Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Plans "Shared Source" .NET
raelity writes "Microsoft has announced its first foray into the waters of publicly shared source. In an O'Reilly Network interview, Tim O'Reilly talks to Microsoft program manager (and FreeBSD sympathizer) Dave Stutz about Redmond's plans to release shared-source code of parts of the .NET framework. The offerings include: a C# compiler, C# based ECMAscript compiler, and shared-source CLI for Windows and FreeBSD. The announcement comes against a backdrop of Microsoft's
recent attack on some aspects of open source software development, particularly against the GNU Public License (GPL)." I think Jamie put it best when he said recently 'open source: "share and enjoy"; shared source: "look but don't touch"'. This is most certainly an interesting development- so far the Open Source/Free Software division has been the main one, but not we have a third branch. Imagine what would happen if MS adopted a fair license? Compatibility and competition. We would all benefit.
In a groundbreaking interview with Der Führer, Neville Chamberlain learned some interesting facts about the misunderstood country's plans for the future.
When this plan for Poland is revealed, it will certainly be the most liberal shared-government offering the Third Reich has ever presented. But the Führer says it's not out of the question that in the future, Germany's regulatory initiatives will become ever more open.
"This is all about Germany getting serious about open governance in a very wide way," he said. "And it's also a serious long-term commitment to establishing the Mark as a basis for free commerce. It's really not a short-term, tactical Night of the Long Knives battle."
That said, Microsoft has yet to reveal a draft of the Polish agreement being announced today.
"We don't actually have the exact terms of the agreement for you right at this moment," Hitler said. "If it was me, I'd have the agreement."
Microsoft's plan to be the toolbooth for all e-commerce will make us all slaves of a few big monolithic, arrogant borgs.
This specific plan is intended to kill Sun's Java and deal a death-blow to Linix at the same time. Sounds like a 100% monopoly maintenance plan to me.
Participate in Microsoft-free Fridays and let the arrogant monopolists know that you won't stand for their unending hubris and attempts to squash all remaining computing alternatives! As punishment for their crimes, Microsoft should be shackled to only produce bug-fixes for Windows 98. Windows Power has absolutely corrupted their 640K, inelegant, shared DLL souls.
Was I the only OS-agnostic person at the "Developer Days" broadcast shown in theaters, that dealt with IE I think, in which the former bradsi@microsoft.com (Brad Silverberg, originally of Borland, then of the Win95 dev team, then of the "Internet Platform and Tools Division" ... who had one of the best understandings, of anyone at MS, of the power of hordes of advocates in one's developer base) announced that source to VBscript would be available at no cost to those who want to port it, etc. because they wanted wide adoption of the scripting language?
From what I recall, that didn't last very long, and it might even be that the only version of VB script that was ever available was the very first one (quite limited language), but at least for a time, it WAS available, because MS announced in public that it would be and wasn't willing to reverse itself.
void main () { printf("Bite me!\n"); }
--
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
"We know that it's the GPL that prevents us from using our usual "embrace, extend, extiguish" strategy to counter Linux. Furthermore, every single new GPLed application adds to the pool of software immune from our influence. So we're going to spread as much fear and disinformation as we possibly can about the nature of the GPL to discourage its use"
The GPL isn't a *VIRUS*, it's an immunization.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Ohhh, those clever Microsoftians....
They've picked up on the scism between the *BSDs and Linux over the GPL, and they're playing one off against the other. "It's not Open Source we don't like, it's the GPL!" - presto! They get instant allies from the *BSD folks.
Evil evil evil. But clever.
How long before we are faced with a version of "Microsoft BSD"? - enhanced and extended of course. After all, to run Office For BSD, you'll need *this* little kernel patch, and IIS For BSD will need *this* little tweak to the network stack, and oh, init now requires an instance of Actice Directory somewhere before it'll boot and...
Well, you get the picture.
But for the GPL, there goes Linux!
*BSD folks, be careful. It looks like Microsoft has determined their Open Source strategy - and it's YOU! "Embrace, extend, extinguish"; welcome to Phase One.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Quite. No matter what Microsoft do, they will never get a fair hearing on /.
I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, it just is.
MFC is far more than just a Win32 wrapper. Some parts of it do completely unrelated things, such as data structures. Just recently, I've benefitted hugely from having the source to the file and CString classes. Anybody who has done any serious MFC programming knows the benefits of having the source. In addition to all that, the source is also the best reference for learning how to interact with the Win32 API, or how to use MFC correctly. To be honest, there have been very few occasions where I've actually thought that I needed the Win32 source... for most things, having the debug symbols satisfies most needs. I very rarely find the need to understand layers below the ones that I'm actually interfacing with.
"RE: the C library, I would much rather have a port of libc to Windows than the MS version."
That makes you sound like either:
Anybody who has worked with MSFT tools knows how hard it can be to use them in alternative ways to those originally intended. Why would you put yourself through that?
