For reference only, I’m an ancient developer. MS has never been a technology leader in the software arena (contrary to what many think who have only occupied the planet since MS was born). In the days of MS-DOS, those of us coding solutions used IBM-DOS. Executables were smaller, had fewer bugs, and just ran faster. MSC compiler performance always came in a distant wanna be compared to compilers from companies like Borland and Rogue-Wave. As MS sucked up the competition, they gradually garnered the upper hand as fewer and fewer were around to compete with better products. Some really good products were bought up by MS and just dumped to get rid of competition. Today the tide is slowly changing and MS is losing ground, aging as the scenery around it morphs to something new and different.

Mono is just MS Java along with an MS framework. I am amazed that so many people have embraced it. Except for providing “easier” avenues to windows, in my opinion, under the hood it’s a convoluted mess. New terminology for existing concepts just puts an uglier face on it (again, my opinion). But then, I don’t really like Java that much either. When a current developer needs to ask why anybody would want access to static libraries, it is obvious to me they don’t even know the right questions to ask when it comes to developing a deploying applications.

Now that I’ve insulted most of the developers who might read this, here is the meat of my post: Mono is a waste of everyones time. Leave it behind and use PHP with wxWidgets or something else you consider better. Of course if you have $2500 to give Miguel for his “premium” developers package, then go for it. If you’re broke, you won’t be competing with me.

No, either you’ve misquoted me or I made a mistake when I posted at 1am.
Repository doesn’t mean I need to get source. And package manager doesn’t mean I need to find source and compile. If you’ll read above, I believe I mentioned (or on another forum, too lazy to check) that I tried package managers and they were pathetic. Software was so old it was pathetic, talking 5 versions or more for some, literally years since it had been updated. How is that useful? Say Mono changes to keep up with the C# official spec, but the package managers aren’t updated, so they don’t compile properly. So the code won’t work.

” There are *plenty* of “easily accessible” IDEs for linux, and windows for that matter. The one you’re referring to is probably Visual Studio, right? Seriously mate – look outside the box! Microsoft give their proprietary IDE away to students for free to try and keep people developing on their proprietary platform. This is called vendor lock-in and is a reason *not* to use their development platform (not to mention that their broken compiler has been the laughing stock of the rest of the development world for years!).”

…
No kidding mate. Read above, uni had C# in a unit I did, I tried to get something other than Visual Studio, the ONLY compiler/IDE for C# apart from VS was Mono..
I had no choice in the language, I wanted to use an OS other than Windows, I go to Linux forums and see them trying to get the developers hung for treason.. I know it’s lock in, I know VS is pathetic, I know there’s better. Believe me, I’d be coding in C/Python/Ruby if I had a choice, and using Slackware or Suse. But no, VS was the only choice I had. Uni went C#/C++/C in progression. The next year it went to VB instead which was just great..

The object of the FOSS movement is to create an alternative to MSFT, right? C# was developed by MSFT, I accept that, but they aren’t suing Mono or DotGNU last I checked.

“The question to consider here is this: how dangerous (non-free) is Mono? What are the risks of installing something that Microsoft holds patents over in a linux distribution by default? These are valid and sensible questions, not purism! And they are questions we *need* to ask now, before Mono becomes too heavily relied upon.”

Again, 2 year old having a tiff. Trying to stay pure. Paranoid, in a word. Mono hasn’t been sued, neither has DotGNU, been going for 3+ years now.
“Although the C# language definition and the CLI are standardized under ISO and Ecma standards which provide reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing protection from patent claims” from wiki, of course.

http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/osspatentpledge.mspx
Open source, not for profit is safe according to MSFT. So unless all of a sudden you plan on going darkside and charging for everything, at which point we all go back to MSFT, then you’re safe.

So, fess up, which one of you bastards is inlcuding proprietary shareware in Linux.. Only reason for you lot to freak like you did.

It’s purism and elitism, or you’re lying to people and including hidden costs inside of Linux distro’s, driver works for a few hours then stops working till we pay kind of thing.

Or you’re all Stallman clones, dedicated to the death of all things MSFT for being evil.

Purist bastard.

Going to tell me what I think, read my comment first. Then analyse what you’re saying. Alternative or not? Purism or not? If not, Mono, Moonlight, etc should be fine. And you know it.

So why should people dev for Linux? First we learn C, then dev, is the current attitude, which is one I really dislike. Again, it’s an elitist thing, C# is not a closed language. Just the one IDE/Compiler I know of apart from Visual Studio (which I greatly dislike by the way, it’s worse than Dreamweaver for added useless code) is Mono. We have two options on Windows computers, we have none (included) on Linux.

