Getting tired
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 10:29 AM EDT |
of Novell real fast. I just used to think Novell and its decisions regarding MS, patents, Mono were an irritant to me personally as I don't think any of it a good idea. But they just keep the list growing. Forking OO was another, and again it does not matter to me as I will simply use the real OO. But now I hear Evolution in Suse 11.1 (something, I don't use Suse) has dependencies to Mono. I use Evolution everyday. Now it has gone from being a minor irritant to a major pain in the butt. |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 12:21 PM EDT |
hchaudh1: I'm sorry to disappoint you in your hate mongering, but Evolution doesn't depend on Mono - it's a compile-time option to enable support for Mono plugins (of which there aren't any except maybe a demo plugin) currently. Secondly, I find it amusing that you are "tired of Novell" based on conspiracy theories and unsupported opinions of a known liar. Even Shane Coyle, the founder of BoycottNovell recently stated in a comment on BN that he is now distancing himself from BN because Roy's "hecklers" are usually right while Roy does nothing but attack them personally and try to claim they are paid shills. You'll notice that Shane has taken down all mention that he was even involved with BN because of how embarrassing it is for him. Thirdly, this "rebuttal against Novell" is nothing of the sort. If you actually read the comments by AlexH on the BN article, you'll note that someone asked the author of the Sun blog if this was in response to Michael Meeks and the answer was a clear and resounding "No". AlexH also pointed out that both the Sun blog article and Michael Meeks agreed about the OOo QA issues, so it's not even a rebuttal anyway. This is just another example of Roy Schestowitz trying to throw unsupported mud at Novell in order to try and discredit them and try to get people (who don't read the articles he links to and/or don't think for themselves) upset with Novell in order to fuel his anti-Novell hate mongering. |
| azerthoth Dec 30, 2008 12:22 PM EDT |
Forking when something isnt going the way you think it should, and you have the expertise to do so, is one of the strong points of open source. Even Linus admits, anyone with the knowledge to do so, and probably many without, could fork the kernel any time they chose to. hc: High Horse +1 Logic 0 |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 12:39 PM EDT |
I forgot to point out that Go-OO is not really a fork of OOo, it's a patchset that (among other things) helps ease the build process of OOo. Also, all distributions that I know of ship Go-OO as the default (debian, ubuntu, fedora, mandrake, obviously opensuse, etc etc). AFAIK, all of the Go-OO patches are submitted upstream for inclusion in the official OOo as well. Roy likes to refer to it as a fork because often times people who don't understand how Free Software works get all upset at the idea of forks and tend to lash out. This is obviously what he wants his mindless sheep followers to do as it gives him power. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 12:52 PM EDT |
Oh great, so now the "pragmatic crowd" wants to tell me how to think. I am sorry but Novell does not pass *my* smell test. "it's a compile-time option to enable support for Mono plugins (of which there aren't any except maybe a demo plugin) currently." I am sure the whole reason for this dependency was to make the demo plugin, and nothing else. After we get to appreciate the coolness that Mono will bring, the code will self-destruct. And if Mono isn't so bad, you don't need to defend it by pointing out, "but its just a demo". And I don't know why, but seriously why do you guys get so defensive over this. Hate mongering, really! High horse? Are you guys for real? Its my opinion, isn't it? If you noticed, I used words like personal, didn't say anything bad about forks as I said I will just use OO etc. I don't give 2 hoots about what BN says, its my opinion. Lots of people who are far, far more knowledgable on the issue have said the Novell deal is not good, neither is Mono. I am just one of the people who thinks along similar lines. Not saying I am right, not saying the Novell crowd is on a "high horse". Again, I don't care about what BN says, I especially don't care about what random internet guy says. This is a forum. The article was posted and I commented. If Lxer can include a communal hippie "let's all get along as long as we get along" clause in their site terms and conditions, I think it would be better to keep personal insults out of the forums. |
| azerthoth Dec 30, 2008 1:12 PM EDT |
OK the urge to respond is over riding common sense, I know I really really shouldnt. Your initial comment seemed to come from the ivory tower of self perfection looking down upon the failings of those that annoy you ... pretty much equals high horse in my book. As for defensive ... um no one here got defensive until post #4. You shared your opinion, I shared my opinion, KS shared their opinion, you went on your 'don't tase me bro' diversion. |
| vainrveenr Dec 30, 2008 1:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:This is just another example of Roy Schestowitz trying to throw unsupported mud at Novell in order to try and discredit them and try to get people (who don't read the articles he links to and/or don't think for themselves) upset with Novell in order to fuel his anti-Novell hate mongering.To partially corroborate this, feel free to review a list of Schestowitz's newswire posting history found at http://lxer.com/members/member/schestowitz/ The vast majority of eye-catching topics attack either Novell or Microsoft. No dispute there. AAMOF going further, some of these pieces easily seem as if they are attacking both parties simultaneously via some highly elusive logic directly intended for those "who don't read the articles he links to and/or don't think for themselves". Precisely! Here is one such recent BN post, which also somewhat relates to the subject matter which started this very thread 'Why Not Mono', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/112782/index.html Quoting:Novell wants to eliminate Red Hat competition with full battle guns, again, helping to give a very significant strategic gain to Microsoft. They also want to weaken the strategic advantages Sun gains from Java and OO.org, thereby making Microsoft’s path to holding and growing the lock-in that much more secure.Scan this particular BN snippet and then re-review Schestowitz's newswire posting history at the LXer link above in order to draw your own conclusions. |
| tuxchick Dec 30, 2008 1:48 PM EDT |
Quoting: hchaudh1: I'm sorry to disappoint you in your hate mongering, but Evolution doesn't depend on Mono - it's a compile-time option to enable support for Mono plugins (of which there aren't any except maybe a demo plugin) currently. Hate mongering? Are you trying to make Roy look like a pillar of calm and reason? I'm not satisfied with your reply re: Evolution-- it sounds like "hey, it's no big deal, and nobody really uses it anyway." So answer this, if you can-- can all of the Mono bits and pieces be removed from SUSE? Without losing functionality? Except Mono support, of course. Many people are unhappy with Novell who never even heard of Roy Schestowitz, for good reasons. |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 2:14 PM EDT |
tuxchick: I presume you mean removing Evolution's Mono support via package management? I'm not sure if you can or not on openSUSE (I don't have openSUSE 11.1 handy) but I would presume you can (you can on debian-based systems). If you can't on openSUSE, I would suspect it's either a limitation of rpm or else a packager screwup. In the off-chance that you can't `rpm -e` some evolution-mono-plugins (or whatever), then all one needs to do is download the evolution-2.24.0-*.src.rpm package, make a quick adjustment to the evolution.spec file to remove the --enable-mono configure flag, and then rpm -bb and away you go. All the above huffing and puffing is nothing but one guy's attempt at making a mountain out of a mole-hill (nay, even a mole-hill is too big... more like an ant-hill). |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 2:18 PM EDT |
