Microsoft/Novell Partnership

[ted leslie]

The only reason Linux can't win, is it is by marketing lingo,
a disruptive technology. very disruptive. 
Great, but disruptive. Mono is a really nice bridge.
Now that OpenSuse.org was named (in the MS release) as able to use
the MS IP as well as SLED, etc,
I can write my code in mono (c#) use Windows Forms,
and deploy it, with out change, on Linux, Windows, and MacOSX (ok there
might be an issue with MacOSX). Kinda like Java was supposed to be
before MS slipped it a poison pill. I hate MS, don't get me wrong, but
in the grand scheme of things, .Net/C# is just basically Pascal, with a
few things, "remoting", "reflection" it bought along the way. (well ok i
am over simplifying it but, pedigree wise not to far off). 

As a programmer who doesn't want, "write once, write anything***,
deploy anywhere"? and not recompile, and don't have ifdef's from hell.
(where *** is  scripting, web apps, GUI apps, browser plugins, and c#
isn't to much of a departure away from C, so you can stay in the loop if
you have to write any linux kernel stuff, which will be C for probably
another 20 years at least). 

At the end of the day , for a classically trained programmer, Mono  (C#)
just  works, its the holy grail.

I see Mono (and this SUSE deal), and the trojan horse we are pushing
into the Microsoft fortess, and in time we are going to jump out and do
some serious head kicking :)
Not sure about the High Level issue, to me c# is high level, how much
higher does one need?
I guess by high level you mean what you give a highschool student to
learn programming in school? in which case VB on Mono will do, until
they learn c#.

As far as Windows clone? i am thinking more a gnome desktop (in Mono), 
deployed on a Windows OS, with apps written in Mono, giving a MS flunky
a choice, and power, that eventually they realize, "hey I can just
install Linux (for free), and I will have the same thing", and there's
your non-disruptive technology.

MS windows --> MS windows .Net --> MS windows (gnome Mono desktop)
with .Net/Mono apps --> Linux (gnome Mono desktop) with .Net/Mono apps
Nice easy migration.
Might take 6 years but .......

Also moving drivers into CLI will allow HP, Epson, Canon, and small
shops, to write once and deploy drivers on Linux and Windows, which will
give Linux much needed driver support for little odd ball peripherals,
as well as get the full features of the drivers put out by the HP's and
Canon's etc, who right now treat the Linux drivers as a bit of a 2nd
class priority. Might be tricky gluing a User space CLI driver (part) to
a kernel space C part. However, the things like the HP's all-in-one
applications, like fax viewer, printer status, etc,etc, if HP could
write that puppy in c#/.Net and that would bring the best of the HP
printers abilities to the Linux and Windows users, due to that common
CLI (.Net & Mono), that goes a long way to making Linux become
dominant.

In the end I am all for everyone jumping on Linux, even if it means
working with something that's a little bit Microsoft'ish. Sometimes you
have to introduce a bit of poison , to the system,  to rid the cancer
for good.



-tl


On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 21:27 -0500, CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
> On Thursday 02 November 2006 20:56, ted leslie wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 20:35 -0500, CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
> > > On Thursday 02 November 2006 17:48, ted leslie wrote:
> > > > Mono has to rule the world, and this takes it one step closer.
> > > > (the programmer in me speaking here)
> > >
> > > Mono ruling the world is a pipe dream. It will always be behind
> > > Microsoft's implemenation of the .NET architecture and despite
> > > claims to the contrary, there are no high-level languages for
> > > .NET, well, perhaps besides VB.NET which aside from being an
> > > awful language, is Microsoft-specific. IronPython is a curiousity
> > > at the moment and not really viable for serious development.
> >
> > actually at present rate by end of next year there will be more
> > mono (.net) in a Novell (and maybe a red hat release) then in
> > Vista, that pipe is already basically a reality.
> > Behind?, actually at present development rate, it will be  way
> > ahead, way way ahead, and in short order. Truth of the matter is,
> > it will take some miracle for MS to catch up to Mono, once Mono
> > passes it soon.
> 
> Even if what you say is true, and I don't concede that at all, what is 
> so compelling about Mono when there are no high-level languages? Do 
> we really need to turn Linux into some Windows clone in order for 
> Linux to "win"?

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists