In Miguel de Icaza’s latest blog entry the Mono project leader discusses the threat Longhorn’s new technologies and frameworks pose to Linux and open source. He also directs uses to this recent USENET post about the goals of Mozilla, which is a very interesting read.
Miguel de Icaza on Longhorn
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
Follow me on Mastodon @[email protected]
How many thousand bucks icaza is getting paid from microsoft?
Icaza is forgetting the FS/OSS community and paying attetion and time for these propietary software from microsoft. This will cause a great infection in FS/OSS with his mono project, a project based on a propietary software.
wow – do you even know what you are talking about at all … even a little? everything you mentioned is either wrong or really wrong.
Not bloody likely. He’s doing more to make Microsoft’s new technologies a non-MS lock-in than almost anyone else. And he works for Novell, which is the biggest threat to Microsoft out there, second to no one in my eyes, not even IBM.
It would be more constructive if you’d atleast explain why Tux is wrong. I mean it’s easy enough to tell somebody they are wrong, but I mean if you know what your talking about maybe you’d like to explain what your talking about.
I really like the concept of the Mono project. I do say concept, even though it is a workable platform already for a lot of .NET.
But I’m pretty worried. Yes, there is a certain portion of .NET that is patent free and based on open standards. However, there is quite a good chunk that is patent entangled. I believe it is a lot of the ADO and web services stuff. One of the Mono guys (may be Miguel) has a picture showing which ones are and aren’t patent entangled.
So picture this… 5 years down the line, Mono is a 100% implementation of .NET and people start ditching their Windows servers for a free Linux one since it can run all of their .NET applications.
Microsoft lets them get away with it, for a while. Then they go SCO on everyone’s ass and wants license fees for their IP. Or, I’m sure they’d “conveniently” offer them the cheaper route to go back to windows.
Such a scenario seems very fesable.
This is great news. The first task in over coming a problem is defining it. After reading the blog entry and the newsgroup thread, I have all the faith that people out there know about this coming challeneg well enough to define it well.
What this leads us to is the idea of integrating projects. I believe we need a lot more integration between projects because synergies then develop. To take one example: When MS integrated IE into the interface, and created a web-like OS GUI, everyone went up in arms, including the courts. Now even KDE has this “hover to select, single click” interface with all of the associated advantages (the least of which is that some users like it better.)
So the question is now which pieces are we going to integrate into our trump card? Let the political shows begin!!! Heck, it seems they’ve started.
This is really the killer tech. The ability to have rich clients embedded in the browser(or not), but be served up remotely(or not) is the future. Either the open source people come up with something to compete with it or be left in the dust. Java could’ve been that, but obviously Microsoft wasn’t going to let it happen.
SO Miguel says the statement “when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS win” is wrong.
Let’s see… later on the article he says that Avalon/XAML/Whatever is going to be The Thing, and he says (not with these words exactly) that if we stay outside, we’re pretty lost.
Well, isn’t that exactly what the previous statement says? “when MS gets to define the game, they always win”. Just take a look at all those web pages that right now only works with IE. Now imagine how it’s going to be when webpages (or should i say “web applications”?) will be written with these Avalon/XAML technologies.
It’s pretty clear, Microsoft wants to own the Web, and we should not encourage this.
Victor.
that 2/3 of the web does not run on MS software.
Adam Scheinberg writes…
Not bloody likely. He’s doing more to make Microsoft’s new technologies a non-MS lock-in than almost anyone else.
Yeah it’s pay back for not hiring him, when Icaza applied at MS.
I fail to see how implementing XAML/Avalon and .Net in Mono is not letting Microsoft define the game. Did MS just make Avalon/.Net an open specification that the open source developes can reimmplement?
Only the CLR and C# are standards AFAIK.
You people just don’t get it. It’s all about rich clients and easy deployment. Miguel does get it. Business people aren’t fanboys like you people. They want something that works for developers and is easy to deploy. XAML and Avalon will give them that. So you can cry and moan about Miguel being a Microsoft sycophant or you can get behind something that the Mozilla folks are talking about or some alternative.
Do people think that they’re perceived as ‘cool’ when they say stuff like the first poster, or is it just some kind of slashdork, groupthink braindamage? Bahh, let the fanboys customize their fvwm desktops until their blue in the face.
He has reason: M$ is trying to lock-in your users. But implementing Mono and other MS technologies is to play the game defined by MS, no ?
Play the game defined by enemy is not a smart choice to win him.
Linux needs to define another equivalent (the same ideas but not the same languages and implementation details) technologies. Why not use Mozilla’s XUL, Cairo for vector display, Java and C++ for programming languages, etc ? Why learn C# if there are many programming languages ?
Miguel and Ximian are reasons why I prefer the KDE pragmatism over Gnome. KDE use the best toolkit and a subset of C++ to make a consistent, fast (when compared with Gnome) and good-looking desktop environment.
I thik Miguel would like to work for MS instead of Novell because he loves MS way of business and programming.
You are correct, only the c#, CLR, and the BCL(Base Class Libraries)…and maybe a few other things are standards. ASP.NET, ADO.NET, winforms and some other microsoft specific stuff are not included.
IMO, someone is going to have to come up with an open standard that competes with Avalon/XAML and then a _whole_ bunch of people are going to have get behind that. Because if you go down the road of implementing XAML/Avalon and that becomes a defacto standard then Microsoft ends up owning the web, unless some government body decides no dice on that.
Some says “wait some years, mono will be great..” wake up dude, java is doing everything fine now in linux, in mac, in windows in BSD, in solaris ..in everywhere..
I fail to see how implementing XAML/Avalon and .Net in Mono is not letting Microsoft define the game. Did MS just make Avalon/.Net an open specification that the open source developes can reimmplement?
Only the CLR and C# are standards AFAIK.
Agreed.
Victor.
Hearing some comments makes me feel like going to the dentist. Even the mere mention of mono ends up in some huge patent this, patent that argument.
No matter what any of anyone says here, Microsoft is going to get a huge following by developers. From a development standpoint it’s pretty easy to see why: they make the best development stuff out there right now. Like Torvalds said, the best thing Microsoft has is VB. What is so great about it? It’s easy! Now Microsoft is taking this even further with their entire line of technologies. So even if Miguel is obsessed with MS as people say then I would say he’s pretty darn smart. Microsoft has a very long history of taking existing technologies and making them better (with a little dose of proprietary in there). Why not do the same? Why not take .net stuff, build in a ton of open source technology, and end up with a better, cheaper, platform-independant technology?
I get sick of discussing patents but I’ll go into this direction one more time:
Let’s say, like so many people say we should do, there is this big community who unites to make this killer .net-killing super language thing. Do you really believe that it will be patent free? If so you aren’t that aware of how patents are in the US and some other countries. Look at this bogus guy hitting MS with this browser patent! No matter what, anyone who develops a piece of software is bound to, unless it’s about 10 lines of code, infringe on someone’s rediculous patent. It might infringe in .net stuff a lot more! In this case we at least have Microsoft volunteering part of their product, that certainly makes it harder to sue in that case. As for the stuff that is in the questionable territory? Well if Microsoft really did sue five years down the road there are at least laws that say you aren’t supposed to just sit on a patent (something that will be raised with this jpeg issue).
Lastly even if mono had to remove certain other parts their goals would still largely be intact. They have a very easy development platform on linux, it makes porting windows stuff much easier, and it will be easy for Windows only programmers to pick up and start developing for Linux.
Mono will contain a slew of stuff that is not available to MS’s .net and with the rapid development of Open Source in general we can certainly hope to see a day when mono offers a lot more advantages than .net (the free tools and environment is just a starting point). This would certianly be the case sooner than later if a larger part of the community started believing that mono is for real.
I like the idea of embracing and extending. Microsoft has SWF, we have GTK#, etc. For everything that is in the patent area mono has the equivalent or better for using Open Source (except ASP, I think there are efforts to let PHP play well with mono however). This is good to me. The same should be done with XAML, there should be an equivalent to it on the open soure. The other technolgies can be added for compatibility but it should always be encouraged and indeed, it only makes sense, to go with open source technologies.
Here’s an alternative that I’m working hard to promote:
I. Build cross-platform apps from the ground up, using Gecko, native
theme-based rendering, and good desktop/OS integration.
II. Promote these apps, starting now — think Mozilla-the-suite,
Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office — on Windows, especially in
enterprises that wish to avoid lock-in, virus hazards, and high license
fees.
III. Let those enterprises migrate to Linux if it makes sense, or defer
the hefty Longhorn upgrade tax by sticking with downrev Windows for as
many years as makes sense.
IV. At the same time, starting now and working closely with other open
source hackers, build a new, unified desktop/web application platform
from pieces of Mozilla and GNOME code, starting now. Share code and
effort; avoid big rewrites. Use standards where possible, including the
parts of XUL that are being specified now. This new platform might even
deserve the “Mozilla 2.0” title.
