Mono Unimplementable? 172
Prior Restraint writes "According to this ZDNet article, Tony Goodhew, a Microsoft program manager, implies that MS will license C# in such a way that Ximian won't be able to implement the ECMA standard." This comes on the heels of Ximian's announcement of working on .Net aka Mono [?] .
Re:Great Quote! (Score:1)
Re:Great Quote! (Score:1)
Re:Great Quote! (Score:1)
-1, troll.
posted as the AC so as not to clog up the main thread, but still tweak WinBlowsHead there... revenge is a dish best served stone cold.
Re:Great Quote! (Score:2)
Oh, and the Easter bunny is real too.
FUD (Score:4)
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:1)
err.. (Score:2)
Oh right, it's microsoft. They like to do this.
Nothing to see here, move along.
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Re:This may be a *good* thing (Score:2)
Re:Standard (Score:4)
Most standards bodies will not accept anything patented as a standard unless the holder of the patent agrees to license for a small fee all their patents for this purpose.
It is extreamly common to use something patented in a standard, the owner of the patent just has a standard contract that anyone can agree to: for $x (often $10,000 so it is out of most open source pockets, but cheap for a company) your company can use the foloowing patents in any product as nessicary to impliment y. For instance you would license 8b10b encoding from IBM for fibre channel, but you would not have the right to use 8b10b on your own bus, only in your interface to fibre channel.
There are a couple RFCs which are legal agreement that anyone can as no charge use some patent for IP, so long as you follow some restrictions.
Any standards body that would let Microsoft keep open source out with patent games isn't a real standards body. Most members of technical standards bodies I know of (Members themselves, not the company they represent) are open source aware and pay some attention to these issues.
This is nothing new.... (Score:3)
It's actually an issue that has been debated on gnu.misc.discuss for quite some time. In particular, the question as to whether distributed computing really expands the impact of the GPL or makes it pointless.
Re:Where did that come from? (Score:2)
.NET is not just C#, but a set of protocols and services. That's the whole point of Mono, is to reimplement those protocols and services in a GPL license. They can't use any non-GPL code from Microsoft to do that, so everything will probably have to be reimplemented from scatch. If Mono doesn't use Microsoft's C# compiler, then there is nothing in the C# compiler's license that could effect Mono's viability.
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Where did that come from? (Score:5)
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Re:Standard (Score:1)
Re:Standard (Score:2)
I only wish that where the case, but Microsoft is a VERY large, political entity, and what would be common sense for some is the complete opposite for their lawyers..
Re:Can you say Rambus? (Score:2)
Microsoft is just trumpeting their anti-GPL FUD. They know that this is a hot button issue for many managers an dos they bring it up whether it applies or not. They realize that it doesn't matter what the truth actually is if they can get people to believe their lie.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has trumpeted C# and .NET as open since before they were even vaporware. Microsoft new that submitting the specification to ECMA would guarantee that alternative versions could be created. Including implementations covered by the GPL. In fact, they have publicly lambasted Sun for not doing the same thing with Java.
On the other hand, Microsoft currently has a software license that disallows the use of Free Software tools. So it is still possible that Microsoft will be able to throw up legal obstacles to Mono. But my guess is that it is all smoke and mirrors.
Short term, however, I am still doing my work using Python and XML-RPC, just in case.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
I actually was aware of some of these projects (and I even mentioned Jython, which is far and away the most useful).
Jython proves that the JVM can be used as a multi-language, cross-platform, tool, but only if you define "cross-platform" to exclude the BSDs (or is their finally a recent JVM available for these platforms), and if you define "multi-language" as Java, most of Python, and experimental support for Perl in CVS that mostly works using GNU's Kawa. Comparing that to the lineup that Microsoft has for .NET is utterly laughable.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has sorted out some of the thornier issues with Java. On paper Microsoft has designed a development environment with some pretty compelling features. They will support, in a sane unified way, a number of different languages, and will allow components to call other components reguardless of what language they are written in. On top of that they are adding a powerful easy to use RPC system based on SOAP. This will make writing distributed systems much easier than using Corba and its IDL language. Right now, without any real world tests Java still holds the edge because it is currently working in the real world. But if Microsoft's .NET doesn't absolutely suck performance and stability wise Java is in for a hard road ahead.
Now, I am not a Microsoft fan. I am writing this from Mozilla 0.9.2 on My Debian GNU/Linux workstation, but even I can see that Microsoft has really come up with something in their .NET architecture. Java has the potential to do what Microsoft has envisioned for .NET, but Sun's emphasis on Java as a language and their refusal to simply open up Java is hurting them.
