[NTLUG:Discuss] Mono and NTLUG Meeting

[Chris Cox]

Stan Gatchel wrote:
> A nice little article in Linux Journal that mentions our February LUG 
> meeting:
> 
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000316

Gotta love Tom!  He's a wonderful man with a LOT of knowledge.

Love all of the anti-Mono comments afterwards from people who
don't have a clue.  People somehow are of the understanding
that Mono was a post-Novell/Microsoft creation... it's been
around for some time.

Still seems that FOSS and OSS are for all companies except
Microsoft.  Which is sort of sad.  Not that Microsoft isn't
always looking for an "angle"... certainly true, but even
in the minority cases where they are trying to open up a
bit, many will never accept it.  Definitely need to watch
your back... but at the same time we don't want to create
an exclusive members-only clique that keeps people out.
Even Microsoft... with that said...

Mono really doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft
anyhow.  It's merely an attempt to implement something
according to their free specs.  Love it... hate it...
haven't seen the "angle" or abuse side yet... but we'll
see.

AFAIK, most of the people on the Mono team view what
they're doing as the truly open .net ALTERNATIVE.  In fact,
I believe they feel that their implementation will go
beyond .net in many ways and become the platform to
build on INSTEAD of .net.

As for Roy S.... I'm not sure I believe that "Roy" is real
name anymore. :-)

Moonlight, the Silverlight clone that's still being
developed, is another example of possibly misplaced
hatred due to name association.  One must
ask... which is more open/free?  Silverlight or Adobe's
Flash?  I mean we can curse Silverlight because it's
not Flash, but at the end of the day... are we lifting
up Flash as good because we hate Adobe less than
Microsoft?

I don't like either one personally.  I don't mind
the GNU attempt at creating a Flash handler, but
they will certainly face Mono-like/Moonlight-like
challenges from Adobe... which means that it may
NEVER be 100% compatible.  Perhaps a more Mono-like
stance would work there too...  don't shoot
for 100% compatibility, shoot for 100% preference
over the pseudo free gorilla product... regardless
of OS (worked for Ffox).

Just some quick (and possibly not well thought
out) thoughts.