@tc That's exactly my point also. I don't know why someone who does not like Novell/Mono/Novell-MS deal is immediately relegated to the "blind sheep follower of Roy" bin. I don't agree with Roy or his methods, maybe he and his methods are right, I don't know. I personally think he is a tad bit too shrill. But then again, if you don't have multiple millions to throw at PR and marketing, maybe that is the only viable strategy. Right or wrong, at the very least, the BN site did get people to take notice, for good or bad. Some people would rather that BN just go down because Roy it stupid, he's a liar, a basement dweller who lives with his parents (I am not making this up, this was a comment on /.). Well, this is the internet. Everyone has a voice. Roy has just succeeded in making himself heard. Maybe his methods are wrong, who's to say, but he did succeed. And I think this is what grinds the gears of a lot of people who either stand to gain from Novell in some way or even those who really believe BN is a step backward. But personal insults should be kept out of the conversation. Trust me, if I wanted to "monger hate", I could do it more effectively on /., Digg or some such. |
| bigg Dec 30, 2008 2:31 PM EDT |
There's nothing about either GNOME or Evolution that requires Mono. It may be that some distros, such as Ubuntu, choose to include a lot of Mono. They might even foolishly compile things so that you lose GNOME or Evolution without Mono. But there are lots of distros that you can run Mono-free. Choose a Mono-free distro if you have a problem with Mono. I think it's going a little too far to demand that all distros be Mono-free. |
| tuxchick Dec 30, 2008 2:44 PM EDT |
Maybe so, bigg, but there's that old path-of-least-resistance thing. There are only a handful of genuine original distros: Debian, Red Hat, Gentoo, Slackware, some others I forget. All the others are derivatives of those. So let's say that Ubuntu, which is very influential and has spawned a host of derivatives, decides to include Mono by default. That ripples down the food chain; most of them will shrug and leave it in. A very few will not, and will either remove the Mono bits, or switch to a different parent distribution. So once again, something questionable gets propagated due to indifference, apathy, not understanding, or shortage of resources. It's hard to enough to run your computer on only Free software and it's not getting easier, because too many people are not willing to take a stand and say "No" to the endless tides of proprietary and otherwise questionable, encumbered crud. And anyone who objects to it gets called names like zealot and idealist. And is accused of taking away people's choices, when in fact it's the folks who want to choose Free software who are having their choices limited by someone else. |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 2:55 PM EDT |
tuxchick: uhh... huh? Mono is Free Software by every definition of the term. It's not proprietary nor encumbered. It implements the ECMA/ISO specifications which are free for anyone to implement. Roy and his followers are labeled as zealots because they are. If you read any of his articles about Mono, he's always using adjectives like "poisonware" or "excrement". Is that what someone making rational arguments uses? I think not. If someone doesn't like Mono and decides to not use or install it, that's fine and is their right. Badmouthing it and the Free Software developers working on the project (not all are paid, mind you) is not acceptable behavior, especially when the attacks are unfounded and the people making the attacks have double standards (e.g. why is DotGNU acceptable but Mono isn't?). |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 3:26 PM EDT |
Mono may implement ECMA but .Net does not. At least not in full. Quoting random internet guy, "It never ceases to amaze me that, after more than three years of being corrected on this point (literally dozens of times in each Mono /. story, for example) proponents are still as willing to churn it out this nonsense today as they were in 2001. Clearly this delusion is an essential part of the group-think, and the rest of us will have to live with its constant repetition, just as we have to live with the shifting-sands (or, less charitably, the bait-and-switch) definition of what Mono actually comprises." The controversy is over is the Windows.Forms, ADO.NET, and other related technologies built on top of it. Mono gets around them, somewhat awkwardly, but since .NET is a wholly controlled "standard" by MS then Mono will be on the same treadmill that WINE and other groups chasing MS implementations have been on. That's what does not pass my smell test. Why do it? When there are tons of open source choices available. Cue the "Miguel had an itch to scratch replies". :-D "Badmouthing it and the Free Software developers working on the project (not all are paid, mind you)" That's what I thought. |
| tuxchick Dec 30, 2008 3:29 PM EDT |
KernelShepherd, what is your affiliation with Mono or Novell? You sound like an insider. And a deliberately disingenuous one, since you ignore the patents issue entirely. Mono is not so easy to avoid, and once it becomes part of a default distro build getting rid of it is not a trivial problem. For something that controversial and potentially legally problematic, hand-waving a solution that requires rebuilding sources and packages to change compile time options is neither realistic nor honest. (which you said in the other thread) The question "what is the benefit of Mono for end-users" has been asked many times, and I have not yet seen a good answer. It's good for Novell, Microsoft, and apparently Mr. de Icaza. But it brings nothing important or useful to Linux users, unless you consider patent problems something that we need. |
| gus3 Dec 30, 2008 3:30 PM EDT |
tc, Actually, Slackware started life as a modified version of the Softlanding Linux System, to fix a few issues that Patrick Volkerding and others had with the switch from a.out to ELF. http://lwn.net/Articles/91371/ |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 3:45 PM EDT |
If the problem is with Windows.Forms and ADO.NET, then what's the problem with Evolution supporting Mono plugins that don't use either of those? If someone writes an Evolution plugin, it would have to use Gtk#, not Windows.Forms. I don't think there's any reason to use ADO.NET in any Evolution plugin either. As far as "tons of other open source choices available", back when Mono was started, if you wanted to write managed code, Java was not an option because it was closed source. .NET is also more advanced in many ways than Java, so there's still incentive to use it. Python has never been scalable enough to write applications beyond simple short-lived GUI tools and very few people are willing to take the time to learn elisp or scheme. Like it or not, most software developers have experience developing on Windows, generally using Microsoft tools (including .NET) and so if you want to make it easy for them to start developing software for Linux, then one way of doing that is to allow them to write .NET applications for Linux. Making everyone learn C or C++ and deal with the annoyance of memory management (using ref counting techniques) is not an efficient way of developing applications, especially large ones. Believe me, I know this from personal experience in the field for the past ~20 years having worked on dozens of applications that had more than half a million lines of code. 10 years ago, I predicted that most applications by 2010 would be written in Java largely due to automatic memory management in a language that was similar enough to the language(s) that most programmers were using (and still are). I didn't know back then that Microsoft would create .NET/C#, but overall my prediction seems to be coming true. Everywhere I look, developers are going with .NET or Java except on Linux where developers have some strange love for making life difficult for themselves. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 3:49 PM EDT |
