10 ms·

Mono's Making Money

146 points by cek 15y ago

alexro 15y ago
They now look like direct competitors to Microsoft - providing tools for iOS and Android devs and kind of distracting them from W Phone. Do they have the right kind of agreements to be sheltered from MS anger should it come?
- tspiteri 15y ago
  That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that they are allowing developers to develop for iOS and Android in C#, which may eventually have a good effect on the number of Windows Phone apps developed.
  - AndrewDucker 15y ago
    Yup, right now being able to move your iOS app easily to WinPhone would be in Microsoft's favour.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      OTOH, being able to easily move your WP7 app to Android or iOS is a disaster for MS. The only portability that interests Microsoft is one-way towards their platforms.
      - AndrewDucker 15y ago
        Well, yes. Once WP7 has a larger market share than Android and iOS they'll want to plug that gap. That should happen about fifteen minutes after never.
      - untog 15y ago
        Yes, but MS are behind in the smartphone race and they know it. Right now they'll do anything they can to get more devs on their platform.
- andrewl-hn 15y ago
  Also consider that most .NET developers who target Mono still use and pay for Microsoft Developer Tools. Mono has it's own IDE but it pales in comparrison and at the moment it's not a focus of Mono team.
- DiabloD3 15y ago
  Miguel de Icaza works for Microsoft, and Microsoft has extended Mono developers a patent license for all relevant C#/.NET patents,... Except, said patent grant does not extend to people who don't work for de Icaza, people who distribute Mono, or people who use Mono, or people who have compiled C# apps with Mono. Microsoft refuses to make Mono patent free, and anyone who distributes, uses, or distributes binaries compiled with Mono _can and will be sued_. Not only is de Icaza not a competitor to Microsoft, he is helping Microsoft attack Linux and the Free Software movement. Mono refuses to switch to a license, such as GPLv3, to protect users, distributors, and developers from the patents; not only do they refuse, they are getting rid of all GPLv2 code in favor of BSD code. Once Mono is BSDafied, Microsoft can import all code from Mono and close source it within the main C#/.Net implementation on Windows.
  - teyc 15y ago
    You are reading too much into events. MS likes Miguel because he brings some open source respectability to the NET platform. It is also a potential source of licensing revenue stream in the future. MS has no reason to want someone else's implementation of the CLR and VM.
    - DiabloD3 15y ago
      Mono's VM executes C# bytecode faster than Microsoft's, and Mono's C# compiler produces better bytecode than Microsoft's. So, yeah, Microsoft is very interested in trying to make their core product faster so they can catch up to other solutions such as native code (C/C++) or Java (C# is still typically much slower than Java). Oh, and Mono can also compile to AoT binaries, which do not require Mono/.Net installed on the target system, such as being able to target iOS under Apple's anti-VM policy. Microsoft is very interested in all of these.
      - jahewson 15y ago
        Complete nonsense: - Microsoft's CLR is vastly more sophisticated than Mono, involving millions of man-hours work, unless you show me a benchmark I have absolutely no reason to believe it executes bytecode faster, especially given that Microsoft Research publish papers on fast JIT [1]. - Mono still doesn't have a stable generational GC [2], I hope you like memory leaks and long pauses. - .NET can compile AoT binaries, and does this for all built-in libraries using ngen [3] In conclusion: Microsoft have no interest in any of Mono's technologies. [1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/spur/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/spur/ [2] http://mono-project.com/Generational_GC http://mono-project.com/Generational_GC [3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf(v=vs.71).aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf(v=vs.71).as...
bravura 15y ago
"As a result of garnering the rights to Mono and a solid customer base, Xamarin wound up with self-sustaining revenue that covers its staff of some 50 people — without having taken on any venture capital." That's pretty cool. From the article, it sounds like they were cash-flow positive enough to support 50 people, from the outset.
- tvon 15y ago
  To be fair the real outset was about a decade ago when they created Helix Code (later renamed to Ximian) and started work on Mono.
hristov 15y ago
That's great. But, unfortunately, Mono is not making netflix run on my computer. Now that would be an achievement.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Netflix will not run on your Linux desktop because Microsoft refuses to issue licenses for its DRM components for Moonlight/Linux desktop. These components run fine on Linux -- look at Boxee et al -- but Microsoft refuses to license the DRM for use on Linux desktops. While I would have thought the spite would run deep enough to encourage a clean room implementation of MS's DRM, I guess most people just don't care since there are so many alternate vehicles that require less work for the same content.
