Xamarin Open-Sourced

It has been super exciting watching this all unfold over the last year, for those wondering where to get started in the new world of .NET open source - start here:<p>.NET CLR Managed Runtime - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;coreclr" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;coreclr</a><p>.NET Framework - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;corefx" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;corefx</a><p>.NET Compiler as a Service (&quot;Roslyn&quot;) - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;roslyn" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;roslyn</a><p>.NET Orleans Actor Framework - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;orleans" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;dotnet&#x2F;orleans</a><p>Mono Framework - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;mono&#x2F;mono" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;mono&#x2F;mono</a><p>Xamarin iOS, Watch, Mac Bindings and Framework - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;xamarin&#x2F;xamarin-macios" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;xamarin&#x2F;xamarin-macios</a><p>Xamarin Android Bindings and Framework - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;xamarin&#x2F;xamarin-android" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitter.im&#x2F;xamarin&#x2F;xamarin-android</a><p>Everything is licensed under the MIT license w&#x2F;patent pledges.

Honestly, I am a little tired of all the articles (edit: I meant posts) claiming MS is suddenly in the Open Source camp.<p>To truly support Open Source, they should show a willingness to work against Software Patents. The essence of Open Source is the freedom for anyone with a computer to turn their imagination into code. MS remains one of the biggest obstacles in that path.<p>Instead here is what they do:<p>1) Directly attack the Linux kernel in Android through patents<p>2) Sell patents to trolls like Intellectual Ventures, and directly fund them via investments<p>3) Support the cartel called BSA, which includes other luminaries like Oracle (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bsa.org&#x2F;about-bsa&#x2F;bsa-members" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bsa.org&#x2F;about-bsa&#x2F;bsa-members</a>).<p>Honestly, say what you will about Google, but I can&#x27;t imagine them ever threatening another software company with software patents.

First thought: Xamarin is now open source—great!<p>Second thought: Every time I looked into Xamarin (and I do this every 6 months) there was a lack of killer apps created with Xamarin on both iOS and Android, users&#x27; experiences with Xamarin were either rare or negative and in total the community felt non-existent<p>Third thought: Ok got it, they open source to get PR, build a community; I hope that helps and it&#x27;s not their last resort<p>So, <i>is</i> Xamarin really a viable solution?

Quick question for .NET developers: is there a solution for totally command line driven workflows yet? I really don&#x27;t want to mess around with .SLN files and IDEs like Visual Studio and MonoDevelop. I&#x27;m sure VS is fine for people who like it, but I really want something like `cargo build` or `go build`.

I just wish they didn&#x27;t kill RoboVM. I get the warm and fuzzies when something big is open sourced just like everyone else. Then I snap back to reality and remember that it&#x27;s ultimately the same organisation that close-sourced RoboVM then killed it, screwing over a lot of people depending on it.

I&#x27;m glad to see Microsoft embracing Open-Source, C# is such a wonderful language and easy language to use. In light of all the trouble Oracle has been giving Google, I would love to see them embrace it and provide a true alternative to Java on Android.

Crazy seeing those Novell copyrights in the headers! I totally forgot about them and their relationship to Xamarin.

This is amazing! But question - where is RoboVM? Please release to MIT license so it doesn&#x27;t waste all of the work done so far.

This is great news!<p>Last time I used it (more than a year ago) it was still felt quite buggy. That being said, has anyone successfully used Xamarin or have an example of a large and successful app built with it?

Now only if .NET adoption on Linux would pick back up like when Mono was pushing it. .NET is a great environment for developing desktop applications and Linux really needs them.

Now RoboVM too please. It&#x27;s almost criminal that they canned it.

Now my only remaining qualm with Xamarin is this: Having two garbage-collected environments interacting within the same program, as is the case with Xamarin on Android, just seems pathologically complex. Does anyone have enough experience with Xamarin on Android to know if this is ever a problem in practice?<p>Edit: I wonder if the Xamarin.Android developers ever considered compiling CIL to JVM bytecode (which would then be compiled to Dex bytecode), then reimplementing mscorlib on top of the Java standard libraries. So basically, IKVM.NET in reverse. Then there&#x27;d be no bridging between two environments.

Nice, I&#x27;ve recently been honing my C# chops, so I&#x27;m super excited to see this arrive at such an incredible (for me) time.

With Forms we finally have native FOSS cross platform that we&#x27;ve been waiting for. See ya Cordova &#x2F; React Native &#x2F; etc!

So, what does this mean for Unity3D? I&#x27;m tired of being limited to .Net(-sorta-ish) 3.5 and a stuttering garbage collector.

Of course Xamarin was built on top of earlier Open Source work in MonoMac, you still could do OS X applications without actually paying for Xamarin but it wasn&#x27;t as easy as using Xamarin straight.<p>So this is also partly just giving back from where they took it.

Cool. Now bring back RoboVM.

Ok, so is there anything NOT being open sourced?<p>Is everything needed to actually be able to use it productively open source now?<p>Is Xamarin Studio open source?

Is linux support for xamarin.android planned?

As an aside, has anyone here created a Xamarin android app using material design? I was recently trying to integrate their component for the design support library, but it seemed horribly buggy.

What I don&#x27;t understand is why they had to purge the commit history. Did they not use Git internally? Do the commits contain sensitive information? Does it make it easier to clone the repo?

Looks like OS X only? (since I get a &quot;download for OS X&quot; link, but no reference to GNU&#x2F;Linux). Or am I missing something?

Now when will they make RoboVM open source?