I don't know whether or not Mono is a good idea. There are all sorts of projects trying to reimplement Java under a free license, and none of them are particularly useful. Despite what Microsoft says about the Free Software community being good at "chasing tail lights" I have yet to see a Free Software reverse engineering effort that has been wildly successful. As an example the Free Software hackers worked on Lesstif forever without having something that actually worked. When they went to create an alternative (GTK) it didn't take them very long at all to come up with something that was better than Motif in nearly every respect.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Re:This may be a *good* thing (Score:2)
If the MCA bus would have come out earlier we would all be using Apples today.
Early Macintoshes were much nicer machines than their clunky DOS based IBM PC clones, but they were much more expensive because they used proprietary hardware. The reason that IBM designed MCA was because they thought that it would give them total control over the PC market and dry up business for the clones (who wouldn't be able to use IBM's proprietary bus). This would have raised prices for PCs (by lowering the amount of competition). If IBM would have succeeded IBM PCs would have lost the one incentive that they had over Macintoshes, lower price.
Technologically MCA was much better than ISA, but it wasn't open (and therefore cheap), and so it lost.
In the computer business it is all about being "good enough" at the lowest price. That's why Microsoft is making inroads against proprietary big-iron Unixes and Mainframes, and why Linux, in turn is making inroads against Microsoft.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Yes, Java can do most of what .NET will do. However, with .NET it all comes in one attractive package all ready to go. And it will support more than one language.
And as you point out in your post .NET will even talk to legacy Java code via SOAP.
Do you see where I am going with this? I am not a Microsoft supporter. In fact, I would much rather see Java win over .NET, but the reliance on Java as a platform on the Java language is problematic. Java programmers might wish that the entire world would simply switch to their language, but it isn't going to happen. .NET makes the choice of development language a much less political deal. With .NET you can choose the correct language for the job, instead of simply using Java for everything.
That's what makes .NET so great. It's got all of the advantages of the Java platform, without the downside of only being able to use the Java language.
Of course, in the real world .NET is not even close to being cross platform, which is a serious problem, but that's only because Microsoft isn't interested in building cross platform tools. They want you to use their operating system. It's also worth noting that Java isn't nearly as cross platform as Sun would have you believe. While it is true that they finally have a decent Linux implementation, the BSDs are still waiting.
A Free Software implementation of .NET would solve that problem nicely, and it would quickly become a very cool development platform.
In short: Java Platform Good! Java Language Mostly Good, but not as cool as my favorite language . If your favorite language happens to be Java, then it's no wonder that you can't see the benefits of .NET.
Re:PYTHON NOT SUPPORTED IN .NET (Score:2)
Do you mean to say that Python will not be part of .NET? Heck, all of a sudden it doesn't sound that nifty after all :).
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Thanks for clearing that up Malcontent. It sounds like Microsoft's version of .NET is simply more of the same. I wouldn't know, as I don't actually do much work on Windows.
I suppose I was responding more on the "hype" of .NET than on the reality. The idea of having a unified platform that would allow the mixing of components from a wide array of languages and that came "out of the box" with a powerful and easy to use RPC mechanism really is a development Shangrila. Hopefully that is what the folks at Ximian are working on with their Mono implementation. If not, then what exactly is the point. As has been pointed out in numerous posts Java already answers the platform issues. The only benefit of .NET was that supposedly it allowed the programmer to use the language of his or her choice instead of always requiring Java.
If .NET ends up like you say (and I have read enough of your posts to believe what you say) then it will be of little use. The world needs a Microsoft only Java replacement like it needs a hole in the ozone layer. In particular I had heard that VBers would get to start from scratch with VB.NET. They should be used to that by now. You would think that eventually people would learn that following Microsoft's lead guarantees expensive rewrites of your applications every couple of years.
In the meantime I am fairly happy using a combination of Python and generic C for my cross platform development. I have even played a bit with using XML-RPC. It's certainly easier to use than Corba, and it seems flexible enough. I never have like Java much. The platform bits are cool, but I don't particularly like the language. That's why the idea of .NET appealed to me.
Thanks for the info.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:3)
The problem with Sun's Java as a platform strategy is two fold. First of all, as you point out in your post, Java is not a *free* language. The standard is completely controlled by Sun, and there are no free (as in free speech) implementations that have all of the features of Sun's version.
The second problem is slightly larger. Java is a nifty platform, but unfortunately it requires that you do all of your programming in Java the language. Microsoft's .NET allows you to pick and choose your language, and it has (supposedly, I haven't actually checked) included support for a wide array of languages. Java, as a platform, really only supports two languages: Java and Jython (and Jython isn't officially supported).