The MSFT C runtime seems pretty good, so what kind of compelling argument would there be not to use it? It's behaviour (especially with respect to DLL boundaries, threads and localisation) is well understood. I know that if I call wcstombs that it will eventually delegate to WideCharToMultiByte, providing consistent behaviour and interoperability with other Windows components... can the same be said for a port of libc? What does using libc over MSVCRT in a Windows app buy you?
When one installs MSVC, one get's the option to install the source for MFC and their C library (things like ATL come for free being template based). How is this initiative with .net any different? It seems to me that either people have been bashing MSFT unnecessarily, or are now giving them unnecessary attention. Whatever, their marketing department must be loving it.
Microsoft's "Shared Source" clearly is aimed at both the GPL and Sun's Java. It is time for Sun to see the best way to fight C# and to protect Java's future against this "common language runtime" is to make Java Free Software/Open Source. Then Java will have the community's support and being truly open, it can have the advantage over C# that Microsoft can never match. And people will choose Java.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
All the better. Microsoft doesn't want a quality port of their CLI. They want something that barely works. Heck, they want something even more useless than the token "POSIX" Windows NT layer. Microsoft is just spreading more FUD about Linux and trying to stir things up in the Free Software community. They don't actually want FreeBSDers to be able to run .NET servers on their boxen, that would be competition.
...too little, too late, and they don't really get it. MS today seems a lot like the USSR of the 1980s, trying to adapt to forces they cannot fully understand, let alone control. So the only thing they can do is pump up the public relations, try to polish things, proclaim "look we're all new!" and so forth. They're smart, dedicated, and absolutely ready to do whatever it takes...but this whole sea change thing is just baffling to them.
Well, Gorby did pretty well for himself after the fall, if Bill plays his cards right he can be a sought after speaker on the lecture circuit too!
Microsoft simply want to leverage their desktop penetration into server and mobile device space. They've dissed java for years, trying, and to some extent succeeding, in slowing adoption of java. Now that they've got their own implementation of essentially the same ideas, they suddenly want us to think it's wonderful.
Windriver aquired BSDi, interested in getting BSD technology for the embedded market. So with Microsoft's move, it might be possible to get .NET running on such devices too.
On the other hand, I have not seen anything that prevents a port of that .NET implementation
to Linux.
I guess that embedded people will get a large choice of what OS to use (proprietary, Linux or BSD based) and what crossplatform runtime (Java or .NET based).
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Otherwise you have not shown the GPL to be hurting you in any way. I however am not happy with your desire to steal my code, depriving me of possible income from you buying it from me, and then go and try to accuse me of doing something dirty, when you are the immoral one.
I don't like people feeling that they can copy my work for any purpose whatsoever without paying me, just because I allow some people to copy my work for free for specific purposes. For some reason they don't seem to have a problem with the fact that MicroSoft or Sun do not allow then to use their code for free, but the fact that I put the code under the GPL makes me somehow evil!
This is why Microsoft's comments are so humorous; every time they attack the GPL, just re-read their statements and replace 'GPL' with 'commercial software' and it makes even MORE sense (especially the 'viral' aspect [Word files, PSD files, XLS files, Exchange Server Protocol, MSDNS, MSKerberos, Internet Explorer, etc. etc. etc. etc.). Their intentions are made perfectly clear by reading the restrictions placed on users of their "shared source" code. If you fix a bug, you can't even distribute your changes as a complete package (the Minix syndrome)!
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Having Java without Swing or even AWT is pretty pointless. That's what Microsoft is "giving" away here. All the tools to be an ancillary participant in .NET, but not to inter-operate on a client (or even heavy-Windowsish) level.
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Typically a useful tactic - when your enemy is dumber than you.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
We'd be sending coats, jackets and blankets to hell?
Sorry, could not resist..
Oh, come on. Open Source and Free Software are almost completely the same thing. Which name you use is nothing but an indication of the reason why you think the freedom to use/modify/redistribute is important.
"Shared source", however, is a completely different thing. It gives you none of the freedoms both Open Source and Free Software give you.
Calling it a "third branch" is exactly the kind of misrepresentation you'd expect from the Microsoft FUDmeisters, but not from a Slashdot editor.
I heard somewhere recently (yes, hearsay) that this was an urban legend. Does anyone have really *solid* knowledge about this?
Best Schwartzenegger accent:
"It's NOT a tumor"
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
What with reports of declining advertising budgets that will be a boon to mktng agencies, banners, papers, radio, TV, etc. Also expect the XP launch to be much ballyhooed by PC box movers (Your Dell, Compaq's etc) as they're looking for it to boost their bottom line - heck, it seems like it's in EVERYBODY's interest to push XP, get consumer cash flowing again and claim your share.
Oh - de-SmartTag your web site now with
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Shouldn't the person who wrote that do a little
:%s/CLI/CLR/g
action? Have they changed their tune mid-stream? (yes, I read the article, its just that this is the first time I've seen CLI amongst the gajillion references to CLR).
(Coming soon from Microsoft: Common Language Interface Technology. Or not.)
