Microsoft Buys Out Miguel de Icaza's Xamarin

[DanLamb]

"Computing-wise that three week vacation turned out to be very relaxing. Machine would suspend and resume without problem, WiFi just worked, audio did not stop working, I spent three weeks without having to recompile the kernel to adjust this or that, nor fighting the video drivers, or deal with the bizarre and random speed degradation that my ThinkPad suffered. While I missed the comprehensive Linux toolchain and userland, I did not miss having to chase the proper package for my current version of Linux, or beg someone to package something. Binaries just worked."

I completely agree with Icaza and this is a quite common viewpoint. Actually, I don't miss the "Linux toolchain and userland". I don't even know what he's referring to. The Mac OS X shell is completely on par with Linux. It has the full set of command line tools, it supports full bash and zsh. Mac also has good package managers. Homebrew does what I want. Vim and emacs work just as well on Mac as they do on Linux.

I still prefer Linux for servers and VMs.

And even for desktop use, Linux has much better hardware choice.

Right now, the newest 15" MacBook Pro use Intel Haswell chipsets from years ago. Intel has gone through that cycle, done the Broadwell cycle, and is now on Skylake. All the PC vendors are selling Skylake products. Only Apple is stuck back with Haswell. Of course Apple will refresh and fix that. But if I had to buy a work laptop today, I just wouldn't pay top dollar for an Apple with completely out of date internals. I would suck it up and use Linux so I could get up to date hardware.

People are allowed to move on. Miguel got more interested in Mono than GNOME. He attempted to make Mono a fundamental part of the GNOME desktop, however the GNOME developers decided on a different course. He hasn't had anything to do with GNOME for a very long time.

Reminds me of that story about the founder of MySpace having a Facebook profile. People aren't commited to their opinions or allignments from 15 years ago.

Of course he is allowed to move on and change his mind. He's also allowed and even right to think desktop Linux is a mess. And saying so in private or under semi-anonymity is fine.

But to publicly and flamboyantly bash desktop Linux and using your reputation as the Gnome founder to do so
is just obnoxious.

[Iksf]

I completely agree with Icaza and this is a quite common viewpoint. Actually, I don't miss the "Linux toolchain and userland". I don't even know what he's referring to. The Mac OS X shell is completely on par with Linux. It has the full set of command line tools, it supports full bash and zsh. Mac also has good package managers. Homebrew does what I want. Vim and emacs work just as well on Mac as they do on Linux.

I still prefer Linux for servers and VMs.

And even for desktop use, Linux has much better hardware choice.

Right now, the newest 15" MacBook Pro use Intel Haswell chipsets from years ago. Intel has gone through that cycle, done the Broadwell cycle, and is now on Skylake. All the PC vendors are selling Skylake products. Only Apple is stuck back with Haswell. Of course Apple will refresh and fix that. But if I had to buy a work laptop today, I just wouldn't pay top dollar for an Apple with completely out of date internals. I would suck it up and use Linux so I could get up to date hardware.



Of course he is allowed to move on and change his mind. He's also allowed and even right to think desktop Linux is a mess. And saying so in private or under semi-anonymity is fine.

But to publicly and flamboyantly bash desktop Linux and using your reputation as the Gnome founder to do so
is just obnoxious.

Sorry, don't agree at all on the last part. People have hounded him for his opinions on the desktop and his reasons for moving away. He posted on his blog explaining his reasoning. It's as private as you can get. His criticisms aren't fallacious, which would be a different issue. His main point is that Linux hasn't outgrown a lot of its issues quickly enough to keep his interest.

If he was getting up on stage at Build and spewing lies about how GNOME is a pile of arse, with "Miguel De Icaza, Former GNOME lead developer" on the title of his presentation; then I'd agree. However, he isn't.

[SystemCrasher]

The combination of Xamarin, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services, and Azure delivers a complete mobile app dev solution that provides everything a developer needs to develop, test, deliver and instrument mobile apps for every device. We are really excited to see what you build with it.

Really long, marketing-style way to say "Rest In Peace" . And have I told it is impolite to consider developers being a fucking morons?

[SystemCrasher]

Because programmers are hotly opinionated and some love C#. As a pure language, it's nearly identical to Java, of course.

