So are we ever gonna see .NET framework 2.0 on Mac or Linux?

[Rob R. Ainscough]

Or for that matter any version of .NET framework?

What I find ironic is the push for "portability and flexibility" yet I don't
actually see it in the real world. Is anyone (not just Microsoft) actually
working on a .NET framework for anything other than Windows platforms? If
so, where can I get it and/or when will it be available?

Rob.

 

[Tim Anderson]

Or for that matter any version of .NET framework?

What I find ironic is the push for "portability and flexibility" yet I
don't actually see it in the real world. Is anyone (not just Microsoft)
actually working on a .NET framework for anything other than Windows
platforms? If so, where can I get it and/or when will it be available?

Where have you been

http://www.itwriting.com/wpfe.php

http://www.mono-project.com

Tim

 

[Marina Levit [MVP]]

There is the Mono project: http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

I don't know about the Mac, I haven't heard about it. In general though, if
it hasn't been done, it's because there isn't a real industry need for it.
It means not enough people are asking for it or care about it. That's supply
and demand.

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

There is the Mono project: http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

I don't know about the Mac, I haven't heard about it. In general though, if
it hasn't been done, it's because there isn't a real industry need for it.
It means not enough people are asking for it or care about it. That's supply
and demand.

No, it means that it's not in Microsoft's interests to provide it, and
no-one else has the right to provide a port of .NET itself - only parts
of it that aren't covered by patents etc (like the Mono project).

 

[Marina Levit [MVP]]

Well, it's both. Even the parts that aren't covered aren't necessarily
being ported to Mac. And even if it was all available, I'm still not
convinced it would happen. I think if there was enough demand for it, there
would be sufficient pressure on MS to do it, despite it not serving its
interests directly. Because at that point, it would be so important to have
support on other platforms, that people would leave MS technologies if .NET
was not supported on other platforms - and it would start being in MS's
interests to support it just to keep these people from abandoning MS
technologies.

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Well, it's both. Even the parts that aren't covered aren't necessarily
being ported to Mac.

Well, Mono runs on Mac OS X.

And even if it was all available, I'm still not
convinced it would happen. I think if there was enough demand for it, there
would be sufficient pressure on MS to do it, despite it not serving its
interests directly. Because at that point, it would be so important to have
support on other platforms, that people would leave MS technologies if .NET
was not supported on other platforms - and it would start being in MS's
interests to support it just to keep these people from abandoning MS
technologies.

MS has to balance developer mindshare with platform marketshare. If,
for instance, they cared about beating Java more than they cared about
Windows dominance, I'm sure they would port .NET to other platforms.
However, as .NET is doing quite well against Java already, it isn't in
their interests to help people use .NET on Linux.

 

[Marina Levit [MVP]]

Well, Mono runs on Mac OS X.


MS has to balance developer mindshare with platform marketshare. If,
for instance, they cared about beating Java more than they cared about
Windows dominance, I'm sure they would port .NET to other platforms.
However, as .NET is doing quite well against Java already, it isn't in
their interests to help people use .NET on Linux.

Right, I think that's what I was saying. That if there was a financial
incentive for them to port it because they were losing business otherwise -
they would. But there aren't enough people who care about it, so they don't.

I didn't realize Mono runs on Mac, so that's good for whoever is interested
in support .NET on Mac.

 

[Rob R. Ainscough]

So the big hoopla of portability is really just smoke and mirrors? Sorta,
yeah you can do it if ya want -- good luck?

Considering www.msn.com is primarily all Java based it seems sorta humorous
that MS are taking this approach to .NET portability. I mean ya think they
might take an interest cause I'm pretty sure the MS Office dev team don't
have a lot on their hands

Mono is an open source project being headed by Novell? And it doesn't
appear to have even scratched the surface as far as .NET 2.0 feature set?

WPFE -- is there an actual product, it looks like someone's blog?

I'm sure a lot of people have put in hard work on these projects, but they
don't appear to be ready for prime time. Without real MS backing, I don't
see how any of these will succeed to a level that is useful for professional
level work?

Rob.

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Rob,

What I find ironic is the push for "portability and flexibility" yet I
don't actually see it in the real world.

Which real world do you mean. More than 90% of all workstations are running
on Microsoft OS systems, while it is the leading one in Serversystems?

Are you living in cyberspace?