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
--Mahatma Ghandi
welcome to phase 3.
Why does he keep treating these people like they are legititmate, in the face of such palpable absurdities as Alchin/Ballmer/Mundie on the GPL and the recent MIT EULA? MS cannot make an honest public statement
... he'd like to get into the (currently much larger) Microsoft market and become giga-rich.
Tim O'Reilly is not a friend of Free Software, nor is he a friend of Open Source. He is a friend of Tim O'Reilly, and he has discovered that merely getting rich off of Free Software and Open Source isn't enough to satisfy his appetites
He gave Microsoft shill's a forum at his Open Source conference to spread their anti-free software fud and legitimize their proprietary "shared source" as though it were somehow "open source" (it isn't).
He is now lending support (and percieved legitimacy) to Microsoft's most serious intellectual (I use the term very loosely) attack on free software through his publishing company by promoting interviews such as this.
In short, he is selling us all down the river, open source and free software advocates alike, for his own personal profit. It is past time that we stopped giving him the time of day and started treating him in a manner appropriate to his behavior: as an erstwhile colleague who has betrayed us, who worthy of little respect and absolutely no trust.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Oh, grow up. I've been buying O'Reilly books for years and I don't recall ever getting them for free. Just like Microsoft, O'Reilly is in business to make money.
I always find it amusing how people, Americans in particular, find it perfectly acceptable to apply one set of ethical standards to everyday life, and a very different, much more lax, set of ethical standards to activities engaged in in the persuit of wealth. The notion that actions which would be almost universally condemned in private life are accepted, even lauded, when conducted in the context of business, is perhaps one of the most noxious, yet enduring cultural legacies of the Regan/Bush era.
There are some few of us who do still adhere to the notion that actions which are wrong when conducted in one's private life remain wrong even when the goal persued happens to be the almighty dollar. Tim O'Reilly represents himself as a leader and friend of the Open Source and Free Software movements, then betrays that role, and the trust he has garnered playing it, by providing some of its most zealous foes with a forum to espouse their own propoganda, under the very auspices of a conference perporting to support that very movement. Only someone very gullible would equate the marketing propaganda of Mundie and others with "information," and only a fool would be blind to the implications of what Tim O'Reilly is helping Microsoft do.
I'll say it again. Tim O'Reilly is not a friend of the Free Software movement. He is not a friend of the Open Source movement. He is a friend of Tim O'Reilly, and will persue his own interests to the detriment of those of both of the aforementioned movements if he believes doing so will move his own personal agenda, in this case the accumulation of wealth, forward. It would behoove anyone inclined to look to him as an ally or leader to remember that hard, cold fact.
The fact that many people -- not just Microsoft -- see the GPL as an impediment to their right to sell software at a profit shouldn't surprise anyone anymore than the fact that O'Reilly expects you to pay for thier books.
And here you reveal yourself to be the troll that you are. "Many people" indeed. Some few, relatively speaking, feel threatened by the plethora of free software making their expensive and often inferior products obsolete. Certainly those whose business models rely on the incarceration of the customer into their product line by denying them freedom of choice and the basic consumer freedoms granted them by the GPL do. However, once again, only a fool incapable of managing their own codebase would feel at all threatened by the GPL alone, for it nowhere compells one to use GPL code in their project. Indeed, the default situation provided by copyright law is that no code other than one's own may be incorporated into one's project. Microsoft, and others like them, need only continue to do as they purport to have always done: write their own code and leave the GPLed code being given away to the rest of us.
If you're real issue is a denial of the right to own and sell software, then cut to the chase and declare yourself.
This is truely the most amusing sentence of a very amusing troll. I point out that the actions of one who sells himself as an Open Source / Free Software leader are detrimental to those movements, and that although he is aware of it he knows he'll get more business (in the form of $500 (or whatever $) / person attendees flocking to hear what Microsoft will say in an Open Source conference) and so is willing to do such harm regardless, and that in light of this the community should be wary of him, his motives, and most particularly his actions, and you immediately extrapolate from that the absurd notion that I somehow reject the concept of property, merely because I object to someone using unethical means to accumulate more of it.
Thank you. I haven't been quite so entertained for some time.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Left shift 1 for e-mail...
Thats assuming I want to use a component of the OS. If they didn't have that "special exception" then you couldn't run ANY proprietary software under an OS like Linux.
My problem here is that I may want to use a Regular Expressions engine in say a Java program, but the engine is GPL. Now I can't use the GPL'd code because my shit is proprietary. How does this benefit GPL? I say it doesn't. It prevents people from using it, thus limiting its exposure. If a corporation is going to open source their software or a specific product, they'll do it regardless of whether or not the GPL exists. The GPL doesn't persuade anyone into using it or its software. It only limits its usage.
I said nothing about GNOME. If Bill Gates was talking about the GPL, then he was talking about the GPL; not the LGPL.
The GPL is a plague for free and proprietary software that limits its usage. It will forever be used for non-commercial, non-proprietary uses, except when marketed to the free software community.
