Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#101

Post by simion314 » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:18 PM UTC

pionar wrote: post #73

simion314 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mono implemented the GUI stuff like Windows Forms, do the latest windows cross platform stuff support that? Can you run .Net GUI windows program on linux without Mono but using the latest .Net thing ? I know it was not possible in the past.

You can use third party libs like Avalonia[1] or Uno[2] [1] https://avaloniaui.net/ [2] https://platform.uno/

Sure, nobody wants to write Winforms new applications today

My point is about running existing applications on Linux, there are still issues with running .Net GUI stuff under wine and Mono was not a perfect implementation.

I read in other comments that the newer .Net cross platform stuff is not a replacement for Mono for running this old applications. (nobody will rewrite them to use the current GUI stuff from MS since are old apps)

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#102

Post by jkulubya » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:19 PM UTC

lyu07282 wrote: post #88

bri3d wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mono has no reason to live anymore This isn't really true. Mono functions as a complete replacement for the ".NET Framework" - something that can be used to run any .NET app, including "legacy" apps targeting old ".NET Framework" versions, on any supported platform, even when the app was built to target Windows. dotnet/runtime is intended to run more modern applications that target ".NET Core" - basically, stuff th…

Won't most apps use way more .net stuff than core? Mono was a way to run dotnet apps on Linux, killing it meant killing cross platform support for modern dotnet desktop apps?

Not really. Best to think of .net “core” as just .net.

Anything that was in the old .net that isn’t in core today won’t ever be.

Then there’s stuff that was missing in the earlier versions of core that existed in old dotnet. Some of it they later realised was useful for newer apps or apps migrated to core. These pieces were ported over by Microsoft or replaced by 3rd party implementations (e.g. avalonia for xplat ui).

(.net core is actually officially just .net, they dropped the core from the name)

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#103

Post by romwell » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:20 PM UTC

lyu07282 wrote: post #88

bri3d wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mono has no reason to live anymore This isn't really true. Mono functions as a complete replacement for the ".NET Framework" - something that can be used to run any .NET app, including "legacy" apps targeting old ".NET Framework" versions, on any supported platform, even when the app was built to target Windows. dotnet/runtime is intended to run more modern applications that target ".NET Core" - basically, stuff th…

Won't most apps use way more .net stuff than core? Mono was a way to run dotnet apps on Linux, killing it meant killing cross platform support for modern dotnet desktop apps?

This is Hackernews.

What are those Desktop apps you speak of?

Clearly, everything is a command-line backend pipeline in container with a web UI.

And everything that isn't can be easily deprecated. /s

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#104

Post by jimrandomh » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:21 PM UTC

rgovostes wrote: post #94

I always assumed Microsoft did not condone Wine or other re-implementations of their APIs (like ReactOS), but that they were protected by DMCA reverse engineering provisions and anyway too insignificant to send the legal team after. Wikipedia says, > Until 2020, Microsoft had not made any public statements about Wine. ... On 16 February 2005, Ivan Leo Puoti discovered that Microsoft had started checking the Windows R…

If Windows Update replaced components of Wine, that would (a) break people's Wine installs, and (b) give those users a way to legally get Microsoft's versions of those components for use outside of Windows.

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#105

Post by simion314 » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

neonsunset wrote: post #75

simion314 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mono implemented the GUI stuff like Windows Forms, do the latest windows cross platform stuff support that? Can you run .Net GUI windows program on linux without Mono but using the latest .Net thing ? I know it was not possible in the past.

You are expected to use Avalonia or Uno for multi-platform targeting or Gir.Core (GTK4) or one of the many other binding libraries for Linux-specific GUI. Also very easy to throw something together on top of SDL2 with Silk.NET. Practically speaking it is in a much better place than many languages considered by parts of Linux community to be more """linux-oriented""".

My personal use case is running old GUI apps, I am not planning on writing GUI apps with .Net , MS had the opportunity to open source .Net/Silverlight and make money from tools but they bet on Windows and today most apps are node and javascript, a much inferior platform but MS open things up too late.

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#106

Post by pentagrama » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:23 PM UTC

A bit off-topic, but this makes me wonder about the relationship between Microsoft and Wine. Do they consider it a threat? An ally? Both?

This is my first time seeing Microsoft acknowledge Wine's existence, and in this case, it was at least in a friendly manner? Or could there be bad faith behind this 'donation'?

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#107

Post by wtetzner » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:23 PM UTC

munchler wrote: post #81

kcb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mono can run old .NET framework applications directly.

OK, but that doesn't require any further changes to Mono. It should essentially be a read-only project going forward.

It won't get new features, but will likely require maintenance to keep it running as new versions of operating systems are released.

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#108

Post by kelnos » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

rgovostes wrote: post #94

I always assumed Microsoft did not condone Wine or other re-implementations of their APIs (like ReactOS), but that they were protected by DMCA reverse engineering provisions and anyway too insignificant to send the legal team after. Wikipedia says, > Until 2020, Microsoft had not made any public statements about Wine. ... On 16 February 2005, Ivan Leo Puoti discovered that Microsoft had started checking the Windows R…

I think Microsoft has finally realized that its animus toward projects like Wine and pre-acquisition Mono was ultimately unproductive, and a net negative for Microsoft itself.

I still don't trust MS's motives in general, but I think they at least recognize that Wine/Proton helps make the Win32 and DirectX APIs a sort of de-facto cross-platform standard when it comes to things like desktop gaming, and that this is a good thing for them.

On the server side, MS knows that Linux is by far the most popular server OS, and official support for running .NET backend apps on Linux from MS themselves is a win for them as well.

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#109

Post by matthewbauer » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #22

rickcarlino wrote: post #12

I feel like I’m missing some context here. Is this a “free as in take this puppy” situation? How do the wine developers benefit from this?

How has ’free as in puppies’ not reached its rightful place on the podium?

I guess this is in the context of "free as in beer" and "free as in speech".

Re: Microsoft donates the Mono Project to the Wine team

#110

Post by voytec » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

Is this a "dropped on community" project like Borg/Kubernetes fiasco with most PRs ending up in the following, and just corpo-sponsored changes and patches getting through?

> The Kubernetes project currently lacks enough active contributors to adequately respond to all issues.