure linux right, btw). Figure it out or you will increasingly be replaced BY the free community.
Sun's arrogance is infuriating and counter-productive. I've been a big fan of their engineering and it is truly a strength, but the boys in executive better start reading periodicals labelled "2003" and earning their keep, or Sun is going to bite it.
The only way to make this work would be to make the person buy the stamp from the mail receiver. Maybe a middleman would take a little cut, but I wouldn't mind getting a penny or more for receiving each email. I pay for the bandwidth anyway. . . its not like its free for me to get the mail (unless it is at work where the corporation should get the money since they fund the system)
Not only would it cut down on SPAM, people would think through their emails before writing as many flames and time-robbers.
The WINE project was sponsored by the Canopy Group as well. The Canopy Group is not the problem.
.SCO came from outside the Canopy Group and bought one of the companies that belong to that group.
When SCO bought Caldera, they bought into the Noorda franchise. . .
Don't blame the whole Canopy group for the idiots from SCO.
This would only be interesting if Microsoft were moving from one chip to another.
.its obvious and perfectly in character.
Why the hell would they need emulation technology to run on the SAME platform?
They're just trying to shut the door on MacOSX windows compatibility. . . come on . .
The interwoven designers were the original designers for Clearcase.
Clearcase has all of this stuff including staging and work-areas.
They are basically patenting "Clearcase as applied to the web".
I've had a number of discussions with folks about this over the last few years.
1) Sun can still afford it.
2) They gain instant credibility in the x86 market.
3) AMD gains credibility in the enterprise (luring really big enterprise customers with real service)
4) Sun gets 2 of the leading 64-bit processor platforms, plus some control over the Windows hardware platform.
5) Sun gets to own their chip manufacturer (rather than rely on stinky TI and Fujitsu for the Sparc line).
6) Sun can control the cost of its Linux platform.
Do, it Sun. . . you know you want to. . . buy them.
here are a few more:
1) Sybase (MS SQL Server is mostly Sybase SQL Server) - the core database engine was Sybase's (even the API and the product name are the same - the tech was stolen in a "joint-marketing" agreement that Microsoft never held up its part in)
2) IBM (They basically paid M$ to build OS/2 and M$ built Windows on their dime and stalled OS/2)
3) Apple (They refused to release an update to M$Office for 8 years for the Mac to punish them for being succesful with their OS)
4) Sun - Polluted Java Anybody? Now they are trying to dupe the system and call it "innovation"
5) Alternate DOS makers - they made Windows 95 "check" that is was running on top of MSDos and give specious error warnings to sabotage those products (some of which had license-rights)
6) Their users - look at the new licensing schemes - changing the EULA AFTER the product is purchased -
7) Mono - offering them help an encouragement only to patent the very class-structure.
8) The JavaScript community (ECMAscript) by submitting standards and then intentionally shunning them to waste everybody's time.
9) Spyglass - taking their code on a revenue-sharing basis and then giving it away free as IE.
Here's how it works:
1) Sign Contract with Microsoft so you can profit.
2) Microsoft breaks either the spirit or letter of the law to steal your money
3) The Profit!
Why anyone partners with, or uses those crooks' products I can't quite understand.
This is wrong.
The DOJ started being tough on Microsoft with the appointment of Joel Klein as the head of the Antitrust division. . . a Clinton-era appointee.
Bush Sr. had a pansy in the Antitrust office (actually she was a politician that didn't even have a law degree if I remember correctly).
The "back-peddling" didn't happen until Bush Jr. It just was so fast and thorough that it made you think that it started earlier.
Like it or not there HAS been a direct partison correlation to the enforcement of corporate Antitrust law in the US over the last three decades.
Now I get it. . . my eyes glazed over as I read your post with its talk of .NET ILDASM.EXE, MSIL. . .
Your POST was written with an obfuscator. . . very clever.
Microsoft can patent J2EE?
.NET base class hierarchy in the patent. That should worry the Mono guys. If the patent is even extremely narrowly enforced, the Mono guys seem to be in breach.
Seriously: Microsoft explicitly names the
Wrong. . .SPAM is a social problem, not a technical one. If the technology changed, there would still be parts of society that would try to circumvent it.
.although it may reduce their symptoms.
If you have thieves next door who hop the fence and steal your stuff, raising the height of your fences won't stop crime.
In other words, technology can't solve social problems. .
I did a consulting gig with ClearChannel a few years ago and a fellow consultant suggested this to them then. There are many reasons this is a good idea:
1) Artists own their own performances. This is the reason why Record Labels don't really make money off of concerts. It is up to them and their artist representation as to what they do with their recordings of them.
2) CDs distributed at street-level and concerts are an effective form of promotion - one that is very effective. . . The Wu-Tang Clan and The Grateful Dead know this cold and they did great even though they NEVER got airplay. (CCU is diluting their radio prowess a bit here - but don't thell them that).
3) Music has a great "hook" into your memory. How many times have you heard a piece of music and it reminded you of some past situation when you heard it? How great would it be to have the EXACT rendition of that concert and the good time your friends had? Bill Graham (the famous San Fran concert promoter) both understood this and encouraged it.