>And a deliberately disingenuous one, since you ignore the patents issue entirely TC - What patents issue? Are you aware of patents that mono violates? Strictly speaking, mono is one of the very few free software projects that has an explicit patent policy AND has access to lawyers. If anything, I would expect patents to be less of a problem with mono than with Linux and other software projects. And -- while I'm thinking about it... There is the little matter of the European antitrust ruling that Microsoft must list all patents relating to its APIs. Patent damages require notice that a patent applies. One must check a real honest-to-gosh patent attorney, but... If Microsoft fails to list a patent covering .Net, I'll bet a credible argument can be made that failure to list the patent under penalty of law and in violation of a legal order constitutes constructive notice that the patent does not apply. |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 3:50 PM EDT |
what KernelShepard said. |
| gus3 Dec 30, 2008 4:05 PM EDT |
@dino: Think Like Microsoft. Do they care about what the Europeans order them to do? Hardly. For them, it's a risk-benefit analysis, and from their view, the risk of a fine is outweighed by the benefit of "business as usual." If they get caught, they can just tie it up in the courts for years, until the gov't has paid out more than they can expect in fines. Then the gov't settles, Microsoft pays a pittance of a fine plus the court costs, and it's back to the status quo. And so what if the Mono project has access to lawyers? I'll bet you any amount of money that Microsoft has access to lots more lawyers (and legislators) than the Mono project has. Remember the Golden Rule: "He who has the gold, makes the rules." |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 4:09 PM EDT |
tixchick: I have no affiliation with Novell or Mono. I just happen to think that Mono is a cool technology that: 1. could potentially help bring more developers to Linux (familiar languages/runtime) 2. could help speed up development time on Linux (why spend a year writing an application in C and another 3 or 4 years debugging memory management issues when you could write it in a managed language (like C#) and be done in a year?) A few hours ago, tuxchick, you were upset that people who attack Mono are often written off as zealots. I find it amusing that you are now writing me off as someone who must be paid by Novell to like Mono? I think you've been drinking a little too much of Roy's tin-foil flavored kool-aid. Quoting:For something that controversial and potentially legally problematic, hand-waving a solution that requires rebuilding sources and packages to change compile time options is neither realistic nor honest. (which you said in the other thread) You might be interested to note that a google search would turn up a bugzilla entry where someone submitted a bug report about this Evolution Mono dependency issue which has since been resolved: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=549025 As far as Mono not being easy to avoid, I think you're a bit dishonest there. It's trivial to avoid Mono on any distribution, except, perhaps, openSUSE (which, if you are running openSUSE - are you really that anti-Mono? Likely not). Yes, many distros ship Mono by default, but only because it is required to run the best-of-breed applications that their users want access to (e.g. Tomboy, Banshee, F-Spot, GNOME-Do, etc). If one were so inclined, one could do the grunt work of improving the alternatives to these applications so that they were more desirable. I suspect no one does because writing complex applications in C (which is what all the GNOME libraries are written in) is not a trivial task. Quoting:But it brings nothing important or useful to Linux users, unless you consider patent problems something that we need. My previous post gave 2 examples of benefits brought by Mono. As far as patent problems: what patent problems? As long as you stick with the ECMA/ISO specified portions of Mono, I don't see a problem. I see lots of hand-waving saying that there are patent problems but thus far no one has been able to point at any specific patents that Mono infringes upon and I don't see any reason Mono is more likely to infringe upon any patents than anything else in Linux. Would you argue that OOo shouldn't add support for reading .docx files because of patent concerns? How about normal .doc files? This is what I mean by double standards. |
| TxtEdMacs Dec 30, 2008 4:15 PM EDT |
[very serious tags ...] TC, voice of sanity ... KS? Operates from the shadows, a super hero or villain? Whatever, I catch the scent of disingenuousness. Txt. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 4:18 PM EDT |
AFAIK, Windows.Forms, ADO.NET and a few others are patent encumbered. And Mono is trying to replicate them. The Mono team has taken steps to make sure they either side-step the patents issue with a different implementation, prior art etc. But the issue still is that what Mono hopes to achieve is to clone .Net. Actually, scratch that. I am not even sure if that is possible legally. But that's what the Mono project website started off as saying. The site is blocked at work but I think it now says something to the effect that Mono is an effort to implement C# with GTK bindings or something. Be great if someone could confirm that. As KS said, C, C++,Java, Python all suck (don't agree but ok) and .Net is the future. I am not sure how they plan to implement the patented bits of .Net, and even if they do, Novell might be fine from MS threats but if someone wants to write a Mono app, what how do we make sure that we don't touch those patented .Net bits that Mono implemented because so far, the only solution I have seen is that the MS Novell deal is just fine as MS has not sued, but I don't think that is good enough. I would like to see the documentation on the deal and make up my own mind. Of course that's not happening. Instead, Mono is being forced into more and more pieces of software which is why I don't want it. And I don't think anyone can point to anything in Mono that violates MS patents because MS does not disclose these patents. Ballmer just makes a few threats, Novell sells more licenses and that's how it works. I don't think MS would ever sue as FSF also has quite a bit of patents, not to mention IBM, Sun etc. I think the patents will just be used as a threat to further their control in an emerging desktop market. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 4:21 PM EDT |
gus3 - Think. 1. Who cares what Microsoft thinks of the european commission? The issue is notification requirements for recovery under US Patent law. You cannot recover damages for patent infringement unless you have notified (including constructive notification) potential patent violators that a patent applies. 2. Who cares how many lawyers Microsoft has. This is not a matter of sending hordes of men with swords, biggest army wins. The benefit of lawyers to the mono question is access to legal counsel when patent questions arise. The best defense is to avoid court in the first place, but... the next best defense is to be legally right. Assuming that you haven't bothered to seek out the facts, you should know that: 1. Novell presently has a $1 billion lawsuit antitrust lawsuit pending against Microsoft 2. The hated Novell deal was, more or less, a $300 million dollar settlement of another lawsuit against Microsoft, and 3. Novell earlier forced a $536 million settlement out of Microsoft for hurting its Netware business. Novell's lawyers haven't done so badly. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 4:23 PM EDT |
