When Miguel de Icaza, the founder of Gnome and Gnumeric among other things, told TheRegister some days ago that he would like to see Gnome 4.0 to be based on Mono (a free .NET re-implementation), a lot of people thought that he is “selling” Gnome to the Microsoft’s “evil .NET” technology. Miguel says that it ain’t so and he has written a long reply answering to both the Gnome community and RMS himself. Miguel explains that Mono is just a free re-implementation of a proprierty technology (that Microsoft pushes enough to make it the ‘de facto’ standard in the years to come, so the Unix world should catch up), just as Linux was a free re-implementation of AT&T’s proprierty UNIX, therefore people should look deeper to the facts before they start complaining without having done their research first.
Miguel de Icaza Explains His Gnome .NET Plans
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
RMS is way more evil than MS.
(He also happens to be the creator of Emacs and therefore my mortal enemy)
I really hope Miguel can pull this off. .NET is very exciting stuff.
Yes, it seems to me like Miguel is the only sane “leader” in the GNU/Linux community. He is the only one who speaks about design flaws in Linux and Unix in general (his “let’s make Linux not suck!” is a must-read) and is ready to fix them. If Mono is a good way to do that, why not? Just by using technology Microsoft designed, you don’t depend on them.
It’s sad to see that GNU/Linux is in the eyes of many people defined by being “anti-Microsoft” instead of “pro-technology”.
Although there isn’t a direct one-for-one comparison, I think that the mono project may go the way of the Kaffe project. .NET is not some baseline that’s been around for 20 years, and hence isn’t apt to change greatly or evolve greatly in the near term (as say Unix and X-Window is). Since the Mono team needs to chase a moving target, that will continually be adding new features year by year, they will always be way behind the eightball…just as the Kaffe project is.
Both Kaffe and Mono were quick to write a runtime environment. That’s the relativelry easy part. The problem comes in with rewriting all the support API’s from scratch. Considering the mountain of engineers that are developing .NET code, I think this is as futile as Kaffe implmeneting the clean room JDK.
It would be great if Microsoft allowed the licensing of the .NET source ,like Sun did. I won’t hold my breath though.
I’m all for not using MS technology, but not at the detriment to sound business decisions. It just sucks that Microsoft seems to be on top of the ball at the end of the day.
Also where can I find “Let’s Make Linux Not Suck?”
I don’t see how Microsoft would have any control over anything when Gnome goes the Mono way. GNU/Linux has been using other people’s technologies since forever and it never became dependant on anything.
Here’s “Let’s make Unix not suck” (sorry, I wrote Linux in my first post – my bad).
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html
the technology is independant of the APIs…….
if the MS APIs are to difficult to follow, Miguel will most likly give up on the Compatability of APIs idea and just use the technology for what it is with APIs that are gnome centric……
it is still a great development platform, even without the API compatability.
if in the future, the community wants API compatability with MS .NET applications, then WINE can take that on.
this may infact though make it easier to have applications writen cross platform because new APIs that are created by ISVs can be writen in a way that makes them usable to all platforms and not just Windows.
so to sum it all up,
the tech is still good and will be used with or without the windows compatability.
Hank, I couldn’t have put it better myself.
I am in the early stages of a .NET project at work, and I am basically impressed so far. It looks like they did their homework, and wrote a fairly clean framework.
BUT, I am scared crapless of using Mono in any project, especially one as important as Gnome. I am terrified that MS is going to pull some intellectual property nonsense, patent some key parts of .NET that cannot be worked around, and sue anyone who doesn’t license their technology (although I’m sure such a license will not be made available to the open-source community).
I would run away from any MS intellectual property as fast as I can!
You guys don’t understand.
C# and the CIL are standards that anyone is free to implement without having anything to do with Microsoft. They’re like http or PNG: Someone invented it, but he has no control whatsoever about what /you/ do with it. Gnome using Mono is the “embrace and extend”-strategy – except that it’s this time not Microsoft who’s using other people’s technologies.