There's much more to useful software then QT, GNOME or some other GUI related apps.
As for your second statement, I see no logic or reasoning behind it. My point was that the GPL limits its usage which in turn limits its effectiveness. It will forever be used only in free software because no company is going to open source their product just so they can use a library (recap, no I'm not talking about OS related libs or gnome, qt, etc, I'm talking about a useful library like a RegExp engine).
You're wrong. Not only can you not USE the code directly (copy-paste it into your app), but you also cannot even DYNAMICLY LINK your proprietary code with GPL'd code. In other words, I cannot load a GPL'd library unless all of my code is GPL'd. Thats lame.
You idiot. You cannot dynamicly link a GPL'd library without having to release your code. I'm talking about commerical products. The kind that drive the economy and pay your rent. GPL'd code will forever be a hobby because its suicidal.
Is that you cannot utilize any library etc. that is GPL'd inside a product that is proprietary. I think it limits its effectiveness by not allowing anyone to do that.
As I recall, Bill Gates wasn't attacking open source, but rather the GPL for specificly this reason.
Go ahead, mod me down. I know you will.
If the GPL is "Share and Enjoy", wouldn't shared source be more like "Go stick your head in a pig"? Microsoft is providing a substance almost, but not entirely, quite unlike open source :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Wait, I thought MSDN documentation was really excellent, why would you need to see under the covers? Either Microsoft has these really well-documented API with no surprises, or else you do need their source to figure out what's going on. You MS defenders can't have it both ways, you know.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This Shared-Source(tm) thing is what RMS was talking about when he said the term "Open Source" would dilute the meaning of "Free" as promoted by the GPL.
So by looking at MS source, would I then be 'polluted' (from a licensing standpoint) -- unable to write free software that's compatible with/works with .NET or whatever?
Is this a marketing ploy or a legal ploy? Oh, wait, it's probably both.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
No it isn't - because there are several implementations of the Java core and extension APIs, in addition to Java compilers and JVMs, conformant to the Sun specifications, available from competing vendors/sources - IBM, HP, Amiga/Tao to name a few. Thus, even if sun themselves tried to control the direction java was taking, there's forces pulling them back towards the straight and narrow.
.NET APIs is pretty worthless - I mean, it wouldn't take very long to bolt on yet another java/ObjC like language to gcc, now - all the ground work's been done. Just as in the gcc-java/kaffe/classpath projects, the difficulty is in the API/standard library cloning, not the yet-another-C-like-language implementation.
.NET APIs. Now, I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt - but MS has been given it repeatedly, and each time they have subsequently demonstrated their true, rather nasty, nature - so it's time to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
.NET
Just as Java's value proposition is tiny without all those java.* and javax.* classes, so C#/CLR without the
I dismiss the CLR multi-language argument by pointing out the plethora of languages already available that target the JVM - Python (Jython), TCL (Jacl) , scheme, ECMAScript (Rhino) to name a few.
And also by pointing out that in each language that targets the CLR, it is only that subset of functionality of that language that is common to them all that is useful - thus, no multiple-inheritance in Perl, weak contract in Eiffel, etc. etc.
You can bet your bottom dollar MS will play the same old API-modification-under-third-party-developers feet tricks they have always done with the
The Open source community should be united in its rejection of Microsoft's
Choice of masters is not freedom.
The JVM doesn't claim to support all languages - so I also doubt that language-specific features are available for many of the other languages that target the JVM. The JVM doesn't claim to be multi-language in its blurb, though (if you want a _true_ multi-language VM, the Amiga/Tao VP is closest).
.NET framework offers no advantages over the already established Java framework, particularly in the enterprise space.
.NET apps is tied to GDI and Windows - it even says as much in the msdn System.* class hierarchy description .
.NET stuff is only useful on the windows platform as in:
.net on BSD, simply so that they have a reliable server for their buggy, crash-prone clients....
As far as I can tell, were it not for microsoft's ability to break the sun java vm and plug-in with every new windows release, the
Also, as far as I can tell the GUI system for client side
Given that client side java use is increasing due
to mobile devices, which no microsoft OS (not even wince) is particularly well-suited for, as far as I can see, the client-side
System.Windows.Forms - "rich user interface for WINDOWS-based applications" (my emphasis)
I very much doubt MS will provide the level of cross platform 2d and 3d pluggable gui support that java provides.
In fact, I'd say that this is a hidden admission that MS sucks on the server side, and they just plain need the server-side subset of
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I still say, why bother? java's here, since yesteryear, now, and has already seen huge adoption by the mobile computing device market in europe and asia (US lags in this market).
Microsoft simply want to leverage their desktop penetration into server and mobile device space. They've dissed java for years, trying, and to some extent succeeding, in slowing adoption of java. Now that they've got their own implementation of essentially the same ideas, they suddenly want us to think it's wonderful.
Why the hell should we help them?
Sure, sun may be a proprietary, megalomanical systems vendor, just like ms, but at least they produce well-designed, reliable systems to exacting engineering standards.
