back to article Untangling .NET Core: Open source for Windows, Mac, Linux

It is all change in the Microsoft .NET World, as the company takes the technology open source and cross-platform. But how will old and new fit together? El Reg speaks to Director of Program Management Jay Schmelzer. In early December Microsoft’s Immo Landwerth wrote a lengthy post explaining that Microsoft’s core development …

  1. Hans 1
    Thumb Down

    Win over ? Windows is over!

    > The open question is the extent to which Microsoft can win developers over to its new approach.®

    Better be good, have they hired anybody with so much as OpenSource ecosystem expertise ? It is actually pretty hard to muster developers if you have even the slightest link to Microsoft, look at Suse, what happened to them.

    Microsoft is OpenSource's self-appointed nme, they will only muster proprietary fanboys and I cannot believe these guyz will want their code to become open. Look at mono, it is dead, has been since inception - well, there is this ex-gnome dev who cannot be asked to configure a sound card on Linux that is helping out, but that is about it.

    No sane dev wants anything to do with MS, simple as that.

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: No sane dev wants anything to do with MS

      So everyone who disagrees with you is insane? Seems unlikely....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

      you sound like a clueless fanboy. mono isn't dead. mono was the foundation for xamarin which is thriving. Mono was always challenged because the open source folks can't keep up with MS's .net team. many libraries were missing and had bugs. With the new source using a sane ideal MIT license, mono can simply plug in the gaps.

      You're also missing the big picture here, this is all about azure. .NET developers have always wanted to get a piece of the action in linux, but they couldn't. That changes now. This will encourage developers to stay with MS and futher make azure really top choice since there is an ever increasing linux client base which will be able to shop the excellent mature .net apps they so far never been able to tap.

      So you better get used to seeing .net on linux and more MS stacks going there. The world has changed and the days of the linux stack being off limits to MS developers are over. This is excellent news for everybody. For MS, it makes their developers extremelly happy to continue investing on asp.net and .net core instead of going over the java or similar tech. Best of all, it attracts developers who wouldn't have touched .net because they required to be cross platform. More .net means more apps for windows server too, which wouldn't otherwise be made. Maybe the next word press, or big start up will be all .net based because there is no longer that binding to not run on linux.

      So regardless, it is a win win for MS. They get devs they wouldn't otherwise, windows server keeps getting more apps it wouldn't otherwise. And as far as linux usage, MS is happy if you pay for linux on azure. That is how they monetize it.

      cloud computing has changed the rules of the game. and MS is a cloud giant.

      1. thames

        Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

        neonspark - "you sound like a clueless fanboy. mono isn't dead."

        How can you kill that which does not live? Mono was never really alive outside of its current niche in console games and mobile apps. After more than a decade since its 1.0 release, it's never had any real success in server applications or in desktop applications outside of a few demo programs (which are now dead).

        neonspark - "NET developers have always wanted to get a piece of the action in linux, but they couldn't. "

        Why couldn't they? Mono's 1.0 release was more than a decade ago. There was nothing stopping Dotnet developers from using it on server or desktop. Why would that suddenly change now? Novell poured millions into Mono. The parts of Dotnet they didn't cover were parts they felt didn't have much relevance outside of Windows. Nothing that Microsoft has done recently makes much difference to that.

        neonspark - "there is an ever increasing linux client base which will be able to shop the excellent mature .net apps they so far never been able to tap. "

        So the future for Microsoft developers is to switch to Linux? I'll take your word for that. The question though is why do you think that Microsoft needs to be in this picture?

        And those "mature .net apps"? Novell poured many, many, millions of dollars into that vision. Money that they could have spent on other parts of their business. They found it was an illusion. Those applications couldn't be simply re-compiled, they had to be painfully ported and re-written. There were simply too many platform dependencies written into them. This wasn't just guesswork either, Novell wrote code analysis tools which they ran over commercial code bases belonging to their customers to determine this.

        When Attachmate bought Novell, they gave responsibility for Mono to the Suse Linux division, who promptly dropped it as a lost cause. This is why the newly redundant Mono developers went out and started Xamarin, to try to cash in on the hot mobile market.

