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Mono Project Releases Beta 1 414

Posted by timothy from the solo dept.
AArnott writes "Ximian has just released beta 1 of its open-source implementation of Microsoft .NET platform. Mono allows .NET applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, Windows. Mono 1.0 is slated for release on June 30, 2004." sjanes71 adds "The first 'beta' always gets heaps of attention, and this is the first of three planned for the Mono project. Some of the new features touted for this release that updates Mono v0.31 include a faster interpreter, a global assembly cache, support for the StrongARM and HPPA platforms, generics support in the VM and C# compiler and an early alpha of System.Windows.Forms. C# and .NET is Microsoft's answer to Sun Microsystem's Java platform and Project Mono aims to create the Open Source, cross-platform version of Microsoft's new development environment."
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Mono Project Releases Beta 1

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  • First of three Betas? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @07:53AM (#9061967) Homepage Journal
    So you are talking about a big E-level release? That's a Sigma, friends. Not a Beta. (damn /. doesn't allow Greek chars)

  • Well done guys! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by supersnail ( 106701 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @07:53AM (#9061968)

    We need interoprability with everything else to keep LINUX viable.

    • In other words, we need to assume the position of a cloner.

      We should not. We should strive not merely to be merely interoperable, but to be ahead of everything else -- we should have something unique, innovative -- a killer app proper.

      Hm. Should stay away from marketing department.

      In any case, one does not need interoperability to be viable. The Mac is not very interoperable with x86 or Windows -- only a few doubt that it is viable -- because, the Mac has unique features that other systems do not have. (

      • Re:Well done guys! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by afd8856 ( 700296 )
        As long as the Mac reads and writes Jouliet, ISO and FAT, it has TCP/IP stack, SMB suport, can read and write standard office productivity files (PDF, Microsoft Word, etc), than it's not alone in its little world...

      • Re:Well done guys! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by evil_roy ( 241455 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:35AM (#9062234)
        Wrong.

        Mac is completely interoperable with windows & *nix where it counts. If it wasn't it would not exist.

        Interoperability is the reason mac survives. It is also the reason linux is viable.

        Create a niche and that's all you will exist in.

        Work like this is what keeps linux viable. The vision shown by Ximian is great - this sort of innovation displays the strength of alternative software development.

        Now if only they can make some $$$

        • Re:Well done guys! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by zhenlin ( 722930 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @11:01AM (#9063696)
          Mac is completely interoperable with windows & *nix where it counts. If it wasn't it would not exist.


          Where it counts. Right. Like running the same executables. Reading the same file formats is nowhere near the order of interoperability that the grandparent post was talking about -- running the same executables.

          Create a niche and that's all you will exist in.


          You do realise that the Mac has long since carved a niche for itself and filled it?

          The vision shown by Ximian is great - this sort of innovation displays the strength of alternative software development.


          While Ximian has done some innovative things, we're talking about Mono here, which is fundamentally a copy, an alternative implementation of .NET -- there may be innovation in the implementation, but the core idea is not -- and that's what counts. Or used to. I have no idea what gimmicks geeks like today, but geeks used to appreciate innovative ideas. Hell, they used create innovative ideas. Many still do, but I'd hazard a guess that the fraction of programmers/software engineers/software designers/computer scientists that have groundbreaking new ideas is falling faster than ever before. Then again, there is less and less ground to break...

          If there is one thing Mono has done, is to have ported, to have made available Microsoft "innovation" to other platforms. But it's no excuse for not working on new ideas.

          But back to Linux. If all we ever do is copy, what will distinguish us from them? An equally balanced alternative is not good enough -- we must outweigh them as a operating system, as a development environment, as a computing platform.

          However, I don't mind Linux being a niche player for a few more years. I don't really care for more installed base nor for more marketshare. If it is a side effect of improvements made, so be it.

          • Re:Well done guys! (Score:5, Interesting)

            by MenTaLguY ( 5483 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @11:44AM (#9064206) Homepage
            While Mono is doing an implementation of Microsoft's extensions to the ECMA spec, they're also doing their own set in parallel.

            If all they did was cloning, of course the best they could ever hope for was barely keeping up.

            This means that if Microsoft torpedoes the .NET clone stuff, Mono still has a viable system built on top of the ECMA standard (Gtk#, etc...) that they've been encouraging people to target all along.

            Note whose APIs Ximian is writing their apps to... they aren't Microsoft's...

            I used to think Miguel was naive. Now I think he's a really shrewd bastard... They got Microsoft's support and then pulled an "embrace and extend" on MICROSOFT.

