[lucian1900]

Xamarin's stuff looks really nice, but I really wish they had a non-profit free tier. I can't even make opensource Android apps without paying a lot.

The other problem is the lack of linux support for their SDK. Seems rather odd, considering Mono's roots.

[natfriedman]

It personally pains me not to support Linux, but we get such a tiny fraction of our customer base coming from Linux that it isn't worth it. Not to mention that there is effectively no "Linux" platform and you have to select a subset of distro versions.

[jevinskie]

Yes we support Linux at our shop and testing/packaging is difficult. Doubly so for embedded customers that frequently want to use old/obscure distros (probably due to a cross tool chain requirement).

[lucian1900]

I'm sure most people would be ok with an Ubuntu version.

Perhaps more of your customers would use Linux for Xamarin stuff if it was available?

[untog]

The other problem is the lack of linux support for their SDK. Seems rather odd, considering Mono's roots.

I suspect that they make the vast majority of their profit on MonoTouch (Mono for Android is great, but Java and C# are similar enough that there is a lower barrier). With that in mind, there isn't much point in focusing on Linux- you can't develop for Mac or iOS on it.

[natfriedman]

Actually Android and iOS make an equal amount of money for us. This was not true a year ago, when iOS sales were about 65% of our volume, but today it is almost exactly 50-50.

[untog]

Interesting. I'll admit, my draw to the platform is a 50/50 split between disliking Objective C (/XCode) and the possibility of sharing code between Android and iOS versions of an app. I guess more people are with you for the latter than the former these days.

[shadowmint]

I have to say it definitely feels like you guys are paying more attention to the MonoDroid things these days. Great work on the recent release BTW~

[cooldeal]

>The other problem is the lack of linux support for their SDK. Seems rather odd, considering Mono's roots.

Didn't Mono get a lot of hate and vitriol from the Linux crowd over their support for C# and .NET on Linux and then was pulled from Ubuntu's default install because of it? I can understand why they would be shy about support if all they got were brickbats and hate mail.

http://np237.livejournal.com/24065.html

http://techrights.org/2008/03/24/mono-danger-to-linux/

http://techrights.org/2011/11/04/uds-on-mono/

http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/222227/bansheeg...

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/06/15/1251228/Mono-Squeez...

The first link is a very entertaining read.

[koenigdavidmj]

I thought that their removal from Ubuntu's default installation was simply that it's a large set of libraries that kept made it hard to keep the image under the size of a CD. And once Tomboy got ported to C++ (Gnote is almost exactly the same thing), it wasn't really necessary anymore.

[reidrac]

Besides the "Mono wave" on Gnome seems gone. Now there are some guys pushing Vala, and it reminds me the time when Mono was the future of Gnome.

https://live.gnome.org/Vala

Several Gnome applications have been rewritten in Vala and, having contributed a patch to Déjà Dup, I find it's a language easy to hack coming from a C/Java/C# background.

I always found interesting that Mono could have been a good thing for Gnome and because of the Microsoft influence in the language (or .NET platform, I'm no expert) it never happened.

EDIT: ate a word