De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin [LWN.net]

On his blog, Miguel de Icaza has announced Xamarin, which is a new company formed to create Mono-based products, specifically for iOS and Android. The company is made up of the Mono team that was recently laid off by Attachmate, and will also continue development of the free software Mono and Moonlight platforms. "The new versions of .NET for the iPhone and Android will be source compatible with MonoTouch and Mono for Android. Like those versions, they will be commercial products, built on top of the open core Mono. [...] In addition, we are going to provide support and custom development of Mono. A company that provides International Mono Support, if you will."

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The joy of closed source

Posted May 16, 2011 21:08 UTC (Mon) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link] (8 responses)

So they will be recreating Monodroid and Monotouch for the next few months... not a great way to spend your time if you ask me.

The joy of closed source

Posted May 16, 2011 21:26 UTC (Mon) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]

But they have a wealth of experience with appropriate prototypes and probably know a few things they'd do better this time around.

The joy of closed source

Posted May 16, 2011 21:48 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (2 responses)

Maybe I missed it, but what is the reason they have to recreate it? Did attachmate keep the rights to it? I thought it was open source.

The joy of closed source

Posted May 16, 2011 22:22 UTC (Mon) by michaelr (guest, #73025) [Link] (1 responses)

Mono for desktop OSen is open source, mostly (L)GPL, though Mono's name and logo are Novell trademarks. But the Android and iOS ports (MonoDroid, MonoTouch) are closed-source commercial software, and it sounds like Xamarin will recreate those ports, not Mono itself.

It sounds like the reason Xamarin has to recreate MonoTouch/Droid from scratch is that they couldn't license the existing MonoTouch/Droid work from Attachmate, or from the original authors (for any third-party components). I agree that recreating them will cost much time and effort, but it's either that or leave Mono users on smartphones in the lurch for an extended period, which is also bad.

The joy of closed source

Posted May 17, 2011 0:21 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]

> But the Android and iOS ports (MonoDroid, MonoTouch) are closed-source commercial software, and it sounds like Xamarin will recreate those ports, not Mono itself.

Ah, interesting. I was not aware of that. Thanks!

The joy of closed source

Posted May 16, 2011 22:32 UTC (Mon) by togga (subscriber, #53103) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree. .NET isn't that important. I wonder if it has a place at all on the technical arena. And C#, that's just another language.

The joy of closed source

Posted May 17, 2011 0:13 UTC (Tue) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]

???????????????

The joy of closed source

Posted May 17, 2011 4:01 UTC (Tue) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link]

huh? coders in the real world rewrite code all the time. these guys will finally be doing it on their own terms, and once they're over the hump to recreate what was unavailable to them, they can take the codebase wherever they want. as long as everyone is getting paid, it sounds like a great gig

The joy of closed source

Posted May 17, 2011 18:51 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (guest, #43281) [Link]

> So they will be recreating Monodroid and Monotouch for the next few months... not a great way to spend your time if you ask me.

Aside from rewriting the exact same code, this seems legally risky. I am sure they will not copy any code, but here you have the same programmers writing the same products, right after writing them for the first time, and with the explicit goal of "source compatibility" for people using those products (i.e., the exact same APIs and behavior). The source code they write may come out extremely similar or identical to the original they wrote just a few months ago.

I am sure they will do nothing wrong, but I worry they might be sued nonetheless. And it might be very hard to prove they didn't. Might be a good idea to prepare for that in advance.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 16, 2011 21:32 UTC (Mon) by flammon (guest, #807) [Link] (4 responses)

Interesting that they could not quickly create an ASP.NET (Mono) form and instead put a Google spreadsheet inside an iframe on their _new_ site.

https://spreadsheets2.google.com/embeddedform?formkey=dHZ...

Couldn't they take a few days to create something of higher quality and and the same time showcase their product? I'm all for getting things done quickly but this seems a little extreme and perhaps a reflection of their values.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 1:35 UTC (Tue) by hp (guest, #5220) [Link] (3 responses)

The spreadsheet looks fine, was easier to code, has less sysadmin/hosting headache, and it's probably easier to retrieve and watch the results... what's the downside? I guess their values include making smart decisions about use of time!

Why not use Mono on their website

Posted May 17, 2011 6:38 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (2 responses)

"Eat your own dog-food." That's the reason.

Why not use Mono on their website

Posted May 17, 2011 6:54 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Eating your own dog food is a good principle but it doesn't have to be followed blindly. Sometimes using a third party solution or even one from a competitor is the right one in that situation. In some cases, it is a temporary stop gap till you get a better one in place but it still needed. We are talking about a startup and there are many constraints. Back seat driving in pointless.

Why not use Mono on their website

Posted May 17, 2011 9:58 UTC (Tue) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link]

When you try eat too much of your own dogfood you develop "NIH" syndrome.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 16, 2011 22:43 UTC (Mon) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (11 responses)

Is Apple's ban on runtime code generation on the iPhone still in effect? That seems like it makes Mono on iPhone even less attractive than it would otherwise be.

I mean, you can still compile to a binary pretty easily (C# is a nice statically typed language, after all). However, most of the optimizations that, say, IBM did for Java in HotSpot are off-limits.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 0:12 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (10 responses)

According to a Wired article from last September, Apple dropped most of the restrictions some time back (they pretty much had to, because if app developers on iOS are crippled, complex apps would be developed for Android first).