    • Re:Well done guys! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TeJo ( 141448 ) <thumma@hot m a il.com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:54AM (#9062381)
      Mono attempts to provide a viable alternative to Microsofts .NET stack. IIRC this is the first time opensource project has attempted to compete with Microsoft before the technology gets mainstream. .NET is will not be mainstream until longhorn comes out. It gives the Mono developers the time to get the stack that is not only complete but may be tested as well.

      Mono and dotGNU guys are trying to take the wind out of Microsoft's sails for what could become a ubiquitous platform for developement (at least on windows).

      Had opensource developers done this for Java we wouldn't need Sun's stewardship (being a coporation they did a fine job in that role, so no complains from me!).

      • Re:Well done guys! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dasmegabyte ( 267018 ) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @10:58AM (#9063643) Homepage Journal
        I disagree with the parent's tone. Mr. Tejo seems to be acting like Mono is a competetive product that Microsoft is frightened of. I'd like to remind him that Microsoft created an industry standard [microsoft.com] for the core technologies used in the .NET platform. What the Mono project is doing is exactly what Microsoft wanted somebody to do.

        Why? Well, I dunno. Maybe to appease the Monopoly watchdogs. Maybe to bury Sun (I picked C# over Java and haven't been let down yet). And maybe -- just maybe -- to make it easy to use Microsoft products on alternative hardware and alternative Operating Systems without Microsoft having to worry about supporting all the obscure Linux builds of the world.

        Incidentally...I too like Sun's stewardship, but it existed despite a big clean room open source intiative [kaffe.org] to reproduce Java. I remember playing around with it in college to compile somebody else's object code into native code for faster execution (our mainframe was slowwwww and at the time, running Java was like a snail on a turtle's back).

      • Re:Well done guys! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        Mono and dotGNU guys are trying to take the wind out of Microsoft's sails for what could become a ubiquitous platform for developement (at least on windows).

        Actually, no ... at least in the case of Mono, it was written because Miguel de Icaza and the Ximian guys like .Net. They want to use it to develop their own software. They're not too concerned with what Microsoft plans to do with it. If Microsoft abandoned C# and .Net tomorrow, Miguel would probably be really, really puzzled ... and keep on working

  • http://www.go-mono.com/archive/beta1/beta1.html

    The generics compiler is called `gmcs' as opposed to the standard 1.0 compiler `gmcs'.

    I assume this is a typo.. or I am working too hard.
    As I am reading /. I doubt it is the latter.

  • Good news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nplugd ( 662449 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @07:58AM (#9061994) Homepage
    I didn't have the occasion to use Mono yet, but I'm very interested in this project.
    To me, to .NET framework offers most of the power of the J2EE platform, but is also way easier to use. To me at least, I'm not trying to lauch a flamewar. Being able to use the framework without having to buy vs.net or use iis would be neat. I know, arguably one can already do that under windows, but it ain't half as productive.

    • Re:Good news (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dot.Com.CEO ( 624226 ) *
      Care to explain why running VS.Net under Windows to compile a .net app "ain't half as productive" as running a beta CLS that doesn't emulate all APIs of .net and probably never will? Also, the "J2EE platform" is easy to use as it is, many people think it's easier than anything out there bar python scripts but perhaps you could qualify your opinion...

    • but [.net] is also way easier to use

      Just out of curiousity, in what way? (I presume you mean .NET without vs.net)

      I've only ever used .net with with Visual Studio, and that was pretty easy, but without the IDE I'm curious as to how it is easier than Java (disclaimer: lots more experience with Java than .net)

      One improvement I (totally subjective) noticed with .net was speed - ASP.net apps seemed a lot "snappier" than JSP/servlet apps.

      • Re:Good news (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AstroDrabb ( 534369 ) *

        One improvement I (totally subjective) noticed with .net was speed - ASP.net apps seemed a lot "snappier" than JSP/servlet apps.

        We ran into this same issue. However, we were comparing Servlet/JSP/J2EE running on Slowaris with dog slow Sparc processors, while .Net ran on dual 3GHz Xeons with HT, 2GB Ram, SCSI, etc using Windows 2003. We switched Servlet/JSP/J2EE to the same piece of hardware using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 and Oracle 9iAS as the J2EE server and the numbers were about equal across the

    • Re:Good news (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:13AM (#9062102)
      If it's just the IDE you're missing (and I wasn't aware that the Mono people were writing one), then you might want to take a look at icsharpcode.net [icsharpcode.net]. One of the projects (#Develop) is a free-as-in-both IDE for .NET.