Stew the CIL is based on open standards, and therefore easy to implement. Which is why Mono has already done this. However when the CIL gets a call from any of the attached languages to draw a window, open a socket, et cetera, it has to know how to map all these things to the local system. This part of the system, especially on the GUI side, is going to be an enormous undertaking. Furthermore, without having the source code for the Windows implementation, you either have to decompile the code (which would open up for intellectual property issues) or clean room the implementation.
Kaffe chose to clean room their Java implementation, and look where they are. As their web page says as of today, “Kaffe mostly complies with JDK 1.1, except for a few missing parts. Parts of it are already JDK 1.2 (Java 2) compatible.” Which means it hasn’t even fully implemented the Java API from the mid-90’s, and hasn’t even really got their implementation up to where java was in mid 1999. The JDK ports which are based off of Sun source however abound on many operating systems, and can be kept current. Hence OS X has a 1.3 JDK released and a 1.4 JDK internally.
Without the source base, I believe any attempt to do the same thing for .NET will suffer the same fate as Kaffe has.
on the Kaffe problem, a quote from the article:
”
What if we never can keep up?
There is the issue that we might not be able to keep up (right
now, we dont, as .NET Framework 1.0 is already out there, and we
are, well still underway). Also, theoretically there is the risk
of a given API being unimplementable on Unix.
Even if that is the case, we still win, because we would get
this nice programming environment, that althought might not end up
being 100% .NET Framework compatible, it would still be an
improvement and would still help us move forward. So we can reuse
all the research and development done by Microsoft on these ideas,
and use as much as we can.
So far all it seems like everything in .NET can be emulated in
our environment.
”
[end quote]
The main motivation for Gnome/Mono is having the CLI and the language independance that comes with it. It doesn’t seem to me like compatibility to Windows is that important to them – in contrast to Kaffe which had to be compatible to the JDK all the time.
.NET may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Let’s just take a look at what MS has done to HTML or Java — non-standard extensions that cause nothing but compatibility problems, but MS still wins because their platform is the one with biggest market share.
If Gnome uses .NET technologies, they are legitimizing MS’s work, helping them make a non-standard standard. And, as another poster mentioned, if MS does the old bait-and-switch and starts changing things…well, little reason to deploy on Linux, since “.NET is broken on Linux”.
If Miguel chose .NET for purely technical reasons, let’s take a look at the other frameworks that were considered and rejected. Why not just use XML-RPC? You have a completely standard way of communicating with the freedom to choose any language to implement in, as well as the ability to define Gnome-specific methods.
I think that Miguel is the king of Gnome and if wants to re-write the whole damn thing in BASIC thats his decision. I also think RMS is the IT industries biggest windbag, and somebody needs to explain the difference between software and welfare to him, and that he does’t own everything that uses a GPL. If I were Miguel, I would not have even responded to him. Also, since I think Gnome sucks, I look forward to any changes.
If Mono is not trying to be 100% compatible with .NET, why did they choose to try to implement the .NET platform in the first place? Why not invent something new and completely open (and platform independant)? I mean, .NET is well designed and all, but it’s not THAT good. If some smart open source guys teamed up they would probably come up with something better. And it would be completely open.
If the whole VM thing is what you want, why go with Microsoft’s YASBOOM (Yet Another Stack Based Object Oriented Machine)? For example, a sane thing to do would be to make a RISC-like virtual machine. At least it could be JIT compiled to native code in a sensible way.
Would you buy baby food for your kids from Saddam Hussein? Would you invest your life savings with Enron? Would you buy tickets on Al-Quaeda airlines? No? Then why would you base your long-term open-source project’s infrastructure around Microsoft’s intellectual property? Some organizations are simply not trustworthy.
>> If some smart open source guys teamed up they would probably come up with something better. <<
Yes absolutely. The Free-as-in-stallman community is world renowned for its originality. Why, just look no further than Gnome itself!
