Microsoft To Assist Ximian In Producing Mono 268
C-JiPH writes: "There is morning I came across a very
interesting article here that describes how Microsoft have agreed to work with Ximian to develop Mono, allowing for 'a version of .NET for Linux and Unix using open source.'"
Open your eyes. (Score:2)
I don't care if you code for
Super cool (Score:5)
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
Ximian, don't be silly.
Focus on fixing GNOME so that it can compete with KDE and Windows.
I find GNOME to compete just fine with KDE and Windows. I use GNOME all the time personally, and usually recommend either it or KDE to people depending on which suits their needs better.
You *cannot* win with Microsoft, you are in a position of weakness and disadvantage by default. Microsoft will screw you over at the first chance, and along the way you will have helped bolster the mindshare of its questionable strategy.
If Ximian was entering into a business agreement with Microsoft, if there was any contract between them, I'd wholehartedly agree with this. Microsoft is notorious for making deals which screw over the little guy.
Hovever, from everything I've seen so far, this is not the case. Ximian contacted Microsoft, basically saying "Look! We're
The worst Microsoft can do here is give bad tech support or misleading press releases. Ximian steering clear of Microsoft wouldn't save them from misleading press releases. As an MSDN subscriber (by work, not by choice) I can say that, while Microsoft tech support is not good, it's less bad than I would have expected.
You are creating a conflict with your ally Sun by neglecting JAVA. Do not divest your efforts from GNOME. GNOME needs you. Do NOT neglect the ailing GNOME desktop like this.
If Sun wants the Free Software Community to use Java, it should open up the platform. It's scary that Microsoft has made C#/.NET more accessible to Free software development than Sun has made Java/EJB. They know exactly what they should do to make Java friendly to Free Software, the fact that they don't do it show how much a "fair-weather friend" Sun really is.
Personally, I'm skeptical that
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Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
Would it increase their server platform sales? What about increasing their client platform?
It very well might. Increasing usage of
Is this the first step in squashing Java?
Of course not, the first step was them signing up for a Java license, and distrubiting a broken JDK with the Java logo on it. They are well past the first step.
Yes, C#/.NET is supposed to help in the "Squash Java" endeavor. I doubt it will work, since Java has some very strong niches (eg. server-side web apps) where
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Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
My point was based on old information, that Sun made it impossible for a Free implementation of Java to call itself Java, so you had to run Free Java programs on non-Free Java or Free non-Java. This no longer appears to be the case. Still, Sun could give a lot more support to the Free Java implementations, so they aren't playing a constant game of catchup to a moving specification.
There are no guarantees that C#/.NET won't be just as bad as far as moving the specification, so it's too early to say whether Microsoft is better in this respect or not (history predicts not).
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If it becomes a problem, it will likely be forked. (Score:2)
Microsoft would be much more vulnerable to competing authentication servers than ICANN would be to alternate root DNS servers, for example. A major fork of .NET could be accomplished not only by the Linux enthusiast community, but also by IBM, SGI, or any of the other powerful corporations now ostensibly on our "side" (politics certainly makes strange bedfellows).
I am not a GNOME developer, and there is a great deal that I do not understand about what is going on. However, I still haven't seen any applications that use ORBIT, and I don't see CORBA or Java having a substantial impact on Linux or GNOME applications.
But then again, I don't know what I'm talking about...
Re:I'm confused (Score:4)
Possibility #1 Perhaps the same reason that they wrote a version of IE for Solaris - they want to be able to say that their software has "cross platform" support. This was originallly done with IE because quite a few companies listed a standardized client across all their computers as their main reason for not switching from Netscape to IE. Microsoft wrote a Solaris version of IE so that they could convince the PHBs at these companies that they provided cross platform support (as if Solaris and the Macintosh are the only platforms besides Windows), but last I heard IE on Solaris is a joke (big surprise).
I would expect the same thing to happen with Mono. Microsoft could say "if you want to use .Net you can use any platform, but if you want it to be 'optimized' (i.e., to work in a non-crippled manner) use Windows."
Possibility #2 Microsoft is planning on charging for the use of its services which are delivered over .Net. Linux does hold a very big chunk of the server market. Having .Net on Linux would allow Microsoft to collect a toll on the users who connect to Linux servers.
Possibility #3 It would also allow them to gain a foothold on a platform where they have no leveraging power at all today. If Linux, Java, or anything else lives up to its promise of make the OS irrelevant, Microsoft will be one step ahead because they will already control the necessary services which sit on top of the OS.
oh, swell (Score:2)
Expanding into new markets, of course.
They weren't content to introduce either the technology for viruses in our word processors, or even a prototype virus. Now they're moving into *real* disease. They'l start with mono, then move into chickenpox. Neither of these will be so bad, being the 1.0 and 2.0 releases. But with v3.0 being code-named "cancer" . . .
And just think of your trips to the pharmacist. "I'm sorry, but you need to upgrade yourself to Microsoft Pancrease 2.7 and Microsoft Liver 3.3 before this antibiotic will work . . .
:)
hawk
Re:Do you know what .NET is? (Score:3)
Re:Super cool (Score:2)
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:4)
Couldn't agree more. It's happened too often in the past. Just look at Citrix or Bristol. But then again, Ximian never really did get it. For a start, they don't understand the small, dedicated apps philosophy of Unix. They're trying too hard to copy MS to gain market share, without stopping to think about the technical issues behind what they're doing. They're also following the MS "screw-security-lets-do-features" route. Witness their install instructions -- download something from a web site, and pipe it into a shell run as root. I think not...