Unlike, well, anything I've ever seen come out of microsoft.
I remember when win95 came out. It's main advertising point seemed to be "it's way better than that piece of crap windows 3.1". Which MS also made. They were calling their own product crap. And the public loved it!
I really despair of humanity sometimes....roll on AI...
Choice of masters is not freedom.
At a guess, it could be the "Repeat" part...
Some computer programmers tend to read the shampoo instructions as an infinitely looping program. There is no instruction saying when to stop the cycle.
"Lather, Rinse, Repeat" therefore expresses a certain sense of endless, pointless, reiteration.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
nce IBM websphere controls so much of the enterprise server space, if sun were to try to pull the Java-name-use-permission-withdrawal trick, IBM would probably say "so what?", buy our new new improved websphere with the "Beerva" language, which transparently runs all your old Java(tm) applications. HP were ready to this a while back with Chai (see, they'd even thought up a clever name), but sun agreed to play nicer, and they didn't bother.
J2EE is a set of APIs and their implementations for Java. Funny enough, it's implemented by several third -party vendors, most of whom had input into the spec at design-time.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Erm... I very much doubt .NET is faster than native-compiled java (see gcc 3.0). I also doubt it's faster than Amiga/Tao pseudo-native compiled java. It is possible that MS's CLR is better than sun's JVM at similar code (but I doubt it), but there is no good reason for _all_ JVMs to be that speed.
Anyway, any non-jit native compiled stuff rather defeats the purpose for many applications - such as "beaming" active objects between disparate mobile devices via serialization/externalization. Then again, you could implement a "compilation-server" scheme - but that means trusting the compilation server.
While C# does have a few nice features as a language, it's really not significantly different to Java - In fact, I wouldn't be suprised if you could write a C# to java-bytecode compiler, if you miss foreach that much..
Don'ty forget that some language features were deliberately left out of java. In a professional environment, where mixed-ability development teams are common, Java is very useful, because it is so unambiguous and deterministic (see recent java-in-realtime-systems discussions on java.sun.com)
What do you mean by "user defined events"? Are you thinking that Java still uses the ancient 1.0 event model? I've never had any problem defining arbitrary subclasses of java.util.EventObject and associated EventListener interfaces.
Unsafe code???
One of the things main people _like_ about java is the *lack* of unsafe code! That's why it's so popular on servers. There are few non-trivial systems in mainstream computing nearer to provably secure than Java 2. MS security has always sucked. They tend to make terrible decisions from a security standpoint.
In fact, it was MS's crappy-from-a-security-standpoint Java implementation that did most to tarnish java's security rep in the first place...
If most of your experience of Java is via MS's antiquated IE Java support, please go to http://java.sun.com/ and get an up to date Java VM. 1.3.1, or 1.4 beta. (personally, I like 1.4, 'cos it's finally got regular expressions).
To be honest, it sounds like you're, at best, taking everything MS says at face value. Ask IBM's OS/2 team how well that works. Ask SGI's Fahrenheit team. It's not like MS are some new kid on the block with a cool new product, who maybe deserves the benefit of the doubt. They have a history of nastiness.
Fool me once - shame on you. Fool me twice - shame on me.
Anyway. I still prefer proper languages like Scheme and CLisp.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
You may be right there - but I doubt it would keep them all that honest. :-)
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of implementation inheritance in the first place. I prefer composition in most cases from a design standpoint.
I'm also not sure that it is very far ahead of what's already possible with the JVM. I've already used Rhino, Beanshell, DynamicJava and JPython. All of them interoperated pretty seamlessly through the common denominator of Java objects, and with RMI and/or CORBA, you even get a fair degree of language and network transparency.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
It is very similar to Sun's approach to java. There is an established body that standardises java - sun. The subset of .NET that is standardised is not useful in the real world, just as ECMA's ECMAScript standard isn't particularly useful to web developers without the HTML dom.
Microsoft is a scientologist plot, anyway...
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Hmmm... just like they bet their future on OS/2 ? :-)
Then again, you did say "virtually", which, of course, means "not really".
Microsoft are not to be trusted. They have demonstrated themselves untrustworthy in a court of law. If you or I were to submit a doctored video tape as evidence, and get caught doing it, we wouldn't get off scot free. We'd be in jail.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
What I found really interesting was that they didn't want to release a linux version because of the GPL license to the kernel.
Who says they have to release anything related to the kernel? They act as if it's impossible to release a commercial package with source under linux at all.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Okay, just random ruminations without any cognizance behind them...
FreeBSD does not have a decent Java. That's because Sun won't approve a FreeBSD Java. All it takes is minor tweaks and a recompile of Blackdown. But they won't do it. Just being stubborn I guess.
Microsoft sees this situation and comes bearing C#. "Use this instead! It's better than Java!" I'm thinking they expect FreeBSD developers to roll over and beg.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
We all knew they had a clause in their Corel investment that allowed them to require a .NET port from the canucks, but it really is just plain sad that they've gone ahead with it.
