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• jQuery and Microsoft
• jQuery Intellisense in VS 2008

The old asp.net ajax components are still there, but since one of the big benefits of jQuery is that it plays nice with other libraries, you can use either one or both on the same page.

Lists the different approach Silverlight takes over flash. It's mostly about making it better for developers than the end user.

Microsoft currently has ASP.NET MVC in beta right now. Not sure when one can expect a stable release though.

I also probably should have emphasized that I was doing it on a windows machine. If only MS would release silverlight for linux like they say they plan to. Silverlight for Linux Announced MS and Novell Collaberation

a microsoft website?

MIT license is not a source-required license. Companies may sell, close it up, whatever they wish so long as they continue to give credit to the original product.

And is that relevant? This issue has been addressed:

Scott Guthrie says:
"We will distribute the jQuery JavaScript library as-is, and will not be forking or changing the source from the main jQuery branch."

The Scott Hanselman says:
"It's Open Source, and we'll use it and ship it via its MIT license, unchanged. If there's changes we want, we'll submit a patch just like anyone else."

lack of namespaces which makes bigger software systems an inherent problem in this language

Namespaces is an imperative problem. Javascript is a functional language. Think Functional.

It's easy to encapsulate Javascript objects into Java-style Packages with only a slight amount of work. However, I do not recommend that you do this. Most code should be kept out of the namespaces entirely. If you do project code into the browser's default object/scope/namespace (they're all the same thing in Javascript; "var x = 'blah'" will work with "alert(window.x)"), make sure you project only what is necessary to initialize the functional objects.

http://www.asp.net/

Rather than conentrating on java, the most important things to look at are:

1) Good OO-Design Programming (along with design patterns, the latest in thing , "Head First Design Patterns" is a good book). My workplace (a .net shop) employs Java developers over .NET candidates where they are strong in these.

2) Expose yourself to different syntaxes & programming paradigms: Doing this will help you pick up any framework. For example functional programming is beoming increasingly important in the .net world for certain tasks.

I'd personally go with .Net, it has made huge strides in the latest release (3.5, especially with sp1), even .net 2.0 was pretty good. It doesn't suffer from the lack of integration in the technology stack that Java has which I hear about when talking to my Java Colleagues, also productivty seems higher, though this might be aprocryphal.

Take a look at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/07/16/linq-to-sql-part-5-binding-ui-using-the-asp-linqdatasource-control.aspx for an example of a tiered application and the screen-cast at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/12/14/new-asp-net-dynamic-data-support.aspx to see what has been acheieved in terms of productivity

Rather than conentrating on java, the most important things to look at are:

1) Good OO-Design Programming (along with design patterns, the latest in thing , "Head First Design Patterns" is a good book). My workplace (a .net shop) employs Java developers over .NET candidates where they are strong in these.

2) Expose yourself to different syntaxes & programming paradigms: Doing this will help you pick up any framework. For example functional programming is beoming increasingly important in the .net world for certain tasks.

I'd personally go with .Net, it has made huge strides in the latest release (3.5, especially with sp1), even .net 2.0 was pretty good. It doesn't suffer from the lack of integration in the technology stack that Java has which I hear about when talking to my Java Colleagues, also productivty seems higher, though this might be aprocryphal.

Take a look at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/07/16/linq-to-sql-part-5-binding-ui-using-the-asp-linqdatasource-control.aspx for an example of a tiered application and the screen-cast at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/12/14/new-asp-net-dynamic-data-support.aspx to see what has been acheieved in terms of productivity

You are just a linux fanboy and don't even know or care to know what MS does apart from OS.
Microsoft velocity - distributed cache
ASP.NET MVC
Microsoft sandcastle - automatic documentation generation
etc...
Sure Vista was a let-down, but things are getting done. Windows 2008 server fixes most of the problems people have with vista. And contrary to popular belief, newer Microsoft OS just don't crash because of software problems. Period. They don't. I have 3 months uptime on my desktop computer. Running windows. When i was using linux i had to restart X all the time.
Other great things MS has done? THE best IDE for software developers. Other IDEs don't come even close to visual studio. (Maybe slickEdit for C/C++)
Office and accompanying products (MS Project, visio,...) Why is everyone copying them?

"My business users regularly have to tweak large (>32MB text) data files manually."