It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:5)
Remember.. it's all about the PASSPORT subscription that Microsoft really plans to get the stranglehold here.. They're promoting .NET as cross platform and open source.. the one key element, however, that is NOT free and open is the identification service (Passport).. that will have a massive stranglehold, and that will be required by any .NET service to identify who is who. If there is any place to make money in this scheme (or control the monopoly), it is this identification service.
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Port Mono to Windows (Score:3)
No, this is their answer to StarOffice (Score:2)
I'll put on my camel-hair shirt and with locust-and-honey bowl in hand, state that:
Re:ooohh... what a surprise (Score:2)
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
Thanks for swallowing the MS PR like a good boy.
All of the Java platform is under a published specification, including J2EE. In fact, there's existing open source implementations of most of it, and my guess is that they are looking for more developers, better desktop (read Gnome) integration and so on. Some of the OSS Java stuff is even considered to be of the same quality as many commercial implementations.
Total Sun control might not be a great thing, but at least they are a vendor with some history with "open systems".
Meanwhile, Microsoft has submitted *part* of the
Now, maybe
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Re:It's not just MS writing apps (Score:2)
No, I'm saying that if I were tasked with developing your typical n-tier application on
'Web Services' in my book is prime example of "Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak". Any web services component would probably a minor part of the whole application package. (And I agree with you in that 3rd party implementations being critical, if only because it will bring out the Windows dependancies in the current platform. Still would probably rather see a full reimplementation of Java.)
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Re:I'm confused (Score:5)
No, because people would just run
* What about increasing their client platform?
No,
It makes sense if you think about the J++ vs. Java episode.
I gather that there is such a thing as "Pure
But even with all of this, MS is playing the open standards song for the core parts of the platform (the VM, C#, etc). They can afford to do that because the standard is extended-n-embraced right out of the box. Even with Corel and Ximian's work at building the standard-compliant stuff, very few real world
Where this helps Microsoft is that it allows users to connect existing Unix infrastructure to new
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Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
However, Mono [go-mono.com] aims to duplicate these APIs using already existing (and modified) Gnome libraries. From the FAQ [go-mono.com]:
Question 25: How is this related to GNOME?
In a number of ways: Mono will use existing components that have been developed for GNOME when it makes sense. For example on X systems, we will use Gtk+ and Libart to implement Winforms and the Drawing2D API. For database access, we will use LibGDA (not really depending on GNOME, but related to).
Also, Mono will embrace and extend .NET:
Question 40: Would you allow other classes other than those in the specification?
Yes. The Microsoft class collection is very big, but it is by no means complete. It would be nice to have a port of `Camel' (the Mail API used by Evolution inspired by Java Mail) for Mono applications.You might also want to look into implementing CORBA for Mono. Not only because it would be useful, but because it sounds like a fun thing to do, given the fact that the CLI is such a type rich system.
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
I'd expect there to be distributed.net style contests to crack the root M$ keys.
... that's completely ridiculous. Let's say Microsoft merely uses a 512-bit key, and you get one billion people with computers fast enough to check 10 billion keys per second to work on the problem around the clock. It would take 10^135 seconds to go through the keyspace. That's 42,515,880 million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million years, give or take a few hundred trillion millenia.
Although i guess on average it would only take half that until you hit the key.
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Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
Well, yes, of course. But the original comment suggested that distributed computing efforts would crack the key via brute force in a reasonable amount of time.
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Hmm. (Score:3)
If MS doesn't help them, they do their own thing, and
In the end, it won't be software subscriptions, but
Of course, 5 years from now, they'll file tradmeark suits for all domains ending in
It's not just MS writing apps (Score:2)
You mean very few *MS designed*
The whole
Embracing
Hmmm, sounds like an opportunity for Sun here (Score:2)
You make a good point. Java already has these things. Perhaps Sun could make a preemtive strike by producing an implementation of the entire Java API (not just the language) that targets the
There may be technical reasons why this couldn't work, it's just a thought.
Re:oh, swell (Score:2)
I wonder... (Score:4)
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Same old arguments (Score:2)
a) You cannot force volunteers (or companies) to work in one direction. There are plenty of developers trying to make GNOME a better product.
b) Perhaps Ximian thinks this WILL make GNOME a better product?
c) Perhaps Ximian thinks this will make more money for them then just improving GNOME the "old-fashioned way"?
d) If
e) Most of the work will probably be just as functional under KDE as under GNOME, so that your beloved KDE won't be left out. Should people stop developing the Linux kernel, because the desktop needs more work?
Re:The interesting question (Score:2)
Who is to say that the opensource-community cannot embrace and extend?
Re:Same old arguments (Score:3)
You personally have almost no hope in trying to influence the way Windows develops. You DO however have such possibilities in the opensource-world.
Although I agree that it is easier for managers to force a developing direction when they actually pay people.
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
Re:PASSPORT doesn't do POOP (Score:3)
You are right there. Pissport is just a beta test of some new ideas. EOL is already planned for next year, to be replaced by newer and costlier and more prevalent technology. They are tweaking the business processes behind the service, to see what flies in the market, and what doesn't produce any revenue, and what pisses off end users to the point of abandoning the service. After the next round of analysis, pissport will evolve into something else with a newly trademarked name and flashy marketing campaign.
M$ has changed their entire focus from being an OS and apps company, to an internet services and developer support company. If the US courts break off their OS and apps divisions, the core will continue to become the dominant force for intranet and internet authentication, using dotNET as the infrastructure.