The CLI is a sophisticated compiler and virtual machine, just like a JVM. Giving it to Corel, a copmany with ZERO compiler/OS/JVM expertise is like telling the people who wrote the AOL client that they should start developing a new operating system.
--JRZ
Step 1. Release .NET for FreeBSD as "Shared Source" .NET)
Step 2. Prohibit "Potentially Viral Software" to be used with the code in any way.
Step 3. Point out that Linux doesn't (and can't run
Step 4. Endorse FreeBSD as the "Microsoft Approved free Unix".
Step 5. Wait.
Step 6. GNU/Linux is removed from corporate view as FreeBSD gains popularity.
Step 7. Announce new MicrosoftBSD Product.
Or at least, that's what I'd do.
Which is why the unified response of the Free Software/Open Source crowd is so important, and why it is so important to have both GPL and BSD licenses for various things.
They earlier exploited the following schisms
1. Netscape/Mosaic (by embracing and extending Mosaic)
2. AIM/Yahoo (by emphasizing the non-compatabilities)
3. Unix/Apple (by embracing and extending Apple, of course)
In all cases, it goes for the more corporatized version of a product and embraces and extends that. It's a very sound strategy, and we should have spotted it sooner. How should we combat it? Perhaps exposing it as it happens is a good way to start. Expect BSD schmoozing and GPL bashing in the future, and be prepared to stand together where it counts.
-Ben
Yeah, eating up our hard work like pac man!
That's all it is. Microsoft has simply repurposed their time-tested strategy for making competitive technologies "go away".
In this case, they are purposely making this farcical attempt to join the open-source comminity, when their only intent is to confuse the masses who are first starting to learn what open-source is all about.
The masses will be coerced into thinking that Microsoft _is_ open source after all, and then wonder what all the hoopla is about.
The best part about having the .NET source is so that you know what the hell is going on under the covers. It's not about changing it or re-selling new versions, it's about being able to write better code.
GPL snobs...
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Patent that algorithm!
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I don't have to ask anybody's permission to give it out, modify it---or use it. No EULAs. No "you can only show this to some people we like". No "we'll only let you do this if it fits our strategic goals for the platform." No "we've implemented media access controls because we know what's best for you."
Sun's various "community source" attempts and Microsoft's "shared source" don't give up control. Shared is too strong a term. Maybe "loaned source". "Leased source". There's no mistaking who has a lien on the software and everything you and your organization choose to do with it.
"No control" may not be a deciding factor in what technology you want. But it's a factor.
One thing that is interesting about all this is the way MS has changed it's tune from 'Linux is a joke', you can't do things that way to 'we do things in a similar way'. It's a big deal. Open Source has already changed the way the world works.
Cool.
I think people are ignoring that MS is attacking the use of GPL in Government sponsored projects.
BSD they like. They can steal that code.
GPL they don't like. They are attacking it in different ways:
1. Saying that it will make commercial companies loose money.
2. Saying that Government should not use or sponsor GPL products.
This leaves non-commercial organizations, educational centers and individuals.
Or does it?
Right now religiuosly affiliated organizations have to comply with a whole list of Federal regulations if they want Government money. Educational Institutions also. This is used to do things like prevent discrimination. That is a good thing.
But what if MS lobbying got a law passed that would ban University Employees or students using University Equipment from using/developing GPL'd software because it is "un-American" and hurts the economy? Or any other organization that takes Federal money? The organization is free to use/develope GPL'd software, it just doesn't get Federal Grants, Student Aid dollars, Research Grants etc. What would MIT do?
I think they would mandate a BSD style license on all software projects. And MS would scoop up the codde.
> With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia
/Dread
Yeay! I got a gnutella itch!
Greetz
Translation: we want that legendary legion of eyeballs to do their magic contributing freely to lowering our costs and speeding up our schedule. Of course, it would be Un-American to give up our absolute rights to the results.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
-------
Caimlas
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
"These are the kinds of things that make people say, are these really standards, or are they just standard when you can't get people by the short hairs?"
"but when you take something like Kerberos and you say, let's extend it a little bit and --"
"there is a trust issue that goes back to the Halloween Documents."
Youy really think the guy who said that is kissing ass? What are you smoking, and why aren't you sharing!
Best Slashdot Co
It seems that Micro$oft, or at least part of Micro$oft, *may* be finally starting to "get it". This might just be a first step towards a bigger goal. Of course, given its recent anti-open-source statements, it seems that there still is quite a bit of intra-company conflict between traditional and progressive ideologies.
Of course, no one has actually considered the following question: is it a Good Thing for them to "get it"?
--
SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
I'd like to give that ECMA script compiler a try. That way I could make SVG more interactive(like Flash) without having to do it by hand and reading debugger messages from IE.
I thought about this, but I think it will be hard for MS: MS have enough difficulty convincing existing Windows users upgrading to new versions of the operating system, it will be far harder for them to convince non-MS users to upgrade to a new version of .NET. (Sun has big difficulties coaxing people to upgrade their JREs, for instance).
