>Point of matter: In a current bid here in Denmark we're faced with a bid
>demand, that you have to argue why you DON'T suggest using
>Open Source in favor of (any) commercial software. That's definitely not
>the beaten Microsoft way, and I expect this kind of demand
>to spread.
Lars,
It's good to know that there are some places out there that are still
having good common sense. I wish that would catch on here in the US.
I really truly believe Open Source is the way go but trying to convince
the people at my company who hold the purse strings of this is like trying
to swim up a waterfall. I just finally got them to make Mapserver our
official web mapping platform back end for the market. Unlike the way you
are having to justify bids here it seems to be going the opposite way where
we must justify why it's not in .Net or why we want a Borland compiler not a
MS one.
No, I don't feel we should give up at all. I think we should keep
pushing the better products to the forefront be it Proprietary or Open
Source. I do think that MapInfo is really selling it's developers down the
river by forcing .Net on them the way they are. I get really frustrated when
after spending tons of time showing my bosses why not to use .Net, companies
like MapInfo and AutoDesk declare all past API's frozen or unsupported and
only support .Net going forward.
I am crossing my fingers and hoping since now that Sun Solaris will be
pretty much free this next year and that I can convince my company to move
at least a few of our servers back over to Solaris instead of Windows Server
2003. I also hope you are correct and MS's arrogance drives companies to
other solutions because like you I love many things about Windows
(especially MS Office) but a stagnant MS only world will kill innovation.
But prospects here in the US are looking pretty bleak right now at least
from where I am working as a corporate developer. My hope is the hype will
die down and people will start demanding better products not fancy marketing
hype ones. Like you said though only time will tell.
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: Lars V. Nielsen (GisPro)
To: Canfield, Andrew
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 12/17/2004 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: MI-L Dot NET and the Future of MapInfo Applications
Hi Andrew,
So basically you suggest we all "roll over and play dead" ;-)
No, I recognize and respect the reasoning behind the arguments you give.
And the fact that corporate VP's (and IT administrators
etc.) are far too susceptible to "the latest hype", especially from
"well renowned" companies like Microsoft (btw., didn't that use
to mean IBM way back ??).
I'm the first to acknowledge that Microsoft has made some great
software. I'm a Windows addict, and will most likely never move to
Linux or Unix. The MS/Office product is superb, and although OpenOffice
is gaining itself a foothold, it's an uphill battle. But
that doesn't mean that Microsoft's development products are equally
great or un-rivalled. The end-user desktop may belong to
Microsoft (today), but the rest of the world doesn't. Not even on the
Windows server platform itself. That was the point I was
trying to make.
If Microsoft "ruled" the IT world as you suggest, Linux would never have
seen the light of day. But it lives, and lives well, and
seems fast to become much more than a petty nuisance for mighty
Microsoft. And it's not the only alternative around, just the most
widespread. More and more are turning towards Open Source software, not
because it's necessarily better software (although it
frequently is, as you yourself say wrt. Mapserver), but because the
priciple and ideas behind it appeals to a political demand for
independence and choice. Microsoft may be rich and powerful, but
politics still rule. And although Microsoft is certainly not dumb,
dominance has its limits, even for Microsoft.
And Microsoft's attempts to use its dominance on the desktop to shove
all kind of software down people's throat, will only intensify
the resistance against everything Microsoft offers, even the good stuff
like Windows and Office.
Point of matter: In a current bid here in Denmark we're faced with a bid
demand, that you have to argue why you DON'T suggest using
Open Source in favor of (any) commercial software. That's definitely not
the beaten Microsoft way, and I expect this kind of demand
to spread.
But in the end, I guess we all go our separate ways, and time will tell
who chose the better path :-)
Ps! And I'll wait and see if anyone really uses Mono to develop .Net on
Linux before I believe it.
Best regards/Med venlig hilsen
Lars V. Nielsen
GisPro, Denmark
http://www.gispro.dk/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Canfield, Andrew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 4:07 PM
Subject: RE: MI-L Dot NET and the Future of MapInfo Applications
*Warning this is long*
I do not care much for .Net at all but the VS IDE is much easier to use
for
the developer than MapBasic. If you really want to run cross-platform
with
.Net then you can use Mono. It works in the same way Java works. Yes, it
works on different platforms but native code almost always runs and
looks
better. Maybe that will change, it hasn't for Java so I'm not holding
out
much hope for .Net.
.Net may be marketing hype but it is hype that developers and companies
all
over are quickly buying into. The other developers will do what we have
always done keep on writing base libraries in C++ and providing
interfaces
to it for the people who choose to buy into MS newest eye candy. OLE/COM
was
the same way years ago. It was MS's newest thing and all the DDE
programmers
said it was [EMAIL PROTECTED] It was and still is, so was DDE. But we adapted
and
overcame and now we write COM wrappers for people who use VB and other
automation server languages.
Now it will simply be we write the same system level code and we provide
a
managed wrapper around it for C#/VB/whatever clr language the consumer
is
using. Make no mistake .Net will be MS's wave of the future. They will
make
it be that way whether we like it or not. Look at how many VB6
programmers
screamed when they saw VB.Net yet MS has not changed VB.Net in any
significant way to pacify them.