Of course, if you are a Java programmer you probably think that this is well and good, but most programmers are not Java programmers.
Remember the Halloween Documents? (Score:2)
MS said back then that one possible avenue of attack was patents.
Patent a core piece of the system.. Something that can't be missing or implemented differently. Then whoever implements must pay the MS tax umm.. I mean licensing fees..
All perfectly legal too. Charge everyone $x per installation of the system. Closed source can afford to pay, open source can't...
RSA did the same thing for years.. Which greatly crippled the adoption of crypto.
We can only hope that MS's decisions greatly cripple
Re:This may be a *good* thing (Score:1)
On the other hand, M$ seems to be creating a software architecture that people seem to still think is necessary. Sure there are alternatives (M$ never seems to be first) but they have clout and people never got fired for buying M$.
(I wanted to use AD as a success vs NDS but I don't know of anyone using it.)
Re:No .Net for Linux? Cry me a river. (Score:2)
But in order to implement that you'd essentially need to implement COM because .NET is actually based on COM. And COM, in turn, is too tightly tied to OLE and win32 API. So .NET is non-portable by design, unless Microsoft suddenly decided to release all those specs, but somehow I doubt it will ever happen. Besides, nothing prevents Microsoft from embracing and extending its own standard -- so, although you may be able to implement ECMA standard, it would be only a subset of what's required for .NET. Given Microsoft's previous track record, does anyone actually believe that Microsoft is about to start promoting open standards? People, please stop deluding yourself.
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Anti Free Software License (Score:2)
Wasn't Microsoft's anti free software license for one toolkit that wasn't even out of beta yet? That license didn't apply to everything that can be downloaded from MSDN, does it?
I got the distinct feeling that they were floating that to gauge the reaction from the developer community, that it was a timed and calculated move to fit in with Mr. Mundie's speeches and the other stuff that was being flung around.
As for what I consider the core of .NET (C# and CLR) there is the SharpDevelop [icsharpcode.net] IDE/Code editor which is released under the GPL.
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Names (Score:2)
If the second point is the case, could Ximian get around all this by doing what the Mesa developers do, i.e. basically saying that their software just happens to work just like the official stuff?
Very off-topic rant (Score:1)
And by the way, there are at least five grammatical errors and one spelling error in your post. Now who's the asshole?
Big foamed-metal board, fans, who knows? (Score:2)
With a big foamed-metal board and some fans, maybe you can ski molten lava? The penalty for coming off would be a bit steep, though.
It's a good thing that Microsoft can't innovate, else they might be doing something more effective against Free Software than thrasing about, screaming.
Don't worry, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM - or was that Microsoft?
A local (West Oz) gummint department has just realised that their M$ re-licencing fees for this year are about $1,000,000.00; they are seriously considering ditching M$ in a test department and replacing it with Linux+StarOffice plus a few copies of Win4Lin for the remaining Windows apps. This with ditching M$ across the whole department in mind. They are already migrating to browser-based software. Many such raindrops make a flood.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:1)
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:1)
Re:Very off-topic rant (Score:1)
More on getting your spelling at least 50% right (Score:1)
Rather like trying to have a conversation with someone who insists on talking with his mouth full of peanut butter and jelly toast. Makes it hard to concentrate on one's "point". Makes it hard to even care whether or not such a point was made in the first place.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
SENSE! SENSE, DAMNIT!
I'm having a bad day... Keep your fingers away from my teeth.
Re:FUD (Score:1)
No, Hemos doesn't infer that; Prior Restraint does. See the part in quotes? That's not Hemo's writting.
--Cycon
Re:Surprise Surprise (Score:2)
Don't be too sure -- p-code can remember what language it used to be. I wouldn't put it past MS to phase out the machine-code components in favor of .NET components that run under the VM. This for "cross-platform support" of Itanium and/or other processors that might follow the Pentium as the Windows processor.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Java sucks for me because it's unpredictable in terms of platform compatability, speed, and version. Writting serious large data set applications in Java seems to lack as well. (Tried loading and parsing 100Mb of data latily?)
Java can definitly do this, and does already. I'm just annoyed at working with java. Having to use JNI to access the "real" system hurts. Repetitive OS calls are somewhat slow as well.. (as in generating decent RC5 keys using SHA1 - this calles time quite a bit, and is very slow)
Java is a great language. And the greatest compliment is that C# mirrors it so much. A good GPL'ed C# compiler on Linux would win me over.
