Mono 2.11 Release Brings Many Changes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mono 2.11 Release Brings Many Changes

Miguel de Icaza has announced the immediate release of Mono 2.11, which brings many changes for this controversial open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET platform for Linux and other operating systems...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTA3NTc

[allquixotic]

Why do you have to call it "controversial"? Sure, some people don't trust Microsoft's community promise or implementing their "open" standards, but software itself isn't controversial ... it's just code.

Or if you mean to say that there are some people who don't approve of its use, well, heh, every piece of software you mention should then be tagged with "controversial". Anybody know a piece of software that everyone in the world likes?

Maybe ls?

[elanthis]

Because a shitload of fucking morons on this very forum scream and whine like little babies every time Mono is mentioned. The existence of Mono has caused a controversy because some people believe falsely that Microsoft's executives are retarded and malicious enough to devise some grand plan where they spend decades building one of the best development platforms the world has yet seen, and sit and wait for many years letting an incomplete but usable Free implementation of .NET grow and become popular, only to start suing tons of C#/.NET-supporting companies and destroy the entirety of Microsoft's own investment in the platform, all in the interest of selling a handful more Windows and Visual Studio licenses.

These same people bitch and whine about the lack of commercial games on Linux from companies with a much worse track record than Microsoft, whine and moan about the slow development pace of the Linux desktop ecosystem that is being politically forced into using antiquated and dev-time-inefficient languages and toolkits, and then throw a shitfit when things like Unity3D which is heavily invested in and based on Mono doesn't support Linux at all aside from their new Chrome NaCl support.

These are also the people who think that LLVM is an Apple project, or that Clang will be mysteriously closed up some day screwing over everybody despite the fact that Clang started life as an internal proprietary Apple tool which Apple then released under the LLVM license specifically because it believed it was the right thing to do and the best choice for the project (and it has been, as now tons of other people and companies like Google and Linux companies backing Gallium are all contributing tons of code to Clang that helps out both Apple and everyone else). These are also the same idiots who think that the CUPS 1.6 announcement is actually in any way a sign of anti-Linux or anti-FOSS trends from Apple (the only news there was that Apple cleaned up some old CUPS-proprietary crap in favor of IETF-standards-compliant protocols) or that WebKit is evil because Apple might do something evil there (even though both KDE and Google as well as a ton of other companies are all still going to stay around supporting WebKit even if Apple forks it back into proprietary-land).

tl;dr version: people are stupid.

[allquixotic]

Because a shitload of fucking morons on this very forum scream and whine like little babies every time Mono is mentioned. The existence of Mono has caused a controversy because some people believe falsely that Microsoft's executives are retarded and malicious enough to devise some grand plan where they spend decades building one of the best development platforms the world has yet seen, and sit and wait for many years letting an incomplete but usable Free implementation of .NET grow and become popular, only to start suing tons of C#/.NET-supporting companies and destroy the entirety of Microsoft's own investment in the platform, all in the interest of selling a handful more Windows and Visual Studio licenses.

These same people bitch and whine about the lack of commercial games on Linux from companies with a much worse track record than Microsoft, whine and moan about the slow development pace of the Linux desktop ecosystem that is being politically forced into using antiquated and dev-time-inefficient languages and toolkits, and then throw a shitfit when things like Unity3D which is heavily invested in and based on Mono doesn't support Linux at all aside from their new Chrome NaCl support.

These are also the people who think that LLVM is an Apple project, or that Clang will be mysteriously closed up some day screwing over everybody despite the fact that Clang started life as an internal proprietary Apple tool which Apple then released under the LLVM license specifically because it believed it was the right thing to do and the best choice for the project (and it has been, as now tons of other people and companies like Google and Linux companies backing Gallium are all contributing tons of code to Clang that helps out both Apple and everyone else). These are also the same idiots who think that the CUPS 1.6 announcement is actually in any way a sign of anti-Linux or anti-FOSS trends from Apple (the only news there was that Apple cleaned up some old CUPS-proprietary crap in favor of IETF-standards-compliant protocols) or that WebKit is evil because Apple might do something evil there (even though both KDE and Google as well as a ton of other companies are all still going to stay around supporting WebKit even if Apple forks it back into proprietary-land).

tl;dr version: people are stupid.

....Okaaaaaay, but why does that mean Michael has to be stupid, too? Labeling a project "controversial" like it's a stigma... it just seems like bad taste. You know? It hints at a particular bias or angle that the article's written from. We don't need Michael to remind us that the topic of trusting Microsoft's community promise is a topic of frequent debate. The debate will come whether or not Michael says something like that. So it seems like he was just sort of fanning the flames, encouraging them even. It's funny. But at least he isn't getting any ad revenue from me on the forums; he gets my yearly money whether I visit or not... lol

As for your post, I neither agree nor disagree. I think we need to remain consistently vigilant to make sure that the FOSS community is focusing development effort on platforms that are going to have a maintained, supported open-source implementation whose use doesn't imply the threat of legal action against the user. BUT, on the other hand, I don't see any immediate danger from the activities around the specific projects you mentioned.

I do think we need to be prepared to deal with theoretical possibilities that might arise in those areas (especially for software that isn't licensed under some copyleft license), but based on the current trends, there's no reason why we can't use non-copyleft software also. And the projects you mentioned, while several of them use non-copyleft licenses, are not currently in a position where users might face legal action; nor are the projects at risk of "going proprietary". So I think we're okay until/unless somebody turns evil, and if that happens, we can either port our software away from that platform, or modify our free implementation so that it doesn't infringe whatever the lawyer overlords think it infringes, whether it be a patent or copyright or whatever.