So yea, why the hell would anyone use C# for Linux? You see the effects, you see the cause, how do you not see the relation?

Repositories means we need to get source, compile ourselves.

I think I see the problem: you don’t seem to have any understand how linux package repositories work! We aren’t talking about source-code repositories here. Using package repositories does *not* mean that you have to get source code and compile it yourself (with the possible exception of Gentoo ;o)!

No-one is suggesting we get rid of Mono from linux all together. They are suggesting we don’t install it *by default*. If a user wants to install some software that uses Mono, or even just Mono its self, they still can! They just run their favourite package manager and select it for installation, the same as they would any other software that’s not installed by default!

I think I’ve also spotted another problem: you don’t seem have a very good understanding of anything outside the Windows world! There are *plenty* of “easily accessible” IDEs for linux, and windows for that matter. The one you’re referring to is probably Visual Studio, right? Seriously mate – look outside the box! Microsoft give their proprietary IDE away to students for free to try and keep people developing on their proprietary platform. This is called vendor lock-in and is a reason *not* to use their development platform (not to mention that their broken compiler has been the laughing stock of the rest of the development world for years!).

If you don’t get this, then it’s hardly surprising that you think this whole fuss is that of “a 2 year old having a tiff”. You clearly don’t understand the issues! The free software world isn’t just trying to “stay pure”, its trying to create a free (libre, not gratis) alternative to things like Windows. That means avoiding closed-source proprietary software, patent-encumbered software and vendor lock-in.

The question to consider here is this: how dangerous (non-free) is Mono? What are the risks of installing something that Microsoft holds patents over in a linux distribution by default? These are valid and sensible questions, not purism! And they are questions we *need* to ask now, before Mono becomes too heavily relied upon.

Say what? That’s just incorrect. There are only a handful of apps written for Mono that do anything useful and – according to the stats – c# et al are not exactly popular, and adoption isn’t growing significantly either: http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2009/08/15/c-is-just-so-last-year/.

Just because *you* like the framework there is no reason to make idiotic and childish comments as you have above. Please try to keep calm and take a chill pill.

By all means don’t include the compiler in a default install. It’s like having a .flac codec or lisp compiler installed. Most users will never have need for them, why include them? But don’t rip the framework out and leave the damn thing in the repositories.

As it is, it’s simpler to stick to Windows, which was my orignal point in relation to this fanboi article. Windows has an easily available IDE suite for student devs, and even better, we can code for it and the programs will run. My next point was that ignoring such a powerful platform because MSFT developed the OPEN language, hurts Linux, not MSFT, by driving people who have the time and motivation to code for Linux away.

Put bluntly, ripping the framework and program out of Linux and repositories is pathetic, a 2 year old having a tiff because someone else poured his cereal.

we’re not going to switch to an OS that won’t let us even do our homework.

I think you’ve missed the point here. The article doesn’t suggest that anyone prevents you from doing your homework on Linux (or Ubuntu). Mono exists and will always be available to those who want to use it. The article is suggesting that we don’t don’t install Mono by default in new installations and that developers don’t use it as a platform for new projects. That’s all.

If you’re asking a user, then the answer is “it’s not”, any more than a Scheme compiler or LOLCODE interpreter.”

You took that quote entirely out of context. Yes, for a user, you neither need nor want a Mono compiler. But you don’t want any compilers.

But to go from that to an opinion much like the “many “users” of Linux who simply do not want Mono dependant applications to be included by default in their distribution of choice: Ubuntu” is bordering on insane.

I did some soft dev units at uni, and no, I’m not claiming that makes me a software developer or even a good coder. It’s just that quite a few uni’s and highschools teach C# as their intro programming language. Why remove every 1st/2nd year I.T. or even highschool student from your list of approved users?

The majority of coders have issues with C and C++ which the *nix distro’s have predominantly relied upon, simply because they’re hard. I’m unusual, not entirely normal, so I have nothing wrong with those languages. But I’ve coded in assembly (x86) and liked it so..

C# is simply easier to write a program in. And education industry says code in C#, so while we’re at highschool/uni, we’re not going to switch to an OS that won’t let us even do our homework.

And here’s a note for Mono (the framework at least, actual compiler is extra) being included. Same goes for Moonlight. The idea is to get an alternative to MSFT, right? So get an alternative, and let FOSS software do it’s job. It’s like kicking HTML from FOSS distro’s for being associated with MSFT. (Big commitee decides the standards, last I heard a MSFT person was on it.) Let us have the alternative we want instead of forcing us to stay on a MSFT platform.

And I can’t believe I just said that.. You guys (FOSS community at large) are getting as controlling as Apple. :S