      In addition to that, Borland have a personal edition of C# Builder [borland.com] available, which is free as in beer, but not licensed for commercial use.
      • You might also like to take a look at MonoDevelop, a related IDE. Google will help you find it.

        • Re:Good news (Score:2, Informative)

          by Talonius ( 97106 )
          MonoDevelop is a GTK port of #Develop.

          It's my understanding that #Develop is trying to create a cross platform compilable version of their IDE as well.

      • Re:Good news (Score:4, Interesting)

        by j3110 ( 193209 ) <samterrell&gmail,com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @02:45PM (#9066223) Homepage
        It was my impression that Mono was going to use Eclipse, the Java IDE. I have had to work with .Net for academic projects, and thus I have used VS.Net. I've actually been a guest lecturer to teach J2EE to a class (half the class was J2EE, the second half was .Net). Here are my findings:

        1) Students can learn most of J2EE in half a semester of a 3h course (up to Message Driven Beans) with difficulty. The .Net guest taught only dynamic website creation driven from a DB.

        2) .Net was easier for the students to create simple dynamic web sites, but they didn't have the restriction of asynchronous processing of requests. In the real world, the .Net applications they wrote would have required more than twice the horsepower.

        3) .Net is only easier if you use the non-MVC graphical development tools. Think front-page style generated html that hardly works in most browsers, and definately doesn't pass any kind of standards. Going back to update the site will require a developer who is a designer, two people at the same computer, or a designer that knows VS.Net and ASP.Net.

        You can now do the same with JSF (Java Server Faces) which looks and feels like VS.Net for making those terrible websites.

        Struts is still probably the best (as far as flexibility and features) MVC architecture out there, and if it were ported to .Net, .Net might actually have a chance of actually displacing a significant number of J2EE development.

        On the other side, VS.Net has the BEST SOAP/WebServices development I have seen to date. You can create a SOAP object in seconds, and I have. So far, this is the only redeaming quality of .Net that I've seen for web development. Windows.Forms and XAML may turn out to be really cool for GUI development, but I haven't had the chance to play with it much. Java is still seriously lacking in the GUI building area.

        As far as I know, there are no MVC frameworks for .Net. Does any know of any MVC-2 frameworks? (Front controller style) It may be a good project to actually find a way to leverage the use of Open Source into your work place if there was a defacto standard MVC architecture. In my opinion, that and the commercial backing is what has let JBoss into the production world. The fact that most companies use Struts and other Apache Jakarta software has given the open source process a better reputation in the commercial world.

        I have to use .Net occassionally, so I would be very much interested in some book reccomendations and some pointers to making a real database driven application, web or otherwise, in .Net.
    • You can. All of the compilers, and the .NET framework, are free (read: as in beer) from MS as is the .NET framework. However, they only runs on 98 and the NT4+ line of OSs.

  • Yay! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Athas ( 763316 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @07:58AM (#9061996) Homepage
    Now GNU/Linux users can enjoy .DLL's as well!

  • This is exciting, at least for me. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JanusFury ( 452699 ) <kevin...gadd@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:00AM (#9062014) Homepage Journal
    I really look forward to seeing a day when you can take almost any modern application and run it on pretty much any machine. Now that Microsoft is moving over to a platform-independent, bytecode-based system for most of their applications (well, at least Longhorn) and are encouraging their developers to do so, that day seems to be getting closer.

    It's also slightly encouraging to see Microsoft adopting the use of technology like XML and moving a bit closer to standards with their software... their new vector language is very similar to SVG, and their new forms design language is XML-based. Both seem to be pretty clean and generally simple, which means that at least theoretically it would be possible to convert these formats to truly open formats, and to open them easily in open-source software. It would be really cool to be able to just convert a Windows-oriented XAML file to a Linux-friendly format and then run the associated .NET code with no changes on Fedora or SuSE.

    The fact that Mono even runs on mobile platforms is nice, because in my opinion J2ME is one of the most horrible APIs I have ever had the misfortune of using - some solid competition for J2ME is definitely needed in the mobile sector, and I think a solid platform based on Linux and Mono might be able to deliver. There are already plenty of .NET developers out there, and being able to share a codebase between Linux, Windows, and PDAs would probably be a pretty convincing benefit. Sure, there's the .NET Compact Framework, but that basically only works on the most recent versions of WinCE.
    • I heard in some news that Microsoft is applying something like 10 patents a day. You could say that all that effort in acquiring patents is just for psychological effect, but should they change their mind...