  - DiabloD3 15y ago
    Except Netflix is dropping the Silverlie plugin support for their own plugin that DRMs for HTML5 video capable browsers. Chromebooks already have a beta version of this, and Chrome will ship with the plugin on all platforms eventually.
    - cookiecaper 15y ago
      Why is that "except"? It doesn't have anything to do with what I said, really. You could say, "Not for long! Netflix is dropping the Siverlight plugin..." or something like that.
      - DiabloD3 15y ago
        To be fair, I never said I was eloquent.
  - untog 15y ago
    Is there a successful (and by that, I mean not entirely useless) DRM system for Linux? I would imagine that MS would not want to provide the source for their DRM component for fear of it being broken.
gexla 15y ago
This is a great story about a project finding a way. It's also great story of a team of talented developers being able to create a commercial force in very little time. I suppose having a well oiled development team and a ton of contacts for possible clients ready to go is a strong ingredient for quick profits. This makes me wonder what other projects in a similar situation could make a similar jump. If you are looking for a home in development but don't yet need to take the plunge of finding a job. This is a good example of how an open source project can create opportunities.
regularfry 15y ago
It makes me unfeasibly happy that they have achieved a self-sustaining business model. I wouldn't necessarily have predicted that I would feel this way, but it makes me trust them more.
tpatke 15y ago
Miguel de Icaza is living the life right now. He managed to get Novell to fund his idea and then effectively bought it off of them for a steal. Well done! Incidentally, I think this is the best way to start a business if you ever find yourself in the right position. Big companies are ditching / spinning off successful products which are just not "successful enough" and you can often pick them up for the cost of supporting existing customers.
- xtracto 15y ago
  >Incidentally, I think this is the best way to start a business if you ever find yourself in the right position. Big companies are ditching / spinning off successful products which are just not "successful enough" and you can often pick them up for the cost of supporting existing customers. I surely would hope that the same think had happened to several of the Google services that were killed a short time ago; specially Wave and Code Search. Although I know that at least Wave was made given to Apache, I think what that needed was a company that was willing to polish and provide the service.
  - mseebach 15y ago
    Problem with that is two things: 1: Those products are build to run on Googles infrastructure, which you can't have if you're not Google. 2: Those products don't have customers, they have users. That makes spinning a profitable business off much harder.
    - quanticle 15y ago
      >1: Those products are build to run on Googles infrastructure, which you can't have if you're not Google. Not necessarily. At least with Google Wave [1], Google ensured that they made the necessary modifications to allow users to run Wave servers by themselves. There is at least one provider running wave-in-a-box [2], and there isn't any reason that this provider should be the only one. >2: Those products don't have customers, they have users. That makes spinning a profitable business off much harder. Harder yes, but it's still well short of impossible. I was thinking that the Wave Federation Protocol could perhaps be monetized as a shared-editing/collaboration service. It could be positioned as a combination of Sharepoint and chat. [1] http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-next-steps-wave-in-box.html http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-n... [2] http://waveinabox.net/ http://waveinabox.net/
alecthomas 15y ago
I've never seriously used C# before, but the desire to build an iPhone application, combined with my unfortunate distaste for Objective-C, recently led me to MonoTouch. MonoDevelop, MonoTouch, and C# have been an absolute pleasure to work with. Completion is insanely fast, with fuzzy matching. C# delegates make implementing event handlers a pleasure. The integration with Interface Builder is a bit shaky at times, but I suspect that may be a bug in XCode.
jackfoxy 15y ago
Some time ago I ran across a post saying Mono does not do true tail recursion in F#. Does anyone know if this is still the case?
- jackfoxy 15y ago
  Found this http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.10 http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.10 Feb 15th, 2011 Under Runtime Notes Improved tail-call support for the F# compiler. Not enough information to determine if improved means fixed.