This new platform must include an advanced rendering layer with hardware
acceleration, fancy effects, animation, video, etc. We should use what
works now, with as much cross-platform leverage (OpenGL), filling in
gaps on some platforms, and again (always) avoid long-pole scheduling
dependencies where the entire subsystem must be rewritten.
Another characteristic of this new platform: high-level programming
language independence, with a good choice of “managed code” runtimes
(Java, Mono C#, JS2, …) for type-safe buffer-overrun-free programming.
We must not keep losing fingers and toes to C and C++; that approach
is a money loser compared to .NET.
A crucial features of this new platform: the GUI toolkit must be able to
blend in among native apps, at least on Windows and Linux, ideally on
Mac too. There should be a well-specified XML syntax and semantics for
creating user interfaces (XUL) and graphics (SVG or something like it,
but unified), and for composing tags from DOM trees (XBL). There must
be a low-cost migration path from XUL today to this future language.
I’ve been busy laying groundwork, building bridges between different
open source projects. It’s still too early to say exactly how things
will turn out. I don’t want to make promises that I can’t keep, and a
lot of planets have to align still. But there is interest among other
key projects’ leaders. I think a number of smart folks see the need for
alliance against the hegemon.
This platform play would address (5-6) by marrying, as much as allying,
GNOME, Mozilla, and perhaps Mono — bringing cross-platform code and
development to the Linux side, and native next-generation GNOME look and
feel to Mozilla. It would build something we’ve been unable to build in
a compelling or complete way by ourselves: a development platform for
arbitrary third party web and desktop apps.
The time frame for this plan is now, with working code by 2nd half of
this year. Otherwise we’re sliding into next year, in danger of being
too late to gain mindshare before Longhorn’s inevitability wins the day
for XAML, etc. So, if this is to succeed, we have major concurrent
development challenges ahead.
This guy gets it completely. But unless you get a _lot_ of people cooperating then nothing will ever come of it.
It seems to me that the radical idealism of the Free Software community is self-defeating. If Microsoft had never developed XAML/Avalon and OSS had, OSS would still most likely be unable to gain the widespread adoption that XAML/Avalon will have in the hands of Microsoft. Just look at XUL, which everybody is comparing XAML to. I think that furthering fragmenting the market XAML is appealing to by creating a seperate competing technology would be unwise, since OSS is not in a position to push that technology the way Microsoft is. Miguel seems to have the right idea: since Microsoft has the power to compel people to adopt XAML, OSS should prevent XAML from being a deciding factor for choosing Microsoft over OSS. Competing with XAML with an incompatible technology is not going to win the desktop market.
It seems to me that the radical idealism of the Free Software community is self-defeating.
You mean the “Linux” Community. Just about every BSD’er I know has no “ideals” — well, at least not in the same way, and definitely not at the expense of technology.
I don’t see how OSS can lose by just devoting one branch of development to apeing MS. As long as they can successfully skirt the patent issues, and develop fast enough to produce things as quickly as MS (which shouldn’t be so hard since less time will need to be spent on factoring and testing), OSS can beat Windows purely on price.
The other branch of development could go toward making technologies that are different from microsoft and would be the source of features which make the platform better than MS. This will be far better than the current state, in which linux is better in a few areas and seriously deficient in other areas.
and didn’t get the job… seems like he’s grown increasingly enamored with it.
Mono CANNOT be allowed to become a widely used development platform. If any ISV’s use it, they will surely use SWF and not GTK# for compatability with Windows. When Microsoft decides they have sufficient market pententration with .NET and they want to kill off any Mono apps (remember, MS says their NUMBER ONE threat is Linux), they will just break SWF compatability (deviate from ECMA standards..) Novell will be forever forced to play catch up… and fail, just like Sun did with MS’s JVM for a long time (yeah, so Sun eventually won, mostly because Microsoft didn’t care anymore, but it hamstrung Java for a LONG time..)
Mono is absolutely dangerous for the Linux community. I think Mozilla related technologies for the future are the absolute best way down the road.
What you are proposing is two things:
1) a browser based app-runner (your first 2 posts, which sounds a lot like all the other things that have come along eg: java, flash, ActiveX, etc, which promised to change the world profoundly (and unless you consider almost universal hatred profoundly, they haven’t succeded)) This is in my humble opinion the longest lived vaporware (beating duke nukem forever
)
2)A common api, which just happens to be capitalizing on Mozilla’s name & current development. This does make sense. And people should do it in much the way KDE does things such as kontact: build it up from componets (kmail, adressbook, calender, etc) you propose OpenGL etc, which is a good start. I think SDL, OpenGL, possibly OpenAL, and a generic widget set (currently there are really 4 highly used ones on Linux, 2 of which are special purpose (all 4 can run on windows as well): Qt, GTK, Mozilla’s, OpenOffice’s. I think that what needs to be done is have the platform do the widget rendering (ala KDE & OO: http://kde.openoffice.org/nwf/index.html, where KDE/Qt draw the actual widgets, implemented for all platforms.)
>>Mono CANNOT be allowed to become a widely used development platform. If any ISV’s use it, they will surely use SWF and not GTK# for compatability with Windows.
So you don’t think people will be allowed to install Gtk# w/ their applications and use that on Windows instead?
>>Mono is absolutely dangerous for the Linux community. I think Mozilla related technologies for the future are the absolute best way down the road.
Using something like XUL or Mozilla related technologies might be great to help compete with something like Avalon. If I want to develop something, and I am using .Net technology, I would like to have as many people be able to use it as possible. If I can create an application that I only really have to write the code once for (say C#/Gtk# or C#/XUL# or whatever) then I would prefer that. You just have to make it easy for the developer to use.
Don’t you just have an XAML => XUL XSLT? And vice versa? Isn’t the magic of XML supposed to be write once, transform anywhere?
I don’t know–I’m of the wierd opinion that XML makes sense for big, dumb, data, as in database results, but really kinda bites when applied to highly relational data.
But that’s just sleepless nights trying to figure out Apache Avalon-type products.
Why is no one pointing out the MS bogarting of this name?
“It seems to me that the radical idealism of the Free Software community is self-defeating.
You mean the “Linux” Community. Just about every BSD’er I know has no “ideals””
free software includes bsd too and linux community doesnt equate 1 to 1 to free software.
How many thousand bucks icaza is getting paid from microsoft?
Icaza is forgetting the FS/OSS community and paying attetion and time for these propietary software from microsoft. This will cause a great infection in FS/OSS with his mono project, a project based on a propietary software.
Its guys like you that remind me why I can’t stand half the schmucks in the OSS community.
Icaza brought you all Gnome and is one of the few people actively working to make Linux a real contender against MS.
I’d say the guy is very much on your side but like anything Linux/OSS related you guys just keep bitching, moaning and generally running your mouths in circles while guys like Icaza are actually busting their butts writing the code.
An infection ? People like you are the infection. People like YOU are what is holding OSS back not guys like Icaza. He actually “gets it”
I like the idea of embracing and extending. Microsoft has SWF, we have GTK#, etc. For everything that is in the patent area mono has the equivalent or better for using Open Source (except ASP, I think there are efforts to let PHP play well with mono however). This is good to me. The same should be done with XAML, there should be an equivalent to it on the open soure. The other technolgies can be added for compatibility but it should always be encouraged and indeed, it only makes sense, to go with open source technologies.
It’s good we have GTK#, but GTK# or Windows.Forms (or whatever it is called) is very very very different from stuff that runs on the Web. The Web must be accessible for all. If people start developing webpages that depends on MS propietary technology, then we’re fsck’ed. Can you see that?
Victor.
Man are we still dreaming on vapour ware that may come out in 2008
by then linux will be in kernel 2.8 and Java in J2EE 2.0
Mono will be completely out of synce with C#.
It’s good we have GTK#, but GTK# or Windows.Forms (or whatever it is called) is very very very different from stuff that runs on the Web. The Web must be accessible for all. If people start developing webpages that depends on MS propietary technology, then we’re fsck’ed. Can you see that?
They already do make webpages based around M$ crap. Some sites wont even work if you are not using IE.
> Novell, which is the biggest threat to Microsoft out there, > second to no one (…)
I don’t think Novell is threat to big companies like Microsoft, Oracle, or anyone.
Like it or not I agree with some points of view:
– Competitors were outmaneuvered or were incompetent
– People were sleeping at the wheel. …..
– … And then Microsoft comes up with .NET.
Assuming Microsoft has a market share of installed OS of 95 % ( ok some people say 90 % ) this will be installed on this systems.
(Period !)
All of this foundation work is important, but anyone that wants to compete with Microsoft just needs to stay within “shouting distance” of .NET’s ease-of-use for corporate programmers.
Nothing dramatic is going to happen until there is something that corporate consumers can get on linux that they can’t get on Windows. And that something will need to be large, sexy, and fiscally effective. Corporations, at least American corporations, *always* follow the path of least resistance, and that path is defined by fashion, not by technology, or even fiscal sense.
