[kamechan]

agreed. excellent move on their part. not to mention that i'm continually impressed by what the folks at MSR put out. some smart folks, those ones. i've always found it odd that the environment there seems so contrary to that in redmond. i guess that's marketing for you.

now if they'd only do the same for the .net framework. i'm uncertain about java's future myself as are many of my friends who have invested a lot in their companies' solutions thinking that java would remain fairly OSS and are now scratching their heads.

i guess MS sells enough server and DB licences that my hopes that they'll do the same for the rest of the .net framework will remain just that. it'd be nice if they at least sanctioned the mono folks and gave them a roadmap. living under the threat that microsoft could probably swoop in and put an end to their fun doesn't make me want to use mono. that said, i generally like the .net framework (and specifically c#) more than the alternatives in the managed/oop realm. but i'm out of the loop on the status of mono, as i rarely develop in managed/oop code these days.

has there been any official acknowledgment/condoning of the mono project by MS?

[aaronbrethorst]

I finally had a chance to follow up on this, and yes, Moonlight at least, is officially condoned by Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/newmoonlight...

[kamechan]

interesting tell in the url, that novell is involved. may be a good way for microsoft to let some things go OSS without directly doing it through collabs with novell, who already has a foothold in the market. one can hope anyway. i like a lot of the microsoft technologies, i just wish they'd let it roam freely.

[Tamerlin]

AFAIK Microsoft has even contributed code to the Mono project.

[aaronbrethorst]

Miguel de Icaza has spoken at past MIX conferences fwiw.

[kamechan]

worth a bit, actually. a letter from ballmer (or gates) saying, "dude, nice work" would be even better. :D

[kamechan]

on this subject, just went watch some netflix on my maverick meerkat install (on a macbook) and clicking on "install silverlight" on a microsoft site redirected me to the "mono moonlight" project. if that's not acceptance, i don't know what is.

EDIT: sadly, netflix won't let me watch movies without win or mac (silverlight plugin notwithstanding).

[ntoshev]

I think moonlight can't show you any DRMed content; it's still the technology that is at fault.