146 points by cek 15y ago

They now look like direct competitors to Microsoft - providing tools for iOS and Android devs and kind of distracting them from W Phone. Do they have the right kind of agreements to be sheltered from MS anger should it come?

tspiteri 15y ago
That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that they are allowing developers to develop for iOS and Android in C#, which may eventually have a good effect on the number of Windows Phone apps developed.
- AndrewDucker 15y ago
  Yup, right now being able to move your iOS app easily to WinPhone would be in Microsoft's favour.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    OTOH, being able to easily move your WP7 app to Android or iOS is a disaster for MS. The only portability that interests Microsoft is one-way towards their platforms.
    - AndrewDucker 15y ago
      Well, yes. Once WP7 has a larger market share than Android and iOS they'll want to plug that gap. That should happen about fifteen minutes after never.
    - untog 15y ago
      Yes, but MS are behind in the smartphone race and they know it. Right now they'll do anything they can to get more devs on their platform.
andrewl-hn 15y ago
Also consider that most .NET developers who target Mono still use and pay for Microsoft Developer Tools. Mono has it's own IDE but it pales in comparrison and at the moment it's not a focus of Mono team.
DiabloD3 15y ago
Miguel de Icaza works for Microsoft, and Microsoft has extended Mono developers a patent license for all relevant C#/.NET patents,... Except, said patent grant does not extend to people who don't work for de Icaza, people who distribute Mono, or people who use Mono, or people who have compiled C# apps with Mono. Microsoft refuses to make Mono patent free, and anyone who distributes, uses, or distributes binaries compiled with Mono _can and will be sued_. Not only is de Icaza not a competitor to Microsoft, he is helping Microsoft attack Linux and the Free Software movement. Mono refuses to switch to a license, such as GPLv3, to protect users, distributors, and developers from the patents; not only do they refuse, they are getting rid of all GPLv2 code in favor of BSD code. Once Mono is BSDafied, Microsoft can import all code from Mono and close source it within the main C#/.Net implementation on Windows.
- teyc 15y ago
  You are reading too much into events. MS likes Miguel because he brings some open source respectability to the NET platform. It is also a potential source of licensing revenue stream in the future. MS has no reason to want someone else's implementation of the CLR and VM.
  - DiabloD3 15y ago
    Mono's VM executes C# bytecode faster than Microsoft's, and Mono's C# compiler produces better bytecode than Microsoft's. So, yeah, Microsoft is very interested in trying to make their core product faster so they can catch up to other solutions such as native code (C/C++) or Java (C# is still typically much slower than Java). Oh, and Mono can also compile to AoT binaries, which do not require Mono/.Net installed on the target system, such as being able to target iOS under Apple's anti-VM policy. Microsoft is very interested in all of these.
    - jahewson 15y ago
      Complete nonsense: - Microsoft's CLR is vastly more sophisticated than Mono, involving millions of man-hours work, unless you show me a benchmark I have absolutely no reason to believe it executes bytecode faster, especially given that Microsoft Research publish papers on fast JIT [1]. - Mono still doesn't have a stable generational GC [2], I hope you like memory leaks and long pauses. - .NET can compile AoT binaries, and does this for all built-in libraries using ngen [3] In conclusion: Microsoft have no interest in any of Mono's technologies. [1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/spur/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/spur/ [2] http://mono-project.com/Generational_GC http://mono-project.com/Generational_GC [3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf(v=vs.71).aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf(v=vs.71).as...

bravura 15y ago

"As a result of garnering the rights to Mono and a solid customer base, Xamarin wound up with self-sustaining revenue that covers its staff of some 50 people — without having taken on any venture capital." That's pretty cool. From the article, it sounds like they were cash-flow positive enough to support 50 people, from the outset.

tvon 15y ago
To be fair the real outset was about a decade ago when they created Helix Code (later renamed to Ximian) and started work on Mono.

hristov 15y ago

That's great. But, unfortunately, Mono is not making netflix run on my computer. Now that would be an achievement.