Linux will take 50% of Windows’ market share on the day that a sexy killer app pops up for Linux for which there is no ready equivalent on Windows, and that gap looks to last at least most of a year.
Until then, we will follow the standard Late-Capitalist oligarchic 50-25-12 rule: first-to-market gets 50%, second gets 25%, everyone else is less than 12%.
Windows has had *no* competition on the desktop for nearly twenty years; that’s a long time to get entrenched in a fledgling network-effects economy (like a geological dog-epoch). Linux is the first competitor who can’t be destroyed just by lobbing giant spitwads of money at them off the high parapets of their castle, and Linux has only been around (in the public’s mind) for maybe five years. More like two, for most people. As a brand, it has zero penetration on the psychology of the retail desktop, and only the smallest bit more on the corporate side.
Linux is on track for the “less than 12” position now, though it might take another decade with the entrenched network effects (mostly the .doc format, really, and maybe some of the music DRM; supported, yes, by their ownership of the quick-and-dirty end of the corporate development world) and lax, unsophisticated monopoly-law enforcement.
It is the combination of the “emerging markets” phenomenon and the massive psychological entrenchment of the Windows brand that lead to the “50%” position also owning the missing “25%”-er’s share, which, except for the idiocy and lack of imagination of John Scully (and the legendary asshole-ness of Steve Jobs), should belong to Apple.
I do find hope in the fact that historically, when the overwhelming entrenchment of a “water empire” finally does fail, it fails rapidly and catastrophically.
Joe
(Oh, and as a p.s., it is my belief that 90% of the brand entrenchment of Windows is because Windows 95 was the “OS that brought free porn to the masses”. If Apple had not been in utter disarray for most of a decade, or had had a machine–a clone maybe?–that cost $200 less than a cheap Intel box, _they_ would have been the “porn OS”, and they’d be at the 50% spot. This is the kind of “killer app”/branding relationship that Linux will need to find or create to overturn the Windows oligarchic/psychological entrenchment.)
I think Miguel is right. A loose collection of technologies, floating in their seperate bubbles, is pretty worthless, y’know? Yeah, this free OS has a metadata-driven filesystem, that graphics API uses super extra-l33t SVG, this user interface is really awesome, but, you know, if none of these technologies are brought to together, then what do you really have?
“Oh, we have the potential to rival Microsoft with all this Free Software technology, but nobody’s bothered to bring it together yet and create a powerful development platform. Oh, but, you know, we still have it, isn’t that awesome?”
An alliance, haven’t you seen Star Trek? The Federation. They work together, you know, aliens of different shapes and sizes donning disturbingly erotic spandex suits.
But, you know, a Mozilla Alliance? I don’t see it happening without some teamwork, y’know? How are you gonna tie those technologies together, how you gonna make’em talk shop, y’know? They have to pitch in on the framework; either pick a managed platform, C#, Java, or have some magickal way to generate bindings for *alot* of different languages, because, you know, why should I have to repeatedly switch languages because the bindings for my favorite language is out of date? That is so 2001.
On the issue of XAML/Avalon, you know, call it what you want, but my webmail sucks. Yeah, its got a pretty horrible user interface, but, you know, that’s how its got to be – there’s no rich, robust development platform. You know, you can’t use XUL, ‘cuz its a Mozilla only thing, and when most of your audience is, you know, the unwashed masses, and the unwashed masses are using IE, its just not gonna work, you dig? But, here comes Microsoft and XAML, and its gonna give you the ability to appeal to that wider audience with a rich, flavah-flavah interface that does not consume nigh-on a gigabyte of memory when you launch it, I mean, hey, why not? You can still keep the “old” interface for *nix and Mac users, right? You gotta keep up with the competition; don’t fool yourself into thinking Hotmail is just going to keep that grotesque interface when it can nigh-on development a seamless web-deployed application once Longhorn hits the stands, you dig?
I mean, if Linux has a way to, at the very least, emulate something like XAML/Avalon/.NET, you know, you’re not out of the loop; “I can’t use the awesome looking interface for my webmail!” isn’t an argument against you, you know? Its just another reason to say, “Hey, we got all that and a bag of chips, my man! Its free, bitches, its better!”
I say this because, you know, I doubt a competing technology is going to rise to power relatively soon – too much politics in the F/OSS world for me. Hey hey, you know, Mozilla doesn’t wanna cooperate? Bah, screw’em. The technology is sitting right in there in the CVS. Grab some source code, and the world moves on, as you bang the keyboard and create a new nation! Talk a little less, code a little more, and drink a ton of vodka.
Vodka + Code = Magick.
Can microsoft tomorrow sue OSS/FSF for implementing their technology or ask royalty for it. Can any one tell me what is different between C# and Java standards? Are not they the same case so when OSS says java is not way to go why C#/.NET would be ????
They already do make webpages based around M$ crap. Some sites wont even work if you are not using IE.
True. But that should be a reason for us to go aganist this, not give up.
Victor.
very well said.
But you know, I’m sure he has no clue what he is doing. I mean he only created one of the most sucessful OSS companies out there. He can’t possible know what he’s talking about.
Java, like, isn’t a standard, you need a liscense from SUN, thats why there is always so much talk of not using Java, or making a “free” Java, you know, its a good language, but Sun’s got a grip on it, and, you know, what happens if Sun goes belly-up or starts to give SCO or Microsoft some lap-dances for a little sly under-the-table-action or money, you know? Then you’re boned. So, you know, that’s why some of the more vocal ones decry Java, y’know?
Microsoft was mildly clever, you know, making some of the .NET system RAND + Royalty Free, you know, the base classes, “hey hey, look what we have over Java…!” so, you know, that’s why people always point at .NET, then point at Mono, then point at DotGNU, then point their middle finger at Sun, you know, sort of a, “You left us to our own devices on the desktop and now look what happened, so suck off, you limey bastards!” Sun, you know, they could’ve showed a little more support for Java on the desktop; got some tight integration going on, making Java apps look and feel and act like native applications, but, you know, there’s a problem with that: Sun wanted to show everyone, “Hey, this is a Java app!” and, you know, that didn’t turn out too well, did it?
But the competition from .NET’s newfound mindshare has lit a fire under their ass; fixed some longstanding bugs, mebbe; you know, a little stuff, but not alot of the good stuff.
You mean the “Linux” Community. Just about every BSD’er I know has no “ideals” — well, at least not in the same way, and definitely not at the expense of technology.
I think not many people pay attention to the BSD communities because of isolationist, elitist attitudes like the above. Thats fine, it seems to be the way you like it.
What are the “ideals” you are talking about anyway? A dislike of Microsoft? Maybe they migrated to Linux because it was a better solution for them… so you’re saying that these type of people don’t come to BSD, right?
What you point out is true most of the times, but it is also selfish. People must stop thinking only about themselves (“I can’t use the awesome looking interface for my webmail!”).
If the solution in your opinion is to emulate (“emulate something like XAML/Avalon/.NET”), that’s because you’re selfish; the solution is open standards.
Victor.
Folks, lets keep the pro/anti-MS sentimnt aside for a moment and try to see Miguel’s point. The fact is MS has been very successful at trying to make/subvert standards in the past. Here’s a bad example, PNG: a format better than most web-based formats out there never became standard because MS did not get it right with IE.
Tomorrow when ~90% of new machines sold will work with this technology, the emerging markets will get firmly locked into whatever MS has in store for us, unless someone works toward making it accessible for other systems. Its the same scary scenario as their “trusted computing” initiative. If we were to let them control every aspect of this new technology, they will pull a Netscape, only this time, it will affect many more of us. The only reason the folks over at mozilla realized it sooner was because of their past experience.
If Miguel and others with his team want to make things like .Net, and maybe even Avalon a standard, then it is likely that MS wont be the only entity to call the shots on everything in this matter. Which is why I feel its a good thing to have these kind of efforts in place.
I think not many people pay attention to the BSD communities because of isolationist, elitist attitudes like the above. Thats fine, it seems to be the way you like it.
Lol, who’s the elitist here? You guys are the ones that like shooting one of your own community members down, just because he sees value in Longhorn. It’s shameful, especially considering the things he’s helped accomplish already.
I could care less what the “other platform” company located somewhere in the Pacific northwest does or does not do. This other platform is more like the “Fi$#er-Pr!ce” of software except for the cost of the product line. Nor do I care what product they put forward in the future or what a writer says about it.
I have had more joy and and sincere pleasure running systems like BeOS, FreeBSD, and Linux than I have ever had running the “other platform”.