But I don't think you'll be seeing a GPL Java JIT that's good for a while to come. After all, RPC was implemented by Sun, and now it's part of
It's kinda sad that MS came up with it first. I'm suprised that Ximian isn't using more of the code from existing byte-code interpriters or GCC.
Pan
Not a competitor... (Score:3)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Of course (Score:2)
Another reason... (Score:2)
Re:Great Quote! (Score:3)
A fully-functioning (ahem) Linux can be compressed down and fit on a floppy disk. (Can you say, Linux Router Project? tomsrtbt? hal91? A full-out Red Hat system with Apache, Samba, NFS tools, Linuxconf-web, IDE-RAID, and all the dependencies for all that stuff, is only 72MB worth of disk fully expanded. Absolutely-fscking-minimal Win95, I mean, just enough to boot the system, is 102MB (IIRC, plus or minus a meg or two), forget about anything useful like a browser or an editor fancier than Notepad. And NT is bigger than that, by how many orders of magnitude, I don't know, when I left that job I quit using Windows for keeps.
NT is too big and too tightly coupled by far for any one man to keep all the twisty relationships between his ears, is Linus' point. There are at least two people on the planet (Linus and Alan) who can keep the Linux kernel between their ears; I don't doubt that Miguel could do the same thing if he tried... but then Miguel's celebrity points up precisely the major flaw in the whole Windows design package: We never tried to integrate the GUI into the OS. (One notices that the folks in Cupertino have realized the error of their ways...) Such strategy produces an extreme case of bloat which is difficult at best to get rid of... much less manage the code for.
Re:Great Quote! (Score:5)
The setting: Early 1999, a documents convention in Atlanta (all about printers and scanners and signature verification technology, etc...). On the stage, left to right, are Linus, a senior Microsoft marketroid, Maddog [valinux.com], and a Wall Street analyst. The Microsoft guy was running off at the mouth about all the huge labs they have in Redmond, where they can replicate any problem known to man. Linus jumps into the fray with a case involving the U.S. Post Office. (Those little barcodes you get on the bottom of all your envelopes? Those barcodes are put there by printers powered by Linux. Only thing that would run that reliably and had good vendor support [redhat.com].) It seems USPS was having a performance problem. They called Red Hat. Red Hat looked at it. They scratched their heads, and forwarded it to Linus. Linus looked at it, scratched his head, vi'ed a couple files, had an "aha" moment (discovered a race condition), tappity, tappity, tappity, compile, init 6, diff-pipe-mail, problem solved. Total turnaround time for USPS, 48 hours.
Then he delivered the zinger.
There was dead silence in the room, and I've never seen anyone look quite so uncomfortable as that Microsoft marketroid sitting there in the spotlight between the two most vocal penguinheads on the planet....I must admit, though, it's fun to see other folks catching on to Linus' PR methods...
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I'd rather listen to [Sir Isaac] Newton than to [Microsoft's VP Craig] Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less.
-- Linus
Ximian is using their own technology (Score:2)
Microsoft speak with forked tongue. (Score:3)
From the ZDNet article: Miguel de Icaza, Mono's founder, said, "The consensus is that [Microsoft] could stop someone from implementing the specs by using patents. [But] nothing in dot-Net is really innovative, so it would be simple to use alternative non-patented approaches."
I'm sure that Miguel understands the technical issues involved here far better than I do, but the more I hear about this whole Ximian/Microsoft interaction, the more it looks to me like Ximian is a skilled but naive bunch of American Indians being offered a sweet deal on some really nice beads.
Whatever "assistance" Microsoft is offering to Mono, they're not doing for altruistic reasons. I don't trust them.
My favorite qoute (Score:3)
nothing in dot-Net is really innovative, so it would be simple to use alternative non-patented approaches.
Doesn't that cover all M$ products?
Just vague speculation at the moment, anyway (Score:2)
Interesting move on the part of Microsoft if they really are going to go through with standardisation. I suppose it's a similar issue to MPEG layer 3 and Fraunhofer... and look at how successful Fraunhofer have been at stopping open source MP3 encoders.
Anyhow, I wish Ximian luck with their reimplementation of Microsoft standards. I just hope they don't get burned like all the other companies in the past which have cuddled up to Microsoft. I would love it if, just this once, Microsoft did something nice
Re:RTFA (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great Quote! (Score:2)
But my weird MS bugs get to go to the super spiffy "replicate any problem known to man" lab?
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:3)
Somehow I would seriously doubt it will come in one package. If it's like any other MS product it will come in an insane array dependencies. When I installed the SOAP toolkit I had to upgrade IE to 5.5 and had to download pathched msxml3.dll set too. Just to be able to post to a soap server I had to download about 50 megabytes of stuff and not only that I had to install this crap on every PC in the shop which was going to run the code.