The scale of the project is huge, and will require years for their own in-house developers to write, as well as years for the 3rd party developers to get on board. But if they play all their cards correctly, they will soon be in the center of a new market, earning regular income from a wide variety of licensing schemes. It will take years until this happens, but they started last year while they still had the 95% monopoly of desktop systems, and that monopoly will continue for long enough for them to muscle into the new internet markets.
The looming battle for the desktop OS will be huge, and largely un-stoppable. Mundie was 100% correct in his assessment of the GPL as "viral" and a "cancer". Soon, FreeOSen will dislodge M$ from their 95% market share, down to maybe 50% or less. But at that point, M$ will be in a new playing field, and will have patented and registered every key technology to lock all competition out. They know they can't compete with a Cisco for networking, or an Oracle for straight-up DBs, or an AOL for control of the cable, or the RIAA for hatred inducing lawsuits. The markets for the 4 A's, Authentication, Authorization, Accounting and Auditing services are very immature right now, and when properly developed will be a new source of revenues. Cisco will be required to license M$ patents on network authentication protocols. Oracle will have to license the patents for DB authentication, or find themselves with no windoze desktop user software. AOL will have to obtain certificates identifying themselves as properly certified by the M$ controlled root, and you can believe M$ will force some concessions before granting a cert. The RIAA lawyers will genuflect in admiration at the gall of the M$ legal team using thousands of newly purchased laws to beat down any free competition.
Its late, I've now ranted enough about M$ to last me a few weeks. I would love to see some well thought out criticisms from intelligent people, to help me sharpen my arguments and avoid repeating mistakes, but alas, this is
the AC
Re:I still don't get it (Score:4)
- browsers that will only show banner ads from "certified" advertisers. When suddenly 95% of the machines don't show an ad unless the advertiser purchases a certificate, watch the stampede over to certified ads. So what if FreeOS users can see any ad without checking on certificates, advertisers will still buy them. To avoid anti-trust problems, IE will have a checkbox "block un-trusted banner ads", which when unchecked, allows a luser to see all banner ads
- checking hotmail. When hotmail servers detect a non-authenticated browser, user gets re-directed to a pissport signup page. Again, since 95% of users will be on XP boxes with an authenticated browser, the loss of only 5% of FreeOS users can be absorbed by increased licensing revenues and re-selling the private data from pissport to spamm^Wadvertising partners.
- certificates buried in Office documents, which can be lightly encrypted, or just signed. The official Office will check the certificate for every document it opens, and refuse to open any non-certified documents. This will be touted as a solution to wurd macro viruses and increased security and confidence in legal documents. Again, since the algorithm for generating the embedded certificate will be patented, and FreeOS package will be attacked by the courts if it can duplicate the functionality(deCSS), there will never be another starOffice-style package offering M$ compatibility. If a FreeOS version somehow triumphs in the legal arena, with dotNET's DCOM features, M$ could overnight change the embedded certificate functions in every currently licensed application, pushing the changes down the hierarchy to the ASPs and then to the end-users. They can keep doing this every time the FreeOSen catch up to the functionality, and most updates will be transparent to XP using sheeple.
- Attaching a certificate to every email sent through a licensed gateway, to prove trackability of emails in case of UCE, ILoveU-style virii, or timestamping ability. Certainly sendmail/Ximian/Kmailgate will have dotNET modules to create and verify digital signatures, but the certificates will still only be available from a M$/verisign licensed crypto-key vendor. To avoid privacy laws in the
Re:MOD Clueless DOWN - Not Across (Score:4)
You are confusing the simplistic communication tools available to programmers in this early round of dotNET implementation. Yes, there are some cool, well developed XML communication procedures. I'll bow to your point about W3C standards, since I'm not a web coder. I seldom raise my eyes above OSI layer 4, or else I concentrate on policy, budget, and religious issues. But M$ themselves have been quietly letting key developers know that they are positioning themselves to repel the FreeOS attack, by including a lot of additional features in future versions of dotNET.
If you want to write an app or web page to do simple communication between processes or from a web server to a browser, XML tools can do the job. But if you are going to use the latest authentication goodies to communicate with objects and processes externally, you will have to pay royalties/licenses/fees to M$ at some point. If you are ever going to write a killer app for a website, or a client/server setup, or a P2P function, M$ will be somewhere in the middle of your transactions. Count on it, it is what they are telling the financial analysts, the corporate planners, the CEOs of favored developers, and a few other elite few.
Passport is a service that is offered to service/content providers.
Pissport is just one service that M$ offers, where they sit in the middle and collect revenues from those sites that want to participate in this new program. They have a whole bunch of other programs in development right now, all grouped together under various codenames, the latest to leak was called HailStorm.
As a provider, I can choose whether to use Passport, Vendor X, Vendor Y, my own authenication scheme, or all four implementaions if I choose to do so.