hchaudh1 - Which patents? That information should be public knowledge -- otherwise, Microsoft can't recover. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 4:31 PM EDT |
I dunno. Are there any at all? But there has to be something else why the need for the deal. Or is it just an extortion racket? |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 4:35 PM EDT |
KernelShepard is making a good argument. |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 4:37 PM EDT |
hchaudh1: You can easily write a Mono application that avoids the Windows.Forms and ADO.NET bits. Simply don't use those APIs. It's not like they are core pieces that are hard to avoid. Also, I would not say that Java "sucks". It's actually pretty good. All I said above was that when Mono was first started, Java was not FOSS. I believe I also stated that .NET is arguably better than Java in some areas, but that doesn't mean that Java "sucks". I didn't really mean to say that C and C++ suck either, to be fair. I just think that they are often too low-level for most application development needs. When I first started out in the industry, writing assembler was big. Back then, C and C++ were the "high level" languages. Eventually they overtook asm because writing asm was too time consuming and error prone. Higher level languages often mean faster development time (less error-prone and fewer lines of code needed to do the same thing). Faster development time can often mean less development cost and help to beat your competition to market. I doubt I have to tell you how important that can often be in this industry. These days, C and C++ are considered the low-level languages and Java and C# are considered the high level languages. There are some developers on Linux who have chosen to use Mono because it simplifies their efforts which means they can accomplish more in less time. Same reason many developers switched from asm to C or C++ back in the 90's. IMHO, more power to them. If I ever get the itch to start a new project on Linux, I'd probably use Mono too. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 4:41 PM EDT |
>KernelShepard is making a good argument Making a fine argument, I just wish s/he didn't sound so much like a marketing flack. That is enough to raise suspicions: >but only because it is required to run the best-of-breed applications That is not a phraising I would ever expect to see outside of marketing land. |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 4:44 PM EDT |
personally I don't care. KernelShepard is still correct. |
| KernelShepard Dec 30, 2008 4:47 PM EDT |
dinotrac: Sorry, I deal with a lot of marketing people these days and so this sort of wording has entered my vocabulary It seems to me that many people feel that Tomboy and Banshee, for example, are top-quality applications. Enough so that distros have decided to install them by default in place of any alternatives. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 4:52 PM EDT |
KS - No apologies needed, but you must understand the need to keep a sharp ear. FWIW - I was directly involved in the "outing" of George Tirebiter (aka Kevin Reichard) bakc in 2001. |
| tuxchick Dec 30, 2008 5:33 PM EDT |
If it talks like a flack... well then I'd say it's a flack. **edit** Y'all oldtimers who devour my every post with avid interest (quit laughing, sheesh, you do too) might recall that I am not convinced that perils to Linux or Linux users might be lurking in Mono, and in Novell's deal with MS. Sure, there is plenty of ill-intent there: to put a tollgate on Linux that diverts money to Redmond, to proprietize SUSE as much as possible, and to marginalize Red Hat and the free Linuxes. Whether any of this will succeed is questionable; I think the malicious intent is unquestionable. All the blather about interoperability and openess is pure 100% baloney-- MS can be as open and interoperable as they want to be without Novell, Mono, or SUSE. I see red flags when someone like KernelShepherd appears out of nowhere just to flame Roy and BoycottNovell, and whose defense of Mono and Novell sounds like it comes out of a corporate-approved playbook. Just someone who likes Mono. Yeah, whatever. Not that Roy should be immune from criticism-- I'm just not buying that KS is some random Mono fan. |
| krisum Dec 30, 2008 5:46 PM EDT |
@hchaudh1Quoting: The controversy is over is the Windows.Forms, ADO.NET, and other related technologies built on top of it. Mono gets around them, somewhat awkwardly, but since .NET is a wholly controlled "standard" by MS then Mono will be on the same treadmill that WINE and other groups chasing MS implementations have been on.Only apps that really require compatibility with .NET platform need to use those (supposedly problematic) parts. None of the applications shipped by ubuntu/openSuSE/... use those parts -- a quick check on my ubuntu hardy shows that the only apps that depend on winforms are ndoc/nant/msbuild/VB and none depend on asp.net. So even if granted that these parts have problems, extending the argument to whole of mono is illogical. FYI, this issue is addressed in mono faq (http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing). In particular this: Quoting: For people who need full compatibility with the Windows platform, Mono's strategy for dealing with any potential issues that might arise with ASP.NET, ADO.NET or Windows.Forms is: (1) work around the patent by using a different implementation technique that retains the API, but changes the mechanism; if that is not possible, we would (2) remove the pieces of code that were covered by those patents, and also (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless. Actually what is amazing is that the very same FOSS proponents who denounce Mono will claim software patents to be "evil" in other times, and have no patent problems with linux (which MS has claimed to be infringing on its patents), or have no issues with using patent encumbered multimedia codecs. |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 6:23 PM EDT |
@Carla. whatever KernelShepherd is, what KernelShepherd is saying is what I've been saying. I've just become tired of repeating myself, so it's cool to see someone else say those things. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 6:27 PM EDT |
I never extended my argument to the whole of Mono, I am just questioning its purpose if certain parts of Mono won't be 100% .Net compatible, or, if Mono is 100% .Net compatible, the threat of patent litigation still remains. Your argument is the same as the one given for Evolution above that the only Mono dependencies are for a demo, don't worry about it. Is Mono or is Mono not going to be 100% .Net compatible and if so, I would like to see some literature on how the Mono team plans to get around that. How would the inclusion of code that touches or interacts with the patented .Net code/API affect the software built on top of Mono. I am sure there won't be 2 versions of Mono, or its VM, one adhering to the non-patented .Net code and one which does not. A 3 point bullet does not cut it. I don't like patents. Nor war and violence. But boy am I glad that our army has some of the most lethal weapons known to man in case they are needed. I am sorry but I am not going to change my stance just because I like to watch a movie from time to time. I am trying to get away from properietery stuff. I would love it if my media was available in a non DRM format, or non patented format, but I don't see the options there. What I do see an option is to not use or fawn over Mono till the questions about it are answered openly and fully and Mono is just not being pushed into my computer bit by bit, over time. And dino asked which patents? As I said, I don't know. Ask the Mono team what they were talking about in the 3 point bullet list. Everytime this topic comes up, there is a shower of conflicting views and PR BS from all quarters and the original questions are left unanswered. |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 6:29 PM EDT |
