Why Mono Is Desirable For Linux

[ciplogic]

First. I don't work for M$ neither A$, so I'm not going to compare them. They are all about earning money strategies, and about not to be the best, but the only one. Regarding the choices developers had when M$ introduced .NET, I don't think that Gambas and Lazarus are real options. Embarcadero started to make their path through .NET, and as for the Visual Studio importation assistant, it's an adventure in large projects, and in practice most companies wrote their product from scratch.
My experience is this. When M$ moved to .NET it left all C/C++ with the pants down. They changed the IDE so C/C++ developers saw their coding tools changed. As for M$ they also banned C/C++ developers from Windows and their mobile platforms which for that time had to be programmed with Visual C++ Embedded (they made then a master headshot I would say!). As for me I saw me forced to move to C#, since I get sick when I see aslongasayearvisualbasiccode. Now, I'm returning to C++ thanks Linux is maturing.

Lazarus is not an alternative for .Net? Why? In fact I think is the third option after QtCreator and MonoDevelop for fast desktop applications. Java had as much traction as Mono as desktop applications. When MS moved to .Net, C++ was let down as tooling, and even I'm not related with Microsoft, I noticed that they made a conference this year about native languages (from 2012 Language.Net becomes Languages.Next) and they promote C++ via COM+ and WinRT. This makes that C++ will be the next thing that seems MS to invest and C# is a second investment (to not say is not an important asset for them).
As for MS banned C++ on their phones, they did for WinPhone 7, but WinPhone 8 seems that it will support fully. In fact the same criticism could be told just to Android (up until version 2.1, more than one year after Android G1, first Google Phone) that had just an interpreter to run.
Linux was mature 5 years ago, and is still maturing, in fact I would say that the Linux 2.6 was the most successful kernel ever made. If you mean that Linux is maturing for games, C/C++ is as is Java, Python and Mono.
I appreciate your C++ preference, and I think is a great language (at least the C++ 11 with lambdas, type inference , saner template errors). I also hope that more software will appear on Linux or the one that is around it will be so good, that Windows will be just the thing of the past.

[ciplogic]

To all of the Microsoft-sponsored propaganda artists, I present to you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_extend_extinguish

Which all of us Linux folks are quite aware of. Of course, you'll argue that's the distant past, and the "new Microsoft" loves Linux, and wants what's best for her.

Nobody is ever going to trust Microsoft, and rightfully so. And there's nothing you can do to change that. The average Fox News viewer can be easily influenced to believe the most impossible of ideas(cutting taxes to increase tax revenue? akin to taking a wage cut to pay off your credit cards?), but the average Fox News viewer has one-half the IQ of you average Linux developer, so you may want to pursue a different strategy rather than assume what trickery works on people with an IQ of 75 will also work on people with and IQ of 150.

Don't trust Microsoft, so don't use C++ 11 because the C++ Standards committee was headed by a Microsoft Employee, use just assembly, is patent free.

[peperoni]

Don't trust Microsoft, so don't use C++ 11 because the C++ Standards committee was headed by a Microsoft Employee, use just assembly, is patent free.

I appreciate your notice, but even though I don't trust M$ I will continue using C/C++ and recommending it because It's good for me, my family and my bussines, though not for M$ bussines.

[peperoni]

Lazarus is not an alternative for .Net? Why? In fact I think is the third option after QtCreator and MonoDevelop for fast desktop applications. Java had as much traction as Mono as desktop applications. When MS moved to .Net, C++ was let down as tooling, and even I'm not related with Microsoft, I noticed that they made a conference this year about native languages (from 2012 Language.Net becomes Languages.Next) and they promote C++ via COM+ and WinRT. This makes that C++ will be the next thing that seems MS to invest and C# is a second investment (to not say is not an important asset for them).
As for MS banned C++ on their phones, they did for WinPhone 7, but WinPhone 8 seems that it will support fully. In fact the same criticism could be told just to Android (up until version 2.1, more than one year after Android G1, first Google Phone) that had just an interpreter to run.
Linux was mature 5 years ago, and is still maturing, in fact I would say that the Linux 2.6 was the most successful kernel ever made. If you mean that Linux is maturing for games, C/C++ is as is Java, Python and Mono.
I appreciate your C++ preference, and I think is a great language (at least the C++ 11 with lambdas, type inference , saner template errors). I also hope that more software will appear on Linux or the one that is around it will be so good, that Windows will be just the thing of the past.