        Your whole argument seems to be based on the idea that software developers who have spent their careers developing on MS Windows platforms are too dense to learn new things. That might be true in some cases, but for most its simply a matter of inertia. They're stuck in a rut like the mainframe Cobol programmers were back when PCs first came in.

        Here's a clue. It's not really that hard, and it won't cost any money. Download a nice boring Linux distro like Ubuntu, install it on a PC, and start learning. Try out Python, Ruby, NodeJS, or whatever takes your fancy. If you find yourself tied to a single vendor and living in fear of what boneheaded idea they'll come up with next, you're doing it wrong. "Linux" and free/open source software isn't about just being "the new thing". It's about competition, independence, and taking responsibility for your own direction. It's called the free market. If you need some authority like Microsoft to tell you what to think next, then maybe you would be more comfortable living in some place like North Korea.

      2. Hans 1

        Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

        >you sound like a clueless fanboy.

        I am not a Linux fanboy, sorry. Lets cut marketing crap and talk about the facts:

        Today, .Net only really runs on Windows. They tried to bring it to OS X and Linux with mono, traction failed to materialized. Most stuff simply DOES NOT run on mono. Back in the day, I approved mono, thought it was a good move. I have to acknowledge that there simply is no traction.

        Now, they are open sourcing the runtime and IDE. The legitimate question is why ? There is no valid reason, imho, for them to do that other than reacting to a difficult position. I do not believe your cloud BS ... they only offer Linux in the cloud as an option because they need to cater for their customers ... MS are not big in the cloud, they fail epically in terms of reliability - as the number of articles on el'reg attest. They cannot even renew certificates yearly, they made that mistake TWICE, not once, TWICE, in a run!!!!!

        So, lets assume, for one second, that .Net is as great as you say. That should be crown jewels and should be used to maintain Windows hegemony. Reality is it is crap, the ecosystem is losing developers in great numbers. Linux is gaining more and more momentum in the server rooms. Now, Linux/UNIX does not need .Net, we have the best of breed tools and interfaces, Linux/UNIX dev's will NEVER EVER embrace mono/.Net/WhatEverYouCallit as we have much better stuff already, and have had for decades.

        I could not care less for .Net/VB or whatever on Linux/UNIX, seriously, we do not care, we laud the effort, it simply does not fit into our paradigm. I am simply saying, the move proves that they have realized how futile they are.

    3. Lars Silver badge

      Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

      So what happened to Suse?

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

        They want on to make a great desktop, which I'm using now. My favourite feature is the centralised admin which means you don't have to hunt around for some odd-named binary to configure things.

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

        So what happened to Suse?

        It's still doing nicely, thanks. We (Micro Focus) own it now, thanks to the recently-completed merger with The Attachmate Group.

        Per the just-released interim results, it's a healthy product responsible for just shy of $182M in revenue in the previous financial year. Steady as she goes.

      3. Hans 1

        Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

        >So what happened to Suse ?

        The lost 80% of their backers, niche, now.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Win over ? Windows is over!

          >So what happened to Suse ?

          The [sic] lost 80% of their backers, niche, now.

          A $180M / year niche.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      @Hans

      No sane dev wants anything to do with MS, simple as that.

      Then there are tens of thousands of developers out there who might disagree with you, on either one or both statements (about dealing with Microsoft or regarding their sanity) ;) The thing is: you don't have to "deal with Microsoft" (much) in order to use their (development) technology. And sure, Microsoft has its share of problems when it comes to keeping their user and fan -base happy, but that doesn't mean that they don't provide have anything interesting at all.

      You know, I used to share your opinion regarding C#. Any sane Java developer would steer clear from that as best as they can, right? After all; it is a blatant rip-off from Java (MS trying their "embrace & conquer" technique) which in some ways is an insult to Java. Of course I totally overlooked the fact that Sun was actually happy about some parts because it also meant that Java definitely had its share of popularity.

      Then Oracle took over, starting to try and make money from just about everything Sun related (bye bye "geek licenses" (as I tended to call them: free licenses to Sun products restricted to non-commercial but not to production use. iow: you were free to run your hobby website on Sun One: the Sun Java Systems webserver and back it up with the Sun Java Systems Directory Server for example)) and I didn't really feel motivated anymore to even closely support this money squeezer (I'm surprised that they haven't started selling Netbeans already).