Here is a quote from the ZDNet (UK) article that I read about Microsoft’s ECMA standardization announcement:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t356-s2100934,00.html
> Microsoft said the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA), an international technology standards
> organization, has ratified Microsoft’s C#, a Java-like programming language, along with a component of its .Net
> Web services framework called the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI).
> That means that C# and the CLI are now officially standards administered by ECMA. But Microsoft will retain control
> over who gets to license the technology and how it will be distributed, a company spokesman said.
That’s not enough reassurance for me. Not even close.
(BTW, the same article mentions Mono and iNet.)
Eugena,
The new layout is horrendous.
Surely there must be a better way.
OK, it just got alot better.
The invisible pixel hadn’t fully loaded yet and so the comments/stories column was way over to the right.
Looks fine now
I posted http://pclinuxonline.com:8080/article.php?sid=1383“>a at <a href=”http://pclinuxonline.com“>pclinuxonline.com further detailing this incident.
As much as I hate to say it, it seems as if the free software community will ultimately collapse under its own weight. While even a very slightly younger version of myself would completely write off such a statement as bunk, the even further fragmentation of open source efforts spurred forth by Miguel’s little pet project almost has proven it to me. Fork after fork, division after division, rooted solely in politics. Is this not what the community intended to avoid? There is no place for duplicate efforts when man time, let alone quality man time, is so valuable and limited.
I think Miguel is making a sound minded decision. Let’s face it: as of now, GNOME sucks. While it does a lot of things okay, the amount of code sharing and consistency amongst its applications–two of the most paramount tenets of good GUI application development–is minimal, and everything seems hacked together… countless libraries, let alone countless bindings thereof, all differing from one another slightly, creating a mess of code that’s well on track for what Microsoft’s pre-.NET APIs were. Miguel is right: Linux “sucks” (not really, of course), and, in order to take over the desktop, some significant redesigning and restructuring at the fundamental level is more than necessary. I applaud Miguel for the audacity to go in such a sure-to-outrage-the-blind-MS-haters direction, though I too question somewhat whether this was *the* best direction in which to go, though after reading his arguments for .NET as opposed to, say, Java, I’m beginning to be persuaded. Regardless, he has chosen it, and has invested considerable time. Unfortunately, his choice is likely to be rejected even without true intellectual consideration by the hordes of what often seem to be rabid pseudo-political posers with only a modicum of actual experience with software architecture, let alone a firm understanding of the complex political, economic, and social issues on which they claim to be experts.
In order to survive, the open source community must take a breath, and, for God’s sake, swallow some pride! The sheer pretentiousness of everything surrounding open source software these days is beginning to make me think about redirecting my efforts, and I know it is for many of my peers.
So much for altruism, huh RMS?
“.NET may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Let’s just take a look at what MS has done to HTML or Java — non-standard extensions that cause nothing but compatibility problems, but MS still wins because their platform is the one with biggest market share. ”
I have no problem with that. As long as the majority is leading the way, I prefere going forward, despite the fact it’s leaded by Microsoft, than sitting immobile, and avoiding any technology inovation (like many open-source OS does).
Yes microsoft changed the HTML standard by adding more extensions. That’s great ! Because anyway the majority of browsers in the worlds can support it (Explorer). It’s the task of the smaller number to follow the majority, not the other way around.
“The sheer pretentiousness of everything surrounding open source software these days is beginning to make me think about redirecting my efforts, and I know it is for many of my peers. ”
I totally agree. I’m a professional programmer that love to develop in my spare time. I think the whole Linux thing has become a kind of uncontrolable beast, blinded by his own rage against Microsoft.
Now, I solely code for OpenBeOS. Small community. Great pleasure, courtoisie and high friendship. And most importantly, we don’t code to hurt Microsoft. We code because it’s lot of fun.