Great. Use all four. But the market will be dominated by the M$ based one, and few, if any will use a Vendor X. Will you develop for Solaris, Macintosh, HP-UX, SGI, Linux, and a dozen other platforms, even though only 15% of your customer base might use them? As a hardcore *nix person, supporting a huge user base of every kind of machine, I can tell you of the levels of frustration we face every day when popular websites decide to reject all browsers except for IE5 on win98 or 2K. My bank offers banking by internet, and under pressure from M$, they have decided that alienating 35% of their customers is worth the discount that M$ gave them on their web development tools. It is written into their licensing discount they will reject all non-IE browsers, so its no use talking to the project leads, and they reassigned all the programmers who objected, leaving only M$ lackeys.
there will probably be competition in the authenication service market
You are showing how naive and blinkered you are, if you believe that M$ will tolerate any competition in the authentication marketplace. Their stated goal is total domination, using their monopoly position to force developers to use only M$ protocols. Those of us on the sidelines who have been burned by M$ repeatedly are hoping the US Justice Department create a remedy to the illegal abuse of monopoly power that will address the newly mutated M$. M$ today no longer cares about OS or standalone application revenues, since they will decline over the next decade, and has shifted its entire focus to dominating the internet services market.
the AC
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:5)
Since I was forced recently to attend several M$ sponsored functions to learn about dotNET and the authentication services which will have to pass unhindered on networks, I've come to believe M$ has come up with a winner for their stockholders. As you point out, since M$ has 95% of the desktop market, their only growth will be limited to the slowly expanding installations of PCs, a measly 5%-12% per year. If they continue to rely on software licensing, their revenues will drop steadily over the next few years until the economy booms again.
So they are moving into services, but not just any old services. The only services where you can control the market are those where they have legal protection from all competitors, including free software. This means software patents, trademarks, service marks, and copyrights (there, I've just included every
One of the things being pushed in these meetings was the fact that dotNET will not be run centrally by M$, but they will license the authentication, administration and accounting features to ASPs all over the world. So instead of end user fees going directly to M$, local companies can offer a variety of licensing options to their customers, passing a percentage of the revenues on to M$. So M$ will have the master certificates, and thousands of ASPs will each purchase a certificate signed by M$, and their customers will then only need to authenticate with the local ASPs servers. A certificate from one ASP will be valid with all other ASPs, and will need very little communication with the central M$ site.
Corporate customers can have a "secured" authentication/accounting server (also the application server, and data store) installed locally to keep track of a corporation's use of M$ product use. Unlike the fears of some
The security implications of a huge hierarchical authentication method are staggering, and I'd expect there to be distributed.net style contests to crack the root M$ keys. The one question micr~1.oft avoided was any details on Certificate Revocation Lists, which to this point are mostly broken in all OS releases. They only said they are developing a system which will be "judicially protected" from any Open Source copies, so the ASPs did not have to worry about pricing pressures of people trying to substitute a "free" authentication scheme. The bane of my existance, XML, was mentioned rather cluelessly at several points, but no technical details at all were permitted during the discussions.
the AC
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
Yea, that's it $)
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
That's only craptalk (Score:4)
-- Pure FTP server [pureftpd.org] - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
Yes, this is a nightmare. (Score:2)
"Welcome to my parlour," said the Spider to the Fly.
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Re:This is good to see (Score:2)
Read my previous comment for the first two points.
As far as the class libraries go, you are correct in that traditionally MS has written bad class libraries. However, they have since hired Anders Hejlsberg, of Borland fame (he's the guy that came up with Delphi). The guy is amazing at designing very clean and elegant class libraries and the
--GnrcMan--
Re:This is good to see (Score:5)
And as to
The CLR is, however, "managed" which means it is garbage collected, and secure (in theory anyway. As it is new, the real-world security of the CLR has not been under public scruitiny).
Thanks
Casey
--GnrcMan--
I'm confused (Score:5)
No, because people would just run
No,
Hmmm, quite likely. I think it
Yea, that's it!
--
Later...
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
I hope you're trying to be funny.
Regardless, there are probably lots of silly people out there who think you can't run GPL apps on a BSD system; that is complete and utter bullshit.
Whether it's a good idea or not is another story entirely.
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
Isn't the answer obvious? They want to make the minimal token gesture that can be trumpted to the judge during the next antitrust hearing. "Look we've changed our ways" is what they want to say. It's the same reason they invested in Apple.
Even they realize they've got to make more of an effort to not be completely ruthless in exploiting their monopoly. Now they can hold their heads up, knowing they are only 99.999% ruthless.
Listen... (Score:2)
Re:Where are MS rivals on this? (Score:2)
For Open Source J2EE, check the following:
Jakarta [apache.org]
JBoss [jboss.org]
Enhydra [enhydra.org]
Jetty [mortbay.com]
Resin [caucho.com]
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
Granted, a 128-bit private key (which is a reasonable size, and one which Microsoft might be likely to use) is still *completely* out of range of any distributed.net-type effort, and 1024-bit public keys (also reasonable and likely) are similarly intractable. But protocols are hardly ever broken by brute force: usually you just wait for the other guy to make a design, implementation, or protocol error, and pounce there. Or use human factors.
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
Facts to be gleaned, piping a url with wget through to a root shell is stupid stupid stupid. But then again, this is the same security model of Windoes 9x and Windows XP-Home edition. Go figure.
Re:This is good to see (Score:2)
(yes. I am being sarcastic)
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2)
I'm waiting...
Re:Missing a Clue (Score:2)
1. As a monopoly, Microsoft is in a position to twist the standards. In particular, they will be able to add proprietary hooks into their tools and services.
2. So, you send back XML. Is there a possibility that there will be extra Microsoft tags thrown in? You bet. No one will prevent Microsoft from throwing in extra, "user-friendly" tags. If developers exclude these tags, for whatever reason, then they will not get the full benefit of the network.
Of course, both of these items are speculation. All disclaimers should be noted. Until we all know more, we are both blowing smoke out our asses.
Back to the question, how does Microsoft levy taxes on a W3C standard?
There is something missing here. XML is a W3C standard, but no one is saying that Microsoft will control XML. They might control certain types of tags, as I mention above, but it is not likely that they own XML. Indeed, they don't own HTML either. HOWEVER, they do own the browser market. They used their monopoly position to gain marketshare.