Quoting:Is Mono or is Mono not going to be 100% .Net compatible I hope so, it'll make it so much easier to port my work across to Linux. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 7:48 PM EDT |
TA - WRT to 100% .Net compativle... That's an interesting question, but what does it mean? For example: If everything written in Mono will run well on Windows, is mono 100% .Net compatible? If anything written for mono can be compiled with Microsoft tools, is mono 100% .Net compatible? Is that true even if you can't make the reverse case? |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 8:34 PM EDT |
For me 100% .net compatible would mean being able port my .Net code to Linux, with the absolute minimum amount of fuss. It wouldn't matter to me if that means the Mono classes are simply wrappers for existing Linux Libraries, and in many cases they are already. I suspect, however, that if that was possible, the reverse would also be true. At the moment there are sufficient missing classes that I can't easily port my .NET code to Mono, or even at all, in some cases, and I'm writing stuff that is not dependent on anything other than standard .NET classes deliberately. The problem I find is that a direct port is impossible as many classes in Mono still have "Not Implemented" messages. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 9:00 PM EDT |
Ah. Sensible answer. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 30, 2008 9:51 PM EDT |
100% compatibility should not mean what individuals want it to mean. It should mean that since Mono is the environment trying to clone/emulate whatever .Net, it should pass some kind of a test rig for .Net, at least at the language level. Kind of like anything which wants to be called Java has to pass Sun's tests before it can be called Java. I am not 100% on this, but I think this is what OpenJDK did. Then, I think Mono would hit the exact same barrier at least for multimedia that Java has, i.e. no popular, non-patented codecs/formats. I really don't get why they are reinventing the wheel. Unless MS or some other IP owner for patented codecs/formats has given mono the license to use their mm stuff. |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 10:23 PM EDT |
What's multimedia got to do with it? It's a programming language and framework. |
| azerthoth Dec 30, 2008 10:40 PM EDT |
TA, it a tactic used when facts don't support argument, keep adding things to it until you come across something that you can get some fact to work with, and then by default the whole argument from the very first step is proven. |
| tracyanne Dec 30, 2008 11:00 PM EDT |
oh. The red Herring argument perhaps, or maybe the straw man argument, possibly the false dilemma argument, or maybe the Guilt By Association argument, or simply a Hasty Generalization argument. |
| dinotrac Dec 30, 2008 11:51 PM EDT |
ta - Yup. The old "I don't really have a good argument, so I'll throw a little sand in your eyes" trick. |
| krisum Dec 31, 2008 3:17 AM EDT |
@hchaudh1Quoting: I never extended my argument to the whole of Mono, I am just questioning its purpose if certain parts of Mono won't be 100% .Net compatible, or, if Mono is 100% .Net compatible, the threat of patent litigation still remains. Your argument is the same as the one given for Evolution above that the only Mono dependencies are for a demo, don't worry about it.No, you have completely missed the point. What I was saying is that only apps that need .NET compatibility need to use those APIs. It, thus, excludes all applications developed for linux including f-prot, tomboy and others commonly shipped with distros. If one is paranoid enough, he/she can of course avoid cross-platform apps that use those APIs just as a paranoid person can avoid a cross-platform C/C++ app that uses WinAPI to make it work on windows. As for threat of patent litigation, it is just a red herring since the same is equally an issue for linux. Quoting: Is Mono or is Mono not going to be 100% .Net compatible and if so, I would like to see some literature on how the Mono team plans to get around that.Yes, that is their stated goal. As for the second part of your question, a good starting point will be the Mono's licensing faq posted before (did you even read that?). At worst, Mono can just drop the implementations of those APIs. edit: Yes, the comparison of Mono with WinAPI usage is not, in some sense, appropriate. The point is that some people have something against Mono which has nothing to do with the patent issues normally raised compared to things like ffmpeg and other multimedia players, or even (at least until recently) samba. |
| schestowitz Dec 31, 2008 4:32 AM EDT |
I've just caught up with this thread. I'm always sad to see lies about me posted without challenge, but I suppose I should expect them because some people who are affiliated with things I write about are not so happy, so they shoot my character, sometimes with libel they pick up somewhere and reuse. Like many people, I sometimes err and I have many hostile readers who nitpick my writings to find some word they don't like. Others try to associate me with some people who read the site and use these other people('s character) to discredit me. That's not fair. If you find factual mistake, please correct them. Don't scrape some false insults from somewhere and then glue elsewhere them to just spread them. BTW, people failed to detect some sarcasm from Shane Coyle. He later clarified. As for me, I haven't lived in my parents' house since I was 18, so enough with the BS, please. Happy new year, Roy |
| dinotrac Dec 31, 2008 7:11 AM EDT |
Somebody posted a lie about Roy? What lie would that be? Oh wait -- It's Roy making the claim. Never mind. |
| jdixon Dec 31, 2008 9:31 AM EDT |
> ...but Evolution doesn't depend on Mono - it's a compile-time option to enable support for Mono plugins... Technically true, but misleading. The Evolution package included in the current version of OpenSuSE has a dependency on Mono. If you remove Mono using the package management system, you also remove Evolution. For 90 % of users, this means that Evolution is dependent on Mono in OpenSuSE. |
| DiBosco Dec 31, 2008 9:37 AM EDT |
Isn't the most important reason for (not) using Mono and languages such as Java and C# over C and C++ bloat and speed? I only dabble in PC software (I write embedded software) so wouldn't claim to be an expert, but that is my impression. My (limited) experience of running .net applications on Windows has been nothing but terrible. |
| tracyanne Dec 31, 2008 9:48 AM EDT |
Quoting:Isn't the most important reason for (not) using Mono and languages such as Java and C# over C and C++ bloat and speed? The only reasons I can think of. Although for most purposes, that's not really a very good reason, as it's not really an issue on the desktop, or even on the server, in the case of web applications. In the case of embedded, I'd say it's of vital importance. In most cases in a desktop or even web application environment, the more important criteria is speed of development, and ease of use. |
| tracyanne Dec 31, 2008 10:07 AM EDT |
Happy New Year From Queensland. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 10:09 AM EDT |
jdixon: That issue was pointed out with the bug report which I found (and referred to) after my initial response to tuxchick. From what I can tell, the issue has since been resolved. DiBosco: Managed languages like C# and Java on the PC are usually performant enough these days to get away with using for most desktop applications w/o issue (most people who fear terrible slowness usually are judging based on their past experiences using the Java interpreter before Sun developed their HotSpot JIT). The nice thing about .NET is that it's easy to call out to native code when necessary. Writing multithreaded applications in C# is also a lot easier than in C or C++ and so you'll find developers taking advantage of that more. There have also been additions to C# that will smartly distribute the inner logic of a foreach loop over multiple threads which is really cool and something I haven't seen people use much since my fortran days. In the end, it all depends on what you're doing. Use the best tool for the job, and all that. |