Sounds like an entry for The Daily WTF.
And while you're at it, read this article.

Then start using a database and maybe even build a proper editing tool, rather than insisting on editing 32 megabyte data files with a text editor.

NO ONE should need to edit 32 megabyte files with a text editor.

It still happens occasionally, but remember that it's for entertainment purposes only. Alex Papadimoulis has a slightly more serious blog but TDWTF is still funny even if it's not 100% accurate.

Here's my comparison of Deep Zoom to existing quadtree based zooming technologies like Google Maps, Zoomify, etc. http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2008/03/21/why-silverlight-2-deep-zoom-really-is-something-new.aspx

Summary - the technology isn't new, but they've made it trivially easy for a developer to do things that would otherwise take a lot of work, e.g. build complex collections of images across a wide variety of resolutions, add custom events and controls within a multiscale image, etc.

Heh...thanks for pointing out my paranoia. This is actually the first time I have been this paranoid, but I think I have good reason. Here is the first link on a good search for "flash vs silverlight" http://weblogs.asp.net/jezell/archive/2007/05/03/silverlight-vs-flash-the-developer-story.aspx Maybe the guy writing this is all up in arms over silverlight and clueless about flash, but it just seems too damn fake. And like most comparison's he is comparing earlier (actually the first beta!) versions of flash with silverlight. Anyway, regardless of my paranoia, to say silverlight offers "more" or is "better" is not a fair comparison. There is sooo much you can do with AS3 that is different from silverlight that you can't say one is more or better than the other. I'm sure it is nice to be able to program in your language of choice. However, just like ASP that allows you to choose a language, I find most people us VB just to have some kind of consistency between users. With flash you are forced to program in AS3 (or use Flex with drag and drop components), however you are not limited to backend languages to connect to. Adobe didn't get a slashdot article for every backend language it supports, because it supports pretty much ALL of them. Not ONLY windows platform specific built in. And if you want integration INTO the platform, then you can use flash remoting or Flex. Now it's not asp.Net + Silverlight, the integrated development for those is coldfusion + flash...same diff really though. Just Adobe is not the owner of .Net. And of course with either of those you can go straight into code if you want and connect to any script you want. There are very few AS3 programmers out there as I look on flash forms and see people still asking AS2 questions so I think that is where most of the comparison against silverlight is coming from. But if you are going to have to learn something new anyway, it might as well be AS3 with years of experience to fine tune their program language. Did you know you can animate everything within an XML file instead of coding in AS3? You can also use dynamic XML to change anything you want...you are not shoehorned into anything in the newest flash and that's what I think the beauty is. ok ok...etc etc. I've wrote too much. Next comment.

Google for "read ISO Windows" gave this link as the first hit. It has a link to an ISO mounting utility from Microsoft:
http://weblogs.asp.net/pleloup/archive/2004/01/15/58918.aspx

It can also Moonlight on Linux.

I'm not sure you've been using C# enough. Let me address a couple points:

* Deployment model is similar to basic executables - for each assembly you create a .dll/.exe and deploy it. That doesn't seem that much different from sticking everything into a single .jar (.zip)
* There have been many books\blogs\papers written about how the GC works. There are in general 3 GC options in .Net, with a proper one being picked depending on the application type. (The server GC is a single GC per CPU, with more Gen0, but less Gen2 collections) You can control the GC behavior from within the application somewhat, but it is not as tweakable.
* The libraries might be closed source, but there are two easy ways of getting the source.
  The first option is the .Net Reflector which lets you see implementation of any non-obfuscated .Net assembly
  The second option is the full source released for majority of the libraries.

I am not sure I've seen such large deficiencies in .Net libraries. Can you point some major ones? The rest of the points don't seem to be as applicable now than they used to be a few years back.

Reminds me of the CGI days which were really quite primitive compared with web applications that can be built today with the much better tools. Perhaps you are one of the ellusive jedi masters of C and C++, but I think it is fair to say that C or C++ are really innapropriate choices for the majority of web developers these days.

As for the absolute performance of ASP.NET vs other possible approaches I am not surprised that ASP.NET doesn't win the speed race, but really, how many of us run sites like Yahoo where that last ounce of performance and speed is really worth the price in terms of low level complexity and micro optimization required to achieve it? ASP.NET is an appropriate and reasonable choice for the vast majority of web application projects that most developers will be asked to build.