“Lol, who’s the elitist here? You guys are the ones that like shooting one of your own community members down, just because he sees value in Longhorn. It’s shameful, especially considering the things he’s helped accomplish already”
what do you mean by that. are you bsd guys not shipping gnome. who started that?. who paid for it?
what about gcc
All the arguments against Mono I’ve heard go along the lines of:
Miguel just doesn’t get it. The Linux desktop isn’t about attracting as many users as possible. It’s about being as anti-Microsoftian as possible. It’s not enough that a piece of software is free; it has to be something that Microsoft never wrote, or at the very least, something Microsoft didn’t think of first. The idea of sharing knowledge?—no-one meant that literally. We were saying knowledge when we meant software.
None of them go along the lines of:
Miguel is having fun doing what he wants to do. And better still: He’s getting paid doing it! I don’t actually like Mono and C# and XAML and everything else, and so you’ve got buckleys of ever finding it installed on my computer, but hey: KDE is still Mono-free. ROX is still Mono-free. XFce is still Mono-free. GNUstep will always be Mono-free. Hell, even Gnome is still Mono-free! And you know what? Even if it does turn out that there’s something (legally) wrong with Mono, well, the worst that can happen is that I’ll be ahead of where I am now. (Novell might be in a shithole, but Miguel will at least have learnt something, and knowledge ain’t werff nuffen!)
The latter option will lead to a lot less stress. I suggest it.
The latter option will lead to a lot less stress. I suggest it.
Nicely put!
http://newsmonster.org/
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mozilla
[Browser no! Technologies yes!]
http://www.mozdev.org/projects/active.html
[Quite a few XUL apps in their]
http://www.infodraft.com/~faser/mab/
[Mozilla application Browser]
And to think, all this discussion over more sugar in our front ends. Oh well.
de Icaza comes out right in the first section of the article with how microsoft wins and says its not by defining the game. i agree. and i dont think defining the game is the dangerous part.
what worries me about mono is how absolutely amazing it is. not only is c# an excellent language, but the language has all the tools and all the nicities built in to develop just about any sort of app. its built for remote data access, its built for web-ification, for b2b, all those keywords which will lower buisness costs, devel times and hair pulling nitty gritty details (for programmers).
going back to what miguel was saying (Before the asleep at the wheel, which is moot to this), microsofts main weapon is pretty much its legal and corporate weight. Wait till mono and microsofts C#/.net combo take off enough then crack down with patents and ownership. microsoft has again and again stated linux is their number one enemy. double handing oss by providing what looks like a nice solution, then pulling the legs out from under us, is not a bad plan.
ps: implement serialization for your classes. talk about essentials.
Why not use Mozilla’s XUL, Cairo for vector display, Java and C++ for programming languages, etc ?
Because we lost the browser war. The most of web pages are designed for windows and IE, and when Avalon will appear it will replace the flash, client-side java, javascript and another not too lucky web technologies. In this case after two or three years you can’t use your linux desktop to browse the internet. You can’t use web shops, home banking, etc. In this case the desktop linux will dead.
On the other side, the CLR is a very good idea, especially if the processor architecture will changed to 64 bit. You can create binary applications without 5-10 different processor or vmware license. Yes, I can compile the C/C++ source to my platform, but IMHO the avarage people can’t. Yes, there is java available, but 1. The $UN is not better then Micro$oft. 2. C# far better language then Java.
And what do you think is wrong with having debates and conflicting points of view within a community?
I never said there’s anything wrong with “debates”. Plenty of people have pointed out some valid concerns against “Mono”. That’s debate.
It’s the silly hatred for Microsoft (and the conspiracies about de Icaza) that has nothing to do with debate. There’s a difference between knocking a guy’s ideas and insulting his loyalty. If anything, I’m saying “Get back to the debate. This is ugly.”
As for why I mentioned BSD: Someone wanted to lump the entire OSS community together as too “idealist”, and I pointed out the differences within the OSS community itself. Not all of it is “idealist” except for GNU maybe, and Linux by extension. I didn’t say that was “bad” or “good” — I’m just saying.
As for BSD: There just isn’t any fuel for the fire in the BSD license to be “against” or “for” anything. It’s free to the point where it’s even free from “ideals”. It’s just “free”, with no attachments.
Man are we still dreaming on vapour ware that may come out in 2008 by then linux will be in kernel 2.8
with the good old monolistic system and without binary driver support…
and Java in J2EE 2.0
without useable widget set (with the old slow and ugly swing) and the obsolote syntax (no properties, no operator overloading, etc).
Mono will be completely out of synce with C#.
IMHO it is primary depend on Mono team.
webapps flunked because they could not integrate.
microsoft WILL successfully integrates XAML/Avalon into the web to such a degree where you can safely open a web page and have it effectively be a real program. combine this with kerberos/AD SPNEGO system so a user needs single sign on at any terminal, instantly gets their entire desktop exactly in the last state, complete intranet access with no more passwords, and all through fancy web-services + XAML.
this is DANGEROUS. although the web-based buisness idea seems, from historical context, like a flop, this is new blood. webapps failed because they did not provide us with the capabilities our systems had before, merely a web-ified subset. MS is trying to bridge the gap. consider: web-app loads itself through intranet main server. intranet main server sees kerberos authentication at login, gives you credentials to intra-meta-apps. now the fat client app has full access to your system and profile, as given permition to do so by the server. its safe, its secure.
the whole point is that avalon + .net + c# will actually eliminate the line between webapps and apps. if utilized properly, it could be a cornerstone in that slow movement from computers as independent devices to the paradigm of a computer network.
Miguel states we can either come up with something of our own and or wait and emulate avalon (see: dmca again).
I dont see linux as being in a good place right now in this regards. Microsoft is trying very hard to leverage the fact that it is a monolithic code base against linux’s collection of small object. to really do avalon we’d have to patch together a HUGE subset of features, all backed by a sand-boxing system the likes of which ….
thankfully it will take half a decade (post release) for anyone to actually start using avalon as more than something shiny (ooh! shiny things!</sluggy>). there’s plenty of time to catch up, but linux will be- again- asleep behind the wheel playing catchup with microsoft. by the times its important, we’ll have it down. still, actually patching together all the window manager, web browser, security, authentication, web services, and sandbox stuff to be the .net + avalon?… thats going to be a HUGE pain in the arse.
This is really the killer tech…
I disagree. It is interesting, indeed, but unless they speed things up significantly, it is more a thick, syrupy, watching-paint-dry kind of tech; which isn’t too killer in my opinion.
What you point out is true most of the times, but it is also selfish.
My man, welcome to the real world!
Why bother inconviencing yourself because of some crappy standard? If Microsoft comes out with the most delicious sauce this side of Wensday, I’m sure as hell going to use it unless someone can jiffy up a better rebuttal than, “Its not a standard, don’t use it!”
I mean, standards are great and all, but unless they’re more magickal delicious and can offer me more power and flexiability than something proprietary, why bother, y’know? I use the computer to be amused and entertained, not locked down by some slow-moving technology crap, y’know?
Regarding selfishness: it’s the attitude of the average computer user. When my girlfriend can’t view a site from my Linux box, she says it’s because “I use crappy web browsers, it says it wants Microsoft”.
And then I have to painfully explain history to her, why my web browsers are not “crappy”, and why Microsoft is teh sux0rz. I also ask her to tell me what sites don’t work, so I can flame the webmaster (it’s normally government sites – they buy into M$ hook, line and sinker, everytime).
This XAML thing worries me a lot. Let’s see, Hotmail moves to a XAML interface, so instead of slow web-page loading times, it reacts just like a real program. Every Linux computer is instantly locked out of hotmail – bye bye web kiosks running Linux! Yahoo decides they should do the same to compete – my yahoo email account goes bye bye!
The key to this is cross platform technologies that are *painless* to use on Windows. We need to conquer Windows in the applications department, and provide those same apps on alternate platforms. This is why a non GPL QT for windows is bad news for KDE, and why writing open source apps designed to be cross platform have to use a different toolkit.
Getting XUL working on Windows and providing native looking applications there will be a huge step at fighting XAML. Then we need to convince developers to use it (for its cross-platform nature, ease of development, etc). We need to get OEMS to install the necessary technology by default on shipped machines, so that developers can almost guarantee the platform will be available on the users machine – just like they can with MS stuff. And that’s the killer. MS has the advantage, and is holding all the cards – we are the underdogs fighting the uphill battle.
“Because we lost the browser war. ”
And yet we have the upperhand on the server side. Kind of hard to own the net, when you only have a small portion of it.
Besides I wouldn’t get too carried away with the gloom and doom, winner takes all predictions. One it’s not out (any betas nonwithstanding). Two there’s no guarentee that it will be an overwelming success. The world could just as well go “ho hum”. Three, don’t assume that the rest of the planet is standing still. Now or then, and no I’m not just talking OSS.
[Shapeshifter V.90 (IP: —.dsl.coastalnow.net) ]
“Why bother inconviencing yourself because of some crappy standard? If Microsoft comes out with the most delicious sauce this side of Wensday, I’m sure as hell going to use it unless someone can jiffy up a better rebuttal than, “Its not a standard, don’t use it!” ”
Problem is that most people give those “crappy standards” only the most cursory of inspections before running over to MS.
