Re: Microsoft and trust

On Mar 28, 4:16 pm, "Schmidt" <s...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Tom Shelton" <tom_shel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb im
Newsbeitragnews:ea435sQkIHA.5820@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And, I will also note that it has been my experience that most
.NET apps do not have large Windows API dependencies.
... I do have some apps that use various windows api's, ...

;-)

so it is a foregone conclusion that they will not run.

Maybe the Wine-folks shouldn't have dumped the Wine-
Backend (at least not entirely) that fast.
But to get a better picture, what works and what is not
supported regarding your Apps - you can also run their
MoMa-Tool:http://www.mono-project.com/MoMA

[Progress at WinForms]> Much faster - now that they dumped wine as the backing
api for Winforms.

Yep, but that step was already made some more years ago,
than your "now" implies.


How many years? It seems only like 2 or 3, but I could be wrong :)

MonoDevelop was started as a GTK# port of SharpDevelop.
Yep, nothing wrong with that - but keep in mind, that GTK#
was a decision, which was made *because* Mono-WinForms
was not working (only partially implemented) at that point in time.

That isn't exactly true.  GTK# was there from the begining.

Yes, of course - what I wanted to say was, that at that point
in time SharpDevelop was already working at a very good level,
and if they would have had MonoWinForms almost working at
that point in time, they could have based the MonoDevelop-
Clone on much greater parts of SharpDevelop - maybe even
working together on the very same code-base with only a
few parts/classes handled different in the code-trunk.
Instead they had to create a separate project, based on GTK#
taking over only few parts of SharpDevelop.


I think they discussed doing that at one point - but, it just wasn't
practicle, and not just because of winforms. Like I said, there is a
lot of interop in SharpDevelop judging from the frequency of
System.Runtime.InteropServices. Still, I'm not sure about your
point. Yes, sharpdevelop won't run on mono? Neither will any app
that uses COM or WinAPI's. The same is true for Java apps that use
JNI to call native api's as well. The only point I was making about
mono was that it is a viable alternative to .NET, if for some reason
MS decides to dump on us .NET developers. Would it take work to
switch? Sure - but probably not nearly as much as a complete re-
write.

Well, they are helping the mono team implement silverlight
for linux. See Moonlight.
Yes, I know - but why that "help"?

Because they are basing it on the Mono runtime.
Seems the logical thing is for them to help rather then
create a whole new runtime.

You said yourself, they already have a Mac-Port of Silverlight,
why not for Linux - I mean, this additional man-year
of development-time would cost MS how much?
0.00001% of their annually "ROI"?


So? There is already a functioning runtime for Linux, why not make
use of it? Especially since they are already working with Novell on
other Linux/Windows interop projects.

Why not simply releasing the complete Silverlight-source -

They are providing technical assistance and all of
their test suites so that the Moonlight team can make
sure that their implementation behaves as expected.

As said, small pieces, that don't hurt that much, just
to be able to call that their "new openness".
Even with that help, the Mono-People will need
another year - or two, to reach the level of the
current Silverlight 2 - and then there's of course
Silverlight 3 already there, etc. pp.
And of course, without *any* "help", they could
open the gap probably somewhat wider, but
keep in mind, what Silverlight is, its the Adobe/
Flash-competitor - Adobe has officially ported
Flash9 to Linux already - so their interest, to
see this platform have a silverlight-pendant too
is probably there, but as said, "not that fast,
not that fast...".


I really haven't been following the development of Moonlight that
closely, but as I understand it they are going to be releasing it
sometime this year. I'm not sure at what level that api will be, 1 or
2. I've always been impressed at how fast those Mono guys get things
done. They had a working generics implementation (part of C#2.0)
before MS did :) They already have a lot of the C# 3.0 features
working as well... In fact, I think they have all of it except for
Linq and query expressions.

or at least the Binary-Release (the Mac- and
Unix-Platforms are really not that different, why
only for the Mac?).

Because MS is not a Linux shop?

That is no argument IMO, because MS is also not
an "Apple-Shop".


LOL... Yes they are. Not as much as they used to be, but at one point
MS was THE major software developer for the Mac.

Apple is "just a normal player", who needs to
*sell* concurrent products at a price - so that
is (with all that MS-cash in the pocket) no real
competitor in a theoretical price-war

I don't know about that... I just saw an article that seemed to
indicate that new buyers are more interested in buying Macs then
PC's. Which would explain the sudden increase in Apples market share
(something on the order of 6 or 7%). I understand Macs are way
outselling PC's in Japan right now as well.

Actually, Sun only ever officially supported 3 platforms
(not counting mobile platforms)....  Windows, Solaris,
and Linux.  All of the others ...

Yes, but where is the *official* MS-.NET for Solaris
and Linux (and the Mac)?


There is none nor is their likely to ever be.

Yep.  But they haven't had to.  I think they just let
Mono do it for them.

Then wait until Mono really gets momentum.
If the list of compatible Apps running on Mono at some
point in the future will become as big like this one:http://appdb.winehq.org/appbrowse.php
Then I would love to see the "we are that open"
MS-behaviour - and I'm pretty sure, they come
up with some really surprising ideas... ;-)
Maybe with the patents-bat, combined with a buyout
of Novell (ever asked yourself about that "friendly overtures"
between MS and Novell and all that "exclusive rights" regarding
the patents-situation?) - or if that not works, then with
an entire new "platform", probably called ".OWDIA"
(Oops, We Did It Again)... ;-)

Not really. I'm not that paranoid. I think you misunderstand me on
my bringing up mono. Mono is not my primary target - but, it is
comforting to me that there is an alternative to .NET if the need
should arise.

--
Tom Shelton
.

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