      So then I looked into .NET and C# and I learned that although there are similarities with Java it actually is a completely different environment. And, in my opinion, one which isn't half bad either.

      I primarily use ASP.NET and well; there are plenty of things which it can do which Java (EE) can't. Nothing negative about Java, and most certainly not a comment in the likes of "one is better than the other", they both have their place in my opinion.

      Did you know that ASP.NET is a full fledged OO environment where even the webpage itself is a class of its own (the System.Web.WebPages)? And did you also know that .NET supports partial classes? In short: a class definition which is divided over multiple files.

      This is the perfect recipe for webdevelopers in my opinion because it fully integrates with the HTML 4.0 ideology where contents (HTML) and design / markup (CSS) should be kept separate. You basically get to keep this model (in a base minimum only one identifier line will be added to the top of your HTML document) where it merely adds an extra component: a separate file in which you can do your coding (your web application code or business logic as MS likes to call it).

      Each to his own, but not having to dig through HTML code in order to check up on my programming has already saved me lots of time. From fixing programming errors right down to extending on already existing stuff.

      And the fun part? I also don't like the way Microsoft is going. I think quite poorly about Windows 8, I'm still sceptical about Windows 10 and I also think their choices with regards to their development platforms were highly questionable.

      That's one of the reasons why I'm now using all of this stuff on FreeBSD and Mono. All thanks to open source software.

      So if Microsoft wants to open source this stuff then I'd say let 'm. Chances are high that we'll all be able to benefit from it.

      IMO it's hardly as bad as you make it..

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just as you get tooled up to develop on .net core MS will shift the goalposts.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      if you develop asp.net apps, you're already tooled.

    2. dogged

      > Just as you get tooled up to develop on .net core MS will shift the goalposts.

      Okay, I'm seeing this a lot. So answer me one question - WHY?

      Why would they change the goalposts? Why would they piss off all the developers they're supporting by keeping the Framework as a subset of Core? Why do all that work on keeping people productive and then fuck 'em in the ear? For money? They'd lose money because that's less applications running on their systems and incentive to code for somebody else's.

      And yes, linux implementations are still "their" systems because (as a previous commenter stated) they're aiming for linux on Azure. Nadella comes out of MS's "Server & Tools" business. He's the one who's department has been open-sourcing stuff and enabling linux on Azure, even before he got the CEO job. His department made record profits year after year by providing platforms and development tools. Nobody knows more about how to make money by keeping devs happy than Nadella (and his evil svengali, Scott Guthrie).

      So again, WHY do you think MS would commit corporate self-harm by changing the goalposts? It makes no sense.

      And don't even bother with the "past history" line. Nadella has exactly zero past history of fucking with developers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ dogged, well I hope you are right only time will tell.

      2. P. Lee

        > they're aiming for linux on Azure

        No, they are aiming to make money and their problem right now is that they have little market share. They need market share so they need facilities. Once they have market share, they can cut back on support for other people's systems and guide them into an MS-only stack: Azure on Windows.

        Do you remember all the platforms NT3.5 used to support? (MIPS, Alpha...) The disk formats (including HFS), the non-MS authentication GUI (Novell)?

        Without market share and free stuff, people will use Linux instead of Windows, LDAP instead of AD, VMware, Docker instead of HyperV, especially in large-scale deployments where licensing is both difficult to manage and expensive.

        MS has found itself in a situation where the cloud has outpaced MS' ability to gain mind share. At cloud-scale, almost any licensing management becomes a problem. Now those facilities are leaking back towards the enterprise with things like docker. As TP says, open-source is becoming easy. MS needs to lock enterprises into their own cloud infrastructure before they outsource to a non-MS cloud infrastructure and then import those skills and facilities back in house. MS needs to offer MS devs an MS-based cloud they can jump to, rather than having them retrain to *nix. There maybe little money in cloud-provision, but there's plenty of money MS can lose if apps migrate away from Windows.

        MS may look as though its all love and peace to linux. It isn't. They are moving up the linux stack to get the apps. If they can get the apps, the marriage between MS and linux will be formalised with a red wedding.

        1. dogged

          > Do you remember all the platforms NT3.5 used to support? (MIPS, Alpha...) The disk formats (including HFS), the non-MS authentication GUI (Novell)?

