5 ms·

Mono has such a bad reputation. If they want to get market, they will probably have to pull a Bing, i.e. rebrand it. Unfortunately, they don't have $100m to po

by sker 17y ago

Mono has such a bad reputation. If they want to get market, they will probably have to pull a Bing, i.e. rebrand it. Unfortunately, they don't have $100m to pour into marketing.

TomOfTTB 17y ago
I think you miss the point. They already have market. Most Corporate Networks run on Windows Servers. What Mono does is allow those Windows shops with their .Net experienced developers to start experimenting with and hopefully integrating Linux. Without having to change the language and framework they've standardized on. In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono.
- davidw 17y ago
  Yes and no. I think that, given all the money and hard work poured into it, Mono is, relative to other languages and things out there, not as popular as it "ought" to be. Here we have a first-rate JIT compiled language that's completely free (no Java ambiguity), with a team of smart hackers behind it, and yet not that many people use it. I don't, nor do I know anyone who does, besides one of the core developers who lives here in Padova.
  - TomOfTTB 17y ago
    Well as the head of an IT department that does use Windows servers I can tell you you're right but the reason has little to do with Mono itself. Here's the thing you have to understand about corporate IT: Support is king. Unlike startups which are filled with technical people company's have only a few IT people and usually only one whose knowledge is at a high enough level to even think of editing the source of an open source project. So you need to have a support option in place. Now Microsoft has support contracts but even if you don't purchase one you can get support for $245 per incident on any Windows Server issue. Our agency of 200 computers uses this option once, maybe twice per year. Novell on the other hand offers support for Mono but it's sold in packs of 25 incidents and costs $13,000. So no matter how much Linux and Mono can save your company the outrageous support costs make it virtually unjustifiable.
    - gaius 17y ago
      Indeed - people forget that outside of the software industry itself, software and IT is usually viewed by the business as a cost.
      - jm4 17y ago
        It is a cost. Many IT people/developers like to think otherwise but to do so is truly delusional and can be a roadblock to career advancement.
        stcredzero 17y ago
        It may be delusional to not deal with the software is viewed. But the thought that it's strictly a cost is itself a delusion. I have seen firsthand corporations being choked by bad software. (A certain cell phone manufacturer and a certain car rental company come to mind.) I've also experienced good customer service enabled by flexible software, where I'm amazed, "You can really do that?" Amazon wouldn't be nearly as good as it is if it wasn't for the degree of software quality that they have.
        jm4 17y ago
        I understand your point and I agree that software could make or break a company. That can be true and you could still make the argument that IT is strictly a cost. That IT departments can enable other departments to reduce their own costs does not change the fact that IT itself is a cost. In your customer service example IT has clearly had a positive impact, but you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that the IT department is generating revenue for the company. If you walked into the CFO's office trying to make that case you'd be laughed out of the room. Good customer service does not manifest itself through good software. A better approach may be to walk into the CFO's office and show how your IT department is helping the company realize it's goal of providing good customer service at an acceptable cost. It's a very subtle distinction. This is what I was getting at when I said not thinking of IT as a cost can be a roadblock to advancement.
        DannoHung 17y ago
  - bad_user 17y ago
    Mono is unpopular, but I don't think it's because of the negative marketing. People doing software development on top of Linux tend to choose other languages, like Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, C++ and Java. That's because these languages have matching cultures and communities. Personally when I'm investing time learning a tool, if the learning is not trivial, I first take a good look at its community. If you're getting in trouble with Mono, who you're going to talk to? The core mono mailing list is nice, but other than that you're out of luck. You could join a .NET community for support, but their topics, issues and goals aren't a match for a developer used to work on Unix-related projects. And the signal-noise ratio is rather poor.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  "In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono." No, it doesn't. For internal development you have a wide variety of options. Java is quite good and very popular among those who consider the option of not running their wares under Windows. The only way Mono can appeal to Windows-only houses is by making it possible to run unmodified (and proprietary) products that run under Windows on other platforms. Were I insane enough to allow my business to run on .NET and Windows, I would only consider migrating it to other platform if I had the assurance of being able to run it unmodified. And, BTW, as it is, Mono is a patent minefield. Do you really trust Microsoft to act as a responsible corporate citizen when doing the right thing would cut their profits? I wouldn't even if acting responsible would be profitable. Playing dirty seems too embedded in their corporate DNA.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    "For internal development you have a wide variety of options. Java is quite good and very popular among those who consider the option of not running their wares under Windows. The only way Mono can appeal to Windows-only houses is by making it possible to run unmodified (and proprietary) products that run under Windows on other platforms." I'm working at a Windows-only house with internally built .NET apps. Mono is definitely part of our long term plans to run these apps on other platforms.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      Congratulations. You are the case where Mono makes sense - you can make sure your apps run the same on Mono and on .NET. Unfortunately, some shops need to use off-the-shelf software that may even run on Mono but is not officially supported and, if something did go wrong, they would on their own.
  - astine 17y ago
    I strongly suspect that it would be much easier to port existing .NET code to Mono than it would be to port it to Java. I also suspect than any .NET team wanting to experiment with Linux or Unix would probably prefer to learn Mono's quirks than an entirely new language.
  - 17y ago

by sker 17y ago

Mono has such a bad reputation. If they want to get market, they will probably have to pull a Bing, i.e. rebrand it. Unfortunately, they don't have $100m to pour into marketing.