    • Re:This is exciting, at least for me. (Score:5, Informative)

      by moxruby ( 152805 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:10AM (#9062083)
      Microsoft open? Hah!
      Where is .NET for mac or linux? (I mean the ms created version and not mono)

      Their XML is a joke, swaths of proprietry code and an arsenal of patents to defend it.

      Microsoft pays lipservice to "open standards" to keep the DOJ at bay, but after that it's business as usual.

      Great work on Mono guys, we can only hope that microsoft won't dare use their patents against the project.
      • There's a chance you'll see .NET for Mac if MS releases a version of Office based on .NET. Not very likely, but possible.

        Though, really, why does it matter? Apple doesn't release a version of Mac OS X for x86, so you can't run OS X software on x86, just like Microsoft isn't releasing a version of .NET for OS X. That doesn't mean that the platform is useless.

        If you really want an application that fits into your workflow nicely and cooperates with all the other software on your PC, at least for now, platfor
        • Historically, Microsoft has had two different teams to produce the same 'title' software: Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office both had teams strictly separate from their Windows counterparts. The Mac teams use Carbon and Cocoa simply because they are writing specifically for Macs.

          I'm assuming it's cheaper for Microsoft to hire a new team than to port over their framework (in strictly this context, without worrying about the Evil Empire ideology ascribed to them). This has been good: Mac versions of Micr
      • Where is .NET for mac or linux? (I mean the ms created version and not mono)

        Why it's here... ROTOR [microsoft.com]

        What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?

        • Re:This is exciting, at least for me. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          ROTOR is a toy. It has zero support and does not include basics like ASP.NET or WinForms.NET.

        • Re:This is exciting, at least for me. (Score:5, Informative)

          by moxruby ( 152805 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:47AM (#9062327)
          Haha, far from it.
          Choice quotes from the MS website:

          It will be of interest to academics and researchers wishing to teach and explore modern programming language concepts, and to .NET developers interested in how the technology works.

          Notice that nowhere in the list of intended uses is "Development", that's because it lacks all the libraries needed to make it useful.
          This software was last updated 18 months ago - it's not undergoing development.

          Simply another ploy to gull people into thinking .NET is something more than a new API for windows...

      • Re:This is exciting, at least for me. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ad0gg ( 594412 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @12:43PM (#9064933)
        Their XML is a joke, swaths of proprietry code and an arsenal of patents to defend it

        MS XML is really proprietry code. Look at that proprietry code [microsoft.com]. Oh wait it looks like any other xml document.

    • It's also slightly encouraging to see Microsoft adopting the use of technology like XML and moving a bit closer to standards with their software... their new vector language is very similar to SVG

      But it isn't SVG. OTOH I don't think it'll be too long before some cunning hacker writes some XSLT which will convert XAML into SVG + XUL. If its integrated into 'zilla users would be none the wiser.
    • because in my opinion J2ME is one of the most horrible APIs I have ever had the misfortune of using - some solid competition for J2ME is definitely needed in the mobile sector
      ...
      Sure, there's the .NET Compact Framework, but that basically only works on the most recent versions of WinCE.

      And trust me the .Net Compact Framework is a solid competition to J2ME's ugliness. It doesn't behave in any sane way, feels like a kludged, inconsistent, half-assed .net winforms implementation.

      Hell, even something as sim

  • The Novell Connection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:02AM (#9062024)
    From www.go-mono.com [go-mono.com]:

    The Mono project is an open source effort sponsored by Novell to create a free implementation of the .NET Development Framework.

    Does anyone else find this interesting? We have Microsoft "creating" MS-DOS, Digital Research creating DR-DOS, Novell creating Novell Netware, Novell buying Digital Research, Microsoft creating Windows 95 and NT and killing DR-DOS and Novell Netware, Microsoft creating .NET and basing their new Longhorn OS on it, and Novell creating a free version of .NET specifically to run .NET apps on non-Microsoft platforms.

    Can anyone guess what happens next? Anyone?

    Novell, you had a good run. We shall miss you.

    • microsoft buys novell?

    • Mono was around long before Novell purchased Ximian. Mono will remain around long after Novell, if Novell does go somewhere, simply because the .NET platform is popular and there are quite a few talented programmers who'd like to work with it.

      Combined with Sun's perceived reluctance to open Java (perceived because IBM has their VM; GNU has theirs; they don't have the popular press that a project like Mono does) and Mono has a *lot* of support behind it.
    • If Microsoft wants to kill Mono, they will have to do more than buy out Novell! Mono is open sourced; variously GPL and MIT X11 licensed.