A bigger difference is that people come to depend upon shared libraries, and you can expect the open source .NET libraries to be a tiny fraction of the total. Committing to be a wholly-open-source .NET developer will involve a lot of self-discipline.
How do people think about the differences between Sun and MS with respect to openness? I really don't have an opinion on who is better (ie. less benightedly awful).
I haven't read the liscense but if the 'shared source' is only available for reference purposes, and developers are not allowed to USE the 'shared source' in their opensource projects then this could cause problems.. One of the advantages to never seeing your competition's hand is that you can argue quite easily that your code provides a similar functionality without using the same code. By allowing developers to study their routines, Microsoft is poisoning the pool of coders that could construct a 'clean-room' version of their products..
A shared source licence is nothing new at all, basicly, it's an OpenSource licence minus the important part, Permission to Modify. Darren Reids licence on IPF for example, is (from what i can tell) shared source, because it doesn't allow the distribution of modifued versions...
I guess that microsoft dont want people to distribute any versions, but thats beside the point. The important part of OpenSource (as i see it) is the ability to modify. However being close without allowing that, is nothing new.
If they were really serious about spreading .NET stuff out to as many platforms as possible they would just come out and say "We'll provide the CLI and C# compilers on numberous platforms for free: Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac, etc."
Instead they are trying to play up some marketing sidestep from their previous hostile statements. Instead of offering the olive branch they come with gold bars for a select few and try to make it seem like a "peace offering".
You don't need to give away the source to have a successful development platform(heck...Windows is a prime example of this). Why bother "sharing away the source" now unless one thinks there will be big fanfaire and accolades that go along with it?
Another interesting aspect to this is how will the BSD(specifically the FreeBSD) community handle this? Will they embrace it or turn it away? Beats me...it always seemed to me the point of BSD and its license isn't necessarily to foster a community growth/improvement but to get people to use cool free stuff.
GLP and BSD licenses only apply to those who code not those who use the software in the end. So if you never have any aspirations of modifying the code you really don't have to wrestle with any of the licensing stuff going on here (Open vs Closed) or there (GPL vs BSD).
The reason why Microsoft's "Shared Source" License is completely unfair is that is a "look but don't touch". The value of having the source is negated since you are unable to change it to suite your needs.
In the end both the GPL and BSD want to provide the coolest running software they can use. Its so unfortunate that fanatics on both sides are so hardline against each other when in the end both really want to make the coolest software possible.
Why does he keep treating these people like they are legititmate, in the face of such palpable absurdities as Alchin/Ballmer/Mundie on the GPL and the recent MIT EULA? MS cannot make an honest public statement - something in the corporate culture makes it impossible. There's nothing they have to say that I need to hear.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
That you can't emulate the success of the Open Source Community by copying one superficial piece of it without "Getting it."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Wow, they give away this c# compiler that is a java/c wannabe. They know that a compiler has to get a lot of use to be accepted, so they let people use it under a licence thats still in the hands of the lawyers.
A couple of days days ago there was a story about how MS lawayers just read the GPL (and now shit scared) and not allowing people to use MS development tools to write code under "viral" type licences such as the GPL.
He seems to think hes grovelling to the open source community, but hes giving away a compiler that we wont be able to use on our OS of choice, and wont be able to use with our licence of choice.
MS can reach out all they want, nobody trusts them, and nobody will untill they are well and truely broken.
...FreeBSD!
Linux servers are going to find themselves at an increasingly serious market disadvantage, if they can't run scripts written for MS's new platform.
With luck this release should take a few weeks off the clean-room reverse-engineering.
Recent relevant articles from Linux Magazine:
-- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
Pages 3-4 discuss
-- Jon Udell from Byte
What linux can learn from
-- Mark Mitchell from GCC
The practical work needed before GCC can be the cornerstone of a
Getting .NET onto linux is a neccessity -- and soon. It's also probably a bigger project than any one company can support. But it is an effort that needs to be got underway a.s.a.p.
I think you are wrong.
It would be better to clone the new API than to ignore it -- then there would be at least a chance of keeping MS honest, in the same way that having to make web pages Netscape-compatible has put the brakes on the proprietary extensions in IE.
At a technical level, it would also be nice to have the seamless inheritance and scriptability of objects between different languages -- this is considerably ahead of what can be done at the moment with JVMs, XPCOM or Bonobo.
So how much of the code do you imagine I would have to change before MS would allow me to GPL my version ?
Particularly between unix variants, a "port" might just mean changing a handful of system calls.
Do you really think MS would allow something to be GPL'd if it was 98% their code ? Or 90% ? Or 10% ? Or 1% ?
C'mon Taco, what are you smoking?! Open Source and Free Software are the same thing except for the motivation or philosophical ideas behind them. Not only is the motivation for so-called Shared Source a completelly different one -- it doesn't even resemble Open Source/Free Software in any way!
Exactly where are the common roots for all three, so a branch would even be possible?
Free Manning, jail Obama.