| Sander_Marechal Dec 31, 2008 10:33 AM EDT |
Quoting:Happy New Year From Queensland. Happy new year :-) Still eight and a half hours to go here... |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 10:51 AM EDT |
Quoting:@Carla. whatever KernelShepherd is, what KernelShepherd is saying is what I've been saying. I've just become tired of repeating myself, so it's cool to see someone else say those things. Tracyanne: I gather that you're a programmer too, so I guess it doesn't come as much of a surprise that we think alike ;-) |
| dinotrac Dec 31, 2008 10:55 AM EDT |
TA - Shame on you for saying not much of an issue on the server. In serverland, that's a great big "it depends" on what you're doing and how much of it you're doing. I suppose the same could be said about the desktop if you're doing games, but... I don't think that's really .Net's space. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 31, 2008 11:09 AM EDT |
Agree with KS. Using the right platform is what matters. Would you as a company rather spend hours dealing with memory issues if you are using C/C++ when simply throwing more hardware at the application would do a pretty good job as is often the case for WebApps and hence the case for managed memory languages. And in any case, these languages are quite performant now. Of course, if you are writing an app meant to run a watch, then having a VM to run your code on top of might be overkill and you would be better off using C/C++. @krisum I know what you are saying about using whichever part of the API you want to use. That's fine. But eventually the code will need to run on the VM. Which means the VM will be in some way have to be capable of handling ALL .Net code, not just a subset of the .Net implementation. That is unless the Mono team is planning on having 2 versions of the Mono VM, one which does not touch the patented code and one which does. "At worst, Mono can just drop the implementations of those APIs." Well again, is Mono going to be .Net compatible or not? The Mono camp engages in a lot of wish-wash, nothing to see here, we can always change this or that, type of arguments. @ta Now if you are quite finished with your little communal "dance of the trolls" with dino and azeroth, let me clarify my multimedia comment. Windows has its patented fonts, audio and video code. .Net can use them because either MS owns them as is the case with fonts or it licenses the aud/vid codecs. I don't see how Mono will be 100% .Net compatible if it cannot enable full support for mm inline with .Net. How does Mono plan to support mm if Linux distros cannot include such codecs by default as using them without licensing is illegal? |
| tuxchick Dec 31, 2008 11:19 AM EDT |
Roy's journalistic shortcomings are legion, but as far as I can tell he is his own man, and not reading from someone else's script, not like the turfers who drop in to defend Mono and flame Roy, and then drop out again.Quoting: For me 100% .net compatible would mean being able port my .Net code to Linux, with the absolute minimum amount of fuss. It wouldn't matter to me if that means the Mono classes are simply wrappers for existing Linux Libraries, and in many cases they are already. Why would there need to be wrappers around the Linux libraries if you're porting to Linux? Why lard up Linux with yet one more boggy interpreted environment? I love when programmers hand-wave performance issues-- yeah, we'll just keep upgrading to mitigate your cr@ppy coding. Right after we finish re-compiling and rebuilding loads of packages, which is the easy way to get rid of Mono. |
| dinotrac Dec 31, 2008 11:33 AM EDT |
TC -- Admit it: You're really just a shill for Debian, aren't you? Oh sure, life in the fast lane with the help of all those Debian dollars would tempt anybody, but... surely principles matter, too. C'mon, Carla. Give up the big and easy sleazy Debian dough. Buy your own tuna melt. |
| tuxchick Dec 31, 2008 11:41 AM EDT |
dino, you'll pry my mansion and Ferrari from my cold, dead hands. |
| dinotrac Dec 31, 2008 11:47 AM EDT |
>dino, you'll pry my mansion and Ferrari from my cold, dead hands. Sigh. I had so hoped to avoid the pry bar. |
| azerthoth Dec 31, 2008 12:24 PM EDT |
hchaudh1 if your going to insult me over the crime of disagreeing with your opinion, could you atleast make the effort to spell my name correctly. The fact that I use sarcasm or humor to answer questions at times does not mitigate the answer, nor does it change the fact that your carpet bombing trying to make something stick to the wall. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 1:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:I know what you are saying about using whichever part of the API you want to use. That's fine. But eventually the code will need to run on the VM. Which means the VM will be in some way have to be capable of handling ALL .Net code, not just a subset of the .Net implementation. That is unless the Mono team is planning on having 2 versions of the Mono VM, one which does not touch the patented code and one which does. I can tell you're not a programmer and have not the least bit of clue about what you're talking about. A .NET VM doesn't need to know anything about Windows.Forms or ADO.NET. A VM is like a processor: it executes instructions. Windows.Forms and ADO.NET are not instructions, they are libraries that get compiled down into instructions which are then translated by the VM into native instructions and sent to the physical processor. It is entirely possible for the Mono VM to fully support the .NET bytecodes even if the Mono project itself doesn't implement Windows.Forms or ADO.NET. They aren't required for the VM to work, nor does the VM even care about them when they are used; to the VM all they are is bytecode to be translated. Maybe this is the crux of the issue for the people who attack Mono - they simply don't understand how it all works. |
| dinotrac Dec 31, 2008 1:56 PM EDT |
Quoting:Maybe this is the crux of the issue for the people who attack Mono - they simply don't understand how it all works. No. Their problem is that .Net comes from Microsoft and that nobody is supposed to like anything Microsoft ever does -- oops --- except the Samba team --- oops again!! -- OpenOffice -- and use their specs or ideas -- oops, AJAX. |
| krisum Dec 31, 2008 1:58 PM EDT |
@hchaudh1 ... what KS has said Quoting: Well again, is Mono going to be .Net compatible or not? The Mono camp engages in a lot of wish-wash, nothing to see here, we can always change this or that, type of arguments.Do you even read what has been posted before? Their official policy is there on their site, some of which has been referred to before. There is no need to waste words if you are going to be just repeating the same over and over. |
| tuxchick Dec 31, 2008 2:28 PM EDT |
Quoting: Maybe this is the crux of the issue for the people who attack Mono - they simply don't understand how it all works. Of course they do, that's why they don't like it. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 2:36 PM EDT |
tuxchick: if they think that a .NET VM is tied to Windows.Forms or ADO.NET, then they clearly do not understand how it works. If their argument is that you can't write software using Mono's VM/core libs for fear of infringing Windows.Forms or ADO.NET patents, then they are clearly mistaken; I've just totally blown that argument out of the sky. |
| jdixon Dec 31, 2008 2:40 PM EDT |