      If Microsoft want to close down Mono, they are more likely to (try to) use their raft of .NET related patents to do this.

  • Mono is a step in some direction.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kbsingh ( 138659 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:02AM (#9062030) Homepage
    At the moment, MS is in the top position with the tech and the money and the market share to dictate terms to almost everyout out there in the business community / Enterprise sector.

    Mono is a step in the right direction ( various Querries about the legal viability of mono still being an issue ). A good c# platform on Linux will encourage a lot more of the enterprise sector adapters to think about Linux in a positive frame of mind - and might even encourage cross platform development. ( apart from QT there isnt really any alternative at this time ).

    However for the Open Source community to really achieve something great and be able to lead 'from the front' - we need to innovate, create better and more adaptable technologies not just play 'follow the leader'. Some people might say that we need to catch up first before we can lead, well - Mono should help in the catchup situation - but then what ?

    Are there enough people thinking, developing and colaborating about where to go from there ?

  • .NET is Microsoft's answer to Java? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phidoux ( 705500 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:03AM (#9062034) Homepage
    Actually I think that .NET has a very long way to go before it comes close to being an alternative to Java.

    The biggest problem I've had with C# development is that many standard classes are declared final, which means they can't be sub-classed. I assume what has happened is that MS has taken short-cuts and has simply written .NET wrappers for old COM stuff.

    • Re:.NET is Microsoft's answer to Java? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:25AM (#9062175) Homepage
      I don't think there is any COM wrapping done in the class library (that would make things go MUCH too slow), but a lot of .NET's classes do cheat and have hand-optimized native code behind them. This is the reason there is no AMD64 .NET out yet- instead of having to write the JIT, they have to rewrite a lot of classes.
    • But the huge benefit of Mono/.NET is that you don't have to change your entire platform as you do for Java. .NET uses thinly wrapped native widgets, it slips straight into IIS (mod_mono for apache), and doesn't require you to be tied into a single language like Java. To move to Java today, most companies have to make a considerable investment to move legacy code. The reverse isn't true - COM interop is much better designed and integrated with build tools than JNI. The Java to C# switch is likeley to be s
    • That's actually a good thing, inheriting from classes you don't maintain is a risky business.

      If you subclass and add methods in your class there is nothing to stop the original class adding new identically named methods in a subsequent release.

      It is generally much better to favour composition over inheritance unless a class specifically documents that it is intended to be subclassed - eg/ abstract classes.

      • Re:.NET is Microsoft's answer to Java? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Phidoux ( 705500 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @09:16AM (#9062546) Homepage
        The sub-classing of standard classes has been managed successfully in Java for many years. I've never had the problem where a new version of a class has produced a method with a name the same as one I might have written in a sub-class. Anyway, even if it did happen, the likelihood of it causing a problem is very remote. Java very easily distinguishes between (For example) Method(String string) and Method(boolean flag).

        Another thing I've found extremely prohibitive with the standard .NET libraries is that they aren't very extensive (Well, at least not when compared to the Java standard libraries). Of course to work around the limitations of the standard libraries we look for 3rd party libraries. In the case of Java, 3rd party libraries are mostly GPLed and free, where 3rd party .NET libraries are almost always commercial products with fees attached to their licensing.
      • If you subclass and add methods in your class there is nothing to stop the original class adding new identically named methods in a subsequent release.

        I've never found fragile base-classes to be a problem in Java, where it's a lot easier to override a method than in C#. In Java, by default all methods are virtual, and therefore can be overridden. In C#, however, a method has to be explicitly declared to be virtual before it can be overridden by a derived class.

        It is generally much better to favour compo

  • Intellectual Property Issues (Score:5, Insightful)

    by amitofu ( 705703 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:03AM (#9062038) Homepage

    At the rate that Microsoft is applying for patents [slashdot.org], I can imagine Microsoft being in a position like SCO--except with evidence on Microsoft's side.

    It seems like a lose/lose situation for GNU/Linux. If Mono doesn't catch on then it will be tough for the free desktop to compete with Longhorn. If, however, Mono does catch on and becomes a major development backbone for GNU/Linux, then we risk having Microsoft Intellectual Property embedded deep within a lot of free software projects.