I believe the technical concept behind silverlight is better than flash.

I mean, it uses XML instead of binary format for source, meaning it's easy to generate files on the fly. And like it or not, .NET has a far better library and tools than ActionScript, even on linux.

There is a good post here about some differences: http://weblogs.asp.net/jezell/archive/2007/05/03/silverlight-vs-flash-the-developer-story.aspx

Of course there are problems for linux about using .NET as platform, and WMV as codecs. But mono has been putting a great effort into this, there are other codecs available. Also, xine can play wmv files without problems. If they are able to bring silverlight to Linux and other systems in an usable state, I see no problem in using them to develop my applications.

Also, Adobe/Macromedia were never saints. They took ages to release flash players for linux, and I still use a package called "flashplugin-nonfree" on my box, that uses wrappers and lots of 32bit libraries to run on my Ubuntu x64, because Adobe refuses to compile it for 64bit, and the player cannot even be put on the repositories because of licenses and other factors.

There are no open source heroes here. It just heppens that you believe Adobe is better than Microsoft, but they are just the same, and will do anything at all costs to crush the opponent. If Adobe's solution is to start releasing good players for all platforms, they will do because they need to stay in market, not because they love linux. And if Microsoft makes a deal with Novell to release a good silverlight player for linux to compete with flash, I see no difference in that.

If your using IE, well then *snigger* your screwed. ;)

If your using IE, well then *snigger* your screwed. ;)

| Microsoft is attempting to become more open source friendly

No, it isn't.


What evidence do you base that statement on?
I ask sinceI see some evidence that parts of MS, particularly around developer tools, are trying with some success to open up to the developers who use thier code.
Most of it's on Codeplex, e.g. The Ajax control toolkit
Scott Guthrie's blog is fairly open about this kind of thing.

So, care to back that up?

The Platform Adaption Layer allows SSCLI (Rotor) to run on Unix. I worked on FreeBSD. IIRC, that SSCLI distribution is actually kinda old and isn't the source that made up VS 2008 (though the changes to the BCL were minimal between 2005 and 2008)

Microsoft is actively working with Mono to make the "Moonlight" Linux port of Silverlight a reality.

Scott Guthrie blog post about this

"Over the last few months we've been working to enable Silverlight support on Linux, and today we are announcing a formal partnership with Novell to provide a great Silverlight implementation for Linux. Microsoft will be delivering Silverlight Media Codecs for Linux, and Novell will be building a 100% compatible Silverlight runtime implementation called "Moonlight".

Moonlight will run on all Linux distributions, and support FireFox, Konqueror, and Opera browsers. Moonlight will support both the JavaScript programming model available in Silverlight 1.0, as well as the full .NET programming model we will enable in Silverlight 1.1.

Well, to be fair, even MS is playing with OSS a little. Albiet in a very Microsofty way, they are releasing all the source-code for the .NET Framework:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx/

The parent post is completely wrong.

Silverlight is an independant implemenation of the CLR and does not depend on whether or not the Full Windows CLRs are installed or not on a machine. The complete size (of the downloads) for Silverlight 1.0 is ~1.4MB and for 2.0 is ~4MB. Also, I've personally never had a reboot when installing silverlight.

I got the intent of your remark, but in an effort to fully disclose:

Silverlight isn't open source, but you are not restricted to .NET languages; you can use any of 4 scripting languages. In fact Silverlight 1.0 (which the post you replied to is bemoaning) is actually more restricted than 2.0 because it is not able to use .NET languages. Don't complain about options!

Also, although still not open source, the source code for .NET framework libraries will be available.

And you are not limited to a single platform to develop on although it is currently difficult to do so on a platform other than Windows :)
And Silverlight 2.0 will be available on Mac (and, via third party, Linux).

Javascript isn't a great language. It's not robust, and it's difficult to really do good architecture with libraries using it. HTML is a pretty decent method to mark up text, but wasn't meant originally to ever be interactive.

