<div dir="ltr">Leigh, the potential issue is specifically one of licensing in commercial applications that rely on Mono, not viability of the platform:<br><br><a href="https://xamarin.com/licensing">https://xamarin.com/licensing</a><div>
<br></div><div>Note that licensing of Mono is necessarily required. As I understand it, it is a potential issue only in some deployment situations, but the potential does exist - ignoring it won't make it go away. At the very least someone needs to understand the potential implications before they can decide whether it is relevant to them.<br>
<br><br><div>As for the viability of Mono, some might say that Xamarin/Mono had better prospects on non-Microsoft platforms before MS got involved. I do have to wonder how it is in Microsoft's interests to attract and support developers for what are after all competitor platforms ?</div>
<div><br></div><div>I can't help but recall that it was Microsoft, after all, that coined the phrase "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish" ? ;)<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>On the technical front, the fact remains that a Xamarin app relies on Mono. Just as a FireMonkey app has the FireMonkey runtime bundled in with every app, every Xamarin app has a built-in copy of the Mono VM, which is why "Hello World" in those solutions require you to set your units of measurement to MBs.<br>
<br><div>As developers we have become very used to VAST amounts of storage at our disposal. 1GB for an app ? Pah. Who cares ? Get a bigger HDD if you need one and stop complaining. :)<br><br>But mobile devices are a different kettle of fish. User storage is often not freely expandable and if you are thinking of targeting "wearables" or the internet of things in the future, the amount of storage in future devices is likely going to be even more limited in those cases.</div>
<div><br><br></div>Meanwhile, the production version of my battery widget for Android (developed using RemObjects Oxygene) weighs in at a hefty, eye-watering, SD card straining ..... 37 KB. And I wasn't even <b>trying</b> to save space when I wrote it. :)<br>
<br><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nz.co.deltics.batterywidget">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nz.co.deltics.batterywidget</a><br><br>Unfortunately it's impossible to compare with a FireMonkey version of the same thing since it's impossible to <b>create</b> such a thing using FireMonkey. ;)</div>
<div><br>However, I believe it is possible with Xamarin, and it could be interesting to make that comparison one day.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 11 July 2014 14:42, Leigh Wanstead <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:leigh.wanstead@gmail.com" target="_blank">leigh.wanstead@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi Jolyon,<div><br></div><div>What you said is not an issue related to Mono. Xamarin becomes a partner with Microsoft.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://xamarin.com/pr/xamarin-microsoft-partner" target="_blank">http://xamarin.com/pr/xamarin-microsoft-partner</a><br>
</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>.net developer has a better future on Mono than microsoft :-)</div><div><br></div><div>Regards</div><div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">Leigh</font></span><div class="">
<br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 11 July 2014 13:59, Jolyon Smith <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jsmith@deltics.co.nz" target="_blank">jsmith@deltics.co.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Xamarin relies on Mono, with potential licensing and runtime implications for commercial developers.<br>
<br></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list<br>
Post: <a href="mailto:delphi@listserver.123.net.nz">delphi@listserver.123.net.nz</a><br>
Admin: <a href="http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi" target="_blank">http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi</a><br>
Unsubscribe: send an email to <a href="mailto:delphi-request@listserver.123.net.nz">delphi-request@listserver.123.net.nz</a> with Subject: unsubscribe<br></blockquote></div><br></div>