Miguel de Icaza: MS has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot (Google cache) | Hacker News Reader

Miguel de Icaza: MS has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot (Google cache)

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31 pointsyesbabyyes42 comments

I think he was being overly optimitic in the first place. Microsoft doesn't want a cross platform system. They were just throwing out a bone with C#. Having their tools be truly cross platform is not in their best business interest, and no one blames them. Miguel should have understood this when he started Mono.

And so people have been telling him all along. Last summer, RMS called him out (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=846221) and he responded with calling RMS a fear monger (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864047).

As usual, RMS was right, and there was no shortage of other people trying to get de Icaza to see this, ever since he started with the Mono project.

It has indeed taken some time, but I'm happy that de Icaza finally seem to have understood. It will be interesting to see which direction Mono will take now, and where this fits in with the bigger picture of Novell's and Microsoft's future.

I'm confused; has anything actually changed?

There doesn't seem to be any new legal threats, just quotes from Icaza acknowledging that other people are scared of following his lead due to existing patent fears. I don't see any hint that Icaza thinks the threat is real, or threatens future development of Mono.

"Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that they have cast on the ecosystem."

De Icaza is not acknowledging that some people are scared of patent infringement. He's acknowledging that Microsoft itself has scared people away through its constant threats.

I think you're moving too fast there. Where do we see that RMS was "right"? Miguel is only saying that the fear of legal action is what's stopping .NET from being accepted, not that there's actually anything to be afraid of.

I thought Miguel was Mr. "there is no legal threat, Mono is fine."

Example from 05:

"Every piece of software written today is likely going to infringe on someone else's patent... Our strategy in dealing with patents in Mono is the same strategy that any other software developer would take."

http://ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/03/21/interviewmiguel....

I'm pretty sure he is still saying that. The article only acknowledges the fact that a lot of people think .NET is a legal minefield.

Nonsense. Listen to what de Icaza says:

"Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that they have cast on the ecosystem"

He notably did NOT say:

"RMS has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the fears of patent infringement that he has cast on the ecosystem."

De Icaza is clearly and explicitly laying blame at Microsoft's feet.

Found the text of the article here: http://slated.org/does_windows_cost_microsoft_opportunities

That site won't show me the article. Instead, it shows me a page complaining about ISPs that use something called "Webwise", and tells me to change ISPs if I want to see the site.

PS: my ISP is not using Webwise.

I also get that message. That's kind of lame. My ISP has said they are considering Webwise but are not currently using it, otherwise I'd be on a different ISP. But that's none of that website's business, what a bunch of dicks.

Given that Webwise replaces original ads with ISP's ads, and the website gets exactly nada from any clicks, I'd say that it is pretty much website's business.

I didn't know that was part of what it did. I still think that's a bit of a stupid way of dealing with it (especially as my ISP isn't even using Webwise!) but I can understand why they're concerned.

IT Wire writes about it here - apparently, SD Times has removed the article.

http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/37880-...

It's not surprising at all. Now that MS can point to Sun and say Java is doomed (it's not, but they say whatever is convenient for them), why would anyone think they would refrain themselves from taking the opportunity to prevent the clueless companies they managed to scare away from Java from going Mono instead of going Windows?

Sorry, but acting as if Microsoft is really interested in cross-platform anything, and then being surprised when they're not, is similar to snuggling with tigers (while your friends are very worried, asking you to get out of the lair), and then being shocked after the tiger starts to eat your legs.

".NET creates value from a fantastic IDE, great mainstream languages, and well-executed technologies like Silverlight, LINQ and the DLR [Dynamic Language Runtime]."

Silverlight is well executed? Is there any real uptake with the DLR outside Silverlight? I think the answer to both is no, can anyone point to evidence otherwise?

I also wonder what "fantastic IDE" he is referring to. I constantly hear people talk about visual studio being great but I don't believe they have ever stepped outside their world to try some of the Java IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA.

I also wondered the same thing. Visual Studio is so bad, you have to actually buy another piece of software (http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/) for it to start approaching "good", but it's still not close to "fantastic".

Which IDE do you think is better?

Eh, it's not subpar either. I purposely didn't get Resharper because I hate how intrusive it is. TestDriven.NET and ViEmu make VS2008 a passable IDE IMO.

