back to article Microsoft in OPEN-SOURCE .Net love-in with new foundation

Microsoft has opened its .Net programming framework to the developer community by releasing the code for a broad range of .Net-related software as open-source projects under the stewardship of a new, dedicated foundation. The surprise announcement came during the Thursday keynote at Redmond's annual Build developer conference …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good for those who have to slave for the evil empire.

    Poison for the rest.

  2. Hans 1
    Windows

    Thanks for the source ...

    ... the best example of how not to code ... nobody wants to be owned by a bitmap.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Thanks for the source ...

      And no-one wants to be owned by a simple thing like a font.

      http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-2078-1/

      Glasshouses and all that?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Thanks for the source ...

        Indeed, nasty things those fonts!

        http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-078

        http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-053

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Thanks for the source ...

        I might be wrong, but I think that was the point the previous poster was trying to make: by having the source you can see¹, and learn from, those vulns.

        ¹ Hopefully. Depends on the project, its popularity, and how it's managed.

  3. Benjol

    You missed F#, which is now open source to the point of accepting pull requests.

    Also interesting to note that both are git-based.

    Personally I think this is great news, and contrary to Hans 1, I'm looking forward to seeing how the big boys code.

    1. Tom 7

      No Benjoi

      we didnt.

  4. Stephen Channell
    Happy

    good start...

    Roslyn is the real meat here because many of the other libraries are apache open source already, which is great, but the next step is to offer the MS .NET runtime for {Unix,linux bsd,posix} deployment, very few will use it, but will settle concerns about Mono performance/compatibility.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Back to developers, developers, developers

    Ironically, we've had to wait for the one that coined the phrase to fly away to see some more steps in that direction... not really, what has happened is that Ballmer used developers to spread the Windows application portfolio. Once MS reached world domination, they started to look for other means of locking in customers.

    Hopefully this will spur cross platform development using .Net technology, to the point of having a decent set of tools that don't have any hard locks with the Windows world. Which ironically for a technology invented to displace Java, is the only way for .Net to survive at least as long as Java has.

    Perhaps MS has not realized the irony that becoming more open makes easier for their customers to move away from their software? Or it is that they intend to compete on price and quality instead of "embrace, extend, extinguish"? I'd really welcome the former, and the latter would be business as usual.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Back to developers, developers, developers

      'Perhaps MS has not realized the irony that becoming more open makes easier for their customers to move away from their software?'

      Why would that be ironic. Surely it's just risk?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RMS on De Icaza ..

    "De Icaza has long been one of the most vocal proponents of open-source development using Microsoft technologies"

    'The project looks to be concerned with permitting “Open Source” programs to work on the Windows platform and thus divert valuable developer time away from free platforms such as Gnu/Linux.`

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Icaza

      Never met the guy and I really haven't heard much of what he's up to for the last few years, but it should be remembered that, prior to his involvement in Gnome, he had tried to join Microsoft but was unsuccessful, IIRC, due to not having a degree and therefore not being eligible for a visa at the time.

      Not a criticism, but he's always come across to me as having something of a fixation with Microsoft and I always thought it's a matter of time before he joins their ranks (I have nothing against that, on the contrary--see below).

      On the other hand, I do sort of blame him for Gnome, him being one of the main drivers behind it.

      I have development experience with Gtk+ and in my opinion that's a fine toolkit for lightweight GUIs (I used it for GUIs running on embedded devices in the early 00's), so I am not criticising that at all--besides, Icaza has nothing to do with it. But Gnome the desktop environment... ☹ ☹ ☹ Something which is neither a proper lightweight environment nor a technologically and ergonomically advanced one. With apologies to the many talented devs that have worked on it over the years, but I find it disappointing both as a developer and as a user, and I think the FOSS desktop ecosystem would have been much better without the distraction and expense caused by Gnome.

      Not saying that Icaza has intentionally tried to sabotage FOSS on the desktop, but really, I'd rather he would have gone and got himself a degree and joined MS back in the day.

      Just my opinion, with all due respect to Icaza. Feel free to disagree.

  7. Lapun Mankimasta

    Best thing is that Microsoft is now putting its money where its mouth is with regards to software patents, or at least in relation to the dotNET ones. I'd still like to see Microsoft release most of its obsolete OSes and software development environments and productivity software under the GPL v3 so as to declare an enforceable "software patent truce", and redirect money from the law courts to software development and the solution of problems instead of their creation. (Of course, Microsoft would need to talk to IBM and HP about them open-sourcing the obsolete OS/2 and VMS source trees as well, since Windows and WinNT are bound up with those two source thickets as well.)

