07.27.09
If C# is Declining, Do We Need Mono Anymore?
Summary: Signs indicating that C# is not catching on raise questions about the essence of Mono
Mono is not a solution for a real problem; it is a ‘solution’ in search of a problem. Mono helps Microsoft resolve its own problems because after many years out there, programmers are still reluctant to use C#.
Balrog points out that new figures of book sales have just come out and it “looks like C# popularity went down”. In relation to this, says David Gerard: “I don’t understand why MS waited until 2009 for this attack, and why they’re doing for the sake of *mono* of all things.”
Mono proponents will probably say that Mono is safe to use because Microsoft promised not to sue, but worth highlighting is this new article from Law.com:
Why Patentees Conveying Covenants Not to Sue Should Take Another Look at the Fine Print
Patentees concerned with downstream use may want to take a closer look at the terms on which they license and covenant not to sue. Very recently, on April 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in TransCore, Inc. v. ETC Corp. that an unconditional covenant not to sue authorizes the sale of a patented article, thereby exhausting patent rights in the article. Although the TransCore ruling represents a logical extension of existing patent exhaustion jurisprudence, it should be carefully considered when drafting patent licenses and covenants not to sue.
The FSF has already remarked on and tackled Microsoft's Community Promise — supposedly a promise not to sue. There are many holes in that promise. █
jeff_small said,
July 27, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Your stats are awfully slanted. While C# is declining, as noted by O’Reilly, it is still one of the biggest sellers. I am neutral on your points that Mono is a problem, but when making a statement, you should probably include all the relevant facts.
sabayon.user said,
July 27, 2009 at 1:44 pm
OK, let me see if commenting this way will prevent my account from being summarily deleted.
Hello dear sir. I noticed you used the phrase “C# is not catching on” and pointed to a blog with a graphic that shows said language to be still the best-selling among all the others, despite a decline. With all due respect, isn’t this a rather specious argument to make?
Also, the data shown on those graphs point to a generalized decline in the sales of computer books with few exceptions like Objective-C or ActionScript. May I ask if it would be valid for someone to make the case that Python or Java are declining (clearly shown there) and declare them irrelevant because of this?
And finally, if I may be so bold, if I had pointed to this chart to make the point that C# was very popular, would it have been accepted, considering it’s also being used as proof of the fact that it is allegedly becoming irrelevant?
Thank you for your valuable time!
zatoichi said,
July 27, 2009 at 1:54 pm
This is extremely silly, Roy. The graph clearly shows that a) virtually all categories are down and b) C# book are the single best-selling language category. By this reasoning, we “don’t need” perl, MySQL or python any more.