Once you understand it, Javascript is an awesome language. It's C/C++/Java-like syntax hides its fundamentally functional underpinnings. The core datastructure in Javascript is a method. Everything can be represented in terms of methods, even to the point of not using any variables. With that in mind, it's a very powerful language that is often maligned precisely because of what it is -- many people just don't "get" functional languages (why C/C++/Java/etc are so popular and Lisp/ML/Haskell/etc are not), though you can certainly write procedural or even OO code in Javascript. It's also very easy to shoot yourself in the foot with Javascript, depending on implementations (using anonymous methods is a good way to leak memory in IE if you're not careful, for example).

As a scripting language, Javascript has a lot too offer. Too bad it's been forever tied to HTML and web stuff.

However, I suspect if AJAX and HTML were really so great/powerful/easy, many people would have stopped using flash already. I have no love for flash, but it can do things much more easily/faster than AJAX can for many tasks (disliking both technologies I'm pretty non-biased here).

People like Flash because it gives you lots of pretty, shiney bits for very little work. It's also vector-based, so you can build a pixel-perfect layout like so many bad web designers want ("Our web site must look exactly like our magazine"). Too many people associate "AJAX" with flashy Web 2.0-y visual effects (fading highlights, rounded corners, wet reflections, large fonts, etc), when AJAX is really about communication. If all you care about is glitz, go ahead and use Flash. If you want to build something that actually works well, I'd go with javascript+HTML.

However, I suspect if AJAX and HTML were really so great/powerful/easy, many people would have stopped using flash already. I have no love for flash, but it can do things much more easily/faster than AJAX can for many tasks (disliking both technologies I'm pretty non-biased here).

You may not want to hear it, but Microsoft has much of that with ASP.Net AJAX, as have others like Script#. In each case, you're writing most (or all, in the case of Script#) of your code in a .NET langauge and the compiler handles generating the javascript appropriate for your target browser(s). These work with at least Firefox and IE, and should also work with Safari, Opera, and others with minor tweaking.

"Reference use" means use of the software within your company as a reference, in read only form, for the sole purposes of debugging your products, maintaining your products, or enhancing the interoperability of your products with the software, and specifically excludes the right to distribute the software outside of your company.

This post has a very misleading title.
Microsoft is deliberately NOT open sourcing the .Net Framework.
They are releasing it as SHARED SOURCE.

Read more here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx

And slashdot, please fix the title.

I was wondering how slashdot would report this story. I knew that they would give it negative spin because it's not open source, but I didn't think they would actually try to suggest that Microsoft claimed that this was open source and then bash them for not meeting that claim.

Microsoft fully acknowledges that this code is to be released under MSRL, "Microsoft Reference Licenese", which Microsoft does not claim to be an open source license (it is not one of the Ms licenses that were submitted to OSI).

But the code is still valuable as it eases debugging. This similar to Microsoft's providing the source code to ATL, MFC, and their CRT. Much of this code was already available under Rotor2, but now we get lots more code, including WinForms and WPF, and more will be rleased in the future.

And it's not just code, but Microsoft including integrated debugging of .NET libs into VS 2008, including downloading the appropriate source from Microsoft's site on demand. There are other goodies as well.

See here for detaitls:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx

But the Reflector tool doesn't include comments in the code, doesn't allow for integrated VS 2008 debugging, (including downloading source code on-demand, matching the exact .NET lib that you are debugging), and a whole lot more.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx

If you are looking for more resources and good examples here are some resources for you. Silverlight Developer Center on MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/silverlight http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb412395. aspx Public Community Site http://silverlight.net/ Scott Guthrie Blog Developer focused but with good general insight... http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/09/04/ silverlight-1-0-released-and-silverlight-for-linux -announced.aspx Webcasts http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx ?EventID=1032345586&Culture=en-US http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDeta ils.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032345591&CountryC ode=US 6 page architectural overview... http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb428859. aspx Suresh

"Give me a big enough lever and I can move the earth." Owning the OS is a pretty big lever. If you've been paying attention the last 10 years you've seen MS using their monopoly to destroy, stifle, and expand.

What he did is build and add-on that -in passing- removes a deliberate limitation that Microsoft built into the "free" version of their development tools.

Now ... no matter how he did it, and what legitimately available tools or interfaces he used ... he still produced something that removes a technical limitation of the free software package he was working on. Now as far as I can see {but I am not a lawyer} that is a violation of the EULA. And what's more, Microsoft really has a tangible interest in him not doing this.

