MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-01-20 |
| FROM | Mike Richardson - NYLXS PRESIDENT
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Re: [DMCA_Discuss] DotGNU in Software Development Times
|
On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Seth Johnson wrote:
>
> > http://sdtimes.com/news/094/story3.htm
>
>
> Taking on Microsoft ‘Mano a Mano’
>
> DotGNU and Mono: .NET replacement projects coming
>
>
> By Edward J. Correia
> January 15, 2004
>
>
> It looks like 2004 could be the year of .NET replacements. In 2003, two
> separate open-source projects aimed at compatibility with Microsoft’s
> application runtime reached significant milestones.
>
> Grabbing much of the spotlight was Mono. The “.NET for Linux” project
> originated by open-source developer Miguel de Icaza gained headlines when
> host company Ximian was acquired by Novell Inc. A road map published in
> December promises a long list of major components to be released with Mono
> 1.0 by midyear, including a C# compiler, VM with JIT and precompilers and
> development and security tools.
>
> Analysts believe that Novell, which also acquired SUSE Linux last year, is
> now in a good position to regain mind and market share lost to Microsoft in
> the server and office productivity wars of the 1990s.
>
> Charlie Ungashick, Novell’s director of product management and marketing for
> Ximian Business Services, denies any anti-Microsoft strategy. “Linux desktop
> adoption is still only around 1 percent and Microsoft is over 70 percent. So
> it’s not feasible for us to spend time figuring out how to get from 1 to 70
> overnight. We need to build a solid foundation with Mono and the Ximian
> desktop and provide tools and technologies that get us to 5 and 10 percent
> quickly. We’re looking to get that right first.”
>
> Far less coy about its intentions is the Free Software Foundation and its
> DotGNU project, which is developing an open-source implementation of
> Microsoft’s Common Language Infrastructure intended as a replacement for
> Microsoft’s own. Among the motivations for the project posted on
> www.dotgnu.org is “a desire to prevent Microsoft from achieving monopolistic
> control of ‘webservices,’ which might be similar to how around the end of
> the twentieth century they had effective control of ‘the desktop.’” The
> group released DotGNU 0.1 in November 2003, including functional runtimes
> for Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and Windows.
>
> Among DotGNU’s leading contributors is Rhys Weatherley, who in January 2001
> began development of Portable.NET, which merged with DotGNU in July of that
> year and is now one of its three primary projects. The DotGNU project also
> includes DGEE, a Web services execution environment; and phpGroupWare, a
> Web-based collaboration suite.
>
> Weatherley would not put a release date on a version 1.0, but did state his
> objectives for the coming year, which include completion of the runtime
> engine, C# libraries, compiler and build tools. “My big goals for 2004 are
> to complete the fundamental infrastructure, System.Windows.Forms under
> Xwindows, and GNU Compact .NET Framework,” the latter of which he said is
> currently running well on Compaq’s iPAQ and Sharp’s Zaurus Linux-based
> handheld computers. Weatherley said Portable.NET would likely be updated to
> 0.6.2 this month, including “significant improvements to
> System.Windows.Forms,” user interface classes.
>
> A RUNTIME IS A RUNTIME
>
> Despite their similarities—both are developing portable .NET replacements
> using CLI specifications submitted by Microsoft to ECMA, and both are
> intended to run .NET apps unchanged—DotGNU and Mono have differing
> objectives, insisted Bradley Kuhn, executive directory of the FSF. “Mono was
> done by Ximian, which is now owned by Novell, so it has much more of a
> corporate flavor to it. They offer different projects with different goals
> and ways of getting things done. We’re making sure developers actually get a
> free replacement for C#,” he said.
>
> Ungashick would not comment on the possibility of fee-based versions of Mono
> down the road. “Mono is an open-source project, and we haven’t made any
> public statements about what will happen in the future,” he said. Defending
> the corporate development methodology, he added, “Developers need a road map
> that usually accompanies a commercial project that gives them a comfort
> level with how often the APIs will move and how stable the builds will be
> over time. Mono is pure open-source today, and people can download daily
> builds. But the road map gives developers certain points over the next 24
> months [when] there will be stable builds that deliver key functionality
> with solid APIs.”
>
> Conversely, it was evident that Weatherley was free of such corporate
> demands when pressed for a release date. “I’m notoriously bad at predicting
> timetables. It really depends on what users want. 1.0 will be the name of
> the most stable and complete release sometime in the future. It would be
> silly to put a date on it; it will be ready when it is ready.”
>
> He added that C# will be the first language supported, followed by C. “Then
> probably JScript and finally [Visual Basic]. This order reflects my own
> personal interests.”
>
> The DotGNU and Mono projects also differ technically.
>
> According to Kuhn, de Icaza “wrote Mono from the ground up in C#. That meant
> he had to bootstrap with Microsoft’s C# compiler system. DotGNU was written
> entirely in C. Developers who are used to C and the GNU toolchain can
> continue using them; they don’t have to learn C# to get involved in the
> project.”
>
> --
>
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