[CLUE-Tech] Apache Web Server and VB code

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Jeffery Cann wrote:

> On Sunday 07 April 2002 03:50 pm, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> > Disclaimer: I think Mono is a Very Bad Idea. Microsoft is
> > pushing the idea of Web services - this would have been a good
> > time to deliver something new and useful before the Redmond
> > Gorilla that might get more people to switch to Linux/*BSD/Hurd
> > or anything else. Instead we're going to end up playing catch
> > up yet again.
>
> Z -
>
> I disagree.  The concept of web services has been around for at least two
> years - SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL are all open protocols to publish 'web
> services'.  .NET uses them for publication and so does Sun ONE.  These
> standards are actually the brain child of Tim Berners-Lee and others on the
> W3C panels.  So, yes there are open source implementations of these protocols.

Right -- they all exist, but there isn't a coherent focal point
for "Web services" like .NET or Sun ONE for Linux/*BSD. What
I'm saying is that it's a mistake for Ximian, and any other
Linux-related company, to jump on the .NET bandwagon and go
chasing the ever-changing Microsoft "standards." It gives .NET
an air of legitimacy for Miguel (who I used to respect...) to
go around saying how neat it is and jumping on creating an
implementation of .NET. It's guaranteed to make Linux look
bad by comparison because MONO will never be able to be feature
complete - they're always going to be chasing M$, and the
blame will go to Open Source rather than where it belongs --
on M$. I'd really like to see a different standard promoted
that causes M$ to have to play catch-up for a change.

What really puzzles me is Ximian getting behind .NET instead of
Sun ONE -- considering GNOME is supposed to become the default
Solaris desktop, you'd think that they'd throw their support
behind someone at least mildly friendly to Linux and Free Software.

> BTW - After spending a week talking about web services at JavaOne - the
> industry is still finding exact definitions of the marketing term 'web
> services'.  My bet is that web services, like 'push technology' and 'web
> portals' will be the Next Big Thing (that later dies on the vine).  Rarely is
> innovation planned, it just happens -- this is why the PC and the internet
> are so phenomenal.

I agree with this -- again, that's another reason it's a mistake
to hop on the .NET bandwagon. It just gives it more credibility,
which really isn't a good thing.

> The difference is that Microsoft has given it a cool-sounding name (.NET).
> Thus proving again their marketing savvy exceeds technical brain-power 10:1.
> Oh yeah, the other difference (unlike the CLI, which is a direct rip-off of
> Java) is that Microsoft's .NET won't support other operating systems -- but
> we knew this, didn't we?

Yeah, I guess LAMP doesn't really excite people too much as a
marketing term...  :)

I will say this -- I honestly believe that Microsoft probably
does have some pretty good technical folks. The problem is
that they use their "powers" for evil rather than good. Maybe
evil is an overstatement but let's think about this for
a second -- would someone like Alan Cox or Patrick Volkerding
be willing to work on a project like making a word processor
document format obfuscated so that other word processors
couldn't open the document? There are developers (probably
pretty smart ones) who actually go to work and say "well,
let's figure out how to munge this format so people
HAVE to keep using our product."

The way I see it there are two alternatives, in thirty years we
can be telling our kids (or grandkids, depending...) about the
"bad old days" when a thoroughly nasty company dominated the
personal and business computing market, or we can be telling
them about the "good old days" when there were alternatives
to Microsoft.

Take care,

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
http://www.DissociatedPress.net/
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