The number one thing that turned me off about IntelliJ IDEA was the horrible font rendering. I am not going to suffer the lack of cleartype for eight hours a day, thanks. The rendering made IntelliJ positively unusable. I really don't care about the awesome refactoring support and all that jazz if I can't read my source code comfortably.

What platform did you use IntelliJ IDEA on? I work with about 100 other (highly opinionated) developers that all use it, and I've never once heard someone complain about the font rendering.

Windows.

Huh. I've used IntelliJ on Windows for close to 8 years and never noticed any font rendering issues.

Well, looks like I have egg on my face. Your comment prompted me to download the latest version of IntelliJ and try it out, and the rendering has improved tremendously. It is now indistinguishable from ClearType (it probably is ClearType). :)

Recent versions of IDEA (7+) with recent versions of JDK (6+) support subpixel antialiasing.

Well, I haven't tried the most recent ones, and definitely not IntelliJ IDEA, but at the time I tried them, both Eclipse and NetBeans were substantially worse (slower, worse intellisense, debug options, etc...) than Visual Studio.

Visual Studio works fantastically for my line of work as an IDE. If I were doing some other line of work it would probably be unsuitable, but for Big Corp (tm) programming it is pretty good, much better than the Java equivalents.

So you've developed with Silverlight and understand its strengths and weaknesses in comparison with Flash/Air? I haven't done much Silverlight work but as someone who has done a decent amount of Flash work in the past, I thought it was a really solid approach. It certainly seems superior to the other alternatives in the context of developing for a phone platform (Windows Phone 7, or whatever that is called).

The DLR is used by IronPython and IronRuby. It's not the basis of Silverlight but it is what allows you to write apps in python or ruby.

The DLR is also the foundation for late binding in C# 4, which is a cornerstone of the new COM functionality.

You mean the dynamic keyword? I didn't know that was the DLR, that's interesting.

In the absence of an objective definition of "well executed" I will give my opinion. Yes, Silverlight is well executed. I have done fairly complex apps in both SL and Flash, and the SL experience was better.

Some reasons: Flash is the 10th iteration of a platform on the 3rd iteration of a language, so Flash has several completely different and incompatible ways to do everything. Flash code must be written in ActionScript, which can be used in exactly one environment (well, not counting Flash Media Server).

The SL platform, on the other hand, is much more recent and has the benefit of throwing away years of iteration on WPF and doing things "right" from the start. It is well organized, consistent, and performs well. You can use libraries from non-SL projects in SL without rewriting them in a dead-end language.

Miguel posted the response/correction to this article - http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Mar-25.html

Why is he so surprised by classic M$ behavior ? Everyone knew this would happen when .Net was first hyped back in 2000. It's possible that M$ marketing sold him some BS story on the side and/or piled on some cash that clouded his judgment.

If you dance to the tune, you must pay the piper ...

Are you seriously suggesting that a bribe would cause a developer of Miguel's caliber to devote nearly a decade of his life to building something like Mono?

Far greater people have devoted more than a single decade to M$(and other companies) in exchange for cash. It's not unusual. It's called capitalism.

The ability of the human mind to rationalize anything if the rewards are great enough has been proven time and again. If you give someone enough incentive, and ease them into it slowly, a person will be able to justify anything to themselves.

The more they're challenged, the more justifications and rationalizations they'll come up with to defend their choices, and the more entrenched they'll be in their new position.

Everything he has ever done for FOSS is a waste of time. Bonobo and Mono are utterly pointless. It might not be a direct bribe but taking MS' money via Novell and pissing ten years on it is exactly what I expect from a developer of Miguel's caliber [sic].

Depends on the bribe.

'M$'? Seriously? :)

Yes. It's no joke. The company that your livelihood is tied to seeks profit as their number one goal (above all else). You have a stake in C# succeeding it seems (based on your website). How you deal with that level of cognitive dissonance is your own problem. I will not make any assumptions or judgments of you as a person because it's possible that you may be forced to deal with the situation for personal reasons (which should probably not be discussed in a forum such as this). That or you may just care nothing for true openness(and the ability for people to learn freely) when it comes to technology.

More context for the actual quote, from Miguel de Icaza's own blog:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Mar-25.html

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