I can kind of see the perspective of both the BSD camp and the FSF camp. On the one hand, we shouldn't tolerate patents and proprietary software encroaching on our freedoms. On the other hand, there's no need to actively eschew perfectly-good projects, just on the principle that their license doesn't explicitly forbid any kind of going-proprietary, patent-encumbered ugliness. If that stuff comes up, you deal with it -- it's disruptive, yes, but not the end of the world. You work around it. See, the folks who are going to say "never use those projects" are the same ones who ONLY ever use software that is licensed under GPLv3 or later, because that's the only license that properly protects you against things like patent claims.

So, while I think it would be ideal if all the projects you mentioned were licensed under GPLv3, I'm not going to stomp my foot and say I won't use them just on the principle of it. As a class, the projects you mentioned are pretty good software, and they're working their way into a central role in certain pieces of the stack. That's OK, as long as we are ready to move against the Forces of Evil (tm) if they ever decide to rear their ugly heads. But for now, we sit back and enjoy the gravy.

[halfmanhalfamazing]

Awesome!

Thanks, Miguel! And the rest of the Mono development team............

For all your hard work.

[smitty3268]

....Okaaaaaay, but why does that mean Michael has to be stupid, too? Labeling a project "controversial" like it's a stigma... it just seems like bad taste.

It's Fox News journalism. If something isn't actually controversial, you just find a bunch of idiots, stir them up, and then focus all your reporting on them and the new "controversy" in an attempt to make the subject controversial.

[kraftman]

Because a shitload of fucking morons on this very forum scream and whine like little babies every time Mono is mentioned. The existence of Mono has caused a controversy because some people believe falsely that Microsoft's executives are retarded and malicious enough to devise some grand plan where they spend decades building one of the best development platforms the world has yet seen, and sit and wait for many years letting an incomplete but usable Free implementation of .NET grow and become popular, only to start suing tons of C#/.NET-supporting companies and destroy the entirety of Microsoft's own investment in the platform, all in the interest of selling a handful more Windows and Visual Studio licenses.

As far I can see you're a "fucking moron". I asked last time to show me meaningfull mono or .net application and you have failed. It just proves mono is a toy and it's rather crap than "on of the best development platforms...". Do you ever know what are you talking/smoking?

Last time you were talkign about MS and os x security and you were claiming it's better than Linux, so your bullshit is unnacceptable by thinking people:

http://www.h-online.com/security/new...e-1469096.html
http://www.h-online.com/security/new...s-1472674.html

It's a broken mess. It seems your an only "fucking moron" here while you don't know about simple things. Show me meaningfull mono/.net apps.

[allquixotic]

As far I can see you're a "fucking moron". I asked last time to show me meaningfull mono or .net application and you have failed. It just proves mono is a toy and it's rather crap than "on of the best development platforms...". Do you ever know what are you talking/smoking?

Last time you were talkign about MS and os x security and you were claiming it's better than Linux, so your bullshit is unnacceptable by thinking people:

http://www.h-online.com/security/new...e-1469096.html
http://www.h-online.com/security/new...s-1472674.html

It's a broken mess. It seems your an only "fucking moron" here while you don't know about simple things. Show me meaningfull mono/.net apps.

What is your definition of "meaningfull" [sic]? Programs that are useful to anyone? Programs that are useful to everyone? Programs that are useful to you specifically?

You may be interested to know that the core servers of OSGrid are hosted on mono, and all of the third party opensim instances are hosted on either mono or Microsoft .net. I also run a smallish MMORPG whose server is running on mono. Just because YOU don't see any value in these services doesn't mean mono is a useless platform.

God; speaking of people who can think. Do you even consider the words you put down before you post?

[ssam]

Why do you have to call it "controversial"? Sure, some people don't trust Microsoft's community promise or implementing their "open" standards, but software itself isn't controversial ... it's just code.

Or if you mean to say that there are some people who don't approve of its use, well, heh, every piece of software you mention should then be tagged with "controversial". Anybody know a piece of software that everyone in the world likes?

Maybe ls?

ever since ls was invented any old fool can run unix. real unix gurus should know where they put their files, that why we have the FHS is for. is also a massive security hole, if someone breaks into your system they can see where everything is. unix is about understanding you computer, if you have to ask what is in a directory then you dont understand it. *mouth foams* ls is just for kids who want to pretend they are l33t without learning. now get off my lawn

[kraftman]

What is your definition of "meaningfull" [sic]? Programs that are useful to anyone? Programs that are useful to everyone? Programs that are useful to you specifically?

Applications like 3D modelers, video and sound editors, games, desktop environments. Give me a title written in mono.Net and I'll give you more titles written in C or C++ that are more powerful.

You may be interested to know that the core servers of OSGrid are hosted on mono, and all of the third party opensim instances are hosted on either mono or Microsoft .net. I also run a smallish MMORPG whose server is running on mono. Just because YOU don't see any value in these services doesn't mean mono is a useless platform.

There were even a stock exchange running on it, but .net proved to be too slow. I'm not saying it's a useless platform, but I want to know why some consider it's better than C, C++, Qt and what real word advantage it brings? As far I can see there's no advantage, because mono projects are just pet projects: tomboy, some paint like application, f-spot and banshee - there are far better equivalents and there's no interest on Linux in mono projects. There must be some real reasons.

God; speaking of people who can think. Do you even consider the words you put down before you post?

Those are the words the one who thinks clang isn't apple controlled project. Yeah, some people are stupid.