GNOME & Mono Made Love At Microsoft Last Week

[kraftman]

icaza doesn't speak for everyone.

Yes, but he's driving the project and if it has to succeed he has to be replaced.

[TheBlackCat]

Microsoft OneNote.

I think he/she meant "What closed apps are replaced in Gnome by using .NET instead of some other language?" The question, again, is why Mono is being used instead of something else. Pointing to applications that are written from scratch in Mono doesn't really help answer that, since it doesn't explain why those application are not being written in another language. So unless you can somehow show that the program would not have been written at all if Mono wasn't available this doesn't really help your case.

I don't see any .NET hackfest proposals for KDE. Do you?

No, but that is probably because pretty much nobody uses the KDE or Qt Mono bindings. They exist, they are available, but they aren't popular compared to other languages. So why is Mono so popular with Gnome and pretty much ignored in KDE?

[directhex]

I think he/she meant "What closed apps are replaced in Gnome by using .NET instead of some other language?" The question, again, is why Mono is being used instead of something else. Pointing to applications that are written from scratch in Mono doesn't really help answer that, since it doesn't explain why those application are not being written in another language. So unless you can somehow show that the program would not have been written at all if Mono wasn't available this doesn't really help your case.

They're written in C# because their developers wanted to write them in C#. They could have used something else, but didn't. Free Software is an ecosystem of choices.

No, but that is probably because pretty much nobody uses the KDE or Qt Mono bindings. They exist, they are available, but they aren't popular compared to other languages. So why is Mono so popular with Gnome and pretty much ignored in KDE?

Binding to C++ well is really hard, due to the need to track objects adequately, and G++'s habit of mangling method names (amongst other things). libsmoke for Qt exists, but makes your app super slow. The latest is a project called Cxxi, which enables proper binding to C++ libs like Qt - but it's incomplete, and nobody has finished it yet.

Conversely, we have tech to bind to GObject trivially (GAPI), and have done for almost a decade.

So that's why.

[kraftman]

Microsoft could release a full .NET implementation under a GPLv3-compatible license with full patent grant, and you'd still come up with excuses. Maybe they already did. You wouldn't know.

Make MS prove it's patent free or make Icaza to ship patent free bits, make it community driven and make MS to keep their dirty hands out of Gnome and entire Linux and I'll shut up when comes to this part. Mono is in the same language team as java (compared to C/C++/Qt). It's not a secret java is simply dead on desktops, so while mono is similar you should have a clue why it's having a rough time to get more attention on Linux desktops - on Windows .Net is driven by MS. If java will be favored then I can understand your frustration, but it's not. I found strange to convince others how great some language is. People usually use what they know and what they like, so if they don't like mono it's not anti-mono crowd problem, but maybe those who stands behind mono, perhaps? C, C++, Python, mono they're all available in repositories, so what's the problem?

[vertexSymphony]

True, mono does implement things like winforms that are not part of the standard. (but many mono programs don't even use winforms...)

But I developed using Winforms with mono? I've ran Winforms apps on mono? I'm confused =/
In any case, the more I read @directhex, the lower my opinion on mono is -.-

[directhex]

But I developed using Winforms with mono? I've ran Winforms apps on mono? I'm confused =/

Mono provides an implementation of WinForms, but it's largely unmaintained, and certainly not bug-free.

WinForms looks like ass, and integrates very poorly with Linux environments, so it's pretty much never used as the framework of choice for new Linux projects. It's used for cases where an app began life on Windows, to enable porting to Linux without forcing an entire UI rewrite - for example, Keepass.

The Linux community cares more about Gtk#, the Mac community cares about MonoMac (Cocoa binding), and Windows developers use WPF and Microsoft.NET.

[directhex]

Make MS prove it's patent free

How?

or make Icaza to ship patent free bits,

Why bother? Anyone who believes the patent FUD wouldn't use it regardless, so it's a wasted engineering effort.

make it community driven

Which of your pull requests to mono.git haven't been accepted? There's a lot of community involvement in Mono's writing. Where do you feel the community isn't having a say?

and make MS to keep their dirty hands out of Gnome and entire Linux

Like it or not, they're free to do what they like - including writing kernel modules for Linux. GNOME, however, they have no say at all, so no issues there.

It's not a secret java is simply dead on desktops, so while mono is similar you should have a clue why it's having a rough time to get more attention on Linux desktops

Java is dead on desktops because it's terrible on desktops - Java apps are slow, clunky, and eat ALL the RAM. None of this applies to Mono apps, where you can't distinguish a Mono Gtk+ app from a C Gtk+ app unless you actually look under the hood.

Mono's problems with acceptance are all about FUD.

C, C++, Python, mono they're all available in repositories, so what's the problem?

"I'm going to write a new app! Hmm, I'd like to use C#, but if I do, I'll get ostracised by the community, and treated like a leper. I guess I'll pick something worse, to avoid the politics".

I won't name the project I'm paraphrasing from the lead developer of.

[vertexSymphony]

So mono does have stuff that's non-standard and possibly not covered by the patent promise? :S
That's where I've read the most concerns about.

It would be awesome if the license could cover patent grants, but the copyright on the software is not microsoft's, they're not the owners on mono... you can't give a patent grant on stuff that's not yours, unless you have a license (and right to sub-license with that one).
Microsoft would never-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever make such agreement (it would be TOO GOOD to be actually true), and that leaves me thinking

[TheBlackCat]

How?

By putting the entire .Net framework under the community promise, rather than just part of it

[bwat47]

How?



"I'm going to write a new app! Hmm, I'd like to use C#, but if I do, I'll get ostracised by the community, and treated like a leper. I guess I'll pick something worse, to avoid the politics".

I won't name the project I'm paraphrasing from the lead developer of.

This is so true, this type of trolling has gotten so out of hand. Whether or not you think mono is "better" or "worse" than any other framework, the following scenerio happens far too often:

1. Someone writes a perfectly good functional app, happens to be written in mono, because thats either the authors preferred language or just that he's most familiar/confident with

2. You see all kinds of ridiculous comments such as "Ohh, nice program, too bad its written in mono, wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot poll". or "OMG THIS IS MONO GARBAGE!!!"

there's no reason to treat FOSS developers like this just because of their language/framework choice. Mono apps integrate fine with gnome, and there's nothing hugely wrong with it. I understand there are valid potential concerns regarding patents and non-ECMA parts of mono, but there's no reason for the kind of trolling we constantly see.