C# & CLI Standardization
  Checkout this article on the status of the ISO ratification of C# and the CLI (via Lambda the Ultimate.) While standardizing the language is certainly a step in the right direction, the thing that is really important is to standardize the APIs. Here's a key excerpt from the article:

Analysts said the C# and CLI submissions from Microsoft to ECMA and now ISO define only a subset of the .Net Framework that makes it possible to share data with applications on other operating systems. Not included, for example, is software needed to define a Windows or Web graphical user interface. Consequently, the portable programs people could write using C# and CLI are in practice limited to being non-graphical--for example, a credit card authentication service that another computer uses, not a human who would need a user interface. Also missing from the submission is the .Net code needed to access databases.

It's no skin off Microsoft's back to standardize the language & CLI (good for PR). As long as they don't standardize the APIs they will still effectively maintain their monopoly as applications written will be, in all likelyhood, using APIs only available on the Windows platform.
12:16:23 PM    comment ()