Moreover, his email correspondence with Microsoft shows that Microsoft pointed out to him that in their view he was violating the EULA, shows that he was *aware* of the EULA and said that he did want to abide by it.

All in all I fear that this is a lost cause. Even if I should be wrong in this, how much would it be worth to you to go to court with Microsoft on their reading of their own EULA? That sounds like a *really* expensive hobby.

I made approximately the same comments on said programmer's website and gently pointed him to the advantages of Open Source in this respect.

You might want to weigh both sides of the story before choosing one side or the other.

Check out this blog by another MVP:

1) Look! Microsoft is working hard on building a community! - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/06/01/l ook-microsoft-is-working-hard-on-building-a-commun ity.aspx
2) Thou Shall Not Work Around Technical Limitations! (whatever they are) - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/06/02/t hou-shall-not-work-around-technical-limitations-wh atever-they-are.aspx

It's nice to see other MVP's showing concern to both sides of the story.

You might want to weigh both sides of the story before choosing one side or the other.

Check out this blog by another MVP:

1) Look! Microsoft is working hard on building a community! - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/06/01/l ook-microsoft-is-working-hard-on-building-a-commun ity.aspx
2) Thou Shall Not Work Around Technical Limitations! (whatever they are) - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/06/02/t hou-shall-not-work-around-technical-limitations-wh atever-they-are.aspx

It's nice to see other MVP's showing concern to both sides of the story.

I still couldn't find a clear answer as to how he violated their terms.

It's in the new scans from the MS lawyers. They cite the clause that Jamie violated.

In fact, it is apparent from the emails that MS was very careful not to say anything actionable.

I agree mostly, and that's part of my problem with Microsoft. They were pushy but unwilling to cite the clause Jamie violated. However, as provided in the link about the scans from the MS lawyers, Microsoft has in the last few days finally said something actionable.

Perhaps you can explain to me exactly how he violated Microsoft's contract by using the published APIs?

Yes and no. I can explain what I read, and why I believe that it will hold up in court. But I don't think you're asking for that. I think you feel that using public APIs should not be prevented or outlawed, and so you object to the entire concept. If I'm wrong about that, you can skip this paragraph and go to the ntext one. But if I'm right, all I can say is that's not an argument I can have with you, as I find it to be a boring one. MS has a contract, they've cited the passage he violates, and they'll sing it out loud in court. Whether we like that or not, it means MS will win in my book. So I don't really care to have a discussion about how ethical MS is, or whether they should be able to restrict a public API. The fact is, they do it, and seem to have a leg to stand on here. But by all means, have that discussion with other Slashdot readers. I'm sure it's one that many would like to have.

So with that disclaimer in place, here is what I read. Near the bottom of the first page of that scan, you'll see that they cite the part of the contract that has been violated. In particular, the contract states that you cannot circumvent the limitations they've put on the low-end product. One of the limitations is no plugins. That's explained elsewhere, but here in the letter from the lawyers we at least see now that they have a clause prohibiting end-runs around the crippled features of the low-end product. This is what Jamie asked for time and time again. No one would cite any clause that he violated. Finally, at last, someone did. Whatever I think about the merits of Microsoft's case, I will continue to think that they're jerks for taking a year to quote the relevant part of the contract.

Elsewhere, in another letter, they explain that they have the legal prohibition in the contract to cover cases exactly like this -- cases where they tried to block it technically, but someone found a loophole. So they use the contract as a way to say, "even if we screw up and left a way to do it technically, you still can't do it contractually." We may or may not think they should be allowed to get away with that, but again, that's where I get bored and drop out of the conversation.

An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the software market right now is the lack of good Windows software. Without good software and an owner who can afford it, a 3GHZ computer is wasted. Can cheap, quality software be written for a user's market?

A few years ago, Jamie Cansdale, expecting test-driven development to expand, developed TestDriven.NET. Though the initial work took only a couple of months, the he has spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to TestDriven.NET. Now we have 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7. The value of the time invested well exceeds $4,000,000,000,000,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the millions of people who say they are using TestDriven.NET has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never liked .NET, and 2) The real value of Microsoft's crippled products is only $2.

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists know, most of you know why Microsoft sucks. They know Microsoft must be paid for software, but hobbyist need something extensible. Who cares if the people who worked on the original products at Microsoft never think of it first?