“I mean, standards are great and all, but unless they’re more magickal delicious and can offer me more power and flexiability than something proprietary, why bother, y’know? I use the computer to be amused and entertained, not locked down by some slow-moving technology crap, y’know? “”
Power and flexability comes from experience as much as from the tool itself. Also while YOU may wish to be entertained? The web and it’s technologies go beyond that. From running a business, to educating people. So while your “magickal delicious” may entertain you, it needs to more than that in the real world.
Also true standards acknowledge that you’re not just an island, but can be part of a global community. Kind of hard to do when you speak proprietary, and everyone else speaks open.
“microsoft WILL successfully integrates XAML/Avalon into the web to such a degree where you can safely open a web page and have it effectively be a real program. combine this with kerberos/AD SPNEGO system so a user needs single sign on at any terminal, instantly gets their entire desktop exactly in the last state, complete intranet access with no more passwords, and all through fancy web-services + XAML. ”
That reminds me. How’s that whole Passport thing working out for MS?
azazel:
The key to this is cross platform technologies that are *painless* to use on Windows. We need to conquer Windows in the applications department, and provide those same apps on alternate platforms.
That’s the ticket, baby! Someone get this man a cigar! You gotta compete; you just can’t slouch, watch the show and hope everything works out in the end. If you want it, you better be ready to fight for it, in the end, because, you know, Microsoft, Sun, the rest of them, they’re willing to fight for it, and they will, too, because they are in it to win it – they ARE businesses, you know?
If its not satisfying a need, you know, filling a role that everyone expects to be filled, then you’ve got problems, because you can say how wrong it is till the cows come home, but unless it works for them right then then, you know, why should they care? They got something that works right on hand? You gotta compete, you know, give’em something that does the same and better, like a one-two knockout.
Hopefully they are not wearing dentures!
LC:
Power and flexability comes from experience as much as from the tool itself. Also while YOU may wish to be entertained? The web and it’s technologies go beyond that. From running a business, to educating people. So while your “magickal delicious” may entertain you, it needs to more than that in the real world.
Too deep, too dep, my man, its just too deep, you know? You can say all you want about a hammer, about how sweet and svelte the fork-like curve is, how beautiful and noble a tool it can, be, but my man, in the end, its still just a hammer, you know, a tool for me to use, and nothing more.
Technology serves me, my man, and not the other way around.
If its not giving me the experience I so righteously desire, then, you know, I’m going to move to something that will – you know, why use Linux instead of Windows? Because Linux does what you need it to do, that’s why, you know? Why use C# instead of Java, my man? Java’s been around longer, its got its own huge mindshare, but, you know, it doesn’t fit the role; you feel the need, you know, and Java’s not curing your munchies, so you gotta move on to something that can.
If you’re trying to satisfy the end user you’ve got to satisfy the end-user, you know? You can’t just say, “You should be doing this!!!” and being the path of most resistance when the guy right next to you is smiling and giving the people what they want, right then, right there, you know? Atom! Was RSS good enough for some people? No. Standards bedamned for these folks, so they moved on; may the best technology win. DCC2 – DCC wasn’t fulfilling a need for these people, so its time for them to move on, too, because it sucked for the developers, and it sucked for the end-users. Do the end-users care if its proprietary or if its submitted to the IETF? Not very likely, unless you’re a *nix or BSD user. If it works, hey, its great. If not, then why bother using it?
I mean, to be honest, things change when I kick it into end-user mode, you know? I mean, when the Windows box stirrs and lurches to life, you know, I’ve got ICQ4 and MSN Messenger running right next to Gaim, because, you know, Gaim is lacking some “essential” features. Gaim is free and all, you know, open source, but I’m not going to go straight-shooter with it “just because” its open, you know, whatever you want to call it. In some aspects its inferior, and I’m not, like, going to limit myself just because its a feel good thing, because its not, to me.
I like my shit to work, and work well, and if it ain’t working well…
Dig this:
If you’re going to tell me not to use a technology, you better be offering me a better technology in that same sentance, or it means nothing.
“Better, Harder, Faster, Stronger.”
Dig?
I have had more joy and and sincere pleasure running systems like BeOS, FreeBSD, and Linux than I have ever had running the “other platform”.
The point is, or at least seems to be, that Longhorn will be extending the platform to the net. So in the end, the net is your platform.
Now, if that happens, wouldn’t you rather want to still have a choice on what OS you use in order to access that platform?
I think would.
(But then again, does anybody really care about the OS of their TV-sets? In other words, if the net becomes the platform, the desktop-OS might just become irrelevant.)
And finally, Longhorn will get deployed, XAML/Avalon applications will be written, and people will consume them. The worst bit: people will expect their desktop to be able to access these “rich” sites. With 90% market share, it seems doable.
Will Avalon only run on Longhorn? Maybe. But do not count on that. Microsoft built IE4 for Windows 98, and later backported it to Windows 95, Windows 3.11 and moved it to HP-UX and Solaris.
The question is “why did they do that”? And why would they do that now. My guess is Microsoft is pretty much okay with Mono and Apache running .NET server-side if that helps them obtaining Windows-only clients.
“You mean the “Linux” Community. Just about every BSD’er I know has no “ideals” — well, at least not in the same way, and definitely not at the expense of technology.”
Try deadly.org.
“Assuming Microsoft has a market share of installed OS of 95 % ( ok some people say 90 % ) this will be installed on this systems. (Period !)”
Only if previous versions of Windows -which all have a certain amount of marketshare- are compatible with it. Don’t expect people to switch to Longhorn 1 day after it is out. This leaves time to catch up both by developers and distributions (both also cost time…).
“Linux will take 50% of Windows’ market share on the day that a sexy killer app pops up for Linux for which there is no ready equivalent on Windows, and that gap looks to last at least most of a year.
Until then, we will follow the standard Late-Capitalist oligarchic 50-25-12 rule: first-to-market gets 50%, second gets 25%, everyone else is less than 12%.”
In the past years, it wasn’t like that. Linux slowly gained adoption in the desktop market, following an evolutionary model rather than an revolutionary model.
Now if Linux would have a “killer app”, the revolutionary model would be indeed followed. We seem to agree on that. The question for me is rather: Do you really want that?
I am also wondering wether there has been a “recommendment” by MS to SUN about Java…
“Lol, who’s the elitist here? You guys are the ones that like shooting one of your own community members down, just because he sees value in Longhorn. It’s shameful, especially considering the things he’s helped accomplish already”
Right. Everybody who is against this is from the Linux community. Everybody who agrees is from the BSD community. Talking about black/white thinking, have you seen the huge grey areas lately?
About the .NET patents: People (here) seem to be afraid MS will pull a SCO on .NET. A solution could be not to use or develop Mono/DotGNU. A solution could be to develop it and not be too much dependant on it. And another solution could be to check out (either you, a group, or the whole community) about the patents and see wether and how they’re breached and/or can be circumvented.
It isn’t as if the only solution is just to boycot or spread FUD about Mono/DotGNU. I think that even if you dislike it, you could respect the work done, accept it is done, and actually focus more deeply on the points why you don’t like it (ie. patents) and proof something. Then you have a point.
Personally, i take the fact Novell is behind Mono for granted although it is basically a fallacy. I also very much like the possibility that C#/.NET runs on Free Software OSes like GNU/Linux and *BSD. If it is started already and becomes the standard at least there’s less advantage than when there’s no start at all.
Wether MS will win these patent cases is also a question worth thinking about imo.
How are these web apps different from running a program over the network using x11? Maybe linux should concentrate on making it more intuitive to run a progam over the network through Xfree.
Also linux should concentrate on security since thats what Microsoft always gets wrong and I’m sure that a lot of sys-admins will be groaning when they realise that they will have to run software that is being controlled externally.
As for why I mentioned BSD: Someone wanted to lump the entire OSS community together as too “idealist”, and I pointed out the differences within the OSS community itself. Not all of it is “idealist” except for GNU maybe, and Linux by extension. I didn’t say that was “bad” or “good” — I’m just saying.
(Note: ideals can be substituted with principles.)
Net, Open and FreeBSD certainly have certain ideals. Just like a company has ideals, and a human who seeks to accomplish certain things has ideals. A group of humans have a common basis on which they agree on, and those are focussed around ideals. It is just that some of these aren’t extreme according to the popular perception.
I could argue OpenBSD’s ideals [which you can read on openbsd.org and deadly.org] _are_ extreme (and NetBSD’s porting effort too) but that’s a matter of perception in the end.
has anyone ever seen the efforts on enlightenment for their desktop shell. it should be worth to evaluate their very nice and good looking desktop…
Does anybody know if De Icaza applied for a job at Microsoft before or after he started to work on Gnome?
