Author Topic: AttachMate/Novell Lays Off People - Mono Hit (Read 11061 times)

Renegade · « **on:** May 05, 2011, 06:54 PM »

I'm sure a lot of people have already heard this, but AttachMate/Novell has laid off a lot of people.

Mono has also been hit, though how hard is not yet public.

http://www.networkwo...aza-gnome-ipad2.html

http://blog.internet...-off-mono-emplo.html

Some Mono software:

http://banshee.fm/

http://f-spot.org/

This is really a crying shame.

I hope that Mono continues.

phitsc · « **Reply #1 on:** May 06, 2011, 01:39 AM »

http://f-spot.org/
-Renegade (May 05, 2011, 06:54 PM)

F-Spot doesn't seem to run on Windows. But wouldn't the whole point of using Mono be to run something easily on both Windows and Linux?

Renegade · « **Reply #2 on:** May 06, 2011, 02:11 AM »

F-Spot doesn't seem to run on Windows. But wouldn't the whole point of using Mono be to run something easily on both Windows and Linux?
-phitsc (May 06, 2011, 01:39 AM)

There are still platform specific things that you can include/exclude.

They might just have decided to build for Linux, but reuse their C# skills and forget Windows.

Dunno.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #3 on:** May 12, 2011, 03:14 PM »

If mono is open source then i don't see it stopping anytime soon. Someone will pick it up and maintain it no matter what happens to novel.

Edvard · « **Reply #4 on:** May 13, 2011, 01:45 AM »

If mono is open source then i don't see it stopping anytime soon. Someone will pick it up and maintain it no matter what happens to novel.
-mahesh2k (May 12, 2011, 03:14 PM)

+1
As long as it's an ECMA standard, there is no stopping anybody from making SOME implementation of it, whether it's called Mono or not.

Renegade · « **Reply #5 on:** May 13, 2011, 02:01 AM »

The stopper is the massive effort required. It's no small task.

40hz · « **Reply #6 on:** May 14, 2011, 02:34 PM »

+1 w/Renegade. Doing something like Mono is a major undertaking. It's not in the same league as developing an application, no matter how complex that application might be. Without a sponsor and some heavyweight (and paid!) developers in the loop, Mono will become a dead issue.

But considering the inherent legal peril of openly cloning a piece of Microsoft technology, this might just be a blessing in disguise.

Considering how much in bed Suse and Novell already are with Microsoft, this might even be a result of some behind-the-scenes "encouragement" from Ballmer & Co.

Either way, Mono is a risky piece of tech to rely on no matter how you look at it. It's almost like a trojan horse. At best, it's something that will eventually give Microsoft the handle it's been looking for to bring the FOSS world to heel under an across-the-board and mandatory licensing arrangement. At worst, it can be the bullet that will finally allow Microsoft to shut down a significant portion of Linux app development once and for all. Especially if a good number of popular NIX apps are based on Mono when the whip inevitably comes down.

IMO Mono is something that's going to eventually end up biting the ass of both it's supporters and its developers.

So better Mono development folds now than later if the Linux application ecosystem is going to become too dependent on it.

At least that's what I think.

Renegade · « **Reply #7 on:** May 14, 2011, 10:21 PM »

I think Microsoft is beyond that point where they can try to kill Linux. It would only hurt them. They need a different direction. So I don't see them killing Mono or anything like that.

They have nothing to gain there. Linux is entrenched. There's no killing it. They can only try to gain there.

Azure and all that cloud stuff is where they can gain. Linux can be an ally there. Mono can help. MS is losing relevance.

40hz · « **Reply #8 on:** May 15, 2011, 01:38 PM »

40hz · « **Reply #9 on:** May 15, 2011, 01:39 PM »

I think Microsoft is beyond that point where they can try to kill Linux. It would only hurt them. They need a different direction. So I don't see them killing Mono or anything like that.

They have nothing to gain there. Linux is entrenched. There's no killing it. They can only try to gain there.

Azure and all that cloud stuff is where they can gain. Linux can be an ally there. Mono can help. MS is losing relevance.
-Renegade (May 14, 2011, 10:21 PM)

For some people, it would be nice to think so.

I think a lot of people misunderstand modern business strategy, which emphasizes control rather than ownership. Microsoft does not want to kill Linux. Far more trouble than it would be worth even if they could.

But that doesn't mean they won't try to co-opt it. Sort of like the old Soviet bloc. Why bother occupying and annexing Eastern Europe when you could more easily and completely control it by proxy? Microsoft is approaching Linux and FOSS the same way. They don't want to kill it. Nor do they want to own it. They just want to license it. That brings in revenue without needing to pay for development. It's a straight intellectual property tax. Kinda like how the Roman Empire used to operate. They didn't care who you were, what you thought, or what you believed. All they wanted was for you to pay your taxes, and do as told, if and when they told you to do something. The rest of the time, they left you alone.

Sweet system. Many tend to knuckle under and learn to live with arrangements like that. It preserves the illusion of your independence while they're fitting you with a virtual slave collar.

