Bonum Certa Men Certa

MonoDevelop in the Press, Which Totally Misses the Point

Mono strings GNOME
Image contributed by Beranger



We recently mentioned Novell's MonoDevelop in a very negative context. While we maintain our strong stance on this subject, here are some of the more optimisic reports that see it as benign, if not beneficial.

Mono Culture



BrainShare was full of it. Full of Mono, that is.

Commercial Linux distributor Novell is kicking off its BrainShare 2008 user and partner conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, this week, and the highlight of the show thus far has been the prototype Linux-MaxDB setups that I told you about last week that German software giant SAP is prototyping to run its applications. But Novell has also announced a new open source development tool for its Mono clone of Microsoft's .NET tools.


Mono, Mono, Mono



In case you know nothing about Mono's dangers, be sure to look at our past coverage. With MonoDevelop, Novell will continue to infect other distributions and platforms with what Microsoft considers its "intellectual monopoly". With MonoDevelop, Novell supplies the tools, as in the 'needle'. It allows innocent developers to get themselves 'addicted', as in enslaved to Microsoft's command.

Novell’s MonoDevelop allows application developers to quickly write desktop and ASP.NET Web applications on Linux and Mac Operating Systems. With MonoDevelop, developers can easily port .NET applications created with Visual Studio to Linux and Mac OS X and also maintain a single code base for all three platforms, which is of great benefit.


Mono Means Monkey



Time to kiss goodbye the illusion.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that you wouldn't have seen Microsoft employees, including execs, casually carrying around Macs at a conference a few years back. Winds of change are welling up. However faintly.

Does this mean that Microsoft is agnostic about whether developers develop to Windows and .NET? Of course not. But it's worth noting this week I'm in Salt Lake City at Novell's Brainshare user conference. (Yes, it has been a busy month.) Novell execs such as CTO Jeff Jaffe make no bones about their preference for a J2EE on Linux software stack. Yet, Novell remains a major force behind the Mono Project that allows .NET applications to run on Linux and other non-Windows operating environments. And Novell is doing the Linux port of Silverlight ("Moonlight").

In other words, in this day and age, expressing interest--even a strong one--for a given development stack increasingly doesn't translate into prohibiting any sort of interoperability or compatibility with the "enemy." The on-the-ground reality is naturally much messier than executive-level shows of mutual love and respect, but it's still a qualitatively different reality from the old days when walled gardens had high walls indeed.


Gordon Haff completely misses the point there about software patents. Also, Moonlight is not a Siilverlight port. It's more like a project mimicking Silverlight, playing catchup.

Thanks to a reader of ours, "CoolGuy", we now know about yet another Mono infection in Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Will it ever stop?

Pass the needle, Novell. That's just what Microsoft wants you to do.

Linux gives blood to Novell

Context:

I could probably make some money selling my mother's blood, if I had no conscience. Or I could rob a liquor store. There's money in that, I hear. Profit isn't the only indicator of whether a deal is a good idea or not.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October