I think the whole Linux thing has become a kind of uncontrolable beast, blinded by his own rage against Microsoft.
i think tanenbaum said that managing open source coders would be like herding cats. i’m of a different opinion: cats dont need to be herded if theyre already going in the right direction…
however, add in some little brats who have read C++ in 24 hours and think they know something and its a recipe for disaster.
so you cant really get anything done, because as soon as you get popular (‘cool’) you need to rein in…
/me takes a chill pill and feels much better…
You guys need to take off the blinders and look at the technology and motivation .NET will never work right except with C#(oh boy another c style language).
Miguel is a damn fool if he thinks microsoft is going to allow mono to ever be real competiton.Microsoft will give mono to mono.
A quote from Alan Cox;
“Be assured that the day they decide you are a nuisance the VM will acquire a patented neat feature that kills you off. Just ask the Samba people.”
Take some time and read this
http://www.javalobby.org/clr.html
Sun and Microsoft get into a pissing match over Java because Java is a threat to Bills monopoly. Sun sues, wins and Microsoft creates their own Java clone. Weeeeeee now everybody jumps on board to help.
Microsofts goal is to kill Java. Thats all they have in mind.
Opensource development is spinning off into insanity. I used to think mabey OSS could win… now pthhhhhhh, its all degenerated into politics and pissing contests.
Just wait Gnome will fork at least twice in the next year.
I find it interesting that I have not seen The Register pick up this story since I believe that it was their interview with Miguel de Icaza that started this and since he said that they had used a title that misquoted him
– joe
You are missing everything he said in the article……….
MS is not creating a new standard in what Miguel is reimplementing, it is trying to create a new way of developing.
Miguel likes that part of it……he does not want to make a passport workalike and a web services crapola….he just want to take the method of developing applications and make it part of GNOME……….that is it…no authentication, no services, just programming……..got it.
my god…people hear .NET and the sudenly think of the ways it is beinging used by MS, not the way it can be used by GNOME.
Personally I think RMS has done a ton for the software community. The GNU tools, emacs, bash and a ton of other utilities would not have existed if it wasn’t for him so he has my depest respect in that matter.
However he definitely lacks any business and social skills so all his amateurish attempts at politics make him look rather foolish. However as long as this doesn’t interfere with the great software he writes it really doesn’t bother me.
“the end is near” is correct. The ONLY goal Microsoft has with .NET is to destroy Java and make programmers come back to MS products. Just look at this:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/02/05/020205hnjump.xml?…
I think Miguel is pretty stupid if he thinks MS is gonna let him copy their platform and let .NET applications run perfectly on Linux. If (and thats a big if) he succeeds in creating a 100% .NET compatible platform, MS will try to destroy it with every possible method. But at the moment they are concentrating on crushing Java.
and Miguel said that if he does not get 100% compatability then oh-well………he wants to have the technology of language independance, not nessisaraly the .NET compatability, though he is trying, if he fails, it is not a big deal since the real value again is the Laguage independance.
Language independance is already here. Its called Java. I don’t even like Java but I can see Miguel is nuts. Why go to all the work to clone C# which is just a bad rip-off of Java. All Miguel needs to do is work with Sun and Java and he has the same things.
You can compile many languages now to Java byte code.
Python, and Ada95 both compile to Java byte code.
“I think Miguel is pretty stupid if he thinks MS is gonna let him copy their platform and let .NET applications run perfectly on Linux.”
I don’t think so. You said it yourself: Microsoft want to crush Java. Java being cross-platform (and one of his major strenght), then it’s a non-sense to say Microsoft will close .NET to Windows platform only.
In fact IMHO they *WANT* their standard to be adopted by everyone.
No, I really like language independence, but why use .NET
for this? It’s just a JVM-like interpreted engine, instead
of which I could just write x86 code or for some other
Hardware, but with _my_ optimizations, etc…
(even with JIT, these virtual machines are slow, and garbage collections _does_ need a multiple of the actual amount of memory used to get performance.
