GNOME & Mono Made Love At Microsoft Last Week

[RealNC]

So you're trying to restrict the discussion back to only GNOME, then. Fine, fine. Let's go with that.

Isn't it how it started?

GNOME is a platform for the Free Software desktop. What it's replacing is closed desktops. It's offering up apps, written in a variety of languages, to replace various closed apps.

What closed apps are replaced in Gnome by using .NET?

You don't see hackfests for the other desktops? Funny, I see them running several hackfests, certainly KDE.

No, I don't see .NET festivals by KDE. Do you?

And perhaps GNOME isn't averse to backing a hackfest for improvements in GNOME apps like Banshee, when Banshee contributes about ten thousand dollars a year to the GNOME foundation?

I'm sure you mentioned somewhere in this thread that money has nothing to do with this?

I don't think you know much about Free Software.

I know quite a bit about it. It seems *you* don't know much about Microsoft software.

Qt wasn't GPL-compatible until 2000. Prior to that

Irrelevant. Gnome didn't start loving .NET in 2000.

[directhex]

Isn't it how it started?

I believe you were the first person to start talking about the "Whole Linux Ecosystem"

What closed apps are replaced in Gnome by using .NET?

Microsoft OneNote.

No, I don't see .NET festivals by KDE. Do you?

I don't see any .NET hackfest proposals for KDE. Do you?

I'm sure you mentioned somewhere in this thread that money has nothing to do with this?

Not Microsoft money. But Banshee does help pay the GNOME foundation's bills. Considering the question of money in versus money out, Banshee's contributions to GNOME's coffers subsidize all sorts of activities.

I know quite a bit about it. It seems *you* don't know much about Microsoft software.

Why would I give a shit about Microsoft software? I don't find it interesting. I'm here for the Free Software, thanks. You can keep your Windows.

Irrelevant. Gnome didn't start loving .NET in 2000.

Tomboy became a by-default app in 2006 (GNOME 2.16). Gtk# 1.0 is from late 2004. These dates are very old, and still significantly older than Qt's addition of LGPL as a license.

[kraftman]

icaza doesn't speak for everyone.

Yes, but he's driving the project and if it has to succeed he has to be replaced.

[TheBlackCat]

Microsoft OneNote.

I think he/she meant "What closed apps are replaced in Gnome by using .NET instead of some other language?" The question, again, is why Mono is being used instead of something else. Pointing to applications that are written from scratch in Mono doesn't really help answer that, since it doesn't explain why those application are not being written in another language. So unless you can somehow show that the program would not have been written at all if Mono wasn't available this doesn't really help your case.

I don't see any .NET hackfest proposals for KDE. Do you?

No, but that is probably because pretty much nobody uses the KDE or Qt Mono bindings. They exist, they are available, but they aren't popular compared to other languages. So why is Mono so popular with Gnome and pretty much ignored in KDE?

[directhex]

I think he/she meant "What closed apps are replaced in Gnome by using .NET instead of some other language?" The question, again, is why Mono is being used instead of something else. Pointing to applications that are written from scratch in Mono doesn't really help answer that, since it doesn't explain why those application are not being written in another language. So unless you can somehow show that the program would not have been written at all if Mono wasn't available this doesn't really help your case.

They're written in C# because their developers wanted to write them in C#. They could have used something else, but didn't. Free Software is an ecosystem of choices.

No, but that is probably because pretty much nobody uses the KDE or Qt Mono bindings. They exist, they are available, but they aren't popular compared to other languages. So why is Mono so popular with Gnome and pretty much ignored in KDE?

Binding to C++ well is really hard, due to the need to track objects adequately, and G++'s habit of mangling method names (amongst other things). libsmoke for Qt exists, but makes your app super slow. The latest is a project called Cxxi, which enables proper binding to C++ libs like Qt - but it's incomplete, and nobody has finished it yet.

Conversely, we have tech to bind to GObject trivially (GAPI), and have done for almost a decade.

So that's why.

[kraftman]

Microsoft could release a full .NET implementation under a GPLv3-compatible license with full patent grant, and you'd still come up with excuses. Maybe they already did. You wouldn't know.

Make MS prove it's patent free or make Icaza to ship patent free bits, make it community driven and make MS to keep their dirty hands out of Gnome and entire Linux and I'll shut up when comes to this part. Mono is in the same language team as java (compared to C/C++/Qt). It's not a secret java is simply dead on desktops, so while mono is similar you should have a clue why it's having a rough time to get more attention on Linux desktops - on Windows .Net is driven by MS. If java will be favored then I can understand your frustration, but it's not. I found strange to convince others how great some language is. People usually use what they know and what they like, so if they don't like mono it's not anti-mono crowd problem, but maybe those who stands behind mono, perhaps? C, C++, Python, mono they're all available in repositories, so what's the problem?

[vertexSymphony]

True, mono does implement things like winforms that are not part of the standard. (but many mono programs don't even use winforms...)

But I developed using Winforms with mono? I've ran Winforms apps on mono? I'm confused =/
In any case, the more I read @directhex, the lower my opinion on mono is -.-

[directhex]

But I developed using Winforms with mono? I've ran Winforms apps on mono? I'm confused =/

Mono provides an implementation of WinForms, but it's largely unmaintained, and certainly not bug-free.

WinForms looks like ass, and integrates very poorly with Linux environments, so it's pretty much never used as the framework of choice for new Linux projects. It's used for cases where an app began life on Windows, to enable porting to Linux without forcing an entire UI rewrite - for example, Keepass.

The Linux community cares more about Gtk#, the Mac community cares about MonoMac (Cocoa binding), and Windows developers use WPF and Microsoft.NET.

[directhex]

Make MS prove it's patent free

How?

or make Icaza to ship patent free bits,

Why bother? Anyone who believes the patent FUD wouldn't use it regardless, so it's a wasted engineering effort.

make it community driven

Which of your pull requests to mono.git haven't been accepted? There's a lot of community involvement in Mono's writing. Where do you feel the community isn't having a say?

and make MS to keep their dirty hands out of Gnome and entire Linux

Like it or not, they're free to do what they like - including writing kernel modules for Linux. GNOME, however, they have no say at all, so no issues there.

It's not a secret java is simply dead on desktops, so while mono is similar you should have a clue why it's having a rough time to get more attention on Linux desktops

Java is dead on desktops because it's terrible on desktops - Java apps are slow, clunky, and eat ALL the RAM. None of this applies to Mono apps, where you can't distinguish a Mono Gtk+ app from a C Gtk+ app unless you actually look under the hood.

Mono's problems with acceptance are all about FUD.

C, C++, Python, mono they're all available in repositories, so what's the problem?

"I'm going to write a new app! Hmm, I'd like to use C#, but if I do, I'll get ostracised by the community, and treated like a leper. I guess I'll pick something worse, to avoid the politics".

I won't name the project I'm paraphrasing from the lead developer of.

[vertexSymphony]

So mono does have stuff that's non-standard and possibly not covered by the patent promise? :S
That's where I've read the most concerns about.

It would be awesome if the license could cover patent grants, but the copyright on the software is not microsoft's, they're not the owners on mono... you can't give a patent grant on stuff that's not yours, unless you have a license (and right to sub-license with that one).
Microsoft would never-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever make such agreement (it would be TOO GOOD to be actually true), and that leaves me thinking