Anyway, in retrospect Microsoft made a mistake not to hire him because he is a talented programmer.
“has anyone ever seen the efforts on enlightenment for their desktop shell. it should be worth to evaluate their very nice and good looking desktop…”
Yes i am watching development of Enlightenment closely. However, the E17 core has been broken since oktober 2003… it is still possible to use and test the software (everything compiles, except apps/e; see http://enlightenment.org/pages/cvsnotes.html).
I don’t understand what it has to do with this subject. Sure, together with FD.O’s XServer it’ll become the king of eye candy again, much better than OSX is now. I’ll probably use it too. But what does E have to do with Mono/.NET?
Open and FreeBSD certainly have certain ideals. Just like a company has ideals, and a human who seeks to accomplish certain things has ideals. A group of humans have a common basis on which they agree on, and those are focussed around ideals. It is just that some of these aren’t extreme according to the popular perception.
When I say “ideals”, I’m talking about politics, especially concerning how much one discriminates or not. Everyone discriminates, and it’s entirely impossible to be “a-political”, but…IMO, the less discriminatory, the better. That’s the essence of freedom, after all. The opposite of freedom is not tyranny, as some would think. It’s purity. Tyranny is just a byproduct. All purists become tyrants themselves.
What this guy seems to talk about is organising things and start to work together “in a way that makes sense”tm . Isn’t that what all the BSDs is about and the exact opposite to what Linux is about?
I allways figured Linux represented the chaos of software development that appeals certain people, but what Miguel speaks about is moving Linux development to some BSD model…
GEee, I wish Novell would just simply switch platform to BSD to begin with and they’d have all the structure we want.
A lot of people are saying some good things in this forum. There are a lot of patent issues with Mono and everytime I hear the word mono, I feel like my teeth are going to fall out! But in saying this, Miguel is right… In some cases you have to play MS at their own game! They spent their entire history ripping stuff off other people and making it that little bit different and possibly easier to use. Why can’t we do the same? I really, really, really hate .Net, but if we are to give Microsoft a good kicking we need to beat them at their own game!
As a sociology graduate, I see this “other platform” v. Linux argument as maybe a bit of cognitive dissonance. Those that like the “other platform” will stay with the “other platform” and will see everything marketed by the “other platform” company as the proverbial cat’s meow. Those who have migrated their operating system to BSD, Linux, or other alternatives will have a tendency to stick with what they have migrated to. Maybe the migration to an *nix is an educated option. Who knows?
Somehow, Mr. Torvald’s little beast from Norway has captured the minds of many educated coders around the world. They have taken Torvald blue-print on the “little kernel that can and will” and are continuously improving the Linux code. It is powerful and a rock-solid product that runs on so many platforms … not just the “dominate chip hardware” architecture.
Freedom in Linux honestly means we are not at the mercy of a single company and the chains that come with it. As I, and so many others around the globe, have broken free of dead-end software “environments” that have people trapped into a specific code.
No software platform is perfect, especially the “other platform” and nothing comes without errors. But with great and educated minds around the world coding Linux the path to improvement is always open.
I see it as Novell sees it, not cloning Avalon/XAML but to create a competitor. This competitor need to be installed by the masses and the only way to achieve this is to ship it with a killer app that everybody wants to install, the only thing everybody would install is a office suite because *everybody* needs a office suite and *nobody* can or want to pay hundreds of dollors for it. It would hurt Microsoft twice, in the web front and the office front. I see two options either use a existing office suite and reimplement the presentation layer or create a new one from scratch. A cross plattform office suite that include a cross platform web suite which is build with a cross plattform development suite would be Microsofts nighmare, if you read the Novell/Ximian blogs carefully you’ll notice they know about that things, actually they are the ones where I got all this from. People who don’t see .NET technology will win are a little bit blind, fighting against it will hurt the oss comunity significantly, everybody who don’t agree I suggest to read up .NET key concept like attributes and reflection, saying Java is just as good as .NET is just plain dumb, .NET is Java done right and there ain’t a option other than .NET and Java
Oh please no, no overdone office suites with graphical inserts. For the sake of all that is good and decent in the world if somebody does that I’m gonna us VI to write my papers!
“Oh please no, no overdone office suites with graphical inserts. For the sake of all that is good and decent in the world if somebody does that I’m gonna us VI to write my papers!”
the point is we have html for the web, GTK+ and QT for *nix and Windows has their toolkit and since Microsoft plans to introduce a new toolkit that they want to use for the web and windows at the same time, Novell/Ximian and Mozialla.org want to bring something against it that unifies everything, web, windows and *nix, Mozilla and Java failed so let’s see what Ximian/Novel will come up with, or if they can unify their efforts if they can agree on using Mono
It seems MS’s .Net is the new “hyper” on town. (It used to be Java). Deja vu 🙂
“It seems MS’s .Net is the new “hyper” on town. (It used to be Java). Deja vu :-)”
with the difference the masses use Windows and the masses don’t have Java client apps nor do they have java plattform for client apps. In a couple of years it will be almost impossible to run Windows without .NET because traditional API’s will be only supported for backward compatibility. New API’s will be managed *only*, it’s a fact, read it up at Microsoft so it’s more than a hype, it’s the foundation of almost all future windows development and thanks to Miguel and others it it cross plattform. The only piece missing for the cross platform dream to come true is the presentation layer and that’s what’s this topic is about
I’m caught somewhere in the middle with what Miguel has been saying. Yes, we have to care about Longhorn, because it is a play by Microsoft to capture everything in their web – as usual. I’m not convinced at all that Microsoft will take over the web – think Windows 2000/AD/DNS and DNS out on the internet. They haven’t even scratched the surface trying to take things over with that.
However, we have to be aware of the various lock-in plays developing over the next few years. We have to attract people to open source platforms by making things and technology as fairly easy as Longhorn will do, but give people the awesome power of everything we have available as an open source stack. Microsoft can’t compete with that. I certainly agree with that perspective.
Unfortunately, Miguel seems to think that everyone should just adopt Mono to do that, and it just isn’t going to happen. Microsoft don’t understand why they have never taken everything over. It is easy to get 90% of the market, but impossible to get 100% through simply adopting software and implementations. You need standards to do that, and simply ‘adopting Mono’ is totally the wrong attitude.
Another problem is mind share. Simply implementing .NET and Avalon etc. in Linux with Mono is a non-starter. Why? Because everyone out there using Microsoft environments will demand that it is MS .NET compatible. Microsoft, as usual, will make sure that doesn’t happen.
We need to have our own open source implementation, market effectively, and as a community make damn sure that people realise that this is an open set of technologies and standards and not some .NET compatibility effort. They use open technology, or go the Microsoft route – no inbetween. This needs to seriously get people off MS .NET. With people moving to .NET now it should be much easier to produce code migration tools for the future than was possible at any time in the past.
It doesn’t matter if it’s managed or not. Windows only softwares have been written and that hasn’t changed with .Net and will not change with Longhorn. You can see the Microsoft trend that’s to keep changing it’s APIs so they can’t be matched nor rewritten.
Oh, I see. With XAML and Longhorn people will be able to launch applications from the browser Window. What’s new about it ? Security ? Can’t that security be bypassed ? (“Click on this cool app link to install it”) What will guarantee that that app will be secure to run ? The users will still be the same, and will click on any link for whatever reason.
When I refer to hype it’s because of that.
Ok, if the users have to download/install apps from trusted websites, what’s so different from today ?
The added security layer (sandbox) is welcome, but the icqs, winamps, etc, will have to be rewritten for the user to have all managed apps. Oops… How long will it take ?
What guarantee that all this technology will still be relevant 10 or 20 years from now ?
Hype ?
you are talking about Mono, Java or something new? Java obviously failed and has too many weaknesses over .NET/Mono (versioning, attributes, value types etc.) the only option left to adopt is Mono until somebody come up with something better and that’s hardly possible because .NET/Mono is a master piece done by many hundreds of very skilled people and it’s unlike Java a standard
I would love to hate .net but it is so beautiful. Never in my life has it been so easy to make such professional, such highly complex programs, using the latest concepts so easily and quickly. I had left the MS world completely in favor of Unix, but as I get older and older, and computers are becoming more and more “just tools” for me, and Microsoft is getting better (security, ease of use, power) I’m finding myself going back more and more to Microsoft. Unix is being pushed to the fringes, as stand alone machines, acting as packet sniffers, firewalls, routers, name servers, email transports, web site transports, database servers. Windows, as Sun likes to put it, is becoming the network.
You can see the Microsoft trend that’s to keep changing it’s APIs so they can’t be matched nor rewritten.
Yes. That’s exactly why a Windows program from, say, 8 years ago, still plays fine on today’s Windows.
Please, do a little research before posting sillyness.
Yes, and people that love MS and .Net fail to see that .Net isn’t supposed to be cross-platform.
.Net is supposed to leverage even more Windows. Leave it that way.