Go figure…
I don’t want to buy a new PC just because everyone today says, memory is cheap. I use a notebook, and will not afford an upgrade just for new resource suckers.
“In fact IMHO they *WANT* their standard to be adopted by everyone”
Ha…..” standard” thpppppppppppppppppppppppppppp. What “standard” would that be exactly?
Microsoft will not allow the key .Net technology to run on non windows platforms. Microsoft has fought legally and ilegally to maintain their applications barrier to entry. Tell me why Microsoft would go to all this work if people could write C# apps that would run anywhere? They fought with Sun over Java to pevent this exact thing from happening. If applications can run anywhere on anything then windows becomes dead. There will be hidden key patents protecting .Net from ever getting away from Microsoft. Thus C# will end up a complete waste of time to even consider in light of Java.
Take a look at this page. We don’t need mono.
http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de/~tolk/vmlanguages.html
If you think that C# is just a bad ripoff of Java, then you obviously haven’t coded in it.
-G
I haven’t had time to fool with it much yet, but if you look at the newsgroups for it, .NET is generating a lot of excitement with programmers. They LIKE it! If you don’t, then just don’t make the mistake on counting on the weakness of your opponent. .Net is formidable, and Windows is dominant.
No offence, but if someone can’t program, he shouldn’t criticize a new development technology. And I recognize lots of people here which don’t program, just by watching their replies. That’s really sad.
“Microsoft will not allow the key .Net technology to run on non windows platforms. ”
I still not agree.
First Microsoft tried to adapt Java to their vision. They legally failed against Sun. So they needed an other way to accomplish this vision: creating an opposition to Java that fill the SAME needs, C#.
This is simple: Java is cross-plateform, but under legal control by Sun. Microsoft want a cross-plateform C#, but under legal control by themself. This way, they start at the Java level, but can make it evolute as THEY think is the best.
I’m not a web developer, but have somes friends in the fields. And they **ALL** agree that .NET is an very great *REVOLUTION* saying that making a web site is now totally different and much much more positive.
That’s it. A Revolution. And Miguel is one of the few in the open-source world that is not totally close-minded, and know when to get inspiration from his opponent.
“And I recognize lots of people here which don’t program, just by watching their replies. ”
hehe me too. Until today, I don’t know any programers (on and off line) that disliked .NET when they really digged in it. There’s tons of excitement about the new technologie….
.NET is technically a good platform (heck, they copied most of it from Java so why wouldn’t it be?). But that’s not the issue here. M$ wants only one thing: all users must run Windows and Windows only. Why would they let someone run .NET applications on Linux? It doesn’t make sense.
Btw, I’m a experienced Java and C++ programmer and I’ve read the .NET specs.
I read a story on C|Net talking about how C# allows unsafe code but to run it you need a security code. it is almost such a PITA to use that you almost do not want to use the Unsafe feature acording to a /. poster, infact he said that he went out of his way to program around his need for the Unsafe code.
then another person pointed out how Java just does not let you code in such a mannor.
well I had a thought. how can we trust that MS will have a secure CLI/CLR that will not allow a cracker to gain root access to be able to run unsafe code on the network. were Java just does not let you write such code and keeps all memory overwrites confined to the VM buffer, there for making Java secure, MSs way of handling security is again messy.
Heck, open source mean freedom of choice. Why we are arguing on something that’s freedom.
I don;t care whether it’s from Microsoft or not. Why do I need to be force to use Java instead? If you prefer java, then use it.. Miguel prefer c# then let him do as he wish.. it’s freedom afterall.
I don;t care whether in a year or so there’ll be 2 branch of GNOME, one with mono and one not. As long as any of them functional well, i mean usable and workable ( easier to program ), I will use it.
It’s also good for Miguel if he think his thought is right by implementing Mono-GNOME. It can be a proof to what he say today.