As for your second point.
How can you say it will support multiple languages when it does not support the four most popular languages on the planet? Look at VB.NET it looks nothing like VB 6.0 you might as well learn a whole new language (I guess ms is counting on that).
This is what was probably meant (Score:5)
Ximian is saying that they aren't going to use any of this code so there won't be issues.
ZDNet is making the whole thing muddy so they get all the Slashdot effect and sell more advertising.
Note that both Microsoft and Ximian are corret here.
We are falling into a big trap (Score:5)
They will LOVE that Linux developers are doing their work for them in pushing
Also, why not work with a standard that doesn't change? Java is here today, and is VERY open about its future direction. Do you think Java is slow? Well. . . how fast do you think IL interpreters will be on Linux for the next 3 years? (not as fast as Java during that time, I guarantee). Java isn't open source? That may be true, but Sun has a reputation for creating open standards if not open source software(NFS, NIS, their hardware spec, etc.) Microsoft doesn't have this reputation and have already screwed around with developers by "standardizing" ECMAscript and then turning around and breaking it. We know Microsoft isn't trustworthy, so we are going to help them and then try to trick them out of their own game???? What????
If we continue to fall for this, we are too stupid to compete with Microsoft. (So we shouldn't even play with them. . . competing with them wasn't the point anyway - the point was serving our own needs with great software).
.NET is SOAP (Score:2)
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:5)
Err, not really. See:
Microsoft Twisting Words and Ideas Again (Score:5)
This is total FUD, because MONO is only implementing the EMCA standard and would never use MS IP to do it. After all, how could you make quality software if you filled it with/based it on crap?
MS is just creating FUD again by saying that the GPL is scary, so thus this Open/Free
ZDNet reports this propaganda like it's fact.
ECMA Disagrees with Microsoft's position (Score:2)
"There are no known rights owned by Microsoft that would require a licensing agreement" --Ruhk
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Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Micro benchmarks mean very little. Some people claim they've seen 50% speed improvement in C#, some say they see Java performing alot better. There are some legit arguments that can be made about C# approach to compiling at install time which will decrease the performance in comparison to an adaptively optimized (HotSpot) Java.
My personal guess is they're pretty close to one another. There's no single technical issue on either side that would make one faster than the other.
I'd be interested to see any legit benchmarking though.
unpredictable in terms of platform compatability, speed, and version
What makes C# or
A good GPL'ed C# compiler on Linux would win me over.
Not me. Java the language matters very little. The language can't do squat. The same applies to C#. It's the libraries that count, having JDBC, RMI, JNDI, EJB, Servlets/JSP is what drives me to use Java. What language they operate on makes no difference. Having a huge, cross platform libraries is a blessing.
Having a C# compiler in GPL means squat. If you get ADO+, COM+, ASP+ then you may have a case. I doubt Microsoft will let you have all that on Linux though.
GPL Java JIT that's good for a while to come
I don't need one. I'm not interested in writing compilers. I'm interested in writing other applications though.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Ready to go and do what?
I mean, if you look at IBM's Java offering for example, they heavily tie their VisualAge IDE to their WebSphere application server and other tools. That's a ready to go package to do pretty much everything you need, web apps, middle tier, web services, EJB, JDBC, whatever. All bundled with an IDE with version control, debuggers, help blah blah blah.
The matter of fact is most people tend to not want this kind of tie up. Some people like it, and I bet they're all happy IBM customers and more power to them, but I for example would not even want a package like this for my Java development.
A ready to go packages are available for Java. They even let you pay lost of $$$ for it. I personally like it much better where I can choose the different components for development myself.
And as you point out in your post
And Java uses SOAP to talk to legacy Windows platform with apps written in C#, VB, whatever.
That's what makes
I'll buy this if I ever see a cross-platform ADO+, ASP+ or COM+. Until then, Java is much much more attractive solution to me. Not to mention it is much more mature platform.
It's also worth noting that Java isn't nearly as cross platform as Sun would have you believe.
It's good enough for me. I've written apps that people deployed on Windows (NT and 2000), Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, MacOS and possibly others. I can tell you I don't know much anything about the Unix/Linux platforms. But my apps work in those environments and that I am happy about. As far as I'm concerned, Sun made good on their promise of cross-platform and WORA.