  • Compatible... how long? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by koi88 ( 640490 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:03AM (#9062040)
    Maybe now, MS has a strong interest to promote the .NET platform, but when (or if) it has reached a certain market penetration, what keeps them from changing the protocols (or whatever-- I'm not into this thing) every few months?
    Or, if this dosn't help, declare it's all copyright protected and sue Mono? DMCA, anyone? Or at least prevent them from continuing their work?
    Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the guys at Ximian have done great work, but you can't trust Microsoft. This is not MS-bashing, this is a lesson many companies have learned in the past-- learned the hard way.

    • Re:Compatible... how long? (Score:5, Informative)

      by clintp ( 5169 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:08AM (#9062073)
      The answer to this (and others) is in the FAQ [go-mono.com].

      For this it states:

      The core of the .NET Framework, and what has been patented by Microsoft falls under the ECMA/ISO submission. Jim Miller at Microsoft has made a statement on the patents covering ISO/ECMA, (he is one of the inventors listed in the patent): here [the link is incorrect -- clintp].

      Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement those components for free and for any purpose.

      • Thanks for the link...
        Yet, what keeps MS from extending the .NET platform with copyprotected parts? This way they could slowly make the Mono-made software incompatible.
        On the MS side, simply re-compile your stuff and it will run under the new, improved .NET Xtreme Platform (C) but if you use Mono, you'll be locked out...
        I'm probably paranoid.
        But maybe we read about a secret MS strategy email on /. in a few months advising just that. I wouldn't be surprised.
    • they will BUY mono.

  • I have said it once (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:04AM (#9062044)
    and I will say it 1000 more times if necessary. Mono should not in any way associate itself with the term ".NET". I think it is a worthy project and a great effort, but it is incredibly irresponsible and stupid to use the ".NET" moniker.

    Simply put, .NET is a marketing term. If Mono wants to say that it is an open source implementation of the CLR/C#, FINE! That's what it is. However, what Mono is doing would be as if Wine called itself an "Open Source implementation of Windows".

    It is even worse, because it gives the impression that .NET is cross platform, but I would argue it's just as cross-platform as if people were like "there's wine, see, Windows is cross platform!" That is my gripe, and I will continue until Miguel et all STOP CALLING MONO AN OPEN SOURCE IMPLEMENTATION OF .NET!!!!!!!!!!!
    • However, what Mono is doing would be as if Wine called itself an "Open Source implementation of Windows".

      Maybe I misunderstood you, but AFAIK Wine is an Open Source implementation of Microsoft Windows API.

    • Re:I have said it once (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:37AM (#9062242)
      It is even worse, because it gives the impression that .NET is cross platform, but I would argue it's just as cross-platform as if people were like "there's wine, see, Windows is cross platform!"

      But that's totally different!

      A Win32 app running on Windows is talking directly to the OS; a Win32 app running on Linux is going through Wine as an extra layer. That's why Wine doesn't make Win32 apps cross-platform.

      But Mono is a native implementation of the CLR. A .NET app running on Windows is going through Microsoft's runtime to the OS; a .NET app running on Linux is going through Mono to the OS. There is no extra layer in this case. Therefore, .NET apps are cross-platform.
      • That's a bizarre definition of cross platform. Apps written using the Microsoft .NET stack are not really any more portable than apps written using Win32 - sure we can run them if we reimplement the APIs and write a loader to parse EXE and DLL files, but that's a long way from the vendor shipping an ELF binary which uses GTK+ or Qt to draw its UI.

        People get really hung up on cross platform apps - Java was designed to do that but ended up simply inventing a new platform and hauling it around everywhere, .N

    • Re:I have said it once (Score:5, Informative)

      by AArnott ( 751989 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @09:27AM (#9062632) Homepage
      Chill. If Mono only implemented the CLI and a C# compiler, it WOULD be "just an open source implementation of the CLR/C#". But Mono implements nearly all of the MS.NET base class libraries as well. Those libraries are not part of the CLI. Therefore, the only accurate way to describe Mono is to say it implements .NET in Linux. Shut up.

  • MonoDevelop (Score:5, Informative)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:06AM (#9062059) Homepage
    You might also want to check out MonoDevelop v0.3 [monodevelop.com] which was released to take advantage of new features in Mono Beta1.
    While it's not quite up to the task of stable work yet, it will become a great IDE for .NET development in Linux and rival VS.NET in Windows.
  • Because it is a syntax error. Sorry guys. I didn't resist ;)

  • No Beta 1.0 .pkg for OS X. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Ximian has just released beta 1 of its open-source implementation of Microsoft .NET platform. Mono allows .NET applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, Windows.

