How .Net is becoming more like Java everyday

I've noticed that the .Net community appears to becoming more like Java everyday, and it's nothing to do with the language. I haven't built any commercial .Net applications in over a year, but I have been using Java a lot of the last 6 months or so. While I don't rate Java as a language above or below any others (they all have plus/minus points after all), the most powerful thing about Java , in my opinion, is the community.

The amount of tools around the language is amazing, with arguably the best product being the Spring Framework. What I've noticed in the .Net community is a movement they're calling Alt.Net, which is embracing broad terms like agile and open source. The way I see it is that, whatever you think of the .Net Framework, it'll never do everything that everyone wants, just like the Java runtime will never be. These are people who have ideas and are moving towards community based development and moving away from reliance on Mircosoft.

This moves the discussion on somewhat, with all the new languages available on top of Java and .Net, the next arguments won't be Java vs .Net, it'll be JRE (Java Runtime Environment) vs CLR/DLR (Common/Dynamic Language Runtime). Both have a Ruby implementation, JRuby on the JRE and IronRuby on the DLR among a whole bunch of others. The only thing holding .Net back is Linux deployment, but the Mono Project is trying to solve that problem, and as they come more mature, it'll be interesting to see what runtime people will be deploying on. Will the amount of runtimes get smaller while the choice of language on each grows? I'm not sure, but I'll be watching.