Unlike the Monopologists in this Article who are incredibly shortsighted and apparently don’t have a mind for history, I readily see why Mono is a bomb and Microsoft is giddily waiting for 2012 to detonate it.

There is nothing. NOTHING. Nothing is stopping Microsoft from shooting Mono and anything that uses it out of the sky. Not the ECMA, not the ISO. Not the community “promise” PR Microsoft pulled to lull gullible fools LIKE the Monopologists into thinking they won’t sue, ignoring the fact that: 1. Standardization is not indemnification. The ECMA can’t stop Microsoft should they choose to detonate the Monobomb. 2. Even if 1 is untrue, the sad, cold fact is that the ECMA standard covers scant little about the .NET CLI. 3. Because the ECMA standard covers very little, and that a great deal of the .NET CLI is indeed patented, there’s little safe in Mono. 4. Re-emphasize, there is nothing. Not one thing, that has the authority to stop Microsoft from abusing their own patents and their own “open” standard. 5. The community “promise” is a public relations stunt and anyoen with a brain stem could easily see that Microsoft has no intention of honoring it on the long term. There *will* be a lawsuit over something they “promised” they wouldn’t sue over. Whether it’s .NET related or not is irrelevant. 6. Mono is only legitimately used from a Novell platform in accordance with their agreement with Microsoft. 7 Mono *does* have patented code in it, which is one of the reasons why it is specifically covered by the agreement with Microsoft. That is why only Novell platforms can legitimately use Mono. 8. Even if the community “promise” is indeed a real binding contract (It isn’t. Totally unenforcible, even through class action.), Microsoft’s history is littered with parties they breached contract on AND GOT AWAY WITH IT. IBM, Apple, SpyGlass. Sound familiar? The “promise” isn’t stopping Microsoft from patent trolling at all.

The Monopologists have no memory for history, either. Perhaps they’ve forgotten that Microsoft *has* pulled this crap in the past.

Honestly I didn’t know about the code availability when I wrote that post. I still believe is worthwhile though to make the point I made. I am as well happy that the Ubuntu technical board has endorsed my and others position.

Mono is great for those that want to use it. Please port iFolder to whatever you want to use and I will be more than happy to endorse your project.

On a side note: I have never used DropBox, but would love to do it since its functionality is great!

I’m happy I tricked you into jumping on this discussion. Your arguments are convincing and I like people discussing things. And for that to happen you got to be a little bit more provocative than not.

And, so… thanks for the laugh!

R.

>>I agree with paul…what is the problem with Java now?

Paul and Phil:
Someone needs to write jNote or some killer java apps for Linux. Problem is, for all the talk about java being open source, most java code is still running on proprietary JDKs.

I have no idea what java’s problem was. Life would be a lot simpler if java had lived up to its promise (this thread wouldn’t exist). It enjoyed a 10 year head start, was taught at most universities, but for whatever reason, couldn’t gain traction. I know java was “supposed” to be faster than mono. But from from the perspective of both developer and end-user, it was just a pain. Maybe Oracle will do a better job than SUN.

For me its C/C++, python, or C#. I’ve been doing a lot of SWIG stuff lately, which works really well in C#. There are a lot of useful jar files still floating around out there, which are easily exposed in C# via IKVM.

Crusades were rather nasty attempts to enforce own convicition upon groups with a different perspective. If you choose to use such terminology, at least include som logic. If you use “crusade” in the context of OpenSource/Gnu/Linux Vs Microsoft it’s rather obvious that you use the term wrongly.

“Crusades” were historic events, and if you imply historic arguments you cannot do so without including the historic basis of this issue at question:

The Embrace, Extend and Extinguish strategy of Microsoft, a part of their battleplan against OpenSource and Gnu/Linux.

I do not have any difficulty at all getting my stuff done without .net and silverlight and do not foresake anything whatsoever.

Your insinuate that anyone that are awake and critical are “insane/mad/stupid” and I do not give in to such obvious and unintelligent debate teqniques.

Yo do not provide a single sensible argument, reference or source that makes it reasonable to reconsider my position.

As you yourself wrote, Jacob, a crusade without any evidence.