          I don't see the relevance. People may joke about "wintel" but MS do not own Intel and do not even own any stock in Intel (see corporate report). They gain nothing by withdrawing support except a reduced support load on what were - even then - failing platforms.

          > MS may look as though its all love and peace to linux. It isn't. They are moving up the linux stack to get the apps. If they can get the apps, the marriage between MS and linux will be formalised with a red wedding.

          I bet you got that straight from David Icke via telepathy.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Just as you get tooled up to develop on .net core MS will shift the goalposts."

      Which is exactly why I abandoned MS platform development when they decided to change VB to .NET. By that point I was properly fed up with their constant changes in direction.

      1. dogged
        FAIL

        Yes, because everything should be exactly the same as it was 13 years ago. Spin that D-Ream album again, would you?

      2. serendipity

        "Which is exactly why I abandoned MS platform development when they decided to change VB to .NET. By that point I was properly fed up with their constant changes in direction."

        Jeez, get over it. VB6 was creeking back in 2001, do you seriously think it would have been fit for purpose now?! (Although to be fair, it still limps on as VBA).

      3. h4rm0ny

        "Which is exactly why I abandoned MS platform development when they decided to change VB to .NET. By that point I was properly fed up with their constant changes in direction"

        In abstract, what you say is true, but think about what you're saying - we're talking about moving away from Visual Basic 6. In what universe is that not a good thing?

    4. serendipity

      > Just as you get tooled up to develop on .net core MS will shift the goalposts.

      And can you name an area of IT where the goalposts aren't being ripped up constantly?

      Web Developer to his (developer mate):

      Hey I just learned XYZ language and the new hoki-koki framework, oh and that new JS library.

      Too bad man, they are like two years old now and so passé. Nobody uses that stuff anymore !!!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Be very careful with this "open" source .Net

    Patent protection is not baked into the license, it's merely a "promise" from MS.

    Given that, and MS's shady past, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Be very careful with this "open" source .Net

      What about java? that's an Oracle thing now and they did sue Google.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Be very careful with this "open" source .Net

        How do you get from "I dislike .Net" to "I love Java"?

        Oracle were (are) as dickly as MS. There is at least OpenJDK.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Be very careful with this "open" source .Net

      I wouldn't touch your argument with a barge pole. The license is MIT. When your argument relies on FUD, it has already lost.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    <whatever> is the future

    None of this sounds like a terribly bad idea, but Microsoft have had too many of these epiphanies. Every time they change direction, they leave behind armies of developers who have invested sweat and money in the last-greatest-thing.

    People are going to take a lot of convincing this time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: <whatever> is the future

      who are they leaving behind? .net core is a perfect superset of the .net framework. If you have an asp app it will just work, and now you can sell it to linux clients too. Why do you need to be convinced?

      1. amanfromarse

        Re: <whatever> is the future

        It's not a superset and I've no idea what a 'perfect' superset is.

        It's not even a subset as the two will expand independently and features 'may' be cross-ported.

  5. dogged

    after past disappointments such as Silverlight

    o rly?

    Name three others. Hell, name one other. Silverlight - supported through 2020 according to MS so hardly defunct - has become something of a meme for writers on the Register but assuming without knowledge that a myriad other frameworks have been dumped and then implying it in every damn article is... well, it's the kind of reporting I expect from the Daily Mail, not the Register.

    You might as well ignore the story altogether and just parrot Eadon's endless lies about .NET being deprecated and dead if you're going to do that.

    I expect it from commentards. Those that aren't simply hating on Microsoft for fashion reasons while reading their support scripts and claiming love for linux distros they have never used and wouldn't recognize if you installed it for them and painted the name on the monitor glass have very clear agendas (oh look, Hans 1 commented! calling it all lies, what a fucking shock) and great steaming biases they can't see past. I expect it from Gavin Clarke on the grounds that he's a cretin.

    But proper tech journalists, one hopes, should know better.

    (Some idiot will now go on about VB6 and somebody else will make a half-joke about FoxPro, neither of which are part of the .NET framework and are therefore irrelevant).

    1. John Sanders
      Linux

      You like MS Products

      Fine go along using then.

