Re: [DotGNU]Gnome to be based on .NET

[Barry Fitzgerald]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, Norbert Bollow wrote:

> Bill Lance <address@hidden> replied:
>
> > > What's the difference between Microsoft's agenda and
> > > Sun's agenda?
>
> William G. Thompson, Jr. <address@hidden> replied:
>
> > Java won't bind you to Solaris like .Net will bind you to windoze.
> >
> > No one would argue that Sun couldn't do better vis-a-vis the Free
> > Software community, but they _are_ shipping JDK/JRE for Linux, Solaris,
> > and Windoze. You won't see Microsoft doing that.
>
> Ok, so Microsoft may be worse than Sun, but Sun's Java stuff is
> still proprietary and therefore totally unacceptable.
>

I'm not for one minute convinced that MS is worse than Sun.  They're both
proprietary companies who are forcing a proprietary agenda.  They both
have introduced faulty community style licensing programs.  Sun is smaller
than MS, and doesn't have as much power to ram something down people's
throats, but if Sun was in MS' place - I'd venture that we might actually
be in a worse position today.

Keep in mind that Sun not only harbors a proprietary software platform,
but also a proprietary hardware platform.  MS may yet head in this
direction, but it isn't there yet and some may argue that the "open-ness"
  of the Intel platform have helped place MS where it is today.

Keep in mind, my opinion of Sun as a prop. company does not impede my
support for Java support in DotGNU.  Java is a valid technology as are
many other Sun technologies -- as are many MS technologies.  Both
technologies are not Free at the moment, and both technology sets must
have Free versions created for them.


        -Barry