I'm not feeling as good about it. What I see is Novell washing their hands of Mono and giving it to a company that has existed for a few months. Now more than ever Mono exists as long as Miguel de Icaza wants to keep working on it. At least with Novell there was some cushion from that.
I disagree, and I think Mono is stronger now with a startup behind it. With Novell you only had the perception of some cushion. Novell laid off the entire engineering staff behind Mono, including Miguel. If he had simply walked away from the project after that, do you think it would have continued regardless of whether Novell held onto it?
With Xamarin the Mono folks have some skin in the game beyond a paycheck and their own passion. Even if Miguel were to walk away -- something I find unlikely -- there is a business now that depends upon its success and not some neglected division within a rudderless company.
Mono was collateral damage of Novell's purchase by Attachmate. Mono probably didn't rate a mention in the negotiation's around Novell's acquisition.
The idea of a safety net for projects like these is just an illusion. There's never a safety net. You've just got to take things as they come and have a backup plan.
It's good relative to the assumed baseline of Novell keeping the MonoTouch etc. IPs but not actually investing in or supporting them, and Xamarin having to recreate everything from zero themselves.
Comments
I'm not feeling as good about it. What I see is Novell washing their hands of Mono and giving it to a company that has existed for a few months. Now more than ever Mono exists as long as Miguel de Icaza wants to keep working on it. At least with Novell there was some cushion from that.
I disagree, and I think Mono is stronger now with a startup behind it. With Novell you only had the perception of some cushion. Novell laid off the entire engineering staff behind Mono, including Miguel. If he had simply walked away from the project after that, do you think it would have continued regardless of whether Novell held onto it?
With Xamarin the Mono folks have some skin in the game beyond a paycheck and their own passion. Even if Miguel were to walk away -- something I find unlikely -- there is a business now that depends upon its success and not some neglected division within a rudderless company.
Mono was collateral damage of Novell's purchase by Attachmate. Mono probably didn't rate a mention in the negotiation's around Novell's acquisition.
The idea of a safety net for projects like these is just an illusion. There's never a safety net. You've just got to take things as they come and have a backup plan.
It's good relative to the assumed baseline of Novell keeping the MonoTouch etc. IPs but not actually investing in or supporting them, and Xamarin having to recreate everything from zero themselves.