Mono Developers Go Bye-Bye From Attachmate

what Microsoft's position is re Mono.

@tracyanne. Yup, pretty much. Mono was the trojan horse that failed to infect. No need to keep it around any longer. (That and .NET seems to have partly failed within MS as well.)

The new modus operandi seems to be patent nuisance suits by proxy. CPTN failed too, so a direct(er) approach is off as well.

Me thinks M$ is in an identity crisis... Are they a software vendor, a hardware manufacturer, a solutions provider, an ISP, a Bank?!?! I don't think THEY really know...

Why do people assume that Microsoft was behind Mono devs being laid off?

Edit: I don't know that they weren't, but I see no evidence that they were, either.

@KS --

It makes no sense for Microsoft to hurt the mono project -- a project they have actually cooperated with (ahem, Moonlight).

It helps Microsoft by giving .Net multi-platform cover.

There ain't enough tin foil on the large-size roll to handle "Microsoft did it" on this one.

> Why do people assume that Microsoft was behind Mono devs being laid off?

No idea. Some people think Microsoft runs the world, I guess. There's no reason to assume Microsoft involvement in a decision which may have been made entirely by Attachmate. Now, Attachmate is a Windows centric company and as far as I can tell always has been. So it undoubtedly has close ties with Microsoft. But that's not enough to tie them to this decision.

dino/jdixon:

I'm glad I'm not the only one left wondering where this connection came from

If Microsoft wanted a multi-platform framework they could have put .NET under an Apache license. I am not sure of there purpose of helping create Moonlight. At least it kept a few developers working on something.

@dinotrac: I agree

The only sense in which I think it might not be in Microsoft's best interest is that they would rather keep the .NET architecture within the Windows eco-system.

Microsoft have often made big claims about their "interoperability" but only between Microsoft products of course.

Mono offered the prospect of porting .Net applications away from that eco-system which is not the kind of thing Microsoft are a big of fan of, I am sure.

Moonlight, I think, is a different issue. If Microsoft want to get into content delivery, which one of their alter-egos would suggest, then platform agnosticism is good for them.

JaseP is right in this respect I think. They do seem a bit schizophrenic at the moment. On the one hand they still jealously fence off their Windows environment as best they can. On the other, they are reaching out to mobile platforms and other OS eco-systems in terms of content delivery.

@skelband --

Microsoft is faced with a changing world it cannot dominate. Doesn't much know how to deal with it, either.

When you think of big names in technology these days, you think Apple, Google, Facebook. You don't think Microsoft.

Quoting:ISP, a Bank?!

Nearly, me thinks they're turning into an IP-bank, banking in on their assumed intellectual property.

Quoting: Nearly, me thinks they're turning into an IP-bank, banking in on their assumed intellectual property.

"Assumed," is a nice adjective... But I was referring to their large cash surplus.

Stopped in at the Mono IRC channels today and they seemed pretty active for a bunch of laid-off developers. They also managed to release MonoTouch 4.0.2 today.

Can anyone actually verify that they are really really jobless? Because something just doesn't add up.

KS apparently work on Mono has been moved to Germany, along with pretty much everything else associated with Novell's Linux offereings. I think there was or is a link on lxer somewhere about this.

Thanks for the info, Tracy.

JaseP: Apparently, you're right - as they're willing to use the surplus to buy Skype.

M$ buying Skype?!?! Good thing I'm switching over to Google-Talk...

Oh, they have just done so... Thinks can go quick sometimes.

Quoting: [...] ... Thinks can go quick sometimes.

Only Hans can make dreams an instant reality. And I thought I was the only open MS shill on this site.

I demand a fee split.

YBT

Aha, now I get it! Hans is Russian. So da, thinks can go quick sometimes. And right now, thinks are goink wery, wery quickly.