[ale] best cross platform development evironment

[Michael Trausch]

Do look somewhat closer. The CLR, which is the real meat of the whole thing,
was designed by Microsoft and IIRC HP and Intel. The language itself is
designed to take advantage of the runtime. The runtime itself is a logical
extension to the idea of application virtual machines.

Examine the Mono source code. It is free software. I challenge you to rise
above the ad hominem and, if you think there is a serious reason that a
professional ought not use the software, express that with something solid.
Otherwise it is no different that saying that, say, one shouldn't hire that
Islam person over there due to the fact that they might be anti-American and
want nothing more than to destroy your organization. Not only is such a
practice barred as discrimination, but it is unethical.

Now that does not transfer to software: it cannot be said to be unethical to
discriminate against it. But unlike Java, which the community was behind
until recently, Mono is an independent, third-party implementation which is
free software and is itself built on a free software stack.

Whether it is safe or not to use the Microsoft implementation for services I
cannot say: that is a wholly different situation and not one which I care to
devote any time to. But one thing that we have always done with free
software is reimplement previously proprietary things in a manner which is
free. This adds to our ability, our choice, and our freedoms.  It is an
immensely useful, cross-platform runtime system. It implements a virtual CPU
(which is itself not a new concept, such styles of VMs can be found as far
back as the sixties and seventies).  The style of VM that it implements is
also not a new technology.

Furthermore, the language itself is, like any other programming language,
just a notation for the input of programs.  The C# compiler is unremarkable
in that it is just a compiler.  Yes, it relies heavily on the underlying
runtime to implement its functionality.  This is no different from early
(and even modern) implementations of the BASIC programming language.

I have yet to find anything in the CLR or in C# that cannot be explained
easily in terms of things we have done before in the history of computing.
As far as I can tell there is no basis for arriving at the short-circuited
decision to not use a free software implementation of the programming
language or the runtime on which it executes.  No more basis than there
would be for not running GNU/Linux because it implements a propretary UNIX
suite of APIs, or ReactOS because it implements a propretary suite of
Windows APIs, or Haiku because it implements a proprietary suite of BeOS
APIs.

For that matter, Microsoft has made the unsubstabtiated claim that the Linux
kernel and software in the GNU stack "infringes" on Microsoft patents.  I
don't see people running to Windows or the Hurd as a result of that.

And as with any credible patent threat that has presented itself in the
past, should one arise, it will be handled.  Remember that functionality
itself cannot be patented.  Only how that functionality is implemented.  If
you have read patents in the past then this would be something that you
would already be aware of, I think.  And while Mono is binary-compatible
(mostly) with the Microsoft implementation, it does many things differently.
In fact, the Mono project has implemented some functionality that Microsoft
has looked at, said "nice", and themselves implemented that functionality in
their implementation.

Again I ask for something to substantiate this FUD; no matter who I ask in
the anti-Mono camp, I have yet to receive even a single answer that rests
upon logic.  All I see rests on fear, uncertainty, and doubt---emotional
responses, not logical arguments.  The only difference is that unlike the
FUD that Microsoft went out of the way to produce in the 1990s and 2000s, it
is our own community generating it. This seems to me to be a step backwards.

--
Sent from my G2 running CyanogenMod!
That is, a phone. :) Running free software!
On Nov 16, 2010 8:35 AM, "Lightner, Jeff" <jlightner at water.com> wrote:
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