I hate seeing peoples in open source community arguing each other just to force others to think like themselves. If you like something, it doesn’t mean other should like what you like.
Hmmm…..more slashdottedness and ad hominem attacks. I’m at a loss as to why anyone needs to explain themselves to anyone about where they want to take the project they started, maintain, and generally guide.
If RMS, who’s importance is greatly exagerated, wants non-MS compatible codes and technologies, then he is welcome to take the GNOME code and do with it as he wishes. Its under the GPL, so he’s free to modify it any way he likes. If he wants to paint LINUX into a incompatibility corner, let him do it and rail against the world.
The fact is, MS is moving their technologies towards greater integration, compatibility (with other windows related systems anyway), and usability. This is being driven on two fronts: the developers, who are trying to code for diverse networks, and the users, who just want their MP3 player to plug and play into their desktop. The fact that Gates and Co. are smart enough to realize the direction the market is going in and introduce their own proprietary code to give the Microsoft solution for those needs is just good business.
.Net is the latest of these technologies, and since there are numerous reports of Microsoft’s plans for the technologies, I commend Miguel for advocating the use of the Mono project, which will gain a much needed advocate. Gnome will hopefully get past the morass of code that currently powers its diverse appliations, and become a more integrated and programmer friendly desktop environment as a result of the use of mono.
There seems to be alot of linux FUD these days, as if those who do not hold the non-Microsoft part line are the enemy. The fact is that Microsoft, its technologies, and its users are soemthing that the open source community will have to deal with, and interact with. I think that the switch to .net compatible systems merely reflects reality.
Miguel-hold the line! We need more free thinkers like you and your team out there, and alot less propaganda. I just hope that RMS and company do not win the day and force linux into irrelevance!
Ummm… What are you talking about? RMS supports the .NET framework, since it is now an open standard. The http://dotgnu.org“>DotGNU is based on the .NET framework. He has even written that http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23978.html“>he seeing this technology in GNOME.
Bah!
That is BS, the only reason why they are pushing .NET is that they are striving to become a even bigger player with the “WebServices thingy application subscription thingy”.
If you can download and use a webservice component for say, a rich text editor window, you can have all your application needs filled by simply subscribing on them from the internet. This is their clear intention. Having Linux running .NET will only mean that instead of using some semi-buggy free alternative to the same application, I can have the option of using the MS subscription version that will provide a lot more stable environment. The only catch will be that some very usable features of the application will rely on some Windows specific .NET components.
If you think that MS is company “that plays nice” you are in for a big shock ’cause they aren’t. The second they perceive GNOME, or Mono or whatever as a threat they’ll get royally fschkd.
Yeah, sure, it’s Miguels free choice to use .NET but we have all the right in the world vent our opinions too.
Unsafe declared code will be executed just on Local zone, means you have to download and save it to disk to get it executed. This is the only zone where it works. On Intranet zone and up it throws an exception. And oh, the Outlook preview window is also at least Intranet zone, so it will throw an error there too, just if anyone tries to roll up this topic. If anyone does download and run a malicious tool, it’ll be the persons own fault. I don’t understand it by now why people need to click every link labelled “Download this marvellous tool” in mails or other gay-ass and/or terribly ugly website a la Evidence Eliminator.
What MS should have implemented tho is a property sheet in the Control Panel with a checkbox to completely disable the execution of unsafe code (for these all-link-clicking folk mentioned before).
in that vein, I think that anyone who wants to DL unsafe code should have to get it signed by the system administrator before they can use it…..just like in UNIX!!!!! 🙂
I mean, it should at least be an option for the SYS Admin to impliment.
I think it’s implemented. At least the papers mention that multiple times, myself I just didn’t check for it yet. On domain servers with the .NET Framework I remember to have seen a .NET Framework Wizard and a .NET Framework Manager… well, don’t remember the names anymore, but it was something that way.
http://www2.fit.qut.edu.au/CompSci/PLAS//ComponentPascal/