The London Stock Exchange "made a bet" on .NET and Microsoft, and lost big time. This was after Microsoft had posted "The Reliable Times" ads all over the Internet, mocking Linux as having "failed" in competing against Microsoft for LSE business. It was later revealed that neither Linux nor any other OS was even under consideration for the LSE trading project. History has also shown us that "The Highly Reliable Times" wasn't a reliable source of information because the .NET solution for the LSE, coded by Microsoft and its partner, never met Microsoft's marketing hype and was only 1/5th as fast as a similar Linux based trading system that had been around for 5 years before the LSE chose .NET and Microsoft. Some estimates are that it cost the LSE over $1 Billion dollars to personally experience the truth about .NET and Microsoft.
Today, the ST Times published and then withdrew an article by David Worthington, quoting De Icaza. It is still in Google's cache, however. The ezine Slated also published the article.
Wothington quoted De Icaza:
and
It's obvious, at least to me, that De Icaza is talking about .NET (hence MONO) in the past tense, not the present or future tense. He has identified what he believes to be the culprit responsible for the lack of uptake of MONO, or even .NET outside of Microsoft's own coding culture: the failure of Microsoft to release the .NET infrastructure under a truly open license that people could believe in, sans any "promises not to sue". In other words, most people considered MONO as nothing more than an IP patent trap.
De Icaza failed to mention the colossal BILLION dollar LSE failure and their subsequent choice of the tested and proven trading Linux trading system as the .NET replacement. It wasn't some small software house that failed the LSE. It was the inventor of the .NET technology, Microsoft, and their hand-picked English partner who teamed to build the system, that failed the LSE. IF Microsoft can't deliver on a .NET system that couldn't even match up to a Linux system already in action for five years, which software house could? Add to that the failure of Linden Labs to dramatically improve the speed of their SecondLife engine by switching to MONO a while ago, and the failure of .NET is complete. Before the switch to the MONO based engine a constant complaint of SL users was "lag, lag, lag, lag, lag", meaning that their SL experience was too SLOOOOWWW. Before MONO a sim will turn to molasses if the avatar count reached 70. If it reached 100 the sim usually crashed. After the MONO engine was deployed sims now turn to molasses when their avatar count reaches 70, and sims often crash when the count passes 100. What did Sl residents do with their new found MONO speed? Increase the number of active scripts, particle engines, etc.. to give their sim a more "lush" look and feel, which restored the pre-MONO speed. So, the SL user's new motto is "lag, lag, lag, lag, lag".
As much as the glaring IP traps which Microsoft constantly rattled sabers about, it was Microsoft's failure to produce a fast, stable trading system using .NET that the LSE could rely on that spelled the end for .NET. Now, neither .NET nor MONO will ever be considered for anything except small, light applications (applets), mostly demoware by independent Windows developers hoping to turn a buck in a market niche. Unfortunately, because of MONO, many of these .NET developers have invaded Linux and polluted the Linux forums and blogs with their "faux community" accusations, while they push Microsoft APIs for everything. My sig still applies.
To counter the backward slide, Microsoft has pulled out the PR speak:
The LSE made a BILLION dollar bet on .NET and lost. Customers who are now "making a bet on .NET" are those who haven't kept up with the news about the massive .NET failures, or are small-time demoware developers hoping for a bigger payday in their small, niche market at the expense of Ubuntu users. P.T. Barnum's logic applies.
My hope is that Canonical will see the Light (neither Silver nor Moon) and reverse it's MONO policy before they, too, learn by bitter experience the truth about Microsoft and .NET.
Today, the ST Times published and then withdrew an article by David Worthington, quoting De Icaza. It is still in Google's cache, however. The ezine Slated also published the article.
Wothington quoted De Icaza:
Among the critics is Novell vice president Miguel de Icaza, who said .NET's focus on Windows has come at the expense of opportunities for Microsoft, and its desire to guard its intellectual property is an impediment on the platform.
"Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that they have cast on the ecosystem," he said.
"Unlike the Java world that is blossoming with dozens of vibrant Java Virtual Machine implementations, the .NET world has suffered by this meme spread by [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer] that they would come after people that do not license patents from them."
"Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that they have cast on the ecosystem," he said.
"Unlike the Java world that is blossoming with dozens of vibrant Java Virtual Machine implementations, the .NET world has suffered by this meme spread by [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer] that they would come after people that do not license patents from them."
Microsoft has made an open-source CLI implementation codenamed "Rotor" freely available, but it has had little or no uptake, Neward noted.
However, Mono remains the only implementer of the ECMA CLI specification outside of Microsoft, and that is a testament to the legal uncertainty surrounding some aspects of .NET due to Microsoft's statements about open-source software, de Icaza said.
"[Microsoft] would still be the No. 1 stack, but it would have encouraged an ecosystem that would have innovated extensively around their platform," he added.
Facebook, Google, Ruby on Rails and Wikipedia could have been built using .NET, de Icaza claimed. "All of those are failed opportunities. Even if the cross-language story was great, the Web integration fantastic, the architecture was the right one to fit whatever flavor of a platform you wanted, people flocked elsewhere."
However, Mono remains the only implementer of the ECMA CLI specification outside of Microsoft, and that is a testament to the legal uncertainty surrounding some aspects of .NET due to Microsoft's statements about open-source software, de Icaza said.
"[Microsoft] would still be the No. 1 stack, but it would have encouraged an ecosystem that would have innovated extensively around their platform," he added.
Facebook, Google, Ruby on Rails and Wikipedia could have been built using .NET, de Icaza claimed. "All of those are failed opportunities. Even if the cross-language story was great, the Web integration fantastic, the architecture was the right one to fit whatever flavor of a platform you wanted, people flocked elsewhere."
De Icaza failed to mention the colossal BILLION dollar LSE failure and their subsequent choice of the tested and proven trading Linux trading system as the .NET replacement. It wasn't some small software house that failed the LSE. It was the inventor of the .NET technology, Microsoft, and their hand-picked English partner who teamed to build the system, that failed the LSE. IF Microsoft can't deliver on a .NET system that couldn't even match up to a Linux system already in action for five years, which software house could? Add to that the failure of Linden Labs to dramatically improve the speed of their SecondLife engine by switching to MONO a while ago, and the failure of .NET is complete. Before the switch to the MONO based engine a constant complaint of SL users was "lag, lag, lag, lag, lag", meaning that their SL experience was too SLOOOOWWW. Before MONO a sim will turn to molasses if the avatar count reached 70. If it reached 100 the sim usually crashed. After the MONO engine was deployed sims now turn to molasses when their avatar count reaches 70, and sims often crash when the count passes 100. What did Sl residents do with their new found MONO speed? Increase the number of active scripts, particle engines, etc.. to give their sim a more "lush" look and feel, which restored the pre-MONO speed. So, the SL user's new motto is "lag, lag, lag, lag, lag".
As much as the glaring IP traps which Microsoft constantly rattled sabers about, it was Microsoft's failure to produce a fast, stable trading system using .NET that the LSE could rely on that spelled the end for .NET. Now, neither .NET nor MONO will ever be considered for anything except small, light applications (applets), mostly demoware by independent Windows developers hoping to turn a buck in a market niche. Unfortunately, because of MONO, many of these .NET developers have invaded Linux and polluted the Linux forums and blogs with their "faux community" accusations, while they push Microsoft APIs for everything. My sig still applies.
To counter the backward slide, Microsoft has pulled out the PR speak:
Despite the criticisms, customers are "making bets on .NET" all the time, said Brandon Watson, director of product management for Microsoft's development platforms.
My hope is that Canonical will see the Light (neither Silver nor Moon) and reverse it's MONO policy before they, too, learn by bitter experience the truth about Microsoft and .NET.
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