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You make a fair point and I normally share your view about compilers and tools. I think the Xamarin situation is complex, though, because most of the product is

You make a fair point and I normally share your view about compilers and tools. I think the Xamarin situation is complex, though, because most of the product is already open source. The C# compiler and x86 runtime, the standard libs (System.*), and the IDE (monodevelop aka Xamarin Studio) are all open source; and the platform bindings are a thin, almost 1:1 layer covering the iOS and android APIs. What you're really paying for is the AOT mechanism, packaging, and ARM runtime -- it's about all that's left they can sell. It's also worth noting that a ton of their code goes back into mono and associated projects. I still think you have a good point, and I agree, but as for myself, I decided to make an exception in this case. I don't think it's quite as bad as PowerBuilder or Clarion at least.

yulaow 13y ago
to be fair monodevelop and xamarin studio are not equal. The first is low supported and full of bug but free ( i think that is voluntary), the second is not free (at least not if you want to do something decent) and is the main focus of xamarin. I would say they try to "trap" you in mono with monodevelop to then oblige you to buy something more decent as xamarin studio.
- migueldeicaza 13y ago
  Wrong. Xamarin Studio and MonoDevelop are the exact same code base. The only difference is that Xamarin Studio contains the iOS and Android plugins, plus adds a Xamarin Branding (branding is completely pluggable in MonoDevelop)
  - yulaow 13y ago
    Oh, my bad in this case. So why there is not a linux version of xamarin studio? Or it is just because there is not a linux version of the plugins?
    - yareally 13y ago
      Mostly because they would have to provide their own Mono runtime as there's too many variations in the vast number of Linux Distros out there. That combined with demand is much lower than that of Windows and OSX for Mono. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15900963/is-it-possible-to-run-xamarin-mono-on-linux http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15900963/is-it-possible-t...

yulaow 13y ago

to be fair monodevelop and xamarin studio are not equal. The first is low supported and full of bug but free ( i think that is voluntary), the second is not free (at least not if you want to do something decent) and is the main focus of xamarin. I would say they try to "trap" you in mono with monodevelop to then oblige you to buy something more decent as xamarin studio.

migueldeicaza 13y ago
Wrong. Xamarin Studio and MonoDevelop are the exact same code base. The only difference is that Xamarin Studio contains the iOS and Android plugins, plus adds a Xamarin Branding (branding is completely pluggable in MonoDevelop)
- yulaow 13y ago
  Oh, my bad in this case. So why there is not a linux version of xamarin studio? Or it is just because there is not a linux version of the plugins?
  - yareally 13y ago
    Mostly because they would have to provide their own Mono runtime as there's too many variations in the vast number of Linux Distros out there. That combined with demand is much lower than that of Windows and OSX for Mono. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15900963/is-it-possible-to-run-xamarin-mono-on-linux http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15900963/is-it-possible-t...