      But do not come with the history that MS has suddenly has become Mother Theresa and wants peace with the world, and are now a FOSS company.

      They have proved time and time again that they are very sleazy and very nasty even when they do not have to be.

      The two latest examples are the OXML debacle and Nokia, both Microsoft at its finest.

      1. dogged

        Re: You like MS Products

        OXML is indeed debatable but Nokia?

        What the hell are you blaming Microsoft for with Nokia?

        Oh, wait, no, let me guess - it's the usual tinfoil hat stupidity about Elop being a trojan horse who deliberately ruined Nokia so MS could buy their phone division, right? And presumably they also made that possible by using giant space-lizard mind control rays on the Nokia board of directors and they didn't really give Nokia any money at all, they actually STOLE all the money and Bill Gates is actually in the business of selling medical supplies.

        You're one of those.

        Okay. In that case, do us all a favour and fuck off.

        1. John Sanders
          Unhappy

          Re: You like MS Products

          @dogged

          The fact that you are rude and are poor educated to engage in civilized conversation leads me to think that you are someone who knows no better.

          I suggest you read more about how MS has been operating for 30 years, and what sort of activities Mr Gates gets engaged on besides the obvious headlines.

          Mr Gates charity work is at the bare least questionable, and bear in mind you brought him into the conversation.

          1. dogged

            Re: You like MS Products

            I see no benefit in attempting to converse civilly with tinfoil hat wearers.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: You like MS Products

          "What the hell are you blaming Microsoft for with Nokia?"

          Their Trojan Horse, Elop. MS is the reason we lost a decent, independent brand doing interesting things.

          1. dogged

            Re: You like MS Products

            Try posting with a username, AC. Then you can use the Black Helicopters icon.

          2. PNGuinn
            Black Helicopters

            Re: You like MS Products

            Personally I think the Jury's still out on whether Elop was a trojan horse or just plain disfunctionally incompetent.

            Personally I think being that daft would take a great deal of skill - but then MS seem to have had a uniquely successful training scheme in that arena. Have you considered that someone else might have been pulling his strings and then dropped the leash?

            One day we may know the truth. In the meantime I'm glad Its not me on the jury locked away in a seedy hotel room over the weekend - I fear the verdict will be while coming - shortage of black helicopters, you know.

            1. Captain DaFt

              Re: You like MS Products

              "Personally I think the Jury's still out on whether Elop was a trojan horse or just plain disfunctionally incompetent."

              Take a look his record, pre-Nokia:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#Career

              That man's been a catastrophe where ever he's in charge.

          3. GrumpyOldBloke

            Re: You like MS Products

            >Their Trojan Horse, Elop. MS is the reason we lost a decent, independent brand doing interesting things.

            Nokia was on the way out before Elop. Nokia had Android before Android but borked it. Stuck on an obsolete platform, behind the innovation curve, chasing the low end of the market and led by people who were great in their own eyes. Microsoft did Nokia a favour by taking that basket case off its hands. Nokia did Microsoft a favour by allowing so much value to be destroyed under Elop before they settled on a price. Win-Win. Pity about the shareholders but theirs was never going to be a happy lot anyway.

      2. dogged

        Re: You like MS Products

        and I note that you haven't in fact named any other frameworks MS has axed.

        Because there aren't any.

        People like you make me ashamed of the F/OSS movement (and yes, I contribute).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: You like MS Products

          you haven't in fact named any other frameworks MS has axed.

          I'll show you my CV.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: You like MS Products

            MFC (that deserved to die), VB6, Silverlight, Linq2sql, Winforms, WinPhone is constantly changing, VS macros, Setup + deployment projects.

            Do you see why people (who aren't emotionally tied to MS) are reluctant to commit to Microsoft any more? Once the technology have become mature and proven, and you've become a master at it - guess what happens?

            That's one of several reasons I've ditched MS - 15 years of being shafted.

