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Mono, Miguel and Matt Asay

« H E linux :: open source :: email
posted 2007.11.02 Fri
(a picture I took of said Matt Asay)

As long as biased people are commenting on Matt's pining for a more innovative Miguel, I thought I'd throw in my two cents. I'm certainly biased* and have my opinions as well.

So yes, Matt made a technical faux paus in pleading with Miguel to develop more applications like Dashboard instead of wasting time on copying C# and MS. (Dashboard is in fact a C# app).

Here are a few thoughts of mine based on my industry experience and working directly with many open source shops:

Thoughts on MS/C#:

  • C# is a slight improvement on Java. I would call it MS's attempt to attract Java devs while completely controlling the platform (unlike J#).
  • C#, though open, is a MS technology. Though Mr. Hilf is changing some things up at Redmond, I'm still weary of them.
  • Adoption of C# is from MS shops (obviously)
  • MS shops are very unlikely to adopt or approve non-MS products and "Open Source" is the last thing they would adopt due to all the FUD that MS has been spreading about them.
  • Given the above reasons, I don't think Mono is going to help Linux adoption. It further entrenches MS's monopoly.
  • MS is smart to focus on adding other languages to the CLR (ironpython, ironruby....)
  • One tangible benefit of C# and the .Net platform is that it might have been an impetus towards the opening of the Java platform.

Thoughts on Gnome:

  • I agree with Matt here. Miguel has spent the last X years copying MS IP rather than innovating on the desktop.
  • The two biggest Gnome based distros (Redhat and Canonical) don't do Mono development
  • The biggest Mono adopters are .... Novell! Surprise surprise! Sort of ironic since SuSE was traditionally the biggest KDE desktop....
  • Mono is no silver bullet for taking over the desktop.
  • Is it really that hard to program with pygtk? (Ala redhat and canonical)

Thoughts on Matt:

  • No Matt isn't technical. But he knows the Open Source industry inside out. Moreso than anyone else I know. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he has a point here.
  • Just like Miguel, Matt has changed over the years. Our first OS discussion was how to get around the GPL while he was at Lineo. Later I actually made fun of him for carrying around a .NET book (previous or directly after Ximian acquisition). He's now pretty pro-GPL...
  • Matt blogs. A LOT. Your rss reader will be busier than watching SteepandCheap.
  • Matt runs OSX... ;)

Thoughts on Miguel:

  • Re-implementing Silverlight in a month or whatever is quite an engineering feat. Congrats!
  • You're welcome to scratch whatever itches you

Full disclosure

*Matt is a friend of mine, we're having dinner tonight. I've actually used a mono program, Hugin.

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comments (5)


1. sontek left...
2007.11.02 Fri 10:12 am :: http://blog.sontek.net

I don't believe I am a "biased" party, as you stated. I'm not an employee at Novell, but I do think Mono/C# is great for development and I think Miguel is doing the right thing by providing such a great development environment for creating desktop applications. PyGTK is also great, but not everyone likes to work in dynamic languages, I prefer my types.

And of course Redhat isn't going to invest any time/money in C#/Mono, they've put all their eggs in the Java basket ( see http://www.jboss.com/redhat ), which in my mind, was a mistake, since until recently the language wasn't even open, and its still going to be GPL when its fully open. C#/Mono is MIT.


2. Joe Shaw left...
2007.11.02 Fri 1:44 pm :: http://joeshaw.org

Why am I biased? Because I've using Mono?

I think you can make good arguments both ways on whether or not Miguel should or shouldn't be working on something else. He's a friend of mine, and he's working on something he enjoys. Really that's the most important thing.

In my post I was merely pointing out the irony of citing Dashboard as an innovative development when it was built on top of Mono. I don't think that inherently makes me biased one way or another.

Regards, Joe


3. Matt left...
2007.11.02 Fri 2:19 pm :: http://panela.blog-city.com/

I didn't know that saying one is "biased" has such a negative connotation. We're all biased in our own special ways. I didn't mean it in a bad way, just that you guys will obviously come down on the Miguel/Mono side. And I'm biased too, I'm skeptical of Mono and Matt is my friend (though I've frequently blasted matt on some of his posts).

Joe- As I said in my post, Miguel can work on whatever itches him. And he does so that's good for him. As to whether there is value in Mono to the greater gnome/linux community, there's lots of issues that come into the debate. Coming from a python point of view, I see Mono as a diversion. (a re-implementation of existing wheels, though I'm well aware of the arguments for it) Why (as a developer) would I choose Mono for anything? I'm not quite sure.

Have I benefited from mono? I guess so since I've used Hugin. So thanks Miguel and co. for that.

Sontek- Why do you prefer types? I'm really curious.

Also I'm not aware that Redhat has all their eggs in the java basket. Is redhat developing desktop applications in Java? (The only thing I was aware of was custom builds of the eclipse IDE for C/C++). They bought JBoss and that was a missing piece of their LAMPJ stack. But Mono was around a long time before that.

What does " still going to be GPL when its fully open" mean? GCC is GPL too. Are you going to stop using that?


4. Joe Shaw left...
2007.11.02 Fri 8:10 pm :: http://joeshaw.org

I would definitely say that "bias" has a negative connotation these days, although I'm not totally sure what I would use instead. Influence? Disposition? Proclivity?

In any case, certainly my experience has influenced my decision-making. The Microsoft-Novell deal, and all the patent baggage that goes with that, justified or not, has certainly made my job a lot more difficult and the choice for Mono sadly cloudier.

Joe


5. Gabriel Gunderson left...
2007.11.03 Sat 1:04 am :: http://gundy.org

Any new work I do, I do in Python.

However, I first started using Linux because of Mono (trying to port my C# applications in the early stages of Mono - Pre 1.0). I got hooked on Linux. I've been Windows free since 2002 or so :)