    1. El Andy

      @Lapun Mankimasta: "I'd still like to see Microsoft release most of its obsolete OSes and software development environments and productivity software under the GPL v3"

      Even if they wanted to, they couldn't, because the GPLv3 places a number of restrictions on what you can do in source code that are incompatible with existing software bases.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > because the GPLv3 places a number of restrictions on what you can do in source code that are incompatible with existing software bases.

        ??? - Such as?

  8. nematoad
    Thumb Down

    Hmm

    "...an independent group [that] will include representatives from Microsoft Open Technologies and Redmond's .Net development team, along with Xamarin CTO Miguel de Icaza".

    Doesn't look very independent to me.

    Let's see:

    A company representative, a company representative and a MS shill.

    Nope, just a blind to fool the naive and unwary.

    At least de Icaza had the courtesy to use a Mac and not a Linux box to demonstrate his latest Trojan Horse.

    As the old saying goes: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    .NET - wasted opportunity

    When .NET was announced, back in 2000, I'm pretty certain it was mentioned as layer which would (could or should) be platform agnostic. I.e. - it didn't *have* to run on Windows. As long as the .NET framework was supplied, an application would run.

    I thought at the time it was a clever move, as it meant MS could still punt a .NET version of Office to other OS users - Mac and Linux being key.

    Why did it never pan out that way ?

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: .NET - wasted opportunity

      I thought at the time it was a clever move, as it meant MS could still punt a .NET version of Office to other OS users - Mac and Linux being key.

      Why did it never pan out that way ?

      • The MS Office code uses a lot specific, private calls to the Operating System and is not restricted to the published APIs.
      • For marketing reasons Microsoft chose to re-implement / merge the Windows visual interface control code in the application itself rather than pass rendering of user interface elements to the Operating System. This does present a consistent interface but is against the point of a windowing environment such as the Windows shell.
      • MS Office uses a lot of Windows specific features and functions. Such as the registry, ActiveX, and local and domain security functionality. These would have to be abstracted properly within the code base, skipped or re-implemented somehow in a different Operating System.
      • .NET is .dll hell taken to extreme levels. MS would have to specifically recreate this level of pain for other Operating Systems.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: .NET - wasted opportunity

      The rest of the functionality was too Windows specific to work elsewhere and nobody would use .NET if it couldn't interact with standard Windows stuff.

  10. Alistair
    Coat

    apparently *nix desktops are worth looking at

    A/V for linux anyone? (frisk's product is decent, but really, do we want that beast from Intel ?)

    I do hope that the ASP.Net stuff is thoroughly severed from the OS connections it relies on now.

    Personally I'd still not be inclined to install (.NET) anything on my desktop.

    That said, despite DLL hell on the MS side, this will make some things (hint, games) more likely to see the light of day on the *nix side of the battle.

    1. bailey86

      Re: apparently *nix desktops are worth looking at

      Certain parts of ASP.NET were IE specific even when it was about version 2.x - browser repositioning being one. Also, it was supposed to be clean enough that you could just write code - but I found that anything non-trivial needed VS - which then compiled in all sorts of stuff and made deployment a nightmare.

      I really tried with ASP.NET, I really did - but LAMP proved to be far more powerful and deployable.

  11. Tom 7

    Open Source Love In

    It might work if there's enough opens source developers out there into S&M.

  12. Robert Grant

    Still a gratuitous risk?

    Given that they've open sourced the .NET SDK, how is Stallman's quote still relevant?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Move on, nothing to see

      Stallman hasn't been relevant for years except to small group who think software is politics.

      1. Ian 55

        Re: Move on, nothing to see

        Software /is/ politics.

        Anyone who thinks otherwise is just where marketing departments want them.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Move on, nothing to see

        > Stallman hasn't been relevant for years

        Please note that the previous poster was not inquiring about the relevance of Stallman, but of something he said in the past.

        Reading comprehension first, mate. Voicing opinions second.

        1. Robert Grant

          Re: Move on, nothing to see

          Wow, that's the most reasonable thing someone's ever said on here. Thanks!

  13. lleres

    And yet..

    Not a single shit was given by neither open nor closed source developers.

  14. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Meh

    Call me cynical but…

    … doesn't this smell a bit like Microsoft looking to dispose of code it no longer wants to maintain itself? Happy to be proved wrong on this.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Call me cynical but…

      Indeed. Let me join you in your cynicism.

      If the article is to be believed, all the freed software is compilers and language tools. Given the maturity of this branch of software engineering (yacc and lex are as old as I am), I'd have thought writing a C# compiler was the least of your problems in trying to make C# or .NET useful on non-Windows platforms. Even if it weren't, Microsoft already give away a perfectly usable C# compiler.

      Have they also released the extensive framework libraries that you need to do anything useful? Is this the same .NET that was pushed into the sidings with the announcement of WinRT a year or so back? Is there anyone at Microsoft who would be excited to be moved to the .NET team today?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like