Haha, we can see what all this C# crap worth of. Closed-minded, win-only ecosystem full of morons who can't really imagine world beyond of x86-32 and Win32. Good thing is the fact this approach has utterly destroyed M$ future, killing their ability to scale and deliver workable mobile devices or something. So C# lovers are going to be third-rate losers when it comes to tablets or phones, bound to win32/x86 on desktop and overall, it kinda niche thing. Sorry, but M$ can fuck themself into the mouth with "portable" thing lacking portable set of widgets, not like anyone on this planet urgently needs third-rate unportable vendor-locked solutions. These times are long over.

[SteveOC64]

Haha, we can see what all this C# crap worth of. Closed-minded, win-only ecosystem full of morons who can't really imagine world beyond of x86-32 and Win32. Good thing is the fact this approach has utterly destroyed M$ future, killing their ability to scale and deliver workable mobile devices or something. So C# lovers are going to be third-rate losers when it comes to tablets or phones, bound to win32/x86 on desktop and overall, it kinda niche thing. Sorry, but M$ can fuck themself into the mouth with "portable" thing lacking portable set of widgets, not like anyone on this planet urgently needs third-rate unportable vendor-locked solutions. These times are long over.

Mate, it just gets worse by the fucking day. Meanwhile over on the client side, the poison that goes by the name of "typescript" is seeping out of the open wound that goes by the name of "Angular2", and all the C# fanboys think this is a good thing.

[SteveOC64]

You are a friend of Microsoft -> you get rich. You are a friend of Linux -> you get jack shit.

Miguel chose right. He chose money. Now he's richer than all of you. Microsoft has enough money to buy everyone. They stomp over Linux by buying important people. Next up: Linus Torvalds!

Without getting wildly off-topic ... There is a subtle difference here between "Money" and "Instruments of Debt". Both Miguel and Microsoft are holding an awful lot of the latter, and probably wouldn't recognize the former if they fell over it.

[unixfan2001]

Haha, we can see what all this C# crap worth of. Closed-minded, win-only ecosystem full of morons who can't really imagine world beyond of x86-32 and Win32. Good thing is the fact this approach has utterly destroyed M$ future, killing their ability to scale and deliver workable mobile devices or something. So C# lovers are going to be third-rate losers when it comes to tablets or phones, bound to win32/x86 on desktop and overall, it kinda niche thing. Sorry, but M$ can fuck themself into the mouth with "portable" thing lacking portable set of widgets, not like anyone on this planet urgently needs third-rate unportable vendor-locked solutions. These times are long over.

Oh FFS! Just piss off with your unsubstantiated, insulting BS already!
How about freaking using a system BEFORE criticising it?

I can tell right away that you haven't spent any time with C# or .Net as a whole, otherwise you wouldn't claim that it's a "Closed-minded, win-only ecosystem full of morons who can't really imagine world beyond of x86-32 and Win32."(sic).

For starters, C# isn't bound to Windows or x86 to begin with. It also works on ARM (since Lumia phones have Snapdragon SoCs, after all), iOS, Android, GNU/Linux and Mac OS X.
That not all .NET libraries are available for every system is a conscious design decision and can be easily off-set with the available alternatives.

There also ARE portable sets of widgets available. Not just for C# (which is a language, not necessarily the platform) but for .NET as a whole. There's Xamarin.Forms (which, guess what, is now part of Microsoft) and there are bindings for common toolkits like GTK and QT.

Your lack of experience is really showing. Even behind that facade of blustering arrogance.
Good thing you're mainly administering systems. I wouldn't want you to write multiplatform end-user applications, where ANSI C is certainly NOT the answer.

[unixfan2001]

Mate, it just gets worse by the fucking day. Meanwhile over on the client side, the poison that goes by the name of "typescript" is seeping out of the open wound that goes by the name of "Angular2", and all the C# fanboys think this is a good thing.

Another case of an incompetent craftsman blaming his tools.
There is nothing inherently wrong with C# or TypeScript (which is just a more logical ECMAScript anyways), nor is Angular the only use case.

I work with both of them pretty much every single day of my professional worklife (C#/XAML for some of our larger and longer running projects. TypeScript as part of smaller multiplatform prototypes which we build with NativeScript) and they absolutely work.

The problem with you and SystemCrasher is that neither of you has ever learned how to appropriately choose the right set of tools. Programming languages/frameworks aren't a "catch all" thing. You don't use a drill or a mallet when your goal is to hang a poster on your office wall.

[Kristian Joensen]

An interesting op-ed on this acquisition: http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-an...za-a-bone.html

[Green Lion]

"De Icaza then started Xamarin to continue with Mono development, and managed to attract US$82 million from venture capital firms" - jesus, didnt realise it was that much.