GNOME, Mono, Xamarin founder Miguel de Icaza leaves Microsoft

Just months after Nat Friedman quit as CEO of Microsoft-owned GitHub, his Xamarin co-founder has also ejected from the Windows giant. Miguel De Icaza joined Microsoft when it acquired Xamarin in 2016, which marked the beginning of a change in Redmond's mobile strategy. He has spoken to The Reg before about how different …

[Anonymous Coward]

Stockholm syndrome

Its been this way for a long time with Gnome and Mono. I have always suspected that Gnome failures as an UI is a trojan horse influence from the Embrace Extend Extinguish gang. Mono is attempts to undermine the security of linux and oss in general.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention "Evangelism Is War".....

....and in this case, evangelism for ".NOT".....

(1) Some of us would like to see more evangelism for less lock-in, less corporate............so less M$, less Apple, less NSA......

(2) .....and more personal access to transparency......who sees my stuff?....where is my stuff being copied, reused and sold?......

I'll be much more convinced about "open" when I see more evangelism for items #1 and #2!!!

Signed: Long-term Linux user and AC!!

[anticlimber]

Re: Stockholm syndrome

I hated Gnome when I first encountered it -- too different from what I was used to. It's now my desktop environment of choice. It's minimal in all the right ways, and just "gets it done".

I interacted with Miguel a few times professionally a long time ago. First class guy, first class thinker.

"Embrace Extend Extinguish"? You're skating to where the puck was 15 years ago. Microsoft makes a ton of money by being a trusted partner for corporations. Those corporations aren't stupid -- they're making choices, and they're fully aware of lock-in and other factors. It's often cheaper for them to stay with what they have...but they like options.

Cross-platform Mono is another option.

I work for a competitor to Microsoft. It's important to be realistic about the value proposition MSFT offers -- to compete better.

[Youngone]

Re: Stockholm syndrome

I agree entirely with your sentiments about the Gnome desktop.

I find it an absolute joy to use.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Stockholm syndrome

when the "choices" that projects and companies make fall IN LOCKSTEP with the HORRIBLE/BAD directions that Micros~1 often takes (starting with the 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFACE FLATASS look of Windows since 8.0) I have to wonder how "benevelent" their influence is...

(Gnome since 3.0 is a CLASSIC example)

I like gnome before 3.0 - which is why I use MATE instead. And *NO* *FLATASS* *THEMES* on *MY* *DESKTOP* !!! (Adwaita, PACK SAND! I jump through hoops to make that GO AWAY)

[captain veg]

Re: Stockholm syndrome

I too I hated Gnome when I first encountered it, back in the late 1990s. It looked like it had been crayoned by some talented programmers with no design sense whatsoever. So I moved to KDE on SuSE, which looked like, at least, someone with at least a minimal aesthetic awareness might have been involved.

These days all desktops (that I'm aware of) work reasonable sanely and look like someone cared about the design. As it happens, I'm now using Cinnamon, which is rather plain but not actually childish and pretty functional. I could easily be tempted back to KDE.

As for Gnome, have they sorted out the insane scrollbar behaviour?

-A.

[Tom 7]

I sometimes wonder what he might have achieved

rather than following a sub prime protection racket.

[karlkarl]

I still remember when a trivial note taking application (Tomboy) written in .NET was included in Gnome 2. Dragging in the *whole* of Mono.

I ran a mile from Gnome then; I realised they were either incompetent or they were corrupt. I didn't want to engage with them in either case.

[Anonymous Coward]

On that note...

Where is Stephen Elop, the Microsoft man who headed up Nokia, working now?

[Youngone]

Re: On that note...

Where is Stephen Elop, the Microsoft man who headed up Nokia, working now?

Good question. I did a little checking, and it looks like after Microsoft sacked him he got a job at Telstra in Australia, but they seem to have figured him out fairly quickly, because he only lasted a couple of years there, then he was sacked by some aviation company I had never heard of.

He'll be fine though. He has a vast pile of cash to keep him company.

[Doug 3]

Re: On that note...

Stephen Elop is at Digital.ai as CEO and on their BoD too.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Tomboy

ACK. It was a SEETHING MOMENT of HIDEOUS from my perspective... (fortunately got corrected once the flames subsided, though it took WAY longer than I would have preferred)

[F. Frederick Skitty]

I first encountered De Icaza when he was involved with writing Linux drivers for the graphics cards in Sun workstations. This was achieved by reverse engineering how they worked as there was no documentation. Clearly a very bright guy regardless of your opinions on GNOME or Mono.