The Apple announcement said:

We are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 5:17 UTC (Tue) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (1 responses)

As best as I can tell, that was just an announcement that they were officially publishing the guidelines that they use. They also relaxed a restriction I didn't even know they had, on using third-party development tools. And they specifically mention Flash as forbidden.

I think the ban on generating code at runtime is still in effect. App Store Review Guidelines, regulation 2.8:
"Apps that install or launch other executable code will be rejected."

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 7:52 UTC (Tue) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]

AFAIK Monotouch always compiled to a static, native, executable. I don't think there was ever a point they released a .net VM for iPhones.

Sure the runtime optimizations are lost, but I can't imagine that having an impact on 99.999..% of iPhone apps.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 8:09 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] (7 responses)

"they pretty much had to, because if app developers on iOS are crippled, complex apps would be developed for Android first)."

That's more or less the total opposite of reality. In reality apps tend to be developed for iOS first, since that's where the money and market-share(* is. Does Android even HAVE any complex apps? I mean apps of similar caliber as iMovie, Omnifocus, Garageband, Flipboard and the like?

* = Yeah, I said market-share. There has been lots of news about Android overtaking iPhone in new sales. But those news are flawed because they are comparing an OS (Android) to a piece of hardware (iPhone). iOS runs on other devices besides phones. If we compare Android (an OS) to iOS (an OS), we will see that iOS has significant advantage in market-share.

About this news though: Why is de Icaza still so hell-bent on pushing Mono? It has been a failure so far, what exactly has changed?

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 8:41 UTC (Tue) by tetromino (guest, #33846) [Link] (1 responses)

> There has been lots of news about Android overtaking iPhone in new sales. But those news are flawed because they are comparing an OS (Android) to a piece of hardware (iPhone). iOS runs on other devices besides phones. If we compare Android (an OS) to iOS (an OS), we will see that iOS has significant advantage in market-share.

Both Android and iOS run on other devices besides phones. However, the only types of dices that matter as far as app writers are concerned are phones and (to a lesser degree, due to a significantly smaller number of users) tablets. There aren't too many people that want to purchase apps for their printers or mp3 players.

There are two real reasons that iOS is more attractive for commercial developers. First, at the moment it has a larger installed base (although new sales are inexorably swinging in Android's favor, so this factor is only temporary). Second, iOS devices are marketed as borderline luxury goods to fashionable people with lots of disposable income (this is especially true outside the US), while Android devices tend to be marketed as budget and/or geek-friendly devices to people who are less likely to spend much money on app store purchases.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 19:53 UTC (Tue) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

"However, the only types of dices that matter as far as app writers are concerned are phones and (to a lesser degree, due to a significantly smaller number of users) tablets."

Why iPod Touch wouldn't matter? Apple has sold tens of millions of them like the phones:
http://gigaom.com/apple/ipod-touch-now-outselling-iphone/

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 15:39 UTC (Tue) by nexex (guest, #14202) [Link] (1 responses)

Mono has not been a failure.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 18, 2011 3:11 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

When did that change?

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 17, 2011 19:42 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

>* = Yeah, I said market-share. There has been lots of news about Android overtaking iPhone in new sales. But those news are flawed because they are comparing an OS (Android) to a piece of hardware (iPhone). iOS runs on other devices besides phones. If we compare Android (an OS) to iOS (an OS), we will see that iOS has significant advantage in market-share.

No the comparisons people try to drum up comparisons between Android phone sales and iOS sales are the ones that are deluding themselves. It's borderline idiotic.

Linux and Java has dominated much of embedded development for a few years now. Android is a replacement Java.

Having dealt with Sun Microsystems directly on a couple of occasions dealing with Java and licensing I can comfortably say that Oracle/Sun deserved Android annihilating their embedded licensing model.

Which is what is happening.

If you actually compared Android to iOS I think you'd be surprised who is more numerous and were the money is.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 18, 2011 1:38 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (1 responses)

"No the comparisons people try to drum up comparisons between Android phone sales and iOS sales are the ones that are deluding themselves. It's borderline idiotic. "

I guess I'm a borderline idiot then. It's clear to me which way the trend is going, and Android isn't just for phones. The range of Android-running devices is already huge, and is getting larger.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 18, 2011 19:26 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

Maybe I'm an idiot (something I've long suspected) but I believe you and drag are both on the same side of that argument. Something I've noticed with Drag's posts is that if you don't read the quote you can sometimes misinterpret what he's saying.

Drag's argument boils down to a disagreement with the poster he quoted and a his statement that comparing sales figures of one product to numerous products is delusional because you are ignoring all the other products the first item is used on as well. Basically comparing android phones to x different iOS devices neglects all the x android devices that exist. I tend to agree as android is used on a number of other platforms and devices (TV's, nook, etc) where the apps would transfer pretty seamlessly though you may have to submit them to a dozen different app stores.

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 19, 2011 6:03 UTC (Thu) by mswhore (guest, #75015) [Link] (1 responses)

xamarin is another miguel de icaza ms joke

why don't you linux idiots get it?

gnome is a microsoft whore operation

gnome is run by ms/novell/redhat

you people are simply stupid

delete gnome and use lxde?

gnome is a ms project

you linux fools

De Icaza: Announcing Xamarin

Posted May 20, 2011 0:42 UTC (Fri) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link]

Thanks for elevating the tone here, mswhore.