[Mono-list] Philosophical Question - Why .NET on UNIX?

[Adrien Dessemond]

At 14:24 2007-06-23, you wrote:


>If the members don't mind, I'd like to ask the forum a question or 
>two. I come from a Delphi and C++Builder background, and was long a 
>holdout on .Net because of severe performance doubts. Now that I 
>have been working in .Net/Windows, the performance concerns have 
>proven so obstructive to achieving acceptable performance standards 
>that the principal work I intended cannot be carried out in .Net. I 
>also have great concerns about the real security of .Net 
>implementations (which make me question why anyone would ever want 
>.Net to run on UNIX systems).


Well, Mike you asked a very good question. I would introduce another 
perspective as many other contributors brought you their technical 
point of view. Free feel to complete it and debate about it :-)

If you consider how the market evolves, it clearly goes on the "Open 
Source" way. Windows still holds a large market but it reached more 
of less the top the hill and justifying more investments on it will 
be more and more difficult in the future simply because the  beast 
suffers of even higher migration costs and has become very complex in 
many aspects (so much that basic Unix administration seems now a 
piece of cake compared to the nightmare of administering a Windows 
domain). Good point ! It is very likely that Windows will now climb 
down the hill but high chances are that it will follow the same 
destiny than Cobol or the 80's themselves in their time : it will 
never die. If the Open source world and Windows were "linked" 
somewhere, they now have to coexists and their have to collaborate 
and collaborate even tighter as the years will pass.

Lots of organizations were used to rely on Microsoft technologies 
over the last two decades and now see the turn : Microsoft Web 
technologies are now very widely used and lots of developement teams 
acquired a very good experience in the .Net world. Are billion of 
dollars spent worldwide on numerous project due to definitively be 
lost as Windows will know its dusk ? Certainly not, it would be a 
major trouble for many organizations all around the world. This is 
why Mono (and future Mono-like projects if they will exist someday) 
will become a major and key-player in the Open Source world in 
forthcoming years to not say months.

Mono is really amazing and the mono team is achieving a very great 
work. Who guessed in 2001 that Mono as well as many other projects 
will be the core and the key argument of many future and major 
projects all around the world ? Have a look : Samba 4 (AD Windows DC 
replacement) is in technological preview but will be released in a 
final version, Mono will be able to fully support .Net 2.0 before the 
end of the year if predictions are right, Linux and siblings made 
their proof in the past decade and are now ready for the enterprise 
world and the enterprise world itself is ready for the open source 
business. Commercial and Governmental organisations faces to even 
thighter financial constraints, Open Source technologies (and a fully 
functional Open Sourced .Net platform for many of them) are and will 
be their keystone.

A game period ended. Business rules are changing, new players are now 
on the ice, and they will score for sure in the next period !  2010 
years will begin the open source era.

Kind regards,

Adrien