            1. dogged

              Re: You like MS Products

              Okay, for a start we were talking about .NET tools and frameworks so MFC and VB6 are hardly the unit under test.

              linq2sql is still there and still works (although why you'd use it, I have no idea. It's basically inline SQL and an affront unto the the eyes of God). Winforms? Still alive, still horrible but you crack on. They ain't dead. Winphone used to be Silverlight - as noted, supported through 2020 so hardly dead - and Silverlight apps will still work on WP8.x but you can also do it the Metro way using a subset of the WinRT API and either C# and WPF or JavaScript and HTML or even C++ as you choose. So less "constantly changing" than "continually gaining options" but I do understand that doesn't sound nearly nasty enough for you to use here.

              VS macros.. granted. Although I doubt there were many full-time developers writing software specifically to run inside the IDE, especially at the macro level rather than the plugin level. Setup/Deployment projects deserved to die far more than MFC and, also, were not exclusive to .NET so again out of scope As are VS macros too. I still think you're seriously reaching with those anyway, did you Google this list?.

              Seriously, you can push this as hard as you like but the only valid complaint would be Visual J++ which nobody used anyway.

              1. amanfromarse

                Re: You like MS Products

                You've decided that the abandoned MS tech debate is limited to .Net only, nobody else has (oh, and you've also decided that Silverlight, VB6 and FoxPro can't be mentioned).

                This is a pattern that's built up over decades. I concede that some changes were necessary, but, for example, moving from VBXs to OCXs was of no benefit to devs, resulted in repurchasing for exactly the same functionality and typically introduced more bugs (which I blame on the mess that was OLE2). Killing VB (much as I hated it) was madness. MS had a massive userbase there. MDAC took years to stabilise and encompassed several abandoned technologies.

                My definition of 'supported' includes bug-fixes, enhancements and fixing behaviours that are major bug-bears for devs. Your definition of 'supported' seems to correspond to my definition of mothballed. All the big names in Silverlight and WPF dev have moved away, generally to non-MS platforms, because they considered the platforms dead. Are they idiots too?

                You also seem to think that code is just going to run on Linux. Have you tried to run anything non-trivial on mono? I don't know how long you've been on the MS stack, but based on my experience the reality for devs never matches the marketing and something as large as making .net cross-platform could take years to stabilise.

                I'm already seeing articles on using Nuget to deliver PCLs and platform-specific assemblies. I understand why they're doing it but it still makes me shiver.

                1. dogged

                  Re: You like MS Products

                  > You've decided that the abandoned MS tech debate is limited to .Net only, nobody else has (oh, and you've also decided that Silverlight, VB6 and FoxPro can't be mentioned).

                  No, I've decided that if you're going to claim that MS keep changing their minds and fucking over .NET developers, you should actually have some basis in fact for saying so.

                  Silverlight is (must we say this yet again?) still supported for another 6 years. VB6 and FoxPro do not affect .NET developers in the slightest. What part of this is too hard to understand?

    2. kend1

      One other

      > Name three others. Hell, name one other.

      from Wiki on XNA:

      According to an email sent on 31 January 2013, XNA is no longer actively being developed, and it is not supported under the new "Metro interface" layers of Windows 8 nor on the Windows RT platform.

      1. dogged

        Re: One other

        Good one.

        XNA is canned, yes. I forgot XNA. You are absolutely correct. It was kind of fun, too.

  6. John Sanders
    Linux

    Dear microsoft guy...

    Smiling for no reason in a picture on the Register.

    Release software using a GPL license and then, maybe then we may consider that you may have good intentions.

    Until then.

    In the words of the late Admiral Ackbar:

    IT'S A TRAP!!!!

    In my words: This vague opensourceish .net is nothing more than:

    A whitewash PR exercise for MS, mostly consisting on grabbing the press attention and filling google's index database with good "MS vibes" and an attempt to further's Microsoft's agenda at the expense of everybody else, what they always do**.

    **Note that they are on their right to do so, but they are not on their right to do it via deceptive means.

    1. dogged

      Re: Dear microsoft guy...

      GPL or nothing?

      Is the Apache 2 variant they've used not good enough for you?

      1. John Sanders

        Re: Dear microsoft guy...

        No, it is not good enough, the code may be open but the software its not free.

        Not with their reputation and past actions.

        Extraordinary claims (Microsoft being nice to anyone in the IT industry) requires extraordinary evidence.

        What most Windows people do not understand is that unless the OpenSourcing comes with no strings attached bad things happen (See MySQL and OpenOffice cases) and there is no point on use it then.