> Their problem is that .Net comes from Microsoft and that nobody is supposed to like anything Microsoft ever does .. Not like Dino, trust. There is a difference. But I know you both know and understand that. > From what I can tell, the issue has since been resolved. I'd have to check, but honestly it should never have happened in the first place. A core program like Evolution should never have a dependency on a supposedly optional environment such as Mono. Of course, a multitude of things like that are why I never used SuSE. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 2:48 PM EDT |
jdixon: Having worked in the industry for so long, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes software just has bugs. Reading the bug report, it is clear that the problem was where libmono was being linked in. They meant to only have some plugin link to libmono, but accidently made it link elsewhere. It happens. If no one caught the error before making the final release, it can't be fixed before the final release. That's just how it goes. |
| tuxchick Dec 31, 2008 2:52 PM EDT |
No KernelShepard, all you've done is dismiss legitimate concerns as being unimportant. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 2:58 PM EDT |
I think it's pretty fundamental to their argument that the VM depend on Windows.Forms or ADO.NET; if it doesn't, then it's possible to write safe Mono applications. All you've done is attack me while simultaneously hand-waving. If you have any hard facts, now would be the time to lay them out on the table. Since you have none, I take it you're basing your opinion on emotion rather than facts. |
| hchaudh1 Dec 31, 2008 3:48 PM EDT |
krisum,
From the Mono website: "For people who need full compatibility with the Windows platform, Mono's strategy for dealing with any potential issues that might arise with ASP.NET, ADO.NET or Windows.Forms is: (1) work around the patent by using a different implementation technique that retains the API, but changes the mechanism; if that is not possible, we would (2) remove the pieces of code that were covered by those patents, and also (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless. " I might as well add a couple more points. (4) MS would never sue us, and you, because Novell and MS are best friends forever now (5) even if they do sue, we have lawers too! Further more, "Not providing a patented capability would weaken the interoperability, but it would still provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools, which is the primary reason for developing Mono." Trying my best John Cleese (Fawlty Towers) impression. So, all this time I was under the impression that Mono is going to be .Net compatible, but I was wrong. The primary reason for Mono it seems is just providing a good development tool, and if some extortion money can be had in the process, so much the better. After all, why buy red Hat when you can buy protection from MS if you buy from Novell. Ah, I see it now. KS, You didn't blow anything out of the water. A VM is not a processor. It is an abstraction over specific hardware so developers don't need to worry about low level stuff. The keyword is abstraction, as in, it still talks to the hardware and is aware of system level/OS specific stuff. Nothing is automagic. I don't doubt for a minute that Mono cannot run *some* .Net code. It can do so by providing a wrapper around the .Net code and by using e.g. GTK bindings. But this is not going to be 100% compatible. For example, MS owns the patent for the ribbon component (not a part of .Net, but it can run in the .Net VM). And you have to license it from them. The terms and conditions are a 120 page document. Even the terms are confidential so you have to agree to another evaluation agreement before you can even see the terms. The catch, as stated by MS, you cannot use it to build a product that directly competes with a MS product. My point being, everything that touches MS technology is a legal minefield and the terms are not clear. The .Net VM can run the ribbon component. Can Mono? If this is integrated into Evolution, which competes with Outlook, how is the licensing going to be handeled? How can audio/video files be played in a Mono app? You cannot play most popular formats legally in Linux. How is licensing going to be handled for that? If I get Mono from any other source than Novell, am I covered in Novell's patent agreement? How about fonts? The question still remains, is Mono .Net compatible? If not, then the Mono project is being disingenuous. |
| jdixon Dec 31, 2008 4:03 PM EDT |
> ...sometimes software just has bugs. Yes, but this doesn't really qualify as a software bug. Rather, it's a problem with the development process. And, as I noted, one of a type which the SuSE folks seems prone to makng. > ...but it would still provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools,... You know, I have yet to see any real evidence that this is the case. I've heard some people claim that Mono is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there seems to be large disconnect between the claims and the programs being produced. Of course, it's always possible that Mono simply isn't complete enough yet, I suppose. Not being a programmer, I couldn't say. |
| azerthoth Dec 31, 2008 4:59 PM EDT |
@hchaudh1, is there a carpet bombing handbook somewhere? Your using the same faulty 'what if' logic that all previous arguments have tried and failed to show that there is ANY infringement in mono. Your last comment shows to even a non programmer that your just making things up as you go along. Dont take this as a personal affront, it's not meant to be. When you have to start adding mythical what-if's to prove your original premise, odds are your initial arguments were flawed in the first place. |
| tracyanne Dec 31, 2008 5:17 PM EDT |
Quoting:Shame on you for saying not much of an issue on the server. In serverland, that's a great big "it depends" Quoting:I suppose the same could be said about the desktop if you're doing games, but... I don't think that's really .Net's space. It's all a great big "it depends". Because. Quoting:Using the right platform is what matters. The .NET/Mono framework like Java is a general purpose programming language/framework. They are both pretty efficient these days, but obviously not as efficiant as C/C++. KernelShepard, yes I'm a programmer, been one since the early 80s. Quoting:Why would there need to be wrappers around the Linux libraries if you're porting to Linux? Because then I'd have to write the wrappers, and that's exactly the problem I face now. It's called code reuse, the whole point of OO, GTK# is basically a wrapper, or an interface to the GTK framework, it provides a means of invoking those classes, there's a hell of a lot of code in Mono that simply uses pInvoke to call an existing C/C++ library, rather like WINE does. Quoting:Why lard up Linux with yet one more boggy interpreted environment?.NET/Mono isn't an interpreted environment. It's a compiled environment, mostly it's compiled to something similar to Java's Byte Code, it can be compiled to full binary, but it's a trade off, by keeping it compiled to byte code the JIT compiler can provide other efficiencies, like Just in time code, where only the code needed for the execution path is loaded into memory. If you object to interpreted code, you probably want to worry more about Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, because even GAMBAS (Basic) is compiled not interpreted. Lets face it, it's what Dino says, .NET is Microsoft, Mono re implements it for Linux/Unix etc, people hate it on principle, then try to find reasons why they should. |
| krisum Dec 31, 2008 5:34 PM EDT |
@hchaudh1 Seriously your arguments have neither a head or tail. You jump between unrelated statements to come to wild conclusions. Sample this: Quoting: How can audio/video files be played in a Mono app? You cannot play most popular formats legally in Linux. How is licensing going to be handled for that? If I get Mono from any other source than Novell, am I covered in Novell's patent agreement? How about fonts?What has mono or its licensing got to do with multimedia codec licenses? Then you jump to Novell's agreement, then fonts. Finally you come to the conclusion that since mono is not .NET compatible (or cannot possibly be), it is being disingenuous. |
