Bonum Certa Men Certa

Xamarin Analysed

Xamarin site



Summary: A preliminary look at the new home of .NET boosting that's masqueraded as "open source" (even though it is open core or proprietary)

A MICROSOFT MVP is creating and currently registering a Mono company with a registrar near Microsoft. "Mono's Not Dead Yet," claims this headline and we never claimed it was dead. Nobody claimed that. What happened was, the project got orphaned and de-funded. As far as Novell and AttachMSFT were concerned, the team got canned. We patiently waited to see the team's next move and after a long pause, the ringleader blogged about his plans.



Throughout the day we did some research via IRC and here are some of our findings (full IRC logs will be available for reading tonight). Oiaohm wrote: "just did my first check Xamarin does not have a trademark registration yet. [...] My problem is I don't know where the USA equ[ivalent] to Australian ABR. Australian business registry [...] [in] Australia we have 3 central registrations to check."

Later I inquired: "Why won't the funders be identified?"

Miguel and his workers mostly live in Boston, but travel to Microsoft a lot (at least Miguel does). "Boston is Massachusetts," replied Oiaohm, "Massachusetts requires anyone who is conducting business under an alias (i.e., any name other than their own), including corporations, to file a business certificate ("doing business as") in the city or town where the business is principally headquartered. Nice... no searchable index. Washington does have a index."

XamarinThen I asked, "but must they have registered it by now? And if so, will the site DB have been updated?"

“Project lead of mono makes out that he was trying to break mono away for over a year, so why did a domain/trademark need taking out at the last minute?”
      --Oiaohm
"No list in Washington," Oiaohm claimed after checking, "and Washington is like Australia, the record is with their tax department. I would guess registered in Massachusetts [...] And failed to take out the require trademark. In theory someone else could take out the trademark and shut them down. Basically what has been done is legally risky and I am not surprised from the lead developer of mono [...] Before annoyance a trading name to the world you really should hold the trademark."

"Exactly what day was the mono project lead fired," Oiaohm asked. I told him the date. "So why so many days delay," he asked, "[t]o holding the domain name."

It is "probably all those days were spent groveling at Microsoft," MinceR said jokingly, "that or coming up with another x* name..." (like Ximian).

"I am reading the registrars of the domain record," claimed Oiaohm. "I know it does not reveal that much information. [...] Project lead of mono makes out that he was trying to break mono away for over a year, so why did a domain/trademark need taking out at the last minute?"

BetterWhois.com doesn't reveal additional information. The owner is masked, oddly enough. "Also take a close look at the moonlight logo," Oiaohm suggested. "It is the "same as the new xwhatever logo," claimed MinceR and Oiaohm too said: "same logo as what is dominate on the new mono site. It was just a observance thing. interesting not there now. No part of the company any more you should not be using the logos. [...] All Novell trademarks and the like are Attachmate's. This include the name Mono [...] the old project lead of mono is about to be in a legal crap storm.

"They don't even have there own logo yet either. [...] little bit of observance is showing major problems."

Indeed, the service that xamarin.com is registered through is a non-existent Whois Agent with a sex site (whoisprivacyprotect.com). The company that carries Mono (rename possibly required) announced its existence just one day after the domain had been registered (registered for just one year, so not much of a future perhaps). It's all rather odd.

"If you where breaking away you would think names and icons for a split away company would be designed," added Oiaohm. "Particularly if this was planned 12 months go. To me all the evidence points to a last min attempt to save tails. The angel funding might be the employees own separation pay."

“[P]robably all those days were spent groveling at Microsoft”
      --MinceR
Miguel has a lot of money as he admitted to people who used to comment in this site. But the Mono developers are still look for more funding and they might actually find it. Microsoft staff suggests that Canonical should sponsor Mono. Well, if Microsoft wants Mono to survive, why does it not fund it directly? Is it like SCO's lawsuit? Does it want other companies to offer payments that serve Microsoft's interests? Even Novell was paid hundreds of millions to serve Microsoft's interests. That was before Novell gave its patents to Microsoft. "Novell MS deal is not transferable," Oiaohm reminded us. "Neither is the sale agreements of Novell [...] so unless Mono can get MS backing they are basically a complete legal sitting duck now. This is not the Novell sale this is after the sale. Attachmate is starting to make a new home for itself. Also, Attachmate has not shut down the mono project sites. So their could be more hell to come yet. I would not put it past Attachmate to allow mono developers to setup shop by themselves then patent black mail them for free labour."

Yes, the sites could be shut down (or used for leverage), "But at this stage Attachmate has not [done so]," said Oiaohm. "Why fire the staff and leave the site up [...] Basically something is badly off here." Attachmate still owns all the mono sites/domains. Will it bother paying the hosting bill? Will it relinquish control? Oracle gives concerning precedence after the Sun takeover.

Looking elsewhere, positive spin on the news was not at all welcomed in Linux Today, leading to comments like: "Mono was a zombie project since its inception. Attachmate put a bullet in them, but, as we all know, zombies are hard to kill. You must take out the brain..." (some comments are a lot more offensive). Susan Linton (who appears to be sitting on the fence regarding the Mono question) writes:

Although his brand took a hit with Mono, there's little doubt of his contribution to the Open Source world. So, I guess if he was announcing a candy bar company it'd be big news.


Microsoft Florian retweets the Mono news twice, which helps keep those Microsoft APIs in circulation. It's rather telling, isn't it?

Speaking of Bellevue (where the new Mono company had the site registered), it is the home of many Microsoft executives and former executives, including the world's latest patent troll, who is filing lawsuits via other companies. According to Microsoft booster Todd Bishop, this patent troll does not wish to speak about his patents being used to attack small developers:

Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures, the patent holding company and invention house run by former Microsoft technology chief Nathan Myhrvold, confirmed today that it once owned the patent at the center of a controversy over in-app purchasing in third-party iOS applications.

To be clear, that would be past tense. A spokeswoman for the company tells GeekWire that IV sold the patent and has no ownership interest in Lodsys LLC, the company that sent cease-and-desist letters to a series of iOS developers last week.


We wrote about this case in [1, 2].

Todd Bishop also has this article about Nokia allegedly working to sell Microsoft its Mobile Unit. Murtazin's claims is translated as saying: "Next week Nokia will start the negotiations about the sale of it’s phone unit to Microsoft. For now the results of the negotiations won’t be public, but the deal might close before the end of 2011. Both companies are in a big hurry."

Nokia denies this. "So, denial from Nokia but this hasn't stopped the rumour mill going into overtime," concludes this article. But that just goes beyond the scope of this post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web