It's not a port. It's a language binding. There's really not much difference between this and calling your system's open() syscall from Ruby or Python. Also, quit being an asshole.

What does that have to do with any of this? MonoTouch is using AOT compiling, it's not using the Mono VM at all. There is no external code. It builds the Mono libraries you're using into native code and includes them in the executable, sort of like static linking. As such you lose a lot of the dynamic features of C#/.NET (.e.g, no reflection). The Commodore emulator had a built-in BASIC interpreter. There was a way to feed it external code and have it run that code. There is nothing like that in MonoTouch.

It's basically a language binding. That's it. But if you're fluent in C# and don't feel like spending the time to learn Objective-C, it looks like it's totally worth it.

Can you give a link to support this? I have never heard before that they ban frameworks.

Good thing I use ogg. Microsoft would never think to look for that.

They spend a lot on R&D, and they actually innovate quite a bit. I think Apple is more trendy right now and that is the reason they're making so much money with little investment. They're investing more into advertising, branding, and image than they are into technology. It seems that Microsoft is making a little more effort to do this these days, but it will be difficult for them to totally turn things around in this respect.

In terms of technology and innovation though, Apple takes what it can from open source, and contributes back exactly as much as they're legally obligated to. They didn't design the operating system, and a lot of their original system APIs come from the NeXTStep heritage (and thus are implemented in Objective-C, which is not hugely popular but was probably the fastest way for them to take NeXT's stuff and start selling it).

On the flip side of what you're saying, when you have centralization then you also have to worry about user management and permissions much more.

But with git or bzr you can have a canonical repository up that only a few people have commit access directly into, but as a new developer that won't stop you from hacking on it. You can instantly clone the repo and start working on your own branch, commit all your changes to your own branch, and once it's ready the maintainers can pull you branch and merge into the upstream repo.

In the past there may have been issues like "what if user Foo doesn't have a host to store his or her branches?" But these days we have GitHub and Gitorious, so that isn't really an issue.

People keep talking about how Muslims are known for acts of terrorism. Why is it that the first thing that comes to mind when you see some Muslims is, "oh shit they might blow something up"? Why not Latinos/South Americans? Ever heard of Orlando Bosch or Luis Posada Carilles? They've done some crazy shit. What about Israelis? Israel violates the Geneva Conventions constantly and frequently engages in large-scale terrorism (such as what they're doing right now).

I don't remember ever hearing anyone ask our government to clamp down on our civil liberties, except maybe some commentators on CNN and Fox News. When people blame the US government for terrorism, it's never in the context of "hey you gave us too much liberty you assholes!" Most of the complaints I read and agree with are things like, "Hey, stop bombing the fuck out of countries and instilling hatred for us among their people you assholes!"

Can you please explain both why it's non-OSS, and how it's patent-infringing? Mono is, I believe, released under MIT license. This is an official OSI-certified Open Source license, so I think you need to back up that statement that it's non-OSS.

Mono is not known to be infringing on any patents either, so I'm not sure what your claim is in that case either. The core of the .NET framework that falls under the ECMA/ISO standard is patented by Microsoft. But anything submitted to these standards must be available for implementation under RAND terms. However, Microsoft went one step further with the patents for these standards and said they would release them under not just RAND terms, but also for royalty-free terms. There is a difference between infringing on a patent and implementing something that is patented but available under a standard with royalty-free RAND terms.

Mono does not knowingly accept code that is patented and does not fall under the ECMA/ISO standard because then they would be setting themselves up for possible litigation.

But they're not doing that, and they never have. You're just trolling and spreading FUD with posts like that. This is the type of stuff that we see from the Boycott Novell people, and this is why nobody takes them seriously.

That's the most retarded fucking thing in the world. If you don't like Mono, just don't fucking use it. The point is, these guys aren't actually contributing anything. Instead they just sit around and criticize fucking awesome hackers. Mono is really fantastic software. If you don't like it, just don't use it.

It benefits Novell, but Novell benefits Linux.

"Now that Gnome largely depends on Mono (indirect dependencies), they reached an important step." This is complete FUD. Gnome does not in any way depend on Mono. In fact, pretty much everything in your post except the "this is my POV" is pure FUD. Nobody has ever found any grounds on which Microsoft could sue any Linux companies, and all this "boycott Novell" stuff is just trying to fuck with a company that is contributing a shitload of great work to the community.

Sorry, but the Boycott Novell people are complete retards to begin with. To my knowledge they don't actually produce anything for the open source community, but they sit around and bitch and whine about Novell who employs all kinds of open source hackers; including kernel hackers, GTK and GNOME hackers, window manager hackers, Mono hackers, accessibility hackers, open source artists, and more. Sorry if I have very little sympathy for the situation. It's not that I think anyone should be 'manhandled' under any situation, but these guys are the most inconsiderate members of the "open source community" and it's hard for me to really take most things they say very seriously.