        .NET is both a development platform and an ecosystem, for anyone building anything complex in it, it represents huge cost and has lots of implications and uncertainty for the future.

        I call it a carrot and a stick, and the stick is huge

        1. dogged
          WTF?

          Re: Dear microsoft guy...

          > Not with their reputation and past actions.

          So what they do doesn't matter. Nothing they do matters. Nothing they ever do in the future matters. Only what they did in the past that cannot be changed.

          Tell me, how do you feel about Germans?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Dear microsoft guy...

            "So what they do doesn't matter. Nothing they do matters. Nothing they ever do in the future matters. Only what they did in the past that cannot be changed."

            What they do does matter. The point is they are not doing enough and still leaving themselves wiggle room to be bastards. MS can't just talk any more, they have to walk-the-walk. Their current license does not do this.

            1. localzuk Silver badge

              Re: Dear microsoft guy...

              You seem to have forgotten a key thing - Microsoft are a profit making corporation. They have to protect their assets, and that includes their IP. So, they are *never* going to just go and give it away with no wiggle room for them to operate in. It just won't happen, its not capitalistic.

          2. Matt Collins

            Re: Dear microsoft guy...

            Pathetic, why would you bring the Germans into this? You're starting to sound like a shill.

            1. dogged

              @matt collins

              > Pathetic, why would you bring the Germans into this? You're starting to sound like a shill.

              I (currently, having walked out of the law firm) work for a small precision engineering firm in Gloucestershire.

              Why bring the Germans into this? As an example of the fact that you cannot judge anything, not a country, not a company, not an individual, by what it was 20 years ago. Most MS hate around here is irrational and seems to stem from the mid 90s (ActiveX, bundling IE, calling the GPL a cancer were all around '94-'96). The "bullyboy" thing pretty much went with Gates. Ballmer may have been bombastic and isolationist (and his competence is often questioned despite his clear financial results) but he wasn't Larry Ellison by any stretch. Nadella is a whole different ballgame again - his record is one of opening APIs, releasing free tools and and co-operation with other companies.

              I see very little reasoning behind the blanket condemnations (of what are in the main, pretty good tools which would get better if more people didn't just dismiss them out of hand) and a whole lot of seemingly deliberate ignorance and prejudice. It's like they like having an enemy, regardless of what that enemy actually does.

              It's not rational behaviour, just stupid Stone Age tribalism and we, as people who solve problems with logic for our very livelihoods, should be better than that.

              1. dogged

                Re: @matt collins

                > we, as people who solve problems with logic for our very livelihoods, should be better than that.

                Except that little bell-end who just downvoted without reason or explanation. He's clearly no better than that.

              2. razorfishsl

                Re: @matt collins

                Obviously you have NOT used outlook 365....

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Dear microsoft guy...

            Seems a bit of a straw man argument..

            As someone who has eschewed the Windows platform for over a decade, I take your wider point that it's a bit much to blame the Microsoft of today for the Microsoft of yesterday, and really what else can they do but try to do better.

            As a developer, I welcome the appearance of openness from Redmond, but they lost mindshare so comprehensively that *today* open sourcing .Net is not enough to buy them any credibility.

            If you are only targeting Windows, sure thing .Net will do the trick, but if you want cross platform code, the only sane way is C or C++ in my opinion - where an actual specification exists and the language and runtime behaviour is well specified, with multiple interoperable implementations.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Dear microsoft guy...

              "the only sane way is C or C++ in my opinion"

              Also:

              Java - but never for client GUIs. Every Java UI I have ever see is clunky, slow, ugly and generally utter garbage.

              JavaScript - Node.js etc, usually in a browser. Not a great language, but seem to be hip wiv da yoof.

              Both allow you to hire low-skilled workers to get the job done, unlike C and C++ which require the coders to know what they are actually doing.

        2. localzuk Silver badge

          Re: Dear microsoft guy...

          As far as I can tell, they've not removed many frameworks from use... VB6 evolved into VB.Net, and it wasn't really a framework like this. Silverlight, ok, they've kinda depreciated it but they're supporting it until 2020, and considering it is a web technology and the pace at which the web moves, I'd say that's generous!