Now, it is obvious that you cannot easily tax a standard. That is a silly idea and I am not saying that it is possible. Instead, I am saying that you can easily tax access to servers and to data. If Microsoft has your data, and they control the pipes into that data and out of it, then they can make big money.
Here's an analogy. Microsoft doesn't need to control the water in the pipes (XML), and they might not even to control the physical pipe itself. If they own the values and the water meters, then they can charge people and companies whatever they want. Ultimately, they own the water, even though people are able to drink it and move it where they want, if they have the money.
Let's stick with the analogy. If Microsoft gets people to build more pipes and supply more water, then they are going to make more money. Therefore, Microsoft will help Ximian because Ximian is not working with valves and meters, they are working on the pipes that move the water in and out of Microsoft.
Are you under the assumption Microsoft is going to capture revue from Passport and Instant Messaging, or are you misguided assuming MS Office is going to become a web service? (Note: MS Office may not become subscription software, but this doesn't make it a web service)
(1) Yes, absolutely. Microsoft has made it clear that they plan on making money from services, and therefore Passport and Instant Messenger. Indeed, the Hailstorm whitepaper makes it blatantly clear the IM is one of the backbone technologies [microsoft.com] for developers to move data in and out of Microsoft.
(2) No, I don't think that Microsoft plans on making a ton of money from Office. Possible, but not probable. I think users want to keep Office activites on their systems and networks, not on the web. There doesn't seem to be an opportunity for this kind of service or ASP model.
Re:Nobody can tax Webservices (Score:2)
1. While Passport is not required, it will make life very easy for users. It is easy to sign up and requires no brains to use. That makes it perfect. The more users use Passport, the more they will like it. The mindless masses will eat it up and the intelligent folks will have to follow suit. Inertia will drag us into Passport, just like Internet Explorer, Windows, Office, and so forth.
2. Integration and standardization. More and more of Microsoft's services, and data storage systems, will work with Passport. Passport with Hotmail, Passport for MSDN support, Passport for product support, Passport for MSNBC, and so forth. It is a slippery slope (via integration on all fronts, just like Office). Start to use one service, you are hooked and keep on sinking in deeper. Microsoft will make this too damn easy for people and it will simply happen. It will become the de facto standard. No wars with any companies; it will just happen.
3. I'm not saying that Microsoft will make money directly from services. Instead, they will make money from Passport by providing access (which I suppose is a form of service). However, they will be in a position to "transcend and profit" because all services will require access to your data via Microsoft. If they abuse their monopoly and they do indeed become the central data store, they will own you and they will tax you. And, they'll do it through Passport and related mechanisms.
Missing the Point (Score:5)
Microsoft doesn't care as much about software as they do controlling network services and collecting payments from various transactions. The idea in this case is to get Ximian to play along so that, ultimately, Microsoft will be able to extract fees from users. Ximian will merely be a small part of the infrastructure that Microsoft controls. That infrastruture will be used to extract new "taxes" from people.
Microsoft to Ximian: Sure, we'll help you build your software. Sure, we'll get you integrated into
Microsoft to Microsoft: Ha ha ha! Fools! Don't they understand that we are kind of like a giant cable company now? We don't care that much about the software and hardware, we care about capturing data from stupid users so that we can extract big money. We know that the margins on software are great now, but they are probably going to decline. However, the margins in services are on the rise. World domination... Ha ha ha!
Re:This is good to see (Score:2)
Sorry I didn't mention the multi-language facet. So you can create byte code from multiple languages. The underlying VM concept is still identical to Java (and there are compilers to translate from other languages to Jave byte codes, but I digress). I code in C, C++, Java, Perl, and PHP and I use the one that is appropriate for the job. I don't see how giving all languages the weaknesses of a byte code based implementation accomplishes anything... Those weeknesses make it unsuitable to build large-scale high-performance applications. Period.
Ooops, I forgot, MS hasn't forced the need for faster processors and more RAM for a while... and Intel needs to sell the P4...
As for the class library, anyone who's used MFC knows how great MS is at designing and implementing class libraries. And if I recall the CTS basically adds new types to all the languages to achieve the compatibility you talk about... so you're no longer writing Perl, you're writing .NET
perl that will not run outside of the .NET environment...
Note: I'm not knocking Java, most of my day job code has been writing Java for the last 5 years... I just think it's not what you want to build your core applications/OS on =)
.technomancer
Re:This is good to see (Score:2)
Also, you're insane to put a system into production to "manage and control thousands of servers" based on a platform that is still early in its beta release cycle.
And I never stated, or implied, that Java invented the VM idea. However, it is probably the best-known VM based development system in use at this time. If you have a better example let me know.
.technomancer
Re:This is good to see (Score:5)
Let's face it, .NET is not a very impressive
technology... RPC over HTTPD using XML running
what is basically Java (sorry, VM based platform-independent byte code is what Java IS)
is not a good foundation to build all of your
software on...
It allows some cool applications, but when people are giving examples (Corel's CEO) of using it in a spreadsheet to perform calculations, it's a bad idea...
.technomancer
Re:I'm confused (Score:3)
-----
"Goose... Geese... Moose... MOOSE!?!?!"
Re:Woah NOT (Score:2)
I doubt it. There are too many more plausible reasons for this move that make sense from a business perspective, which is the only one that matters here.
For one thing, Microsoft could effectively use the goodwill from helping the Mono implementation; it would help in MS's effort to market .NET to skeptical IT folks that have been embraced and extended into some fairly expensive agreements in the past and who have noted that low end Unix servers cost considerably less than their MS solutions.
