> ZING! But there's an NDK for Android as well, so it's not like you have to use Java anyway.

Oh how naive you are... the NDK are C wrappers for the Java API. Yes, you heard me correctly... the C API wraps the Java API and not the other way around like it *should* be.

uh, no. Banshee devs opted to disable their amazon plugin by default (that's a lot different from opting to get $0). This doesn't mean GNOME would get no money, it would simply mean that users would have to enable the plugin before 100% of the revenue went to GNOME. This way would have given end-users the freedom to decide who would get the affiliates revenue from their purchases.

The agreement that the Banshee devs made with Canonical was that the Amazon affiliates code would be unchanged but theplugin would be disabled by default (while the UbuntuOne plugin was enabled by default). Users could then enable the Amazon plugin and 100% of all revenue would then go to GNOME.

Wow, you fail at reading comprehension. Miguel has never claimed that Mono *doesn't* infringe on patents because he can't be 100% certain that it doesn't, it's not the same as knowing that it *does*.

No one has been able to point us (the Mono team) at a single patent that we may infringe. Not one. You'd think, with all the rabidly anti-Mono trolls such as yourself, that one of you, after 9 years, would have come up with at least 1 solid patent infringement claim, but no.

Same old vague hand waiving claiming we infringe patents that you can't point to but just *know* exist. Sorta like some people claim to *know* that God really exists, or like many children believe with all their heart that Santa Clause really exists.

Uh, but you can. DotGNU is another implementation.

Well, you would do best by showing him how it's done. Looking forward to see your next contrib to FOSS.

LOL, yea, that'll be the day ;-)

The ego's of the anti-this/that/other-thing people is so hilarious. They love to talk big, but don't have the skills to produce anything.

It's comforting to finally read some words of wisdom!

You also touched on something I have always found so amusing. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but a vast majority of the people badmouthing Mono have not contributed *anything* to F/OSS (like the Boycott Novell trolls), who, when asked why they don't contribute, reply (more-or-less) "we don't have time, we're too busy badmouthing Mono".

Imagine if these people put their time and energy into something constructive instead, like contributing to Rhythmbox (since they obviously hate Banshee), GNote (since they hate Tomboy), or any other alternative to the Mono apps out there. If they put half the energy into that as opposed to writing hundreds of thousands of comments/articles per day bashing us and our project, they'd have nothing to worry about because the C alternatives would have far surpassed the Mono versions.

Well said, you deserve at least a +5 insightful!

I'm not sure 99% use .NET, but yea, I'd say it's likely pretty safe to say that 99% don't care one way or the other. .NET is pretty huge on the Windows development side and more are using it for Mac, iPhone, XBox360, Wii, PS3 and Linux development all the time (thanks to Mono). Most of the people who are loudly screaming against it are poorly informed non-programmers who like to think they know more about programming than actual programmers.

Why else do you suppose they scream so loudly?

There's a saying: the more powerless you are, the louder you scream about things.

Some of us have been writing C in Linux for ~12 years and decided enough is enough. C++ is not any better (in many ways worse), Python doesn't really scale and is not statically typed, and Java is in many ways inferior to C# (C# is basically Java-done-Right - altho it too has some problems, but largely it really is Java-done-Right imho).

So what other options do we have?

C#, imho, fits the bill nicely, so I worked on Mono and MonoDevelop because the better these tools are, the more productive I am (as well as many other devs) when I (we) write other free software.

If you don't like C#, fine, don't use it. Use Java or Python or whatever it is you prefer. I'm not going to badmouth your choices simply because I prefer some other language, and I expect the same in return.

We are also not "injecting patent bombs into FOSS". Microsoft has issued a legally binding statement saying they will not sue. While this promise is not perfect (ie. it won't cover partial implementations of ECMA 334 & 335), but it *does* cover Mono because Mono is a full implementation.

Besides, even if this were not the case - you've obviously chosen not to use any apps built on Mono, right? So what "patent bombs" related to Mono are you worried about?

As with all things on the Linux desktop, every app has a bajillion alternatives (some better than others). The worst thing that can happen is Microsoft attacks and everyone switches to one of the alternatives and instantly everything is resolved and Microsoft walks away with nothing (because everyone switches to something else). Woopty-doo.

Damn, wish I could mod you up because you hit the nail on the head.

You're obviously also pretty embarrassed to be against GNOME and Mono, seeing as how you are posting anonymously ;-)

Considering the same can be said for 99% of the people who badmouth Mono, I can rest easy at night knowing that we on the Mono team must be doing the right thing.

For that last 1%, well, no one can please everyone all the time.

As someone who actually knows Miguel de Icaza and someone who was there when Mono began, I can tell you with absolute certainty that he started Mono because he truly believes that it's a good platform. As do I and all of the other Mono developers (none of whom get a "fat paycheck" from Microsoft or anyone else). The Mono team is underfunded at Novell, so I and likely other developers have taken a pay CUT in order to work on what we believe in.

We are not paid to parrot any opinions from Microsoft or Novell. Our opinions are our own and we stand by them.