          You mention MySQL and OpenOffice, but as far as I can tell, both are current and developing projects. Sure, development of OpenOffice went through a dip, but that's the thing isn't it? Its open source, so Libre Office appeared to fill any perceived gaps. MySQL as well - problems with it? Forked and now MariaDB.

          1. dogged

            Re: Dear microsoft guy...

            They removed Visual J++ because (I think it was still Sun at the time) threatened legal action over the non-standard JVM implementation.

            Nobody missed it.

            I honestly can't think of anything else.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Dear microsoft guy...

            VB6 evolved into VB.Net

            That's like saying C evolved into C#.

            They're completely different languages, sharing a similar syntax if you squint your eyes.

    2. serendipity

      Re: Dear microsoft guy...

      So John, clearly you are a rabid Microsoft hater. That's fare enough. But I wonder do you loath all large US Corporations? I mean is MS really any better or worse than Apple, Google, Oracle, Facebook et al?

      Do tell, do you boycott all big US corps?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear microsoft guy...

        " I mean is MS really any better or worse than Apple, Google, Oracle, Facebook et al?"

        Why do people do this bizarro false dichotomy all the time? Being anti-MS does not entail being pro-Apple. This article is about .Net, it does not concern these other companies.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dear microsoft guy...

      A whitewash PR exercise for MS

      Indeed it is.

      ".NET Core" means "we're only open sourcing a small part of it". But the funny thing is, we already have the source code for anything in .NET.

      It also shows how desperate MS are, they are haemorrhaging developers at the moment. There are so many viable tried and tested platforms and frameworks out there that are geared towards the next generation of computing. So unless you're developing legacy enterprise in your shirt and tie MS doesn't get any consideration.

      Don't get me wrong, .NET is an excellent framework (apart from webforms, I love most of it), unfortunately it's used as a pawn to drive developers towards their next plan. Adding official support for Linux just shows they've lost confidence in their own OS. Since hearing about this a few months ago, I've started the switch to Linux before every other developer does.

  7. MrColdWaterOfRealityMan

    Removing support is the same as killing it.

    Technology moves on. The web happened. Phones happened. If you've poured money and expertise into VB6 or Windows forms with no automated upgrade path to ASP, WPF or Silverlight, you were screwed when your customer base demanded web features, phone features or some other technology features. Microsoft's only answer was "recode."

    Wrong answer.

    Yes, Microsoft still supports multiple obsolete frameworks. Thanks for nothing. Thanks for not planning ahead. Thanks for a complete lack of even the slightest effort towards backwards compatibility because it might have made some developers miss lunch or it didn't suit the sensibilities of a manager/ former C++ programmer trained in the 70s. Thanks for pushing me into Java or Python and the LAMP stack.

    1. dogged

      Re: Removing support is the same as killing it.

      > Thanks for pushing me into Java or Python and the LAMP stack.

      That explains why you're so bitter.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Removing support is the same as killing it.

        >> Thanks for pushing me into Java or Python and the LAMP stack.

        >That explains why you're so bitter.

        Yeah, MySQL will do that. Should have used Postgres. :-)

    2. Jonathan 27

      Re: Removing support is the same as killing it.

      What platform supported automatically porting desktop apps to the web? You can't really complain about Microsoft not offering something that no one else offers.

  8. phil dude
    Joke

    Trojan....

    Even wearing a double-bagger I wouldn't touch the M$ horse with yours!!

    I would rather get Mono....;-)

    P.

  9. Jonathan 27

    Sounds Good

    The whole .NET Core thing sounds good for .NET development, but it remains to be seen how it's going to work out. I'm cautiously optimistic, Microsoft has screwed up a lot recently but I'm using .NET MVC which has been pretty good for us so far.

  10. Pin Head

    Confucius says ?

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch

      re: Confucius says ?

      Wise man never plays leap-frog with a unicorn?

      I'm struggling to guess at the relevance of your comment, but maybe ...

  11. razorfishsl

    So this is the m$ that paid money to SCO to damage the open source community?

    yep now there IS a company I would trust as regards to opensource.....

  12. A N Other

    Open source VB6 Programming

    And they still won't open source the VB6 programming language ?

    Why ? Is it because VBA is still a critical technology for Microsoft ?

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