cookiecaper 15y ago
Netflix will not run on your Linux desktop because Microsoft refuses to issue licenses for its DRM components for Moonlight/Linux desktop. These components run fine on Linux -- look at Boxee et al -- but Microsoft refuses to license the DRM for use on Linux desktops. While I would have thought the spite would run deep enough to encourage a clean room implementation of MS's DRM, I guess most people just don't care since there are so many alternate vehicles that require less work for the same content.
- DiabloD3 15y ago
  Except Netflix is dropping the Silverlie plugin support for their own plugin that DRMs for HTML5 video capable browsers. Chromebooks already have a beta version of this, and Chrome will ship with the plugin on all platforms eventually.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    Why is that "except"? It doesn't have anything to do with what I said, really. You could say, "Not for long! Netflix is dropping the Siverlight plugin..." or something like that.
    - DiabloD3 15y ago
      To be fair, I never said I was eloquent.
- untog 15y ago
  Is there a successful (and by that, I mean not entirely useless) DRM system for Linux? I would imagine that MS would not want to provide the source for their DRM component for fear of it being broken.

gexla 15y ago

This is a great story about a project finding a way. It's also great story of a team of talented developers being able to create a commercial force in very little time. I suppose having a well oiled development team and a ton of contacts for possible clients ready to go is a strong ingredient for quick profits. This makes me wonder what other projects in a similar situation could make a similar jump. If you are looking for a home in development but don't yet need to take the plunge of finding a job. This is a good example of how an open source project can create opportunities.

regularfry 15y ago

It makes me unfeasibly happy that they have achieved a self-sustaining business model. I wouldn't necessarily have predicted that I would feel this way, but it makes me trust them more.

tpatke 15y ago

Miguel de Icaza is living the life right now. He managed to get Novell to fund his idea and then effectively bought it off of them for a steal. Well done! Incidentally, I think this is the best way to start a business if you ever find yourself in the right position. Big companies are ditching / spinning off successful products which are just not "successful enough" and you can often pick them up for the cost of supporting existing customers.

xtracto 15y ago
>Incidentally, I think this is the best way to start a business if you ever find yourself in the right position. Big companies are ditching / spinning off successful products which are just not "successful enough" and you can often pick them up for the cost of supporting existing customers. I surely would hope that the same think had happened to several of the Google services that were killed a short time ago; specially Wave and Code Search. Although I know that at least Wave was made given to Apache, I think what that needed was a company that was willing to polish and provide the service.
- mseebach 15y ago
  Problem with that is two things: 1: Those products are build to run on Googles infrastructure, which you can't have if you're not Google. 2: Those products don't have customers, they have users. That makes spinning a profitable business off much harder.
  - quanticle 15y ago
    >1: Those products are build to run on Googles infrastructure, which you can't have if you're not Google. Not necessarily. At least with Google Wave [1], Google ensured that they made the necessary modifications to allow users to run Wave servers by themselves. There is at least one provider running wave-in-a-box [2], and there isn't any reason that this provider should be the only one. >2: Those products don't have customers, they have users. That makes spinning a profitable business off much harder. Harder yes, but it's still well short of impossible. I was thinking that the Wave Federation Protocol could perhaps be monetized as a shared-editing/collaboration service. It could be positioned as a combination of Sharepoint and chat. [1] http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-next-steps-wave-in-box.html http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-n... [2] http://waveinabox.net/ http://waveinabox.net/

alecthomas 15y ago

I've never seriously used C# before, but the desire to build an iPhone application, combined with my unfortunate distaste for Objective-C, recently led me to MonoTouch. MonoDevelop, MonoTouch, and C# have been an absolute pleasure to work with. Completion is insanely fast, with fuzzy matching. C# delegates make implementing event handlers a pleasure. The integration with Interface Builder is a bit shaky at times, but I suspect that may be a bug in XCode.

jackfoxy 15y ago

Some time ago I ran across a post saying Mono does not do true tail recursion in F#. Does anyone know if this is still the case?

jackfoxy 15y ago
Found this http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.10 http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.10 Feb 15th, 2011 Under Runtime Notes Improved tail-call support for the F# compiler. Not enough information to determine if improved means fixed.