It is just sad that the continued dominance of Microsoft seems to have scarred the souls of some of Linuxers to bad that they get anxious, paranoid and all panicky so easily.

Get a life, folks!

As for Silverlight, it is just another sorry attempt by Microsoft to set standards that they will break once everybody switches over to it. It is all about keeping the competition off balance to give them unfair advantage and Gnome and Novell are playing into their hands, like amateurs.

Obviously I do NOT use Mono or Moonlight and will never use any application that relies on them no matter how good they may be. Gnome has introduced us to an unnecessary evil that came from the unholy alliance between Novell and Microsoft that has produced little benefit to Novell, but has done much damage to Linux.

I used to run SUSE, but will never install it again and hope that Novell goes under. They caved in rather than standing up for Linux (as other distros did) and as such are a sell out and do not deserve any respect.

This is mild compared to how I really feel.

The results, ordered by decreasing performance, were as follows:

1. JRuby on Linux or Windows
2. MRI 1.9 on Windows (possibly that good due to VS9)
3. MRI 1.9 on Linux
4. 1.8 on Linux or Windows, Iron Ruby on Windows.
5. Iron Ruby on Mono on Linux.

1, 2, 3, and 4 demonstrated nearly linear performance degradation while 5 was exceptionally slow.

Now I believe that Mono is either not ready for prime time yet or has been created in order to demonstrate how greener the Windows grass is.

I’m well aware of Novell contributions – after all I’ve been a customer purchasing the merchandise. You are absolutely right, I don’t like it and I don’t use it. That does not in any way limit my right to express my opinion and it does not invalidate any of my concerns.

Just to make it clear:
Comments in relation to blogs are expressed opinions and one objective is to provide more than one point of view which in turn may or may not provide a better base for forming opinions.

I deeply resent your usage of the term “paranoia” in this context. Paranoia is a medical term used to define symptoms arising out of mental illness or mental distrubances. It is deeply offencive, not to me, but to those actually suffering from such symptoms – ie victims of torture/abuse and soliders with post-traumatic-syndrome.

The only effect of such expressions is that it make whatever else you write less relevant.

@ Robert Devi:
It is not what’s going to happen. It my position on what’s the potential risk, what COULD happen and explains my reasons for being cautious.

I do not view Mono (isolated) as a risk, but it appears to be the chosen tool of what I consider disturbing. Therefore I will not be a part of “the success story” as part of the user base/stats.

Gnote/Tomboy is a kind of a general wakeup call, and some of the reactions to Gnote from Mono devotees just make me more resilient.

The debate on Clutter Vs Qt and Gnome Vs KDE should probably be addressed somewhere else, but it’s not the make-up that makes KDE interesting, that’s just a perk. Gnome is indeed a valuable DE and my concerns are only related to Mono as a vehicle for Microsoft through Novell.

As for catching up with KDE, it’s simply not in GNOME’s philosophy to make a dramatic platform switch. Even GNOME 3.0 will be backwards source compatible with any GNOME 2.28 app that doesn’t depend on depreciated libraries. This doesn’t mean that GNOME is stagnating, it simply means that changing the core from C with a smattering of C++ to any other language is just not the GNOME way. WRT GNOME Shell, it’s written with Clutter which is from my understanding a more advanced graphics framework than KDE 4.0 is built on. Yes, the KDE 4.0 GUI is more advanced, but it appears that the GNOME team now has the right platform to grow without breaking backwards compatibility, so they can “catch up” once KDE 4.0 “settles” as all platforms do as they mature. They’ll do it gradually with user input so that they’ll get it right. I’m not sure I’ll like GNOME Shell yet, but given current work:
http://www.geektechnica.com/2009/05/the-future-of-gnome-de-looks-promising/
it’s clear that the GNOME team are look is looking at old problems a new way and might actually succeed in replacing the two panel staple of GNOME 2.0 with a more advanced desktop that makes panel shortcuts and virtual desktops and other valuable features more intuitive for non-techies (who seem to avoid them). If it succeeds, then GNOME will have little to fear from KDE since it’ll be hitting its target audience which cares more for getting things done simply than getting glitz done flexibly.