| tracyanne Dec 31, 2008 5:49 PM EDT |
@K, hchaudh1 is seeking to [re]discover as many fallacies as possible in as short a time period as possible. The Multimeadia stuff is a red herring. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 5:59 PM EDT |
Quoting:You didn't blow anything out of the water. A VM is not a processor. It is an abstraction over specific hardware so developers don't need to worry about low level stuff. The keyword is abstraction, as in, it still talks to the hardware and is aware of system level/OS specific stuff. Nothing is automagic. Please show me where I made said any of that? You made the assertion that a .NET VM had to be aware of Windows.Forms and ADO.NET (the "patented portions of .NET"), this is simply untrue and is obvious to any entry-level programmer. The Windows.Forms and ADO.NET portions of .NET are class libraries, simply building blocks to make writing applications easier. Just like gcc or the Linux kernel do not depend on Gtk+, nor does a .NET VM depend on Windows.Forms. Quoting:I don't doubt for a minute that Mono cannot run *some* .Net code. It can do so by providing a wrapper around the .Net code and by using e.g. GTK bindings. But this is not going to be 100% compatible. AFAICT, the Mono project's VM can handle all of the .NET bytecodes. As long as the library calls being called by the program being run are implemented (correctly), then the program will work. Your second sentence makes no sense, so here's what I /think/ you mean (if not, please explain): Quoting:It can do so by providing a wrapper around the .Net code Presumably you mean to say that Mono class libraries can wrap native libraries. Yes, this is true. No doubt that Mono implements file I/O by wrapping calls to open(), read(), and write(). Gtk# wraps Gtk+. However, from what I'm told, most of the Mono class libraries are written in managed code and are not wrappers for native libraries. Quoting:and by using e.g. GTK bindings. But this is not going to be 100% compatible. You seem to be trying to infer that Windows.Forms wraps Gtk+? AFAICT, this is not the case. Also, it is not necessary to write .NET applications using Windows.Forms, you can use Gtk# even in Windows. Mono's Windows.Forms is no doubt not 100% compatible with Microsoft's, but I don't see anyone writing Windows.Forms applications specifically for Linux. Do you? Advice: stop smashing your head into a brick wall with the Windows.Forms argument, you accomplish nothing except to show that you have no logical argument. Quoting:For example, MS owns the patent for the ribbon component (not a part of .Net, but it can run in the .Net VM). And you have to license it from them. The terms and conditions are a 120 page document. Even the terms are confidential so you have to agree to another evaluation agreement before you can even see the terms. The catch, as stated by MS, you cannot use it to build a product that directly competes with a MS product. As you said, Ribbon is not a part of .NET, so it's not necessary for Mono to implement their own Ribbon classes to be compatible. If you choose to use the Ribbon, your program might not run on Linux. It's just something a developer would have to take into consideration. Quoting:My point being, everything that touches MS technology is a legal minefield and the terms are not clear. All you proved is that implementing the Ribbon on Linux might be a "legal mine field", you didn't prove that anything else is. Quoting:The .Net VM can run the ribbon component. Can Mono? I would suspect that on Windows, the Mono VM could likely run .NET applications using the ribbon. On Linux, probably not. Quoting:If this is integrated into Evolution, which competes with Outlook, how is the licensing going to be handeled? How would I know? Is there even any talk of this happening? Or is this just another "what if" to spread FUD? Quoting:How can audio/video files be played in a Mono app? Banshee seems to play audio and video on Linux just fine. I think it uses GStreamer. Quoting:You cannot play most popular formats legally in Linux. You can if you have a license. That's what Fluendo is for (they provide licenses and codecs for the popular media formats via GStreamer plugins). Quoting:How is licensing going to be handled for that? Same as it is now? There's also the possibility for Novell, Canonical, Red Hat, etc to purchase the licenses for the users of their distributions. They'd have to purchase the "infinite # of users" amount, which is very expensive, but it's a possible way for it to be handled. Another option is for the application developers to just use OGG. AFAIK, a lot of video games use OGG these days instead of MP3 because they don't have to pay a license. Quoting:If I get Mono from any other source than Novell, am I covered in Novell's patent agreement? As long as you stick to the ECMA/ISO specified portions of .NET, you don't need to be covered by Novell's patent agreement. Quoting:How about fonts? There are a lot of free truetype fonts out there. Why do you care about having Microsoft's? AFAIK, Microsoft has provided their fonts for public use anyway, you are free to download the fonts from them -- you just can't redistribute them. If your applications requires their fonts (why would it? makes no sense), then you could have a help screen that told users where to get them. Quoting:The question still remains, is Mono .Net compatible? If not, then the Mono project is being disingenuous. Yes, Mono is .NET compatible. Does it implement all of the libraries Microsoft have added on to .NET? No. Why is the Mono project being disingenuous here? They publicly state that they do not implement all of the .NET libraries out there. They seem to only really care about the ECMA/ISO standardized libraries + whatever else they can easily do (/whatever customers request?). |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 6:03 PM EDT |
Quoting:KernelShepard, yes I'm a programmer, been one since the early 80s. Late 80's for me. |
| dinotrac Dec 31, 2008 6:26 PM EDT |
TA & KS -- You guys are so proud!! I didn't go pro until 1980, but wrote my first programs in 1970. And I still stink. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 7:23 PM EDT |
D@mn, I'm starting to feel like the young guy in the club! |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 10:25 PM EDT |
Regarding the multimedia licensing issue, it would appear that Ubuntu Ultimate Edition 2.0 includes codec licenses. Problem solved. |
| tracyanne Dec 31, 2008 10:46 PM EDT |
Or yu can just write Multimedia applications the way they've always been written on Linux, with hooks for what CODEC there are and let the user decide. For example on Mandriva I have the choice of the PLF repositories (free) or Fluendo via Codena. In fact Codena recognises that the PLF repositories are configured and offers Fluendo or PLF or Mandriva as a source of the CODECs. For the record I always choose the PLF source. The alleged issue of Multimedia CODECs with respect to Mono is a red herring. It is completely irrelevant, and is only raised by hchaudh1 because hchaudh1 is desperately seeching reasons to justify a dislike of Mono. |
| KernelShepard Dec 31, 2008 10:53 PM EDT |
Agreed. Using C or C++ does not solve the multimedia issue either. Anyone looking to write a new "Mono app" on Linux will have all of the same multimedia framework choices as the people using C or C++ because you can just P/Invoke. Anyone writing a .NET application with the specific goal of being cross-platform will simply have to make design decisions around portability. Nothing new here, they'd have to do the same if implementing their application in any other language as well. |
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