Is this fair? One thing Microsoft does not allow people to do is make improvements on their own crippled software. Hobbyist don't make a lot of money extending software. There is no royalty paid to them for the documentation, the debugging and the overhead make coding fun. One thing Microsoft does is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford their crippled software? What software developer can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and not make it user extensible? The fact is, no one besides the hobbyists invested a lot of time in Microsoft software. We have written WinAPI, and are writing COM and .NET code, but there is very little incentive to continue to use your expensive software. Most directly, the thing you do is alienate users and developers.

What about the guys who like your software? Aren't they allowed making money, too? Yes, but most of those may lose out in the end. They are the ones who hate Microsoft products the most, because they really know how much it sucks.

I would appreciate replies from any one who wants to give up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me here at slashdot.org. Nothing would please me more than being able to allow Microsoft to die and deluge the market with better software.

Back in 2004, Jamie Cansdale released a free Visual Studio addin to help developers build unit tests. His only problem was that he enabled his addin for all versions of VS - including the Express addition which isn't supposed to support addins. After over a year of trying to talk with Microsoft and understand how and why he was in violation of their license agreement, during which they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violated, they sent the lawyers after him and pulled his MVP status. To top it all off, Jamie is actually a Java developer by day; his addin was originally developed just as a hobby project. A full account is available on his blog, including all email correspondence he had with Microsoft and the now 3 letters received from Microsoft lawyers. The lead product manager for Visual Studio Express has posted a response to Jamie's posts.

Back in 2004, Jamie Cansdale released a free Visual Studio addin to help developers build unit tests. His only problem was that he enabled his addin for all versions of VS - including the Express addition which isn't supposed to support addins. After over a year of trying to talk with Microsoft and understand how and why he was in violation of their license agreement, during which they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violated, they sent the lawyers after him and pulled his MVP status. To top it all off, Jamie is actually a Java developer by day; his addin was originally developed just as a hobby project. A full account is available on his blog, including all email correspondence he had with Microsoft and the now 3 letters received from Microsoft lawyers. The lead product manager for Visual Studio Express has posted a response to Jamie's posts.

Jamie Cansdale released a free addin to Visual Studio back in 2004 to help developers build unit tests. His only problem was that he enabled his addin for all versions of VS - including the Express addition which isn't supposed to support addins. After over a year of trying to talk with Microsoft and understand how and why he was in violation of their license agreement, during which they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violated, they sent the lawyers after him and pulled his MVP status. To top it all off, Jamie is actually a Java developer by day; his addin was originally developed just as a hobby project. A full account is available on his blog, including all email correspondence he had with Microsoft and the now 3 letters received from Microsoft lawyers. The lead product manager for Visual Studio Express has responded to Jamie's posts.

Jamie Cansdale released a free addin to Visual Studio back in 2004 to help developers build unit tests. His only problem was that he enabled his addin for all versions of VS - including the Express addition which isn't supposed to support addins. After over a year of trying to talk with Microsoft and understand how and why he was in violation of their license agreement, during which they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violated, they sent the lawyers after him and pulled his MVP status. To top it all off, Jamie is actually a Java developer by day; his addin was originally developed just as a hobby project. A full account is available on his blog, including all email correspondence he had with Microsoft and the now 3 letters received from Microsoft lawyers. The lead product manager for Visual Studio Express has responded to Jamie's posts.

Microsoft simply responded with "it violates the licence, but we're not going to tell you where."

Actually they responded with 5 pages of documents stating exactly the clause.

("You may not work around any technical limitations in the software.")

Of course, it's such an incredibly vague sentence one can understand why he didn't think it applied. And I bet they don't want to ever take that one to court, which is whey they had their manager "talk to him on the phone to plead with him".

Microsoft getting screwed by their own EULA ... sweet, sweet poetic justice.

Has anyone found a nugget of legal truth in the other documents?

...you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways... You may not work around technical limitations in the software.

"they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violate"

It's a classic example of the differences between the Open Source and the closed sourced licensing model. I think it's perfectly clear, they provide a limited version of the product for free, the license forbids extending the functionality of Express. TestDriven extends the functionality, therefore it violates the license:

'You may not work around any technical limitations in the software'