Hows MS feel about Mono

So, been wondering.  How does Microsoft feel about Mono and the whole Linux/.Net push?  How do you feel about the fact that it's not being created by you?  Wouldn't it be eaiser to create it yourself, having direct control?

It makes sense to broaden a platform like .Net (which I love, btw) to Linux.

I'm curious about this too.

I'm suprised MS haven't taken action against some aspects of the Mono development.

I clearly recall googling for some .NET info and found references to the stuff I needed in some online mono documentation. I later found the info I needed in MSDN, and it was word-for-word identical.

As a developer for both platforms, i too would like to know what the people at ms think about Mono. I can imagine there are some mixed feelings!

All i know is it makes .NET a far more attractive platform (than it already is) for development for me & our customers, because there's this freedom of OS (as it were). We don't have to worry -too much- about the intended OS, and of course all use VS.NET 2003

Hope to hear something on this,

Ben

Ps. first post and I think the idea of this site is very good!

Correct me if I am wrong but, wasn't the plan for .Net from the beginning to eventually be a cross-platform framework for developers?

(Here is where I jump to the spectacular world of speculation and assumptions) I wouldn't be surprised if MS is working with the folks in charge of Mono. Regardless of if they are or if they aren't they could be planning their own release to sink any external attempts at perceivable "competition".

Mono is good for Microsoft because it helps see the value of using the CLR. They offered the olive branch with Rotor, but folks decided to have a go at with themselves with Mono. That's all good as far as I'm for both parties because they are learning from each other. I really believe that the OSS community has more to worry about from Sun unwillingness to standardize Java than they do from Microsoft trying to blow out Mono.

Correct me if I am wrong but, wasn't the plan for .Net from the beginning to eventually be a cross-platform framework for developers?

That is the way I had understood it.

As far as I can see it would only benefit Microsoft to do everything they can to put the framework on other platforms than their own. It will get their technology out to a wider audience and hopefully help knock down some walls between developer communities. Not only that but the .NET framework is damned good IMHO. To quote the Christmas special MSDN TV song:

# Oh what fun it is to blow J2EE away!...

Brings up the question of which evil to choose.  Do you spread .Net to every platform, but at the same time help further the Linux movement (because if .Net works fine and dandy on both platforms, that means more good apps for Linux as well as Windows.  I know I would develop stuff for it, and might even possibly consider switching completely)

Then again, if you don't push it to other OS's, you are limiting the usage of your (great) platform.  Which obviously is not good either.

So, Im not really sure which is better.  Personally, I'd like to see the Mono project develop and gain support from MS, but that may not be in MS's best interest.  Dunno.

excaliber wrote:

So, been wondering.  How does Microsoft feel about Mono and the whole Linux/.Net push?  How do you feel about the fact that it's not being created by you?  Wouldn't it be eaiser to create it yourself, having direct control?

It makes sense to broaden a platform like .Net (which I love, btw) to Linux.

I heard a rumor that MS has hired Corel to port .NET to Unix/Linux.
Is that rumor true?

 i know mono for over one and a halve year and .net for nearly 5 years. .net rocks. mono indeed seems to be a good pro for ms and ms software, how could somebody explain that so many compiler vendors built / building compilers for the clr. and mono is getting linux people in contact to asp.net (personally i think thats better than php will be used). normally i work with Windows + .net, but in my free time i work a little with linux and mono an i must say that ASP .net under mono ist running very well, but WindowsForms i think will be a problem as long the linux party is using different gui libs. Right know there are three methods to code WinForms Apps under X11. I personally wonder if nobody recognized that ximian (the company who developed so far mono) has been bought by NOVELL. DUDES! They also bought our German Linux Distributor SuSE. If that isn't a monopolist

I work right know with .NET Framework V 2.0.40301.0 and must say: GREAT WORK!!!

keep on

Tobi

I am not a lawyer but it seems that the mono project are "fruit of the poisoned tree"..

What about dotGNU? They should join forces with Mono. Although does Mono use a different license to dotGNU (which I assume uses GPL)

It would be very useful to have the .NET Framework on many platforms. As long as there are no licenses, and it is OK to use it on Open Source platforms there is a lot of potential.

I do find that they do tend to be more biased towards C# (what about VB.NET - it is probably better for beggining programming on .NET?)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

warren wrote:

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Very little people seem to get it.. the CLI itself is an ECMA standard. C# is an ECMA standard. this means you, your grandpappy, or academia can go out and build your own CLI yourself..

here's a clip on what Peter Hallam has to say about it:

Peter Hallam:  I think the Mono project is a great validation of our direction with C# and the CLR. It's great to see an independent implementation of C# and the CLR. I look forward to seeing what they produce.

C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (the CLI, a subset of the full Microsoft CLR) have been accepted as international standards by ECMA. Microsoft has also released Rotor, a shared source implementation of C# and the CLI which targets Windows XP, FreeBSD, and more recently Mac OS X 10.2.

Source: http://www.codesta.com/knowledge/technical/csharp_clr/page_05.aspx

SMac wrote:

Very little people seem to get it.. the CLI itself is an ECMA standard. C# is an ECMA standard. this means you, your grandpappy, or academia can go out and build your own CLI yourself..