…anyone seeing the need to and willing to rebuild from the ground up. Most of the nitpicking about the this or that of the proposition is just biased nitpicking based on the ‘good’ of the system that the nitpicker is already using. Enough building ‘new’ systems on a ground pitted by the tossing the faults of the sytem before it. Time to extract the function of what’s programmed to carry it on to a new system, enough of adding new shells with new functions to old systems just for the sake of how the old system was programmed. Technology is a means to an end, not the end itself.
you are talking about Mono, Java or something new?
The last thing I’m talking about is a new technology, and is something that would include Mono, Java and other things. We need a good way of binding all the great existing technology there is together. No one is going to adopt Mono verbatim, just as they don’t with Java.
Yes. That’s exactly why a Windows program from, say, 8 years ago, still plays fine on today’s Windows.
Does it? More accurately, it sort of works, to the point where people feel the need to re-engineer their application in the latest MS programming technology, and buy the latest version of Windows. There’s backward-compatibility to a point.
“What guarantee that all this technology will still be relevant 10 or 20 years from now ?”
Because, my man, it only takes one.
What if Hotmail moves to a XAML + .NET interface, you know, what’s going to happen then? I mean, it acts and operates like a native application, you know, without all the kludge of Java, the kludge of Java being its awful emulation of the Windows look and feel, and, you know, the general memory hogginess.
What happens when, you know, Hotmail is suddenly as responsive and indistinguishable as any other native platform application? You gotta compete or die, my man, and it only takes one small tumbling snowball to start the avalanche. Once the “killer” XAML/.NET app comes, its going to sort of, you know, snowball from there, because you gotta compete, and if the enemy has something as good as sliced bread, you’re going to need to butter some of that bread just to stay on the radar.
Managed code over the net means a lot, my man, it means you can execute applications with a click; seamless, integrated, just as if you had launched something from your home directory, you know? And then, you’ve got the bonus sandboxing, the security permissions, the games can’t access the filesystem, but the intranet industrial strength office management suite has permissions to crawl all over your box, but not have access to any network functions, you dig?
I mean, hey, my man, how man rich Java interfaces – rich, native looking interfaces – do you see on the web, you know? Then take a good look at some of the PDCs Microsoft has done with Longhorn, search around and find that Amazon.com demo done in XAML. You never saw Amazon.com demos done in Java before, have you? Dig?
“Yes, and people that love MS and .Net fail to see that .Net isn’t supposed to be cross-platform.
.Net is supposed to leverage even more Windows. Leave it that way.”
Closing your eyes doesn’t make it go away, my man, no more than wishing away the armored tank that’s about to drive through your house because the driver is soused.
Face the enemy or run away, because you just can’t pretend it doesn’t, like, exist.
They use open technology, or go the Microsoft route – no inbetween. This needs to seriously get people off MS .NET.
That’s hella dangerous, my friend, and lemme tell you why, in my opinion: what’s it got to offer me? You know, as a developer this time, not as an end-user, because, you know, if the APIs are the same – I can do a FileSystemWatcher on Windows and Linux – then, you know, there’s no problem when I’m interested in porting an application to Mono, because the API is there, man; rock-hard, stable, stuff I already know. Like Java, its no sweat to just move on.
But, what happens when you drop that compatability? I mean, its like, I can write C++ code on Windows and Linux, but unless I use an extra-extra highlevel toolkit for managing my ints and my filesystem access and the alot, then, you know, I’ve got a ton of code to rewrite just to make it work on Linux. If I’ve already got thousands of lines of .NET code that’s not portable to Mono, then, like… why bother?
Start over, maybe, if I’ve got the spare time, but, eh.
Extend and embrace, my friend. Get’em while they’re hot, you know, steal from the rich and give to the poor, Robin Hood style!
“When I say “ideals”, I’m talking about politics, especially concerning how much one discriminates or not. Everyone discriminates, and it’s entirely impossible to be “a-political”, but…IMO, the less discriminatory, the better. That’s the essence of freedom, after all. The opposite of freedom is not tyranny, as some would think. It’s purity. Tyranny is just a byproduct. All purists become tyrants themselves.”
What makes you think the (broad defined) “Linux community” is more idealistic than the (also broad defined) “BSD community”
I already said you OpenBSD is an idealistic community. Do i need to give examples? Ok. They want no GPL code in their base system (ie. they replace GPL daemons with from scratch BSD replications). They do not want non-FLOSS ports (ie. Qmail, DJBDNS got kicked out). They pro-actively fix (possible) vulnerabilities in base. Do you define the latter as.. “political ideal”? They claim to be as a-political as possible yet when that would be true then they wouldn’t whine about GPL code, they wouldn’t whine about non-FLOSS ports.
Also, all the 3 major BSD’s have an hierarchy. The leaders in such hierarchy aim for political ideals and have the last word. In short, it is politics, and it is based on ideals. How can that not create tyranny? The same is true for ie. Debian GNU/Linux, but i don’t claim what you appear to claim.
“Heh OK, now that’s funny. Lol, there’s absolutely nothing in what I said that’s merits “abuse”.
All this does is prove my point.”
Because one of the (how many?) visitors of this site presses the button, your point is proven? More proven? Hmm, interesting thought. I guess i’ll report my previous post, so that point is (more) proven too… .. …
Another problem is mind share. Simply implementing .NET and Avalon etc. in Linux with Mono is a non-starter. Why? Because everyone out there using Microsoft environments will demand that it is MS .NET compatible. Microsoft, as usual, will make sure that doesn’t happen.
I’ve been wondering about this concerning Sun and their recent patent deal with Microsoft. Has anyone else considered the possibility that they may just bypass Mono altogether and implement the real thing? Is there anything stopping them from doing it (I’m not sure)?
Imagine that happening not only with Solaris, but with JDS/Linux too (thereby gobbling up the Linux corporate market for themselves).
“What if Hotmail moves to a XAML + .NET interface”
Besides pissing off lots of users in the process ? (Ask Eugenia on the OSNews layout changes) :-).
Honestly, I don’t understand what difference it would make.
For example, there would be a communication protocol, the rich clients, and an APP runtime environment (which would download and install other apps, including upgrades) would be installed by default on the users’ operating systems. The protocol could be reverse engineered. The rich clients could be matched (like Evolution). The apps could be manually installed/upgraded. But I think Microsoft could use some trick to lock the non-Windows users out, like some special authentication.
It’s a nice dream to run Windows only apps on Linux without a hassle. But how much is MS willing to do to stop that from happening ? Does MS have some cards (lawyers, Intellectual Properties, etc) up their sleeves ?
I don’t dig it.
What can be easier deployed than using the usual web app ? Not even .Net/Java rich clients can match that, but they come close.
Hm…
If the goal is to run rich apps as if they were web apps, what will be its price.
And if the APIs are easily understandable they could be emulated with easy in ANY language, not only on a .Net clone.
Interesting. Thanks
The best point made among these discussions is in the usenet post, where Brendan Eich mentions the promotion of open source applications like Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc. as alternatives to MS software. Mozilla implements tabbed browsing and popup suppression today. Why wait for IE to catch up or pay to install some goofy SW to stop popups? OpenOffice reads and saves to MS office format and standard XML. It’s apps like these that will give users a reason to care– show them how to save themselves some time, money, and agony.
/.
Mozilla Foundation Meets The GNOME Foundation
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/04/26/131234.shtml?tid=126&tid=131&…
What is this obsession with running apps inside IE or Mozilla? What is wrong any normal client/server application, using whatever front-end gui is appropriate?
The important factor here is the cross-platform ability of the runtime environment, nothing else.
Trying to do everything through the browser is like the gynaecologist who decorated his hall through the letter box.
abdulhaq
“Honestly, I don’t understand what difference it would make.”
Let’s take my mother for instance, because she just riled me for about half an hour becuase Hotmail’s interface sucks and she was distress about how “put more than one picture at a time in this e-mail!”
Here’s the difference between now and then, in the soon to be XAML-proliferated future, my man: my mom doesn’t understand Hotmail. She, you know, doesn’t /want/ to understand Hotmail, because she only logs on every few days to check her e-mail (mostly spam, thanks, spammers). But, you know, the interface is horrible; she’s trying to click-and-drag “messages” to seperate folders, she’s fumbling around with checkboxes and silly javascript drop-downs and pain-in-the-ass page refreshes everytime she does a new action. Its frusterating to her, dig?
But, along comes some kind of rich web application – it acts just like a native application, you know, it is a native application, for all intents and purposes; she can click and drag her messages to seperate folders, she can attach files from her My Documents directory by a simple DnD, the page isn’t constantly flickering everytime she deletes or moves a message, the “write message” spawns a new window, you know, all the conviences of a modern application right at her fingertips – and all she has to do is click ‘Log in’ that first time and wait half a minute (DSL, baby!) and, you know, its like magick, to her; go to hotmail.com, get the beautiful interface, have fun with it, then go close the application, go somewhere else. A web application closes the bridge, you know, some of us really can’t trust our technology ignorant friends to: find, download, install, and setup an application like that. Web deployment, one click and its like magick, its gonna be everything in the future.