    Beta 1.0 is currently only available as packages for RedHat 9, Fedora Core 1, SuSE, SLES and as an installer for Windows - there currently isn't an OS X installer or .pkg as the story seems to imply. Infact, there doesn't ever seem to have been a packaged release of Mono for OS X.

    The Mono status on the front page says that there is a JIT

  • Cool Vb Compiler (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:14AM (#9062110) Journal

    Someones doing a VB Compiler in Mono [dotgeek.org]

    that would be an interesting thing should it ever produce binary compatibles.

  • Mandrake Cooker packages available (Score:3, Informative)

    by Götz ( 18854 ) <[waschk] [at] [gmx.net]> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:22AM (#9062153) Homepage
    I've just finished compiling mono beta1 packages for Mandrakelinux 10.1 Cooker. They should be available soon on every Cooker mirror in the contribs directory.

    I haven't enabled all experimental features but winelib support is there. I'd like to hear some feedback for it.

  • Um, why?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 )
    Why would I want to run an M$ .net or any other M$ app on my Linux box??

    Name me ONE good reason why I would need to do that...

    • Re:Um, why?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by benjiboo ( 640195 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:31AM (#9062208)
      Why would I want to run an M$ .net or any other M$ app on my Linux box??

      Name me ONE good reason why I would need to do that...

      I'll name you a few.

      Money has already been spent designing the application for windows.

      Money has already been spent training users of the application.

      There is a huge base of trained developers, administrators, documentation and off the shelf software available that could be leveraged on a cheaper Linux desktop.

      More web applications are likely to incorporate web controls designed for .NET (cf XAML).

      The MS alternatives to corresponding Linux apps are better/faster/more mature/more stable. (Either generally, or in a specific instance.)

      That'll do for now.

    • Porting a client from .NET to a Linux solution without having to dual boot or have a second system sitting at your desk!

      HA!

    • Re:Um, why?? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:34AM (#9062230) Homepage
      So, instead of being able have as much flexibility as possible (which Linux is known for), you want to cripple your system by leaving out entire languages?

      If that isn't a good enough reason for you, how about this: .NET lets you write code in a number of different languages, and have everything interoperate between them. It also lets that code run exactly the same between platforms. Are you too ignorant to see how business loves this?

      Name me one good reason NOT to do that.
    • With the power of Mono, you can finally stop being jealous of all your WIndows friends who get to run those really cool trojans, viruses and malware!

  • Optimizing for processor, etc (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:25AM (#9062177)
    One of the things that MS promised with .NET was that it would do first-runtime compiling to native machine code optimized to each individual machine. No need to set flags for processors, etc. However, I am not sure much of this has actually been implimented on the Windows side of things.

    It would be nice if the open source community could take Mono and optimize for various chips and cards. As you may or may not know, .NET exe and dll files are called "assemblies" and are basically java style byte-code. The first time one is used, it is compiled by the framework, and the machine code is cached for all future uses. The DLL remains intact with the byte code (or IL), and the next time it is changed a recompile occurs. The cached machine code can be, at compile time on each individual machine, optimized for the config and hardware of that machine.

    It would be great if I could write a .NET app (with C# in my case) and build it on my Windows machine, then take those exe and dll files and copy them to Linux, AIX, Mac, etc, etc. I know the Java crowd is going to say they are already cross-platform. But an OPEN SOURCE platform like Mono could really turn .NET into a very cool, cross platform tool where the code could be optimized for each config. There is a lot of potential here.

    I could see Novell optimizing for one particular distro ;-)

  • Much better option (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @08:34AM (#9062228)
    A much better option for Linux development than Mono is SWT, from IBM. It leverages all the power of Java, but replaces Swing with a new GUI library that is both great from a performance standpoint, and 100% free as in speech and beer. Not only that, it allows access to all sorts of native stuff if you want it in a way that is much better than .NET even. Eclipse is an unbelievable IDE that blows VS.NET out of the water, and is on its way to surpassing Emacs in the hearts of developers.

    Let's put it this way, you can write 100% free applications with GCJ, and there is even a way to compile Java applications for Windows that don't need a JVM installed to run!!!

    http://thisiscool.com/gcc_mingw.htm

    • Re:Much better option (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nvrrobx ( 71970 )
      Apparently you don't actually use Eclipse/GTK on Linux.

      The performance is abysmal.

      Eclipse/Motif is much, much faster, but unfortunately it's Motif. On Windows, it absolutely rocks.

      Until SWT's GTK performance is usable, it is not a viable alternative.