TomOfTTB 17y ago

I think you miss the point. They already have market. Most Corporate Networks run on Windows Servers. What Mono does is allow those Windows shops with their .Net experienced developers to start experimenting with and hopefully integrating Linux. Without having to change the language and framework they've standardized on. In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono.

davidw 17y ago
Yes and no. I think that, given all the money and hard work poured into it, Mono is, relative to other languages and things out there, not as popular as it "ought" to be. Here we have a first-rate JIT compiled language that's completely free (no Java ambiguity), with a team of smart hackers behind it, and yet not that many people use it. I don't, nor do I know anyone who does, besides one of the core developers who lives here in Padova.
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  Well as the head of an IT department that does use Windows servers I can tell you you're right but the reason has little to do with Mono itself. Here's the thing you have to understand about corporate IT: Support is king. Unlike startups which are filled with technical people company's have only a few IT people and usually only one whose knowledge is at a high enough level to even think of editing the source of an open source project. So you need to have a support option in place. Now Microsoft has support contracts but even if you don't purchase one you can get support for $245 per incident on any Windows Server issue. Our agency of 200 computers uses this option once, maybe twice per year. Novell on the other hand offers support for Mono but it's sold in packs of 25 incidents and costs $13,000. So no matter how much Linux and Mono can save your company the outrageous support costs make it virtually unjustifiable.
  - gaius 17y ago
    Indeed - people forget that outside of the software industry itself, software and IT is usually viewed by the business as a cost.
    - jm4 17y ago
      It is a cost. Many IT people/developers like to think otherwise but to do so is truly delusional and can be a roadblock to career advancement.
      - stcredzero 17y ago
        It may be delusional to not deal with the software is viewed. But the thought that it's strictly a cost is itself a delusion. I have seen firsthand corporations being choked by bad software. (A certain cell phone manufacturer and a certain car rental company come to mind.) I've also experienced good customer service enabled by flexible software, where I'm amazed, "You can really do that?" Amazon wouldn't be nearly as good as it is if it wasn't for the degree of software quality that they have.
        jm4 17y ago
        I understand your point and I agree that software could make or break a company. That can be true and you could still make the argument that IT is strictly a cost. That IT departments can enable other departments to reduce their own costs does not change the fact that IT itself is a cost. In your customer service example IT has clearly had a positive impact, but you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that the IT department is generating revenue for the company. If you walked into the CFO's office trying to make that case you'd be laughed out of the room. Good customer service does not manifest itself through good software. A better approach may be to walk into the CFO's office and show how your IT department is helping the company realize it's goal of providing good customer service at an acceptable cost. It's a very subtle distinction. This is what I was getting at when I said not thinking of IT as a cost can be a roadblock to advancement.
      - DannoHung 17y ago
- bad_user 17y ago
  Mono is unpopular, but I don't think it's because of the negative marketing. People doing software development on top of Linux tend to choose other languages, like Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, C++ and Java. That's because these languages have matching cultures and communities. Personally when I'm investing time learning a tool, if the learning is not trivial, I first take a good look at its community. If you're getting in trouble with Mono, who you're going to talk to? The core mono mailing list is nice, but other than that you're out of luck. You could join a .NET community for support, but their topics, issues and goals aren't a match for a developer used to work on Unix-related projects. And the signal-noise ratio is rather poor.
rbanffy 17y ago
"In that way it gives Linux an inroad it didn't have before Mono." No, it doesn't. For internal development you have a wide variety of options. Java is quite good and very popular among those who consider the option of not running their wares under Windows. The only way Mono can appeal to Windows-only houses is by making it possible to run unmodified (and proprietary) products that run under Windows on other platforms. Were I insane enough to allow my business to run on .NET and Windows, I would only consider migrating it to other platform if I had the assurance of being able to run it unmodified. And, BTW, as it is, Mono is a patent minefield. Do you really trust Microsoft to act as a responsible corporate citizen when doing the right thing would cut their profits? I wouldn't even if acting responsible would be profitable. Playing dirty seems too embedded in their corporate DNA.
- philwelch 17y ago
  "For internal development you have a wide variety of options. Java is quite good and very popular among those who consider the option of not running their wares under Windows. The only way Mono can appeal to Windows-only houses is by making it possible to run unmodified (and proprietary) products that run under Windows on other platforms." I'm working at a Windows-only house with internally built .NET apps. Mono is definitely part of our long term plans to run these apps on other platforms.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    Congratulations. You are the case where Mono makes sense - you can make sure your apps run the same on Mono and on .NET. Unfortunately, some shops need to use off-the-shelf software that may even run on Mono but is not officially supported and, if something did go wrong, they would on their own.
- astine 17y ago
  I strongly suspect that it would be much easier to port existing .NET code to Mono than it would be to port it to Java. I also suspect than any .NET team wanting to experiment with Linux or Unix would probably prefer to learn Mono's quirks than an entirely new language.
- 17y ago