Re: [DotGNU]Gnome to be based on .NET

[William G. Thompson, Jr.]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, Rhys Weatherley wrote:

> "William G. Thompson, Jr." wrote:
> 
> > I've been lurking here for quite some time, and I must say I really don't
> > get it.  Why would anyone concerned with Freedom and Free Software
> > waste cycles helping to further the dubious agenda coming out of
> > Redmond ?!?!
> 
> DotGNU is intended to provide a credible alternative to the
> stuff coming out of Redmond so that another generation of
> programmers and users don't end up getting locked into yet
> another monopoly.  This won't "further" the agenda so much
> as keep them honest about it.

I don't see how.  While it is true that CLS is an open standard, it only a
small subset of the .Net framework.  Folks who are not concerned with
Freedom and Free Software won't care about which part is open standard and
which is kept closed by m$ to insure platform dependence. They will only
care about building web applications and services _fast_. This will
translate into using VisualStudio, ASP.net, IIS, and Windozes. _This_ is
the the agenda that we are helping to further by buying into the dot net
vision.

To insure that Freedom and Free Software win over the folks who are not
yet enlightened, we need to enable them to build, deploy, and maintain web
apps and services easier, faster, and more efficently than they could 
using m$ tools.  This is the bottom line.

Now, can we get there with a Free implementation of .Net CLS?  I doubt it. 
Can we get there with a Free implementation of CLS _and_ the non-open APIs
and Tools from Redmond?  Maybe, but that is a big job and we will be doing
some serious catch up,  and in the meantime I guarantee that m$ will have
figured out a way to drive platform dependence into .Net once they have 
their users hooked.

I am suggesting there is an alternative.  Build the tools and framework
that will allow the folks who are not neccesarily concerned with Freedom
and Free Software to build, deploy, and maintain web apps and services on
the platform of their choice.  This is what Japple does.  And it does this
_now_.  I'm saying we can cut m$ off at the pass.

> The GNU Project always had the goal of building a free
> alternative to Unix.  For many years, they were "wasting cycles"
> replicating what the commercial Unices were doing to further
> their own dubious agendas.  In the end, GNU won.  The
> commercial Unices are dying off one by one in the face
> of GNU/Linux.

1) Unix was already an established technology when RMS started GNU.
2) The early work by the GNU project did not help non-Free Unices gain
   credibility, marketshare, or developer mindshare.

Best Regards,
Bill Thompson
Chief Japple Evangelist
www.japple.org

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Rhys.
> 
> P.S. www.japple.org crashes my GNU/Linux Netscape 4.72
> browser dead.  I had to use IE on Windows to view it.
> Could you please fix your Web site to be friendlier to
> browsers that are commonly used on free operating systems?
> 

Rhys, the japple.org pages all pass W3C validation for HTML 4.01
Transitional and CSS.  I do not have the time to waste cycles supporting
non-compliant browers.  I suggest you switch to the lizard or Konqueror,
both of which render japple.org quite nicely, imho. ;)