Attachmate lays off US Mono employees

Attachmate acquired Novell, and now is laying off at least some of the US Mono developers:

http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/05/attachmate-lays-off-mono-emplo.html

EDIT:  This is all just a rumour.  Sorry about that.

wow that sucks! I hope it doesn't impact the Moonlight strategy. I hope to get my tools running on on Moonligth 4 and I can't take another "our strategy has shifted" .

What are the chances that Microsoft hires them to start a Linux Business Group within Microsoft?

As per Miguel it is a rumor and i hope it remains just that ...

http://twitter.com/#!/migueldeicaza/status/65616521027788800

@xgamer:

Don't think Linux think Android...

@xgamer:  Aw, I feel horrible for spreading what is probably just a rumor.    I should have done more research.  My bad.

@xgamer: The tweet was about the rumor that Microsoft was behind the news, not an assertion that the news was a rumor. AFAICT, this is in fact not a rumor. Some Mono folks were let go.

I'm still unclear why MSFT doesn't purchase MONO or its rights to get the uncertainty out of the way.  The good PR that would come from this would certainly not hurt. 

And, if there are competition issues, then they could get the same kind of results through grants to the developers.  The more environments where .Net is used, the better.

@ScanIAm: How do you "purchase" an OpenSource project? Who do you "purchase" it from?

Even if that were possible, this would have the opposite effect of getting "the uncertainty out of the way." Certainly the folks that are anti-Microsoft and/or anti-Mono today wouldn't consider such a move to be "good PR", and I gaurantee it would hurt the acceptance of Mono in that world.

Now, providing grants to the developers might provide some good will for a small subset of people, but the typical OpenSource developer that's anti-Microsoft and/or anti-Mono would still just see this as a move to catch them in a patent-bomb. For those of us who are interested in a cross platform solution it would be welcomed, but that's not your typical Open Source developer.

2 minutes ago, wkempf wrote

@ScanIAm: How do you "purchase" an OpenSource project? Who do you "purchase" it from?

Attachmate?  It seems that if they can let folks go, they have some kind of power over the project.

Even if that were possible, this would have the opposite effect of getting "the uncertainty out of the way." Certainly the folks that are anti-Microsoft and/or anti-Mono today wouldn't consider such a move to be "good PR", and I gaurantee it would hurt the acceptance of Mono in that world.

Yeah, I don't really care much about them, I'm more concerned with people who actually have jobs.  The uncertainty I'm referring to is what a project manager would see when choosing a framework to develop in.  If the OS isn't windows, but the devs suggest MONO, one of the items in the 'NO' column would be that the MONO project isn't taken seriously by a company with staying power. 

Now, providing grants to the developers might provide some good will for a small subset of people, but the typical OpenSource developer that's anti-Microsoft and/or anti-Mono would still just see this as a move to catch them in a patent-bomb. For those of us who are interested in a cross platform solution it would be welcomed, but that's not your typical Open Source developer.

That would be my point.  Anyone anti-MSFT seems silly to me, but everyone needs a cause, so I guess I can dig it.  Anyone anti-.Net is doing so simply out of spite.  Let them wallow in their Java.

1 hour ago, ScanIAm wrote

*snip*

Attachmate?  It seems that if they can let folks go, they have some kind of power over the project.

They employed people working on Mono, they did not own the Mono project. Microsoft can't "buy" people, nor can they "buy" an OpenSource product (depending on what you mean by OpenSource). They could fund the Mono developers, whether as employees or through grants.

*snip*

Yeah, I don't really care much about them, I'm more concerned with people who actually have jobs.  The uncertainty I'm referring to is what a project manager would see when choosing a framework to develop in.  If the OS isn't windows, but the devs suggest MONO, one of the items in the 'NO' column would be that the MONO project isn't taken seriously by a company with staying power. 

OpenSource projects don't work that way. There may be corporate sponsorship, but generally support is provided through the community not through a corporation. The only reason the future of Mono is in question at all is because the community has mostly rejected it this entire time, and the loss of funding could therefore be the nail in the coffin. Personally, I doubt this is going to happen, but that is what the FSF folks are hoping.

*snip*

That would be my point.  Anyone anti-MSFT seems silly to me, but everyone needs a cause, so I guess I can dig it.  Anyone anti-.Net is doing so simply out of spite.  Let them wallow in their Java.

Sounds great... except that the entire purpose of Mono is to provide an implementation for those OpenSource platforms run by folks that are anti-Mono. You and I aren't in disagreement, but you're not seeing what the issue is. There's a demand issue here, because the vast majority of the Linux user base is hostile towards the existence of Mono, silly as that may be.

13 minutes ago, wkempf wrote

  *snip*

Sounds great... except that the entire purpose of Mono is to provide an implementation for those OpenSource platforms run by folks that are anti-Mono. You and I aren't in disagreement, but you're not seeing what the issue is. There's a demand issue here, because the vast majority of the Linux user base is hostile towards the existence of Mono, silly as that may be.

That's an old, old argument. Sure there is and always will be people that hate Microsoft but new projects are born every day and as long as Microsoft doesn't provide an option for Android that door will be closed. We're a .Net shop but we've got an Android project in incubation. We would have loved to stay with the same toolset, language, etc for the Android development. Now that were in bed with Eclipse and Java and having great success we're starting to rethink our overall development strategy. I believe that more and more as business and developers cross over to phones and tablets that Microsoft risks loosing developers. Of course you excuse yourself of the reality of today (and tomorrow) and say that tablets don't matter but then again neither did smartphones nor the internet matter not too many years ago either...

Actually Novell/Attachmate does in fact own the copyrights over Mono. Open source is a legal concept, and it typically refers to a category of software licensed under conditions that meet the open source definition.

Just because something is open source doesn't magically make it non-commercial community based stuff, Novell made money not only on support but from proprietary products derived from Mono.

"Sounds great... except that the entire purpose of Mono is to provide an implementation for those OpenSource platforms run by folks that are anti-Mono. You and I aren't in disagreement, but you're not seeing what the issue is. There's a demand issue here, because the vast majority of the Linux user base is hostile towards the existence of Mono, silly as that may be."

The vast majority of Linux-using message board trolls, maybe.

@Bass: Yes, and I still own the copyright to Boost.Threads, but have no control over it at all, legally. Mono is under an OpenSource license, and as such it's not under the control over Attachmate.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand this utter confusion about who owns what and when or how it can be marketed and sold isn't really helping the case for FOSS or MONO.

No CIO wants to get in a pissing match with a bunch of non-lawyers (a.k.a developers) over how a licensing system works so they go with MSFT.  I'd wager that FOSS software costs a company more money in legal fees than it saves in the dreaded 'Microsoft Tax'.

10 hours ago, wkempf wrote

@Bass: Yes, and I still own the copyright to Boost.Threads, but have no control over it at all, legally. Mono is under an OpenSource license, and as such it's not under the control over Attachmate.

Boost License is IIRC very close to public domain. Parts of Mono are GPLed and LGPLed. So Attachmate can derive proprietary products from that code base while no one else legally can.

@cbae: Zero

The last thing MS wants is for Linux to become a viable desktop platform.