Gnome to be based on .NET (what a shame)

It seams that Gnome's leader Miguel de Icaza is sneaking off the linux campus in the nights to join Microsofts more comfortable (.NET) Camp.

"I'd like to see Gnome applications written in .NET in version 4.0 - no, version 3.0. But Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET," he told us. "A lot of people just see .NET as a fantastic upgrade for the development platform from Microsoft.

We wondered if the goal of Mono was really technical, as he'd said at the launch of the project, or political? Why not help clone Java?

"I've never worked with the Java community. I was interested in Java the beginning, but the problem with Java is you do have to switch your platform. If you have code in C or C++ you have to jump to full Java: use Java compilers, full virtual machine, full class libraries and rewrite everything in Java.

But there's JPython, we countered?

"Well most of what you have is C C++ and Fortran code, so dropping all that code and rewriting it in J is not an option. Perl and Python are useful on the Open Source universe but it's a really limited universe compared to the existing C or C++ codebase"

"So what is really neat about .Net is that you can run all of those apps ath the same time.

But isn't there a danger of legitimizing the Microsoft platform - with Microsoft being an enemy of free software,?

"Well Microsoft really does develop some really interesting technology. Not to go too far, but Microsoft is probably used by most people out there. Some scientists use TeX or LatEX but for most people Word is the thing that writers use these days. It might not be the best, but they do a pretty good job."

Traitor!!!

In the pressure of the situation, i won't let my tounge get tied.

A silent voice in the night, i refuse to live a lie.

U can't stop the future, nor ignore the past.

Zyron

Source: The Register