A Free Software implementation of
But there wont ever be a full blown
That's a far cry from the
Re:No .Net for Linux? Cry me a river. (Score:5)
The Mono project will be implementing the Common Language Environment, C# compiler, and the
The cool part is that I will be able to use the graphical form designers to create the visual parts of my programs and then implement those in any language I choose: since I don't like C# or (ugh) VB, I'll use Python.NET. If necessary though, I can write some parts in C and subclass them from within python; no more worrying about tools like SIP and SWIG which are by nature imperfect since they must be reimplemented for every language pair.
Unfortunately, taking advantage of this would in the past have limited me solely to Windows, which IMHO outweighs all my possible gains. With Mono, however, I will be able to do all of the above in a cross-platform manner. Even if the Mono project does not release a graphical form designer, I can do that part in Windows and develop the rest in Linux, in my favorite programming language. The resulting program will then be able to run anywhere with only a recompilation.
The part you're worried about includes the Hailstorm initiative and other Microsoft muscle-flexing. Mono is not interested in this at all. Rather, the project implementing this half is GNU.Net, which is going to directly compete with Microsoft even as Mono complements it. If you are worried about this, GNU.Net is the project to watch for a Free (in all meanings of the word) replacement for it.
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Re:Another reason... (Score:2)
No news here -- just /. being sensationalist (Score:2)
Re:Not much they can do (Score:2)
Not that MS can't do such sort of thing - by including a clause in their
implementations. Other way, by 'extending' standards pretty much the way they tried with Java.
Anyway, such restrictions would divert developers from MS devtools to other ones, this won't be any good for MS.
Also, MS can theoretically ban any binaries developed not with their tools from running in their implementation. But there's no point in submitting to ECMA this way.
More, if they open the standard (i.e. go through ECMA) and conform to it themselves, there is no way they can retain control over
Re:Not much they can do (Score:3)
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Where did that come from? (Score:2)
Great Quote! (Score:5)
> consensus is that [Microsoft] could stop someone
> from implementing the specs by using patents.
> [But] nothing in dot-Net is really innovative,
> so it would be simple to use alternative
> non-patented approaches.
No one says "We're gonna screw you, and take over you own architecture, oh, and, you can't innovate either" quite like Miguel.
so sophmoric (Score:2)
Ok, let me get this straight. Micro$oft says that the ECMA will protect its "copyright" or whatever. However, ECMA says that it'll do no such thing. Is it just me or is Micro$oft just acting immature and trying to intimidate Ximian by making stuff up. It's just like being back in middle school :(.
By the way, as said in so many other posts, why is Ximian even trying to clone this? Everyone already knows Java, so why doesn't Ximian trump that? Ximian could get Micro$oft to shoot itself in the foot by trying to get developers to learn another language for a platform that people have to rent!
RTFA (Score:5)
However, Jan van den Beld, ECMA secretary general, said the licence would cover only Microsoft's own implementation, not the standard itself. "There are no known rights owned by Microsoft that would require a licensing agreement," he said.
Miguel de Icaza, Mono's founder, said, "The consensus is that [Microsoft] could stop someone from implementing the specs by using patents. [But] nothing in dot-Net is really innovative, so it would be simple to use alternative non-patented approaches."
This says nothing about Mono being "unimplementable" as the /. headline questions. It's just Microsoft's implementation of the submitted standard that is in question, which is dealt with in the last sentence of the article quoted above.
AFAIK Microsoft cannot patent a "standard", unless it's one of those unofficial standards that they create through their monopoly.
Standard (Score:5)
Of course, that's not to say that Microsoft was stupid by using ECMA. They can claim that C# et al is an open standard while not actually allowing anyone to implement it.
Most likely, Microsoft will withdraw their submission from ECMA. If they do not, people will just implement based on the standards, at which point Microsoft will not be able to sue because the standards are open.
Regardless of what Microsoft does, the open-source folks will go ahead with their implementations of C# et al, even if Microsoft withdraws from the ECMA standards process.
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Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:3)
Alternatively, you could look at this as the Open Source community's attempt to use Microsoft's own "embrace and extend" philosopy against them. Microsoft will be using its considerable resources to push this forward. Whether you like it or not, .NET will probably be a significant technology that we'll be dealing with for a long time to come. If an open-source "variation on the theme" can be created, I'm all for it.
BTW, I've had the opportunity to see Tony Goodhew speak. He's an impressive individual who really seems to know his stuff. While de Icaza and van den Beld seem to be dismissing his warning about licensing problems, I hope that they take the issue seriously.
Or it may not matter (Score:5)
Think back in history. Think City-State. Think of a heavily fortified city at the cross roads of some very heavily travelled trade routes. .NET is the paving on the roads, while the fortified city is MS-Passport. And to move your goods through Passport, you have to pay a tax. Do you think given that model that billg cares whether he owns the roads or not? I don't think so. If I was in bill's shoes, I'd be all for people building roads to my kingdom.
