Seraphis Cain said:
This obviously means a new PS3 web browser is coming.
The Mono project has gone beyond both of those components and has developed and integrated third party class libraries, the most important being: Debugging APIs, integration with the Gnome platform (Accessibility, Pango rendering, Gdk/Gtk, Glade, GnomeUI), Mozilla, OpenGL, extensive database support (Microsoft only supports a couple of providers out of the box, while Mono has support for 11 different providers), our POSIX integration libraries and finally the embedded API (used to add scripting to applications and host the CLI,
No, the choice to use Mono...
if PS Suite is based on Mono, may have required support for Gnome/GTK because it's a replacement/alternate to the Sony Network Application Platform (SNAP). All 2011 Sony Networked platforms (TVs and Blu-ray players) as well as the SNAP developers web site now MIA have/had Gnome Mobile Libraries as does the PS3 GTKwebkit port and most likely the Vita (which will be confirmed in a required LGPL disclosure when it's launched in the US). This only applies to applications and libraries that might be called by games.
Given the OLPC elinux OS UIs used Python (VM) scripts calling Gnome Libraries, Vita UIs may be Mono doing the same. Mono is more efficient/faster with more security for IP but incurs a Fee for it's use. [/B]
Any Gnome applications written for the Vita (if it's using Gnome libraries and that now includes webkit) would be portable using Mono to Android or any other Mono supported platform. If, as I have speculated, the PS3 OS is getting a rewrite to use Gnome libraries (GTKwebkit) then any Vita networking applications like Skype or Facebook or Near or many of the Vita features will be easily portable to the PS3.
Mono may never
need to be ported to the PS3 as it already supports Gnome (Speculation Edit: no longer speculation after the Charles Ying Post, also depends on the definition), is a closed platform and has PS1 and PSP emulation. For convenience and marketing Mono may be ported to the PS3 so any PS Suite application can be run on any Sony certified Platform including the PS3 but that's a management decision.
*****************
The SNAP (Sony Network Application Program) was on-line April of 2010 then put on hold several months later and eventually deleted in 2011. Key Gnome libraries have been ported to Android, iOS and Windows and were known to be in-progress when SNAP was put on-line. 2011 network connected Sony Blu-ray players and TVs contained core Gnome libraries running in a eLinux OS.
SNAP was an effort to use GNU/Gnome compiled to native language using Objective-C. Mono uses/calls the API of the compiled to native language Gnome libraries but Mono applications are C# running on a Virtual Machine. permitted by the Android NDK/SDK and NACL. I expect as has been mentioned in this thread, the ability to seamlessly have games and applications on multiple POSIX platforms with Mono was more attractive.
I'd guess that Sony knew the following was coming sometime summer 2010 and put SNAP on hold. This was made possible by Google releasing the
Android NDK/SDK revision 5 allowing native code 12/2010
http://www.mail-archive.com/mono-devel-list@lists.ximian.com/msg25494.html said:
Mono-dev] [PATCH] more support for Google Native Client
Elijah Taylor
Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:13:09 -0800
Sony announces PS Suite Jan 29th 2011 and deletes the SNAP site.
http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_2.10#Google_Native_Client_Support said:
Google Native Client Support Feb 15th 2011
This release adds support for Google's Native Client, a technology that allows native code to be executed as a web application in a secure fashion. Google's Native Client contains a native code verifier that enforces a set of programming patterns in the native code and enforces what the code can and can not do. This allows developers to use native code while giving users of those technologies a peace of mind, knowing that the code will be executed in a security sandbox that wont let malicious code get access to confidential data, or compromise your system.
The support for Native Client allows Mono's virtual machine, garbage collector and Just-in-Time compiler to be used inside a Native Client sandbox.
http://downloads.snei-opensource.com/pub/webkit/ and if you inspect the required PS3 GTKwebkit disclosure it contains references to GTK toolkit (GDK/GTK), Cairo, Gstreamer, Pango and the Sony INTERNAL libraries list most of the Gnome Shell libraries.
Please read
The Gnome Mobile Embedded Initiative just so we can be sure we are on the same page.
Gnome Technologies
ATK · Bonobo · D-Bus · GConf · GLib · Keyring · GVFS · GObject · GStreamer · GTK+ · Mono · Pango · Vala -- Drawing uses Cairo; I.E. Pango is designed to work with Cairo, GTK+ with Cairo or Cairo-Clutter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software) said:
Mono can be run on Android, BSD, iOS, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris, and Unix operating systems as well as some game console operating systems such as the ones for the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360.
The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative (GMAE), also known as GNOME Mobile, is an initiative for developing and promoting the use of the GNOME platform in mobile devices. It was announced at the Embedded Linux Conference in Santa Clara, California on April 19, 2007.[1]
September 2007 Collabora demonstrated Gstreamer with Cairo bindings for GTKwebkit
November 2007 Sony sent a PS3 developer kit to Collabora.
September 28th 2009 PS3 firmware 3.0, according to Hirari, was a complete PS3 OS rewrite to support Media and Networked Media. Video introduction, the Future of digital Media, was played and featured Augmented Reality and overlays which can be supported by Gstreamer with Cairo bindings.
April 2010 3-D games released.
October 2010 Firmware 3.5 contained a webkit javascript engine which Sony disclosures indicate was Target=GDK/GTK using gstreamer for HTML5 video with rendering using CairoGL (Open
GL Speculation based on the drawing backend being "PS3" placed in the webkit diff file where OpenGL would have been) 3.5 also contained blu-ray 3-D movie support but both Sony Network connected Blu-ray players (which disclosures have Gnome libraries (Cairo/Pango/Gstreamer/Glib/D-buss)) and the
PS3 could not support lossless audio. With Gstreamer 1.0 released, PS3 firmware 3.7 now supports both blu-ray 3-D lossless audio and Dolby 7.1 for audio redirected to the new USB wireless headphones.
March 2011 Sony PS3 webkit disclosures have a complete GNOME GTKwebkit disclosure
My belief is that 3.0 was a rewrite using some of the Gnome libraries, at least Cairo & Gstreamer.
RE: Python & theBishop comment; in 2009 software developers were commenting that the ideal development language (could be personal bias & I'm not trying to start a fight) would be Python (because of it's syntax and ease of use) but with Mono implementation because Mono developers were doing a better job.
RE: Sony delay in implementing PS Suite. If you look to the completion date for the latest major revision in the Mono site I cited it's Feb 15th 2011 (Sony announced PS Suite Jan 29th 2011) and Gnome Libraries are going through a major revision to 1.0 (or Stable) this year...finished by the end of the year. Games for the most part would not need Gnome support.