  • SWEET! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by imidazole2 ( 776413 )
    This is great! I've had to turn down a few customers because I cant run .NET applications on my web hosting, this will give me that ability! Perfect!
  • I know this is slightly off topic, but I can't believe that when Dot Net came out, all the hosting companies with blah.net domain names didn't get together and do SOMETHING about M$ appropriating what is essentially part of the branding of many companies.
    With M$ Dot Net technology out there, it's as if any .net domain is running their code on their servers!

  • Which standard will they follow?` (Score:5, Interesting)

    by matsh ( 30900 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @09:15AM (#9062542) Homepage
    The ECMA spec or Microsofts implementation? No, they are not the same. Microsoft have addd functions to some classes.

    • Both (Score:5, Informative)

      by DreadSpoon ( 653424 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @11:02AM (#9063706) Journal
      They are shipping both CLS and Microsoft compatible implementations. The basic idea is that new applications for Linux can use CLS plus the Mono stack (i.e., UNIX/Linux intended assemblies, like gtk-sharp, various DB libraries, POSIX wrappers, etc) and legacy or cross-platform apps can use the Microsoft stack (Windows.*, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, etc).

      For example, a GNOME app written in C# for Mono would not use the Microsoft stack at all. So even if Microsoft broke/changed/patented the Microsoft (non-ECMA) stack, that would have zero effect on the tons of Open Source/Free Software apps developed using the ECMA and Mono assemblies. Thus, Mono provides both a great set of languages (C# and anything else that can run on the CLR), a good solid runtime (Mono+CLR stacks), an efficient and cross platform interpreter and JIT/AOT compilers, and so on.

      The only thing Microsoft can kill is Microsoft compatibility. Which really isn't all that interesting to most FOSS developers. ;-)

  • Any distributions planning Mono rollout? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by deragon ( 112986 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @09:31AM (#9062682) Homepage Journal
    I assume that most Linux distributions will rollout Mono out of the box, but has there been any distributions that actually confirmed that Mono will be part of their distribution? Which version of the outcomming distributions will come with Mono?

  • Microsoft's new propaganda line for Mono (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @10:09AM (#9062988)
    It appears that Microsoft's new line of propaganda, when it comes to Mono, is to emphasize "compatibility with .Net."

    That way, it puts the focus back on Microsoft, and it makes Mono seem like a runner up. It also acts as a set up for future propaganda, when full compatibility is not achieved, and when Microsoft changes the compatibility rules in .Net version 2.

    You can see the propaganda reflected in timothy's lead for the story. That's not to say that timothy is part of it -- after all, he may simply have been affected by the propaganda himself.

    But Mono developers have always stated that compatibility with Microsoft's .Net is a secondary goal, and one that is unlikely to be fully achieved. They know that Microsoft will lie, change the rules, keep some things secret, and so on. Also, the Mono developers refuse to tie Mono to Microsoft's Internet services. That, if nothing else, is an obvious difference from Microsoft's own .Net, which "strongly encourages" the use of those services, especially Microsoft's authentication services.

    On the contrary, Mono has always stated that their purpose is to provide a C# development environment for Linux (an enhanced environment, in fact, considering its support for Java and other languages). This has two benefits:

    1. C# is a good programming environment, providing a good object model, multi-language support, and so on. For some types of development, it provides solutions that were previously lacking on Linux.

    2. Even if it's not fully compatible, Mono provides an alternative to Microsoft's .Net that will allow Windows developers to switch to Linux. Think of the relationship of Mono to .Net, as being similar to the relationship of GCC to Visual C.

    As to the patents concern, Mono developers have stated from the beginning that they are avoiding anything that smacks of being patented/patentable, and are sticking to the open and documented C# Standard. Microsoft went through the standards process for C# in order to give the illusion that they intended C# to be cross platform. Microsoft never intended anyone to call their bluff, and actually create an alternative C# platform, but Mono did. Of course, Microsoft kept the network services and authentication parts of .Net secret and patented, but Mono doesn't use those parts.

    As to the fact that C# appears to be a good design, that shouldn't surprise us. According to the rumor, the original concepts for .Net were developed in Borland, and Microsoft gained those concepts when they hired away large numbers of Borland personnel, including the original creator of Delphi. This is similar to the way that Microsoft hired a VMS development team in order to create Windows NT. Thus, while Microsoft itself may be too centrally controlled (by Gates et al) to allow much creativity, they have always been able to copy or buy good ideas from elsewhere.

    Anyway, that's enough rambling. Congratulations to the Mono development team.

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