.NET and Mono. Call for action: ask for retraction

[Philippe Lourier]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 01:10:57AM -0500, Jeff Bone wrote:
> 
> [cut]
>
> 
> As much as I hate to say it, .NET looks like a good thing to me ---
> Java done broadly and right --- and it stands to have a significant
> positive impact on the ability to write cross-platform code.  

In fact .NET code will not be, and is not meant to be, cross
platform, and the aim of the various open source / free software
.NET projects such as MS or Mono or .GNU is not to create
environments to host portable code.  From MS viewpoint, the CLI
provides services to programming languages -types (arrays, lists)
garbage collection, etc...- rather than system level services. 
There;s some overlap with system stuff but the focus was not on
creating an all-encompassing platform like Java (when I asked Dave
Stutz about portability he said "we're not WORA".)   


>(My own
> theory is that the core developers of .NET etc. within Microsoft are
> subversives, and that the recent moves re: licensing etc. are
> too-little-too-late moves by legal and execs to correct the
> previously underperceived damage that's now already been done.  In
> the long run, I really think M$ may have given away the *current*
> franchise with the recent maneuvers.)
>
> 
> If you agree with my assessment about the benign nature of Mono after
> reading Nick's clearly misinformed and misconsidered article [1]
> below, please drop him a line at nicholas@petreley.com or
> mailto:nicholas@petreley.com
> 

I agree that Nick's article was not nuanced but the greater point
was the concern that MS might use Hailstorm svces as a hook. At
OSCON last week Clay Shirky asked Mundie and Stutz if it would be
possible to complete a Hailstorm transaction without ever "phoning
home" and hitting a MS server -ie. would the various protocols and
message formats used in Hailstorm svces be documented and open so
that 3rd parties could provide Hailstorm-compatible svces- and the
answer -after considerable hemming and hawing- was 'yes' and that
MS's services had "no automatic franchise in this area" and would
compete on an equal footing. Mundie even brashly predicted that MS
services would still achieve dominance, but on their own merits,
not because of some unfair advantage. --PL