Not only that, but this gesture helps to assuage the concerns of the legal army that is quite ready to assume that .NET is merely another chapter in the same long book that included the Netscape Air Supply Cutoff.
You'll see some apparent grudging admissions that MS seems to be playing fair from some quarters. That concept will get just enough air time to put off a harsher remedy for a while. Any delay, even for a matter of days, is good for MS' bottom line.
For another thing, I think Miguel, bless his heart, has a lot more technical ability and great innovative ideas than he has common sense or legal ability. He could very easily end up implementing what turns out to be a subset of .NET, being embraced and extended to the point where Mono is merely an academic exercise and a toy. The analogy of Mono and .NET would be like this: because Linux, *BSD and Windows all run on the common platform of the x86 instruction set has not meant that they enjoy equal footing in the desktop PC OS marketplace. Alternatively, Mono might just replicate that part of .NET that MS is willing to be commoditized, like TCP/IP. MS is really only interested in charging for applications that run on it. An underlying Mono implementation will work with some MS applications, as long as it connects up to Passport and exchanges valid tokens. You'll be able to get valid tokens for Linux by paying for them.
Finally, Miguel cannot afford the kind of legal talent he will need if Mono is too good and represents a real threat to Microsoft's revenue stream.
Watch closely how the licensing for Mono is structured, whether strict GPL, LGPL, or BSD, Artistic. This will be the first point of contention that matters.
Re:This is good to see (Score:2)
Re:Woah (Score:3)
"Microsoft attempts to buy out Linux" story. They'll
help Mono until
they drop any support for non-Microsoft OSes and add
proprietary undocumented functions, just like they
always did -- and if you intend to continue using
.net stuff, you have to "upgrade" to Windows.
I wonder where Ximian fits in though - IMO they either don't realize what Microsoft is up to, or they're trying to be bought out by Microsoft to salvage their company financially.
In any case, I'd recommend to avoid
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
I think there are some efforts in the XML-RPC community and elsewhere to come up with a nice, free service "just like" passport. There is no reason why free tools developed for passport interaction couldn't be modified to use the free version instead (make this an option).
Look at Distributed membership and preferences [xmlrpc.com] for a closer look (it is a good place to start). There has been a lot of traffic on their mailing list about this lately. Very interesting stuff!
--8<--
MS want token competition (Score:3)
Sure, MS would like to keep everything secret, but it recognises there's some real competition now (Linux etc.) and now has to try to bring those of us who defected back onto their side again.
Or am I just being paranoid?
No, not XNS (Score:2)
And that's Microsoft's strategy.
Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:5)
You are creating a conflict with your ally Sun by neglecting JAVA. Do not divest your efforts from GNOME. GNOME needs you. Do NOT neglect the ailing GNOME desktop like this.
This is my fair attempt at talking some sense into you. I sincerely hope you prove me wrong so that I won't have to say "I told you so" in a few months.
-- A KDE Fan.
Re:ooohh... what a surprise (Score:2)
This just seems like a trick to get us using Windows software on our scared open source platforms.
I think you have hit on it. When one of us buys a machine with Windows pre-installed and install Linux, sure Microsoft has sold a license (good for MS), it will never have to support (also good for MS). However the down side, for MS is no future revenue, because we will not be in the MS upgrade cycle. If MS can get the Linux community to start using .NET, then we can be put on the upgrade cycle, which means continued revenue for MS. How many of us would start using the .NET version of Office XP or Internet Explorer, my guess is a great many.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
Re:Woah (Score:2)
Of course, but does it matter? No, the open source community will in the meantime have gained most of the functionality of the .NET platform, and can happily move on in what direction pleases them. There is no fundamental reason for Mono to be exactly like .NET (although it would be useful), but having something mostly like .NET will be a huge gain for open source developers everywhere. Just like gcc and emacs is. IMHO, this is what would benefit both most.
Hold on, let me get my stop watch... (Score:4)
Re:If it becomes a problem, it will likely be fork (Score:2)
>deal that I do not understand about what is going
>on. However, I still haven't seen any
>applications that use ORBIT, and I don't see
>CORBA or Java having a substantial impact on
>Linux or GNOME applications.
If you've used Gnome at all in the past couple years, you've seen programs that utilize ORBit running on your desktop (e.g. the control center or panel applets).