Cor

 

[Huihong]

It's actually possible to run the same Microsoft .NET Framework on
Linux, I haven't tried it to Mac yet. Internally, I made Microsoft .NET
Framework 1.1 to work on Linux, this is different from the MONO
project, it uses the same .NET Framework binaries with our internally
implemented lower level layer stufff. I may release it to the public,
but may take a few months at least.

Huihong
RemoteSoft, Inc.

 

[Huihong]

just a followup, I haven't tried .NET 2.0 yet on Linux, but it should
work as well.

 

[Rob R. Ainscough]

Cor,

Exactly -- so why handicap a dev platform (you can't argue that portability
doesn't at some cost, we all know it does) in the name of portability that
just isn't what 90% of us need or want?

Rob

 

[Christopher Reed]

When Java first came out, everybody started on this portability bit again.
The reality is that Java was never completely portable and Sun even went to
the extreme to prevent Microsoft from making it work better on Windows.
Portability is basically a myth and all code sets will need to be rework on
each platform you want it on. For Microsoft, their money is invested in
Windows. If Windows is the largest market out there for them, why do
anything else?

As a side-note: msn.com is not "primarily all Java"; it uses a lot of
Javascript. Java and Javascript are two completely different animals.
--
Christopher A. Reed
"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

So the big hoopla of portability is really just smoke and mirrors? Sorta,
yeah you can do it if ya want -- good luck?

Considering www.msn.com is primarily all Java based it seems sorta
humorous that MS are taking this approach to .NET portability. I mean ya
think they might take an interest cause I'm pretty sure the MS Office dev
team don't have a lot on their hands

Mono is an open source project being headed by Novell? And it doesn't
appear to have even scratched the surface as far as .NET 2.0 feature set?

WPFE -- is there an actual product, it looks like someone's blog?

I'm sure a lot of people have put in hard work on these projects, but they
don't appear to be ready for prime time. Without real MS backing, I don't
see how any of these will succeed to a level that is useful for
professional level work?

Rob.

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

When Java first came out, everybody started on this portability bit again.
The reality is that Java was never completely portable and Sun even went to
the extreme to prevent Microsoft from making it work better on Windows.

Well, they took MS to court for violating the agreements MS had signed
in terms of not modifying the language. No-one would have objected to
MS just having a better JVM - it's that MS effectively forked Java that
people objected to, and entirely reasonably IMO.

Portability is basically a myth and all code sets will need to be rework on
each platform you want it on. For Microsoft, their money is invested in
Windows. If Windows is the largest market out there for them, why do
anything else?

Actually, for server side stuff at the very least, Java's portability
works very well - it's far from a myth. My previous job involved
writing a server for WAP phones to read email from existing mail
servers (at the time we first did it, it was very new). We shipped on
Windows, HP-UX, Solaris, Digital Unix and Linux with no conditional
code except in the shell script which launched the servlet engine.
Obviously it needed testing in those environments, but it worked fine
on all of them.

 

[Christopher Reed]

For most GUI applications, which is really what the masses (read, sheep)
want, will have portability issues, regardless of the development platform.
There are plenty of software that can run under a multitude of environments
(I once worked for a company where we maintained FORTRAN libraries on over
60 platforms), but this type of software is usually not visual or utilizes
very basic visual functionality. I guess I should have elaborated more on
my point regarding the grander schemes of application portability.

By the way, when you say "entirely reasonably" below, are you referring to
the people's objections or Microsoft's efforts?

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

For most GUI applications, which is really what the masses (read, sheep)
want, will have portability issues, regardless of the development platform.

Is that what the masses are really writing though? I suspect that a
very large proportion of development work now goes on web applications
there - at which point the portability problems are usually more in
terms of clients than servers.

There are plenty of software that can run under a multitude of environments
(I once worked for a company where we maintained FORTRAN libraries on over
60 platforms), but this type of software is usually not visual or utilizes
very basic visual functionality. I guess I should have elaborated more on
my point regarding the grander schemes of application portability.

As you say though - there's plenty of it. It would be nice if it could
be written (where appropriate) in C# with the full legal blessing (even
if no actual software is contributed) of MS.

By the way, when you say "entirely reasonably" below, are you referring to
the people's objections or Microsoft's efforts?

The objections. When one of Java's great promises was "write once, run
anywhere," MS certainly seemed to be doing its normal "embrace and
extend" trick.

 

[Christopher Reed]

I agree that web application are making a better showing for now, but I
believe that smart clients will be more popular within the next ten years,
especially if programming concepts lik XAML take off. Still, if we can
develop with the same codeset based on ANSI/ISO/ECMA standards, then maybe
portability will improve.