So no, Micro-saftig isn't out to do in the penguin. They just want him to get a dog license from them.

One thing you can count on however. If Mono begins to take significant business away from Microsoft or otherwise becomes a genuine threat, Redmond will send in their legal team to either arrange license fees - or kill it.

The only reason it's less likely this will happen now is because of Microsoft's cloud initiative. If Mono provides an entry point for NIX users to start buying into MS/cloud services all will remain well with Ballmer & Co.

Deozaan · « **Reply #10 on:** May 15, 2011, 02:01 PM »

One thing you can count on however. If Mono begins to take significant business away from Microsoft or otherwise becomes a genuine threat, Redmond will send in their legal team to either arrange license fees - or kill it.
-40hz (May 15, 2011, 01:39 PM)

But didn't Microsoft basically do the same thing with JavaScript that Novell is doing with Mono?

40hz · « **Reply #11 on:** May 15, 2011, 02:45 PM »

One thing you can count on however. If Mono begins to take significant business away from Microsoft or otherwise becomes a genuine threat, Redmond will send in their legal team to either arrange license fees - or kill it.
-40hz (May 15, 2011, 01:39 PM)

But didn't Microsoft basically do the same thing with JavaScript that Novell is doing with Mono?
-Deozaan (May 15, 2011, 02:01 PM)

More like what they did to Sun and Java I think.

But Microsoft licensed rights to develop Java from Sun back in 1995. In 1997, Sun got into a legal scrap with Microsoft over what it saw as a violation of this license due to Microsoft making changes to its own version of Java. These changes made both the language and the VM far more Windows-centric, in complete defiance of Sun's license requirement that Java be kept completely cross-platform.

I think Sun (quite correctly) saw this as the start of "Step-2" in Microsoft's classic tactic of Embrace-Extend-Extinguish.

Microsoft settled with Sun in 2001. While this made Sun the 'winner' in the legal sense, it probably did more to hurt them in the long run. Because this settlement also gave Microsoft the right to take Java in their own direction as long as they didn't call it Java. At which point Microsoft finally began to get serious about .NET as a platform. And which also led to the introduction of the C# language and the ever decreasing importance of Java to Microsoft's technical development plans.

In 2003 Sun found itself in the embarrassing position of suing Microsoft once again - but this time in an attempt to have Microsoft be required to include Sun's Java interpreter in the Windows operating system.

The courts did not agree and now .NET has replaced Java for most Windows development efforts where Java might formerly have been used.

Deozaan · « **Reply #12 on:** May 15, 2011, 02:58 PM »

If I recall correctly, Netscape made JavaScript and kept it proprietary and wouldn't let anybody else use it. So Microsoft reverse engineered it and called it JScript.

Technically JavaScript has never been made available and is still proprietary and the whole internet is just using ECMAScript but calling it JavaScript.

Edvard · « **Reply #13 on:** May 15, 2011, 05:36 PM »

IIRC it was Microsoft Java Virtual Machine $:-\$

That crap caused me more trouble in the Win95/98 days than I can describe.
Funny, installing Java proper usually fixed it right up...

Deozaan · « **Reply #14 on:** May 15, 2011, 05:48 PM »

JavaScript^w

JavaScript very quickly gained widespread success as a client-side scripting language for web pages. As a consequence, Microsoft developed a partially compatible dialect of the language, naming it JScript to avoid trademark issues.

JScript^w

As explained by JavaScript guru Douglas Crockford in his talk entitled The JavaScript Programming Language on YUI Theater, "[Microsoft] did not want to deal with Sun about the trademark issue, and so they called their implementation JScript. A lot of people think that JScript and JavaScript are different but similar languages. That's not the case. They are just different names for the same language, and the reason the names are different was to get around trademark issues."

phitsc · « **Reply #15 on:** May 17, 2011, 03:29 AM »

It seems now to be confirmed that *all* Mono developers have been made redundant.

De Icaza has founded a new company to hire these guys in order to continue working on Mono.

http://www.h-online....Xamarin-1244119.html

Renegade · « **Reply #16 on:** May 17, 2011, 04:25 AM »

It seems now to be confirmed that *all* Mono developers have been made redundant.

De Icaza has founded a new company to hire these guys in order to continue working on Mono.

http://www.h-online....Xamarin-1244119.html
-phitsc (May 17, 2011, 03:29 AM)

YAY~!

http://www.xamarin.com/

I really hope this all works out.

ewemoa · « **Reply #17 on:** May 17, 2011, 05:18 AM »

* ewemoa has fingers crossed.

40hz · « **Reply #18 on:** May 17, 2011, 07:34 AM »

I wish them all the best even though I still think Mono development (without a formal "understanding" with Microsoft in place) is a very big mistake.

And I hope I'm wrong about that.

mouser · « **Reply #19 on:** May 17, 2011, 06:04 PM »

Another writeup on the new company and Mono:
http://arstechnica.c...tachmate-layoffs.ars