Re: Time to heat up the new module discussion

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

Hello,

>   Let's be sincere.  Mono does not provide more benefits than what
>   Java has been providing since more than a decade.. and we have not
>   used it. Nobody joint the GCJ or Classpath library effort, and
>   basically nobody cared about it.

This is a bogus statement.

Dan already posted the list of applications using Mono and Java from
gnomefiles.org.

   110 python/pygtk apps/libs
    59 mono/C#/gtk#
    37 gtkmm/C++
    27 perl
    16 java
     5 ruby

So what about using facts and figures instead of empty rhetorical
statements.  

Now, regarding why people have not helped free Java, I have covered that
in the past in my blog.   But here is a summary:

Mono has benefited from two kinds of contributors: believers in free
software and people that wanted to get their critical .NET application
running on Mono.    Free Java on the other hand has suffered because
they only have the believers of free software helping them.  The
pragmatists just happen to run proprietary java.

That is why you see a different level of "caring" between free Java and
free .NET.

>   How many Desktop Java based applications has you used in the last
>   few years?  Ok, and now, think again in all those benefits that Mono
>   is supposed to bring to us.

Azureus and Eclipse come to mind.

I personally use these Mono apps: last-exit, banshee, beagle, f-spot,
gfax, gimp# (it runs PhotoShop plugins) and tomboy.

(And a couple more of Novell ones, but I doubt you care about those)

>   Think of another desktop, choose the one you want.. let's say KDE:
>   it's one framework, one desktop and innovative applications.  So,
>   yeah, rather than something strange, it's the usual business for
>   everybody else.

The KDE guys have no problems including Mono bindings (or Ruby, or Java,
or JavaScript, or Python ones or Perl ones):

	http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/

As for the Mono ones, they are actually on their second iteration (Qt#
first, Kimono is the new one):

	http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/2090

So maybe your KDE example is not the best one of a desktop that does not
bring third-party frameworks into their system.  

>   The Mono case is exactly the same as the Python or the Java one; and
>   from my point of view all them carry the same set of problems to
>   GNOME: Huge dependencies, resource wasting, and the bast amount of
>   APIs in which the applications will be based and that are controlled
>   by somebody else (API may change, ABI may be broken, etc).
> 
>   By the way, I have no idea.. I'm just wondering.. Isn't the Mono
>   Class libraries bigger than the GNOME ones.  Wouldn't it look weird
>   to depend on a secondary framework bigger than itself?

The Linux Kernel and libc are also larger than Mono.   That a weird
dependency. 

Miguel.