This isn’t the problem.
The problem is, and I know you see it coming, baby, the problem is when I try to make her use a *nix machine, and suddenly she’s using that old, haphazard web-based interface again. She won’t have it; once she’s gotten a taste of the “good stuff,” you know, its just not gonna work for her, and no amount of “its a philosophical, idealism thing!” isn’t gonna cut it with her, because the computer’s just a tool for her. She wants all the commodities that a native application can over her; all the ease of use and rich interaction, the seamless interface, you know? And that’s gonna be a problem.
Yeah, its true, you know, you /can/ tie it into a backend for Evolution, or whatever application you want, but dig this: you’re going to have to do that for every site that picks up on the Longhorn train, and that’s a problem, dig? So, you got two choices, you gotta rock off on your own and build a seperate platform and push for adoption, or you gotta construct a compatiable but seperate platform, you’ve seen the infomercials, “It does all this AND MORE, FOLKS!” its the “all this and more” that’s the eyecatcher, hey; I’ve got what you got, but I’ve also got a little more.
I mean, look at Firebird’s rapid adoption; its got everything internet explorer has, and more, so, you know, not alot of people will reject the browser, because the browser is awesome: lightweight, like IE, fast, like IE, simple, like IE, compatiable with most sites, like IE… and then you add in the one-two combo: extensions and themes. “All that and more!” You know, that’s why every IE user I’ve set Firebird up for can dig it, because they lose nothing in the process, and gain so much more, and its a noticable gain, something they can feel as they are using the application. “Wow, this page loads quicker!” they’ll tell you.
If you sit on your heels, you know, “it’ll never happen, Microsoft is such a klutz,” its gonna be XAML/.NET, I can pretty much guarntee it, too much money and mindshare to be otherwise, unless the F/OSS world steamrolls Microsoft before Longhorn hits the shelves with an alternative, open technology. Because, and I’m sure you know this already, there are probably more coders than philosophers, and once the technology comes, they will begin to use it – because it is there, and it is better. They’ll use it, like people use Java, until something better comes along. You need to appeal to them, tell them you’ve got everything Longhorn has, the integration, the tightness, the seamless interaction between web applications, native applications, and the platform beneath it. Give’em all that and a bag of chips, and everything is gravy.
—
This isn’t to say that my mother’s an idiot; she is very bright, she just does not /care/ about the computer. Its a tool to her, like a hammer, or a screwdriver, or a VCR. Its sole purpose is to do things for her, and do these things well. If a more streamlined interface exists, she will want to use it, not the old, archaic one she’s been using for years. If XAML/.NET does these things for her better than an open solution does, she’s gonna go for the Longhorn-based approach. So, you know, you gotta be ready; make those alliances, start churning out open solutions and show them what F/OSS can do in the face of adversity, you know?
I’ve been wondering about this concerning Sun and their recent patent deal with Microsoft. Has anyone else considered the possibility that they may just bypass Mono altogether and implement the real thing? Is there anything stopping them from doing it (I’m not sure)?
This is why Sun’s deal is so utterly brain-dead. Microsoft will always be in the driving seat because it is they who are licensing their technology – .Net or otherwise. Sun will find the life increasingly squeezed out of them as Microsoft reps visit them for meetings and say “Mmmm, well, we’re not sure whether we’re going to renew your license this year.” Sun are then obliged to do anything they can to renew, as their whole business depends on it. Microsoft are still the monopoly in this relationship.
The people currently in charge of Sun are just totally ignorant, and they have learned nothing from Microsoft’s attitude over the past twenty years.
This is no good:
“Nat spoke about some developments at Microsoft – the
merging of a bunch of teams for Avalon/XAML. Now have a
single team for web and native desktop rendering. GNOME
and Mozilla needs to align to counter this. One big
fear moment was at the recent Microsoft PDC, with
Amazon demoing their site written using XAML and pretty
compelling reasons for using it.“
Mark my words: without .NET support the linux (and any other) desktops are will be hobby OS. When (and NOT IF) the most of web sites will use Avalon, only few fanatic zealots will use linux for destkop. Let the Gnome and the KDE far better, faster and more beautiful then windows, let the multimedia, office, developer and other applications more useable and comfortable, nobody will use it if you can’t reach the most of web pages. And let see the current web pages: web designers aren’t care with non-IE or non-windows users. The linux desktop ~1-2% at this moment and IMHO at best will max. 5-10% in the next 5 years, when the Avalon will spread. And if you lose ~5% of users who are linux users, but win 95% of users who want better user interface and more complex web-based applications, you will chose a .NET/avalon technology.
What we need is a platform that is clearly superior to Avalon/XAML. I’m going to call it XUML in this text.
XUML should be downwards compatible with it, but everyone should know that they are missing a lot of cool features if you only use the MS version. It should be fast and easy to use on most platforms.
If someone implemented XUML, and people started using advanced features, most users would download and start using it. The trick is to make cool applications that work with MS tech, but has more features when XUML is available.
Mark my words: without .NET support the linux (and any other) desktops are will be hobby OS. When (and NOT IF) the most of web sites will use Avalon, only few fanatic zealots will use linux for destkop. Let the Gnome and the KDE far better, faster and more beautiful then windows, let the multimedia, office, developer and other applications more useable and comfortable, nobody will use it if you can’t reach the most of web pages.
Er dude, where are all the Microsoft servers on the Internet to migrate all these sites to? I don’t see them. Who is going to be bothered to do it, however good Avalon is? Microsoft has tried to do the same thing with IE since 1997. They’ve failed. How many sites really use ActiveX controls? They’ve tried to do this with Active Directory on DNS. They’ve failed. They’ve tried to do this with servers. They’ve failed spectacularly. Sorry dude, but most of the Internet is run by non-Microsoft systems, and not by Sun either. What we’ll get is a stalemate, because the technology will dictate Microsoft servers. The Internet will not move in that direction.
I don’t believe any of the people who panic and say that XAML and Avalon will take over. It will be restricted to internal IT systems, as ActiveX controls are currently restricted today. The internet itself is a different beast. If Microsoft come up with their own stuff they are restricted by Microsoft servers. If the w3c or anyone else comes up with their own stuff Microsoft will not adopt it. HTML will be around for a very long time.
One big fear moment was at the recent Microsoft PDC, with Amazon demoing their site written using XAML and pretty compelling reasons for using it.
Demonstrating it is one thing – using it is another. Amazon use a heck of a lot of non-Microsoft technology – their business runs on it. They aren’t suddenly going to replace everything with Microsoft servers.
For some information about XAML and what this is all about, check the first article of the following link:
http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2003_10.html
XAML can be used to replace Macromedia FLASH, and certain JAVA elements for web content, like web shops and such. Indeed, sites like Hotmail will probably use it in the future.
Perhaps some chat services and other community-like portals will use it to enable a more sophisticated interaction between the user and the system.
For paranoia’s sake, it could very well be _the_ attempt from Microsoft to control the WEB once and for all, an effort which may very well be unstoppable because of the deployment power the company has on the majority of computer users on this planet. In that case, even a better alternative wouldn’t even suffice: Users will use the default setting, like they use IE instead of Mozilla or Opera. It’s the story of “choice” Windows users have, but don’t utilize.
The major problem in this situation, is that this XAML/avalon thing may very well be not an open standard. If that’s the case, we’ll end up reverse engineering this whole effort in order to make certain websites accessable in the far future for users of other platforms. Well, in that situation, it does put an egg on the idea that the web is a platform-indepedent medium for getting information and data on any system available.
Perhaps it will be open, well I wonder what kind of stir/result on a political/social/communal level it will cause if it won’t though.
On the other hand, oh well, wether if it is used or not, or when, or whatever, let’s not forget that, despite the nice things that can be done with this possible propriatary technology, there will still be numerous users using MacOS, Windows XP, 2000 and even win32. It would be foolish not to serve these people, if you do a webshop or other commercial thing. Linux users are included in this category. The switch won’t be thrown immediately when the new Windows will be in stores. many other developments can happen.
Macromedia is also around, i wonder if they like this new development?
Besides that:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105409&cid=8971545
“Indeed, sites like Hotmail will probably use it in the future.”
GMail already done part of that.
Not in XAML, but far more than plain HTML and normal JavaScript.
I’ve try GMail for a week, it use lots of DHTML and complex JavaScript.
Many functionalities can be done without any request to the server.
e.g. show/hide detail of email header, change sorting criteria of emails list, everything just generated from JavaScript.
And it also has an e-mail address autocomplete (you type first few chars of email, and it will show you a list of emails that matched .. just popped up under the text field), and many cool features.
a web browser is going to be a platform?
next round for browser war?
interesting