And so who cares if .NET is proprietary or not? If it's easily available for, or ships with, 90+% of the desktops in the world, what does it matter? All of this Mono hype misses the point: what is really needed is a credible competitor for Passport. Forget .NET. Building a .NET work-alike merely reinforces the MS monopoly. We should really be setting our sites on building a competitor to the Passport services.
Re:Is anyone really surprised? (Score:2)
They do. But from the look of it they're trying to pull the same bullshit Rambus didn't get away with, and they're trying to do it on much shakier ground.
Or maybe an MS PR flack is just shooting his mouth off? Looks like FUD poisoning to me...
/Brian
Re:Complete the following sequence: Xbox, silly (Score:2)
I think the Xbox will tank, at least initially -- the early buzz is vague and not too promising for delivering a quality product on schedule.
/Brian
Re:Complete the following sequence: Xbox, silly (Score:2)
Hailstorm is EVIL.
/Brian
In a flash of wisdom, Hemos wrote... (Score:2)
I wonder if it's symbolic that the everything2 link to "mono" only talks about a really bad disease...
Re:Not much they can do (Score:2)
Because those binaries would have to link to GPL code. A big part of .NET is the libraries of common functions you call in your programs. It is illegal to link to a GPL library with a non-free binary; this is why the LGPL was created. Read Stallman's "=Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library [gnu.org] for a better explanation than I can give.
If Mono is released under the GPL non-free binaries cannot legally run on it.
Not much they can do (Score:3)
Here's the kicker, though. If Ximian releases Mono under the GPL, what happens when you run binaries created by .NET? You wouldn't be able to legally run those on Mono, or at least you couldn't distribute those binaries to Mono users. Basically Ximian has an opportunity to create a version of .NET that is incompatible with non-GPL versions of .NET.
I think Ximian would be shooting itself in the foot by doing so, but there's no reason they can't. It wouldn't benefit Mono users by doing that, but it sure would fracture the .NET community. I'm sure this is the scenario Microsoft wants to avoid. Frankly I think I would see this as being childish on Ximians part if they do release Mono on the GPL. They should keep it under a BSD licence so any program created by any .NEt compiler can run on it.
Wasn't this expected ? (Score:5)
Re:Yeah, but.. (Score:2)
To do this Microsoft would have to pay a royalty to Rambus for the use of their patented business method.
1. Promote Standard tool/device etc...
2. Patent standard
3. Wait for it to become popular.
4. Sue Sue Sue and then Sue some more....
Re:Yeah, but.. (Score:2)
However, Jan van den Beld, ECMA secretary general, said the licence would cover only Microsoft's own implementation, not the standard itself. "There are no known rights owned by Microsoft that would require a licensing agreement," he said.
Re:Wasn't this expected ? (Score:2)
Samba.
Free Software hackers worked on Lesstif forever without having something that actually worked
When you compare one application against another, and they happen to work differently, one is not 'useless' because it is not exactly like the other - when you set the standard you are the only one that will ever *really* be the one that works "correctly".
No .Net for Linux? Cry me a river. (Score:3)
Prior Restraint writes "According to this ZDNet article, Tony Goodhew, a Microsoft program manager, implies that MS will license C# in such a way that Ximian won't be able to implement the ECMA standard." This comes on the heels of Ximian's announcement of working on
Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure why one would want to implement .Net without needing to. Sure, the collaborate concepts behind it are great... but if we think Outlook is dangerous now, what does the future bring with the .Net strategy? Lost privacy? Stupid security bugs everywhere? Pay-to-play software?
Similar to the way that Outlook's address book vulnerabilities put at risk everyone with an e-mail address, what are the chances that .Net vulnerabilities will have reprocussions across all Internet services and platforms?
I'm hoping that .Net will finally mobilize the consumer to ditch Windows and get some competition back into the OS field. After all, Microsoft apparently can't even get IIS right [glowingplate.com], and that sounds a lot less sophisticated than what .Net attempts.
Bobo hates cans. [glowingplate.com]
This may be a *good* thing (Score:5)
However, there are many technologies that never became standards. Remember MicroChannel from IBM? It never succeeded because IBM held the licensing rights.
You can't have it both ways. Either it is freely implementable or you have to pay, whether it is in the form of licensing fees or other restrictions.