For a quick listing, you can just cd to
$ for I in *; do if (ldd $I 2>/dev/null | grep -i orbit >/dev/null); then echo $I; fi; done
address-conduit-capplet
another_clock_applet
asclock_applet
background-properties-capplet
backup-conduit-control-applet
battery_applet
bonobo-application-ps
bonobo-application-x-mines
bonobo-audio-ulaw
bonobo-echo
bonobo-moniker-gunzip
bonobo-moniker-http
bonobo-sample-canvas-item
bonobo-sample-controls
bonobo-sample-hello
bonobo-sample-paintbonobo-selector
bonobo-text-plain
bug-buddy
calendar-conduit-control-applet
calendar-pilot-sync
cdplayer_applet
charpick_applet
clockmail_applet
cpumemusage_applet
default-application-properties-capplet
deskguide_applet
diskusage_applet
drivemount_applet
eazel-proxy
eazel-proxy-util
ebrowser
echo-client
email-conduit-control-applet
eog
eog-image-viewer
evolution
evolution-addressbook
evolution-alarm-notify
evolution-calendar
evolution-elm-importer
evolution-executive-summary
evolution-gnomecard-importer
evolution-mail
evolution-netscape-importer
evolution-pine-importer
evolution-vcard-importer
expense-conduit-control-applet
fifteen_applet
file-conduit-control-applet
file-types-capplet
gaim
gaim_applet
galeon-bin
gconfd-1
gconftool
gconftool-1
gda-default-srv
gda-mysql-srv
gda-postgres-srv
gda-run
gda-test
gdict
gedit
geyes_applet
gkb_applet
gmc
gmc-client
gnapster
gnomecal
gnomecard
gnomecc
gnome-gtkhtml-editor
gnome-help-browser
gnome-help-caller
gnome-hint-properties-capplet
gnome-iconedit
gnomeicu
gnomeicu-client
gnome-name-service
gnome-panel-add-launcher
gnome-panel-properties-capplet
gnome-terminal
gnome-vfs-slave
gnomexmms
gnotes_applet
goad-browser
gpilotdgpilotd-client
gpilotdcm-client
gpilotd-control-applet
gpilot-install-file
grdb-capplet
gshell
gtcd
gtik2_applet
gtkhtml-properties-capplet
gweather
hyperbola
ior-decode
jbc_applet
keyboard-properties
life_applet
load-gnomecard-addressbook
load-pine-addressbook
loadshlib
medusa-idled
medusa-indexd
medusa-searchd
memo_file_capplet
metatheme_selector_capplet
mini_commander_applet
mixer_applet
modemlights_applet
moniker-test
mouse-properties-capplet
msearch
multiload_applet
name-client
nautilus
nautilus-adapter
nautilus-content-loser
nautilus-hardware-view
nautilus-history-view
nautilus-image-view
nautilus-launcher-applet
nautilus-mime-type-capplet
nautilus-music-view
nautilus-news
nautilus-notes
nautilus-preferences-applet
nautilus-sample-content-view
nautilus-sidebar-loser
nautilus-text-view
nautilus-throbber
new-object
oaf-client
oafd
odometer_applet
old-name-server
orbit-event-server
orbit-name-server
panel
pilot-applet
quicklaunch_applet
rdf-summary
rp3
sample-container
sample-control-container
sawfish-capplet
screensaver-properties-capplet
screenshooter_applet
session-properties-capplet
slash_applet
sound-monitor_applet
sound-properties
stripchart-applet
tasklist_applet
test-conduit-control-applet
test-servicetheme-selector-capplet
tickastat_applet
ui-properties
I still don't get it (Score:2)
Authentication, identification...well we already have SSL, and browsers which can store personal information locally.
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
Also Ximian is getting into Mono because it enables code reuse across different programming languages.
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
If you need safety you could have someone mirror them and put a signature online, or you could inspect the source of the scripts.
Re:No troll (Score:2)
However, I still disagree with you :). The reason for that is that Mono in itself would be an interesting platform, even if its not compatible with .NET.
-- A GNOME Fan. :-P
Re:Port Mono to Windows (Score:3)
Skimming through the Mono mailing list I've seen people talking about porting Mono to MacOS-X and Windows already.
XNS (Score:5)
Re:This is good to see (Score:2)
In essence, this is essentially the same thing as the Apple deal; MS probably is doing no more than knuckling under in the face of the fact that if they don't they're fucked. I imagine Microsoft will find a particularly slimy way of getting around this down the road and screwing Ximian over, but in the meantime they're putting up probably exactly the front they feel they need to.
Translation: Don't get too excited about this, folks. It's something, but there's almost certain to be an ulterior motive, even if it's just MS playing CYA.
/Brian
Is that a surprise...? (Score:2)
and will determine with Ximian whether technical assistance would be appropriate...So first of all, nothing has been decided yet, hence the "will determine". Secondly, if a company directs it whole to a certain tecnology, as is the case with Microsofts .NET, is it so strange that they will try to get their hooks in other platforms as well? As far as I'm concerned the bigger the exposure, the bigger the chance that it will actually succeed. Just see it as a promotion or advertising campaign!
Re:ooohh... what a surprise (Score:3)
____
Cross the Platform (Score:2)
__
Re:No (Score:2)
You're wrong. Start multi-platform programming in Java instead of reading articles about it and you'll very quickly understand.
Re:Web Services using XML vastly superior to Java (Score:2)
Why would you do that? Just to spite Microsoft? Well, you'll be spiting Sun and IBM too, because they are jumping on the SOAP bandwagon as fast as MS.
As it stands, creating such a firewall wouldn't make any sense in any case, if you have no software capable of servicing SOAP requests, they fall into the ether.
Sun is winning A) the application server market place B) the developer mind share.
VB is still the most popular programming language out there, for better or for worse. Java-based environments do hold the app server marketplace, but this market is still young, watch for Microsoft to make a move on it.
I have nothing against SOAP, UDDI, or WSDL. But they're hardly impressive.
Duh!! How are they "not impressive"? If you knew even remotely anything about them you would know that SOAP in particular is only as smart as its payload - its a fricking RPC packet wrapper.
go read some of the white papers and come back with an opinion.
Web Services using XML vastly superior to Java (Score:3)
1. The standards are open, and you can program with them right now.
2. "RPC over HTTP" is already being hacked out and used all over the web, so it makes sense to standardize it. Maybe a world full of JVMs communicating over ORBs using IIOP would have been preferrable, but it isn't ever going to happen, even Sun conceeds this.
3. It makes sense to work with Microsoft at this point instead of against it. They control practically all of the desktop computers in the world, and an increasing number of servers. How they came to this position is irrelevant. Strategically, it doesn't make any sense to fight this presence for any group, corporate or volunteer.