4) If you love a band (say RadioHead), and you go to more than one of their concerts (say MSG and Philly Spectrum), wouldn't you like to buy them both if they were unique experiences? How about a digital season's pass (over the web) to ALL of their concerts? (with video). Would you pay the equivalent of a box-set to have that kind of access? I would. . . most people would for their favorite band (if they have the coin).
The sky is the limit with these opportunities and there isn't much that the RIAA can do about it. This is the kind of liberation tha technology makes possible. . . There is more value because there is more PRODUCT. There is more product, because there is more access to the ARTIST. Let's hope this catches on before the Label's start asking for exclusive rights to concerts and concert-proceeds.
Oh Please.. talk about knee jerk reaction. I bet you say the same thing about Wine..
.Net completely and then be blindsided.
.Net is NOT to be crossplatform, but to provide a nice programming environment. If Mono isn't compatible with .Net then so be it.. it doesn't make Mono any less desirable as a development platform.
.NET compatible at all? Your point that compatibility doesn't make Mono any less desirable as a development platform flies in the face of those who say that Mono: can lure Windows developers, can interoperate with Windows, can promote reuse, and "can help Linux from being blindsided" (your words).
I would say the same thing about wine. Don't develop native Linux applications that depend on WINE for their GUIs. (Unless you are Codeweavers).
I'd much rather have mono fail than to ignore
Blindsided how? How can someone be blindsided by something you have to invite into your house?
I am a mono developer, and who are you to tell me what to spend my time on?
I am not telling you how to spend your time. In fact, THANK YOU for working on free software. I do wish you were working on something that has better bedfellows. . . for both your and your users' sakes.
The point of
If compatibility is not the point, then why make it
I respect your free-software work (and wish you luck in it). . . I just don't want it to go to waste because you are building your house too close to a neighbor known for sabotage.
Here are a few terrifying things I see popping up in this debate:
.NET must be too, right?
.NET is under dubious patent protection and doesn't have a real compatibility/performance adherence test suite like Java. Microsoft already screwed Netscape this way with Javascript (submitted to ECMA as ECMAscript) and then simply changed it to screw up their browser efforts. The Mono guys are simply not paying attention to history here.
.NET is a way of playing Microsoft's game. Why dedicate all or your efforts to a strategy that your competitor and enemy controls? (Note to purists: you may not be into Linux to compete with Microsoft, but if you think that MS is not your competitor and enemy, think again. . . or just ask them)
.NET programmers, folks. . . Is the platform even out of beta on windows? Windows people are still learning .NET and there isn't much software even out for it. On, Linux, we've got an IRC client and a media player (that most of us wouldn't use over XMMS). .NET adoption is marketing, not reality. There is a huge difference (and a lot of trolls/astro-turfers trying to confuse the two).
.NET praying for some kind of compatibility that won't happen), they'll thank us by killing Linux by enforcing their patents and control of the Forms and Windows API as soon as sun is out of the way. I guarantee that this will happen.
1) I'm a little concerned about the dependence of Windows.Forms on WINE
Well, be a lot afraid. Microsoft is tricking you into writing native apps for GNU/Linux and making them dependent on the WINDOWS API (Windows.Forms are part of the new Windows API). . . and the mono guys have fallen for it hook line and sinker (and are helping).
2) C# has been submitted as an open standard, so
Wrong! A majority of
3) Mono is helping Linux compete.
Isn't anyone looking at the scoreboard? GNU/Linux is already competing and is kicking Microsoft's ass (and everyone elses for that matter)! Microsoft started with a huge lead on the desktop and server and GNU/Linux has had a faster adoption rate than any OS in history. Why? Because GNU/Linux changed the game into one where we build an OS that we want, unfettered by the dubious interference of monopolists and people with ulterior motives.
4) We will get Windows converts to GNU/Linux this way. . . and make great apps.
What great apps and what converts? There aren't many
5) "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
There is a business history-lesson in the making here. If we help MS kill Java and our own platform efforts (by switching to
If we like their platform and research, we should be incorporating the best ideas into our own projects (like Parrot), Qt, Gnome. . . but not at the risk of binding our code to the Windows API (WINE and Windows.Forms anyone)?!*?
Miguel de Icaza is a good programmer with a lot of charisma, but he is doing a very dumb thing by leading a lot of people down the wrong path. Judgment in engineering and judgement in product/legal management aren't the same thing. Didn't we just get that harsh lesson over the dot.com fiasco the last few years?
I never thought I'd have to say this, but: why is Richard Stallman so silent on this issue?
Hear that Houston IT Managers? When SimDesk fails, it is time to DEMAND that all alternative options are explored. This is the perfect time for "We aren't just going for Microsoft, we are looking at all the options so that we don't get into another 'SimDesk' situation. . . . We hear that some county/city/country governments are actually saving money (the stated goal of SimDesk) with Microsoft alternatives." Bring in MacOS, bring in OSS. . . you can get Apple and RedHat to pony up for labs and do the initial demos/tests FOR YOU at no cost.
If you must go Microsoft, at least people will have a firm idea that there were alternatives. . . the worst thing is for Microsoft to look like the "fair-business saviour" just becuase the SimDesk blind-nepotism decision was even worse than the Microsoft monopoly/nepotism/payoff one.
(And please don't fall for the 'We'll pay your hardware costs for the first 2-5 years if you promise to upgrade every version for 10 years' ploy from Microsoft, the deal sucks).