

Mono not Chasing Tail Lights - oomkiller
http://jeffreystedfast.blogspot.com/2009/09/mono-not-chasing-tail-lights.html

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prodigal_erik
I'm not convinced interoperability isn't key. If all they wanted was a Java
clone that handled generics and boxing better, compatible with nothing but
themselves, they could have had that years before C#.

~~~
scythe
Doesn't Vala handle that? Not to mention it runs faster and with a lower
memory footprint.

~~~
audidude
Don't get me wrong, i love mono and vala and use them both regularly. But vala
doesn't have stack protection, etc which is quite useful for certain
situations.

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tarkin2
He assumes a MS patent claim won't hurt a mono-using company. He asserts
they'll just remove the code and happy days again.

But that's not the worry here: MS could sell a mono-related patent to someone
who's willing to attempt to bankrupt a mono-using company.

And so, Mono puts a company at more risk of dying in the court-room, gives MS
more "proof" Linux is not safe, and gives MS more leverage in negotiations via
patent-threats.

~~~
TomOfTTB
You think Microsoft is going to sell the patents to it's core development
technology to someone else so that they can bankrupt a company using Mono?
That's a pretty far fetched scenario.

Beyond that, as the article points out, you can use Mono and not use
Microsoft's patented technology. It just requires a little more work (again,
C# is an International Standard which is not covered by any patent)

~~~
robin_reala
[http://press.redhat.com/2009/09/09/microsoft-and-patent-
trol...](http://press.redhat.com/2009/09/09/microsoft-and-patent-trolls/)

 _The Open Invention Network (OIN) learned recently that Microsoft was
planning to auction off some of its software patents, which we understand it
marketed to trolls and some other non-practicing entities. It also used
marketing materials that highlighted offensive uses of the patents against
open source software, including a number of the most popular open source
packages._

This isn’t some fanboy’s blog, this is a Red Hat press release.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I can't seem to find any basis for this other than "entity x recently learned
from anonymous entity Y that Microsoft might do something bad"

That said, the point here is that the patents in question in regards to Mono
are the cornerstones of Microsoft's own development efforts. So they aren't
going to sell off their ADO.NET related patents because it's the core of data
access in their entire development environment.

For the scenario in which a patent affecting Mono was sold to happen Microsoft
would have to auction off pieces of the .NET Framework itself and that's just
not going to happen.

~~~
pushingbits
Besides, doing so would a PR debacle of epic proportions. Microsoft wants
developers to use their technologies (duh). Does anyone seriously believe that
they are going to stab those developers in the back after publicly promising
to do nothing of the sort?

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jsz0
Anything that has the potential to make desktop software better on Linux is
good with me. In case anyone hasn't noticed it's in an abysmal state. There
are many examples of Linux being a decade or more behind comparable commercial
solutions on other platforms. If Mono happens to interest some Windows
developers or promote interoperability it would improve the situation greatly
in my opinion. As far as patent concerns go with Microsoft -- I say force
their hand. Let them litigate if they want to. I think the US DOJ and EU would
take a special interest in the case. OSS can't cower in the shadows afraid of
big bad Microsoft forever.

~~~
TomOfTTB
The one point I'd like to make is that Microsoft has never threatened to sue
anyone over Mono. They made an official agreement with Novell to appease
Novell's corporate customers but that doesn't mean they'll sue anyone else. In
fact, just the opposite. Scott Guthrie (VP of Development at Microsoft)
regularly gives time on his popular blog to Mono projects (see one example:
[http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/02/11/moonlight-...](http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/02/11/moonlight-1-0-release.aspx))

The whole "Microsoft Patent" issue is based on the Free Software Foundation
stating a concern that Microsoft could someday sue. I don't dispute that
concern but understand Mono is very much in Microsoft's best interest because
it competes with Apache on Linux.

Finally, as the article points out, even if Microsoft asserts it's patents
they'll only be taking away certain support functions like ADO.NET. The heart
of Mono is the C# compiler which is an ECMA and ISO standard.

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arithmetic
Considering tools like MoMA are exclusive to Mono and don't have an equivalent
in the .Net world (<http://www.mono-project.com/MoMA>), I'd state that in some
cases Mono is a little ahead of its Windows counterpart.

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JulianMorrison
I'm curious how "Java is actually already way behind Mono". What can the one
do that the other struggles with?

~~~
snprbob86
To clarify for other readers: I believe he means the JVM, not the Java
language.

I haven't been keeping up with Mono's development, but if they have C# 3.0, it
blows away Java right there. C# 3.0 is a functional programming gateway drug,
but encourages high readability even for non-functional developers. However,
that's not a fair comparison, as there are other great JVM languages such as
Scala and Clojure.

As for Mono or the CLR vs the JVM, there has been a lot about this written on
the net. You can find discussions about garbage collection, module systems,
JIT performance, security, library support, etc.

Here's one example: MSIL is more rich than Java Byte Code. This makes writing
compilers easier and can lead to better performance via unsigned types,
objects on the stack, unsafe pointer use, etc. See:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95163/differences-
between...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95163/differences-between-msil-
and-java-bytecode)

I'm not an expert on the CLR by any means, but I do quite a bit of C#
development on Windows. I greatly prefer C# to Java, but couldn't really care
less about CLR/Mono vs JVM. I'm really more interested in LLVM as a compile
target for interop and optimization of open source languages.

~~~
JulianMorrison
The "Debian shootout" suggests the JVM is consistently faster, but more of a
memory hog.

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=csharp&lang2=java&box=1)

~~~
igouy
quad core, or not quad core - that is the question:

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=csharp&lang2=java&box=1)

~~~
JulianMorrison
The answer to the question seems to be "doesn't matter much", and the same for
64-bit. Java is always faster, nearly always fatter.

~~~
igouy
More of the Java programs have been re-written for quad core, which is partly
why those programs faster and fatter.

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nick-dap
A plug for Software Engineering Radio [http://se-
radio.net/podcast/2009-07/second-life-and-mono-jim...](http://se-
radio.net/podcast/2009-07/second-life-and-mono-jim-purbrick)

I've personally never used Mono, but if people are putting their time and
sweat into the project then it obviously has value for them. Nobody is forcing
anyone to use it. Free as in beer.

I wrote five paragraphs after this, but then realized that nothing else really
matters. So what we are witnessing here is a circle jerk. Moving on.