If Microsoft want to tightly control implementations, then in my opinion
dot GNU (Score:2)
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets; Speak in secret alphabets;
...and on we go! (Score:5)
Surely there must be some real development going on in the free software world that could be covered instead. A Linux-powered robot that recognizes human faces [linuxdevices.com] or Sun's study of Gnome usability? [gnome.org]
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
How does Microsoft actually provide assistance? (Score:2)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Microsoft doesn't know the meaning of 'standard' (Score:2)
This should be a vary interesting story to follow as it develops.
--CTH
--
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
--CTH
--
Re:I'd be more interested in ... (Score:2)
There is an RFC for a means of doing this... The protocol suite is called IMPS... From the people that brought you CPIP too.
The RFC was released on April 1, 2000, and it is really nice to see Microsoft using cutting edge technology.
Sig: Warning The following may be illegal under the DMCA (rot-13 decoder):
ABCDEFGH I J KLM
Correction (Score:2)
Sig: Warning The following may be illegal under the DMCA (rot-13 decoder):
ABCDEFGH I J KLM
Re:Microsoft speak with forked tongue. (Score:2)
Microsoft are Evil, nasty, amoral, ruthless bunch of... the sort of thing that lusers called HP a few stories back. NEVER trust them. NEVER co-operate with them. They are the death incarnate, you might as well co-operate with a black widow spider or a rattlesnake or a scorpion. Smash them to bits with a big stick, from a safe distance, or run away. Otherwise, you're lunch.
No, I'm not trolling or flamebaiting or anything (hey, I'd post anonymously if I was ;)... I really believe this to be the case. I've asked several times for someone to provide ANY sort of rational justification for this dot-GNU nonsense and I've yet to see a single one. It's a mistake, and I predict it will end in tears.
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
Re:Where did that come from? (Score:2)
Complete the following sequence: (Score:2)
Xenix, the Windows Sound System, Microsoft Bob, __________
A:
Re:No .Net for Linux? Cry me a river. (Score:2)
Unlike Java, which you can't extend, they are saying outright that they expect vendors to add their own extentions.
Winforms, for examples, are Windows features, you wouldn't be *able* to use them on Linux.
But you can probably take the API and do it on GTK+
Or create similar API.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Re:No .Net for Linux? Cry me a river. (Score:2)
.NET don't run interrupted code, it compile it on install/runtime.
So if you ship the binaries, they are still being compile to whatever platform you are on.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Re:No .Net for Linux? Cry me a river. (Score:2)
So it shouldn't be a problem to port it.
Not to mention that COM is by no means tied to Win32.
There has been implementation of COM on Mac & Solaris, frex.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Re:.NET is SOAP (Score:2)
Can you say Rambus? (Score:4)
In the article, ECMA's geral secretary refutes the MS claims. It's probably some lame misunderstanding. And if not, they've dug a nice big hole for themselves.
money! (Score:2)
Now where is this going? Simple, if Microsoft starts making these things like .NET where one has to sign up for an account to use their software on a monthly basis or some such nonsense, then getting free software becomes a moot point if you have to sign up for the account.
I think that this is a bad move for Microsoft; one, not collaborating with open source people, and two, making sure that their products become service based. No one is going to pay for this, or at least I'm not, not that that will really matter. - a disheartened H. Simpson
Re:Surprise Surprise (Score:3)
They talk about how easy to use arrays are in C#, compared to C++, but anyone writing in C++ would have no trouble in creating their own array class templates, and would have the option of how each class function behaved at their disposal.
This seems like a bloated Visual Basic way of doing things, but on the other hand people may find it faster to create software with.
The issue of COM hopefully won't be a problem. C# claims it will make COM programming easier, but it's not the only way; Machine code doesn't remember which language it used to be.
Making news out of nothing at all (Score:3)
I read the ZDNet article and responded in kind there. This is not news. A quote was taken from Tony Goodhew, but the quote is not printed. It is alleged to have suggested that Microsoft might hinder Ximian from implementing
From this conjecture, a whole article is created. Hell, Dorothy, your house might fly out of Kansas and land on the wicked witch. Sure, it is more likely that MS will hinder Ximian, but it is still just an OPINION and not news.
What appalls me the most is when intelligent people I normally agree with, start acting as stupid as those I disagree with. I have come to expect idiots opposing me, but to see those on "my side" acting like idiots turning conjecture into "hard news" is really appalling.
Most likely, I will be flamed for suggesting that this is not really news, but a bunch of snippets pieced together, but I really don't care. I am tired of everyone high fiving anytime MS steps, even when there is no evidence that anything is happening. I will stand behind you when you catch them at work, but I cannot stand up when the story is not a story.
Peace!