Yes, Lazarus is great! And saying that C++ is for Winrt and COM+ is something that scares me. It means that C++ has no future for common developers in Windows since such technologies are poorly frequent.
Saying that Linux 2.6 is the most successful kernel ever made is like stating 'watch out with kernel 3 versions'. By the way I never said 'Linux is maturing for games' and no I'm not a M$ evangelyst. And at last I don't mind about the things you pretend to appreciate.

[directhex]

As C# and .NET were the master move of M$ to ban all IDE companies from windows, no mater who lost ( they also banned all Visual C++, Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, Borland C++, Pascal, ..., developers), I think they won't have mercy when .NET not be necessary. M$ is about earning money, their money. All Windows developers are only puppets. Fortunately, Linux, C, C++, and others have been there for decades, with no changes, to insure all professionals that have worried for themselves. Linux is win-win while others are win-????. The only I know is that I've been coding more than a decade for living, and another one for passion, and I don't see future in a platform that outcast professionals at will.

Also I think a crappy .NET implementation in Linux is dessirable to M$ (and if it divides Linux developpers, the best) because for them it was always the same thing 'not to be the best, but the only one'.

Is that meant to be English? I can't understand a word of it.

[directhex]

I appreciate your notice, but even though I don't trust M$ I will continue using C/C++ and recommending it because It's good for me, my family and my bussines, though not for M$ bussines.

And that's why you are untrustworthy.

Why is a Microsoft standard (C++11) fine? Just because you say so?

[peperoni]

And that's why you are untrustworthy.

Why is a Microsoft standard (C++11) fine? Just because you say so?

Maybe not for you.
I didn't mention C++11.

[directhex]

What I'm trying to say is that it's fine to learn and use Mono but the problem that could arise is that if it becomes popular in the dev world (and I can easily see it as becoming so) then everybody will start writing in C# for linux. So most of the applications in linux will become C#. Now Microsoft tells us that we can use C# as it's like public domain and they can't do anything about it if people start writing VMs for their platform. But this is Microsoft we're talking about. I am not a lawyer but I know that they have armies of lawyers that they can at some point use to find a loophole in the law to take back C#. At that point, if linux becomes dependent on Mono, then we're fucked. That is all I'm trying to say. C# is a fine language but it comes with strings attached. If Microsoft sees it becoming too popular in the linux world they might get ideas and go back to their old tricks and ruin the platform.

You assume several things here, though

1) You assume that the rest of the system is risk-free. During his sabre-rattling sessions, Ballmer has implied that about 200 patents are violated by the average Linux desktop, mostly in the kernel and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice. Mono's never come up as a target, the kernel and OOo have. Why is Mono the dangerous one, and the kernel/OOo not dangerous? That makes no sense to me.

2) You assume that should any actionable patents come to light, that they can't be worked around. Why not? We've been working around patents on the Free Software desktop for ages. Freetype's legal threats from Apple are one of the main examples, or long filename support in vfat.ko

3) You assume that Mono is at more risk than the alternatives. For example, in a delicious piece of irony, Microsoft claim to offer a binding pledge not to sue for complete implementations of the C# language specification... whereas Vala implements only large parts of it (i.e. is not protected).

4) You assume that other companies' armies of lawyers are incompetent, and only Microsoft know what they're talking about. Protip: Sony have a lot more to lose than you do, and Sony have bet the farm on Mono. And Sony certainly don't plan on paying any fees to their arch-rivals Microsoft.

5) You assume that should Microsoft go nuclear, tear up their patent pledges, and try to kill Mono, that any judge they bring things to would ignore, say, promissory estoppel. It would really be phenomenally difficult for Microsoft to attack Mono at this point, given their previous behaviour towards it, thanks to legal concepts like estoppel.

There is literally no piece of software on Linux with more protections and guarantees of legal security than Mono. Nothing.

[directhex]

Maybe for you, I'm not, but you can be sure I'm trustworthy for my family.
I didn't mention C++11.

You replied to someone pointing it out.

So go on, attack C+11 as a Microsoft plot, and how anyone using it is being trapped onto Windows, how Microsoft stacked the standardization process, etc etc etc. Let's hear some equitable treatment.

Not to be the best, but the only one. All yours.

Again, not English. Try again.

[peperoni]

You replied to someone pointing it out.

So go on, attack C+11 as a Microsoft plot, and how anyone using it is being trapped onto Windows, how Microsoft stacked the standardization process, etc etc etc. Let's hear some equitable treatment.



Again, not English. Try again.

Do you need equitable treatment?