People say "well we'll move to non MS technology". I say sure whatever
I'll
believe it when I see it. Developers don't drive the use of technology
the
users do and the users are eating up this .Net bullsh!t like it's the
best
thing since heroin. The Open Source community may have some better
applications than those developed proprietarily such as Mapserver hands
down
beats both ArcIms and MapXtreme in performance and flexibility but you
must
be a developer to get it up and going. Another good example is Firefox
vs.
IE6. However the OS community does not have a valid platform alternative
for
users and the boat has long sailed on that sea. MS is to far ahead. To
many
people use their stuff and OS platforms are way to far behind to catch
up.
MS also isn't resting on it's laurels they will keep driving forward
with
new eye candy for the users. MS has the most applications, and the
greatest
usability. There UI's are light years beyond their OS competitors from a
user stand point. So now with the lions share of the market they will
start
forcing changes a little at a time. .Net is just the beginning.
MS will force these changes on the users of their development products.
I
have quite a few friends who are developers for MS. MS knows their are
two
types of developers out there, the kind who develop at a system level
using
C/C++/Object Pascal/ whatever and then there are the other developers
who
use the automation server languages and can only develop what the tools
give
them access to. They cater to both groups.
They give away stuff for free to the system level developers like the
SDK,
the free fully optimizing and ISO compliant C++ compiler from 2004, etc
plus
the new compiler in 2005 will have full control over floating point
calculations for all your edge cases where you must control how floats
are
handled in an algorithm. They know these developers are the ones who
extend
and drive their technology forward. They also know these people need to
make
money so they provided managed C++. There are more people working on
managed
C++ at MS right now than any other .Net language. They do not however
expect
you to write stuff in it, they expect you to wrap stuff with it. So just
like we have been making money for years off of COM we can continue to
do so
with C++. Also note that C++ is the only language where you can mix
managed
and unmanaged code. MS will not bite the hand that feeds them. You don't
get
to be on top of the industry by being dumb.
They also know that the consumers of the system level developers stuff
(I
call them mid-level developers) need eye candy and wiz bangs to keep
them
happy. So you get .Net with it's 15,000 varieties of datagrid control,
massive libraries, drag and drop everything etc. So now Joe analyst in
marketing can write the [EMAIL PROTECTED] code on the planet and it will not
only
run but it will look cool too. He's happy, his boss is happy, and so are
the
developers who wrapped all that for him so he could make it happen.
Everybody from the user to the library developer wins and MS cashes the
biggest check of them all.
The real losers in this game are the mid-level developers who were
developing distributed apps in languages like VB6. They are going to
loose
in a big way. MS is all about corporation and corporate development.
.Net is
going to thoroughly screw the private mid-level developer. Because the
minute they port their code to .Net anyone can decompile or crack it
even if
it's obfuscated. Just like you can with Java now. I think .Net will be
just
like COM it will be whatever you choose to make of it but if you don't
use
it or move to a system level language your stuff will become obsolete on
the
Windows OS just the same way COM did to DDE but in a quicker fashion
because
at some point in the near future MS will break backwards compatibility
so if
you aren't using system level code in C or C++ then you will have to
move to
.Net if you want your stuff to run on any of their new OS's after the
OS's
like Longhorn and what comes after it are released.
Sorry this was so long but I work for a massive corporation and I have
been
fighting .Net since it's inception to keep our systems free of it.
Because
once you put code in it your technology cycles are not your own if you
write
it in one of the clr languages. They now belong to MS when they patch or
upgrade so must you. However try telling that to a corporate VP and you
get
blank stares because they don't think that way. They see the pretty UI
and
quick development turnarounds and go "Oh that must mean savings" when
really
it just means their interface now belongs to MS not them. So now MS can
determine when and how often you pay extra. Issue a security patch and
"oh
sorry it broke your app, you need to pay for the (insert upgrade here)
SDK
now", or "oh that compatibility or knowledge is only available to
corporate
level MSDN subscribers". So where are your savings now Mr. VP? MS will
walk
a fine line with this as they always have they won't charge to much or
it
becomes obvious and people move away from their products. Just enough to
keep companies using their products and to keep the revenue constant. If
you
think this is a harsh assessment come work with me for a day so I can
show
you they have done it to depts. where I work who have chosen to write
there
web apps in ASP.Net.
Those are my feelings on .Net. As to how this affects MapInfo. They are
a
corporation and they have bought into .Net hook line and sinker so if
you
want to keep developing for MapInfo products and you only know MapBasic
then
you will have to move to .Net if you want your products to stay
relevant.
Just ask all the VB6 programmers out there what is happening to their
share
of the market to get an idea of what is going to happen to MapBasic. Who
knows maybe MapInfo will write a MapBasic.Net compiler. It wouldn't be
that
hard clr compilers are pretty easy to write. But you will move to .Net
one
way or the other unless your customers don't upgrade their MapInfo. By
buying into .Net MapInfo corp. will drag the developers who write for
their
products along with it.
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