4. Java has failed to live up to its promises. No one believes Java is write-once read-anywhere, regardless of if it is even true at this point, so there is no point in flogging that messasge anymore - it has failed in the marketplace.
Another article on this topic (Score:4)
...can be found in this morning's Boston Globe (story link here [boston.com])
Re:wha..wha..what?!? (Score:2)
Just concider this... they must have realized opensource OS'es are here to stay. Its quite hard to compete with an OS which is both free and useful. So.. how do they keep fighting it ? They simply move ontop of it. There is an old computer saying which says that if there is one OS in the bottom and one on top, the one in the bottom will die. (That's what happened to DOS and Windows 95, dos was "assimilated")
They simply make sure all their "nice" .NET products are available through some MS .NET Browser for opensource platforms, and Woila. Suddenly you're using MS products on an opensource platform. Which one will die ? The product you use or the OS you run in the bottom ?
[Ok.. perhaps they are the great satan after all, what ever ;-)]
Do you know what .NET is? (Score:5)
Re:Nobody can tax Webservices (Score:2)
<b>
blah blah blather blah...
</b>,
You wanted to say:
<b>I'm an idiot who uses too much bold in a futile attempt to hide the lack of content in my comments.
blah blah blather blah...
</b>
The extra disclaimer is needed for your situation.
2 Down, 1 to go (Score:4)
Bryguy
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
MS.
So, even if people using Linux/Mono as both the client and the server, they are still authenticating through Passport and so forth... which means MS is in control and will be able to make a cut from it.
Help or Assist still depends upon your PoV (Score:2)
Here's how it works and we'll lend you some experienced design people to work through it, because we really want an alternative to hold down that 5% of the market that keeps the "Monopoly" people off our back.
Or being a big "Help" (as my mum used to say) and doing this:
Here's a crew of programmers we're loaning you, (though we'll not tell you that their all prima donnas, used GOTOs freely, write entire applications as one block of code, have no concept of documentation or following specifications) we'll be happy to "help" run it through Q&A in 2005, when you finally have something which doesn't have too many bugs in it.
Either way, it wouldn't be hard for Microsoft to bend it to their will. After all, if a variant were developed in Windows, Linux or any other platform which had major advantages, why go with their solution? Keep your friends at arms length but hold your enemies closer.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Re:Ximian, don't be silly. (Score:2)
Re:Microsoftspeak (Score:2)
MOD Clueless DOWN (Score:2)
This is pure crap...
All "valid" communications between all dotNET implementaions are W3C standards. They don't require Passport or any other authentication scheme.
You would probably know that if you've written a webservice. You would understand that it's much like writing a web application, but instead of sending HTML to a browser, you're replying to a XML post with XML data via HTTP. Because webservices are as simple as that, you can start writing them in Perl on your Apache server right now.
By being at the centre of the authentication scheme, they control who can use all the nifty new services, and who will be excluded. They will also charge a subscription service for every end user, so you can go ahead and use *nix, but you will still have to pay your Pissport fee in order to access any new features offered by any value added internet content provider.
More BS... Passport is a service that is offered to service/content providers. As a provider, I can choose whether to use Passport, Vendor X, Vendor Y, my own authenication scheme, or all four implementaions if I choose to do so.
Because content providers have this choice, there will probably be competition in the authenication service market, making your assertion that MS will be able to charge end users for Passport baseless, let alone control all authentication for web services.
Not just to squash Java (Score:2)
---
Re:It's about PASSPORT, not .NET (Score:2)
Can you say "security nightmare"? Can you say "script kiddie heaven"? is it just me, or does this whole things (including dot GNU or whatever the hell they're calling it) stink to heaven? Sorry, I just can't bring myself to belive that *anything* Microsoft does is anything but pure evil. Sounds a little extreme (er, well, perhaps not on Slashdot ;) but seriously,.. Miguel... what the HELL are you playing at [ thinking of ], giving credibility to Microsoft? Huh? Can someone explain to me why anyone involved in Free software is backing Microsoft? I just don't get it.
*shakes head*
I just hope we're not all sitting around here in a couple of year's time posting "See? I said so at the time!!!"
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
Microsoftspeak (Score:3)
"testament to the openness and viability of the
"Microsoft will do everything that it can to ensure that Windows remains the best place to run Windows applications" = Microsoft will ensure Windows is the only platform you can run anything. Period.
ooohh... what a surprise (Score:3)
Well, anyway: was there ever any doubt that
I would not expect the linux
I wonder if MS will insist that Mono won't be GPL. (Score:2)
"Microsoft will do everything that it can to ensure that Windows remains the best place to run Windows applications. That said, if someone wants to write Windows-based applications for other platforms, we're not opposed to the idea," -- That is hardly surpising, but isn't the *defination* of Windows applications is that they run best on Windows?
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Re:How portable will the code be? (Score:2)
Think about it as Java with much easier JNI.
The idea is that you don't compile to native code directly, but go through intermediate language (called MSIL or CIL {C for common} ) which you then can compile and ship, ship the IL and compile on install/runtime/run interrupted.
If you don't make any system specific calls, (that is where the eaiser JNI come into play) it should be portable.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Re:conspiracy theory (Score:2)
We help you with this, but only if Mono isn't GPLed.
It's time to start sending those coats and blankets to hell, anyway.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
In the news ... (Score:5)
Microsoft to provide technical assistance on Open Source project
VP Mundie's head 'just exploded', say witnesses
Slashdot readers condemn Microsoft
Open Source move seen as 'sinister plot'
World ends, film at 11
Televangelists express surprise
Weather forecast for Hell: Scattered flurries, high -2