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Why Mono doesn't suck

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Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#61
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a cost. Many IT people/developers like to think otherwise but to do so is truly delusional and can be a roadblock to career advancement.

If IT is only a cost, and not a competitive advantage, then your company doesn't need IT in house and should outsource entirely.

Being considered a cost and providing a competitive advantage are not mutually exclusive. An IT department that meets its goals at a lower cost than an alternative could be a competitive advantage.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#63
post #39
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the point. They already have market. Most Corporate Networks run on Windows Servers. What Mono does is allow those Windows shops with their .Net experienced developers to start experimenting with and hopefully integrating Linux. Without having to change the language and framework they've standardized on. In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono.

"In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono." No, it doesn't. For internal development you have a wide variety of options. Java is quite good and very popular among those who consider the option of not running their wares under Windows. The only way Mono can appeal to Windows-only houses is by making it possible to run unmodified (and proprietary) products that run under Windows on other platform…

I strongly suspect that it would be much easier to port existing .NET code to Mono than it would be to port it to Java. I also suspect than any .NET team wanting to experiment with Linux or Unix would probably prefer to learn Mono's quirks than an entirely new language.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#64
post #18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are two parts to the Linux community. One part sees Linux as a legitimate tool they can use to bring down costs while maintaining stability. The other sees this as some kind of holy war and is really just using Linux to act like drama queens." Do you really think that the stability, low cost and quality of Open Source software is independent of the Free Software ideology? If I was being as derisive as you are…

There's an old saying, "BSD is for people who love Unix, Linux is for people who hate Microsoft".

Actually BSD is for people that love BSD (some would even say LSD ;)), Plan 9 is for people that understood and loved Unix before it died.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#65
post #39
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the point. They already have market. Most Corporate Networks run on Windows Servers. What Mono does is allow those Windows shops with their .Net experienced developers to start experimenting with and hopefully integrating Linux. Without having to change the language and framework they've standardized on. In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono.

"In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono." No, it doesn't. For internal development you have a wide variety of options. Java is quite good and very popular among those who consider the option of not running their wares under Windows. The only way Mono can appeal to Windows-only houses is by making it possible to run unmodified (and proprietary) products that run under Windows on other platform…

"as it is, Mono is a patent minefield"

Can you provide the patent numbers of the specific patents you had in mind, or otherwise provide a source for why you think this is the case?

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#66
post #23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old saying, "BSD is for people who love Unix, Linux is for people who hate Microsoft".

I've heard it, and I personally use OpenBSD much more than I use Linux. There's a whole different discussion to be had about the differences between the BSD and Linux models, and why Linux has soared and the BSDs have not. At any rate, I suspect that, despite recent fireworks on the OpenBSD mailing lists, Stallman and Theo de Raadt agree much more fundamentally about the threat posed by patents and licensing than, sa…

While I generally agree, I find Theo's positions much more consistent an principled than RMS's, although to Stallman's credit he gave the FSF award to Theo some years back for all the amazing work the OpenBSD people have done on opening up hardware specs and so on.

Theo is also contrary to general opinion a really cool and friendly guy, and often (but not always) when he acts like a jerk is because somebody deserves it.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#67
post #38
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this was the best bit: >Mono implements an international standard albeit one from a convicted monopolist. If this is a problem, why do people use C, the standard from convicted monopolist AT&T? Mono implements an improved, Free replacement for a proprietary offering. If this is a problem, why do people use GNU (which provided an improved, Free replacement for proprietary UNIX)?

I never realized AT&T was in a smear campaign against the use of competing C implementations. Mono implements a _subset_ of a proprietary offering that is Free (as in speech and beer). GNU is pretty much a greatly enhanced superset of AT&T UNIX.

> GNU is pretty much a greatly enhanced superset of AT&T UNIX.

I know many people that would question your claim that GNU 'enhanced' the work of Bell Labs, more like the opposite, but then they were certainly not alone in that.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#68
post #53

Mono lets me write stuff in C# to run on Linux. What's not to like?

C#?

There are probably hundreds of open and free languages out there better than C# that can run under pretty much any platform under the sun.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#69

Mono comes from the same makes-Linux-slow team as the people who "gifted" us with Gnome. Who are these guys really working for?

I will quote Al Viro (IMHO the best Linux kernel hacker by far):

    Yeah... "Infinitely extendable API" and all such. Roughly translated as "we
    can't live without API bloat". Frankly, judging by the GNOME codebase people
    who designed the thing [GNOME] are culturally incompatible with UNIX.

Re: Why Mono doesn't suck

#70
post #22
post #2

It's a good article though I'd go so far as to say the piece it responds to isn't worthy of a response. Take this quote... "Nothing that comes from Microsoft can be for our good and benefit. They are dedicated to our destruction and downfall. Mono has infected Gnome. Ubuntu uses Gnome. I switched to Kubuntu and am happy with it. Now Moonlight is infecting Linux." There are two parts to the Linux community. One part s…

I thought this was the best bit: >Mono implements an international standard albeit one from a convicted monopolist. If this is a problem, why do people use C, the standard from convicted monopolist AT&T? Mono implements an improved, Free replacement for a proprietary offering. If this is a problem, why do people use GNU (which provided an improved, Free replacement for proprietary UNIX)?

Mono implements a standard from a convicted monopolist who has a stake in dominating the market the standard affects.

AT&T was barred by consent decree from entering the computer industry. Unix and C were, by the standards of the day, practically given away, and AT&T couldn't use the control over these they had to unfairly outcompete other companies.

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