MS is not giving up anything if it does not give up everything! What good is the source to A if it calls and depends on B that can be broken at anytime without warning? I imagine newer MS policies, whenever they arrive, will combine the worst of former practices and older versions of stuff like Apple's or Sun's community liscences.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
See The Register: MS to blow imaginary $1bn on hyping WinXP to stardom
---
---
Silence is consent.
Yep this is just MS saying me too.
This way high level IT managers will read in a trade newspaper that MS is also open source (without explaining the difference between the licenses of course) so they can show their rank and file that it's better than Linux or FreeBSD.
As a bonus they get people to debug their stuff for free.
--
--
Can't buy what I want because it's free.
Microsoft is not locking you into their APIs. In fact the shared source .NET implementation will consist of a C# compiler and the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure), both of which are currently in the hands of the EMCA for standardization. This means that they will be public standards, available for anybody to implement. You are not forced to use Passport either, in fact I have implemented sevral web services without Passport. The protocol for communication in .NET is SOAP over http, both of which are W3C standards, so Microsoft does not own that either.
The exact license for the shared source implementation of the CLI and C# and EMCAscript compilers has not yet been determined. However, they will be mad in source code form free for non-commercial use and educational use. Porting this source to other platforms will be allowed. Commercial use may also be allowed. Using the source as a sample for building your own set of libraries and compilers to release under whatever license you please (open or not) will also be allowed.
This is not pure publicity. This implementation will be available for use by anybody who wants to use it non-commercially or educationally. It will be available for use for people who want to create their own ".NET"'s . It may even be available for people who want to use it commercially. This product will be in beta probably by the end of the year.
I work there, and I read slashdot. I also know quite a few people here that read it...
That's because it hasn't been written yet ;-)
if the 'shared source' is only available for reference purposes, and developers are not allowed to USE the 'shared source' in their opensource projects then this could cause problems
This is not the goal of this release. As I say, the license has not been written yet, and won't be until closer to the release date, the code will be available free for non-commercial use and educational use. It will also likely be avaiable for commercial use. Porting will be allowed, encouraged even, and you will be able to base even your own propriatary .NET implementation on this code.
C# hasn't been officially released yet. Beta 2 of the Microsoft C# compiler was released last week, but the final retail version is not done yet.
This product is not the .NET platform that is released for windows. The .NET platform is a commercial product, and a seperate entity. The shared source implementation is based upon the same standards as the .NET platform, but it is a different code base. Any bugs appearing in the shared source implementation do not necessarially reflect bugs in the commercial implementation and vica versa.
This is not at all like Sun's approach to Java. Unlike Sun's approach to Java, Microsoft has chosen to use an established standards body to create specifications for this technology. Anyone can create a conforming implementation, without being required to submit to any of Microsoft's licensing terms. In addition, the CLI is designed to support multiple programming languages. Functionally, the CLI standard provides basic runtime services for server, client, and dedicated devices alike, while the C# language provides a well-matched way to use these services.
Actually, the shared source product and the .NET platform are two different products having seperate code bases. They are based on the same standard, but they are not the same. Microsoft does not stand to directly "reap all the benefits" for the commercial .NET platform from this release.
This source will be open for non-commercial and academic use. You may learn from it. In fact you are 100% free to port the source to any platform/architecture you feel the need to. The actual license agreement has not been released yet, but so far definition #5 does not apply to this release.
Yes, yes, and yes. This source will be available for non-commercial and educational use. It will be 100% free to port to any other platform/architecture you want to
Dot Net is M$'s attempt to take over the world wide web
.NET uses established protocols to do its communication. These are SOAP and http, both of which are W3C standards. This is hardly taking over the world wide web
there are several implementations of the Java core and extension APIs
This source will be available to be ported, and after it is released, there will be several implementations of the CLI and C#, etc.
Just as Java's value proposition is tiny without all those java.* and javax.* classes, so C#/CLR without the .NET APIs is pretty worthless
You have some misinformation here. Part of the CLR is the BCL (base class library) which provides the System.* classes. These are the equivilent of the java.* classes from Java.
I dismiss the CLR multi-language argument by pointing out the plethora of languages already available that target the JVM
Valid point about the JVM targeted languages, but don't dismiss the multi-language argument, just state that its not an advantage for either camp over the other but rather something that they have in common.
in each language that targets the CLR, it is only that subset of functionality of that language that is common to them all that is useful .NET runtime, and I was not hindered at all by any constraints put on me by the runtime. I think, although I'm not sure, that there will not be artificial language restrictions placed upon code. However if it is true, one could make the same argument about the JVM....for instance can I use multiple inheritance with Perl for the JVM (if a port exists?)?
I'm not 100% sure about this. I've used C#, manged C++ (I did not use multiple inheritence there, so I don't know about your argument), VB and Python for the
it's pretty worthless without all the .NET APIs.
I think there has been some confusion about this. Part of what is being released is the BCL (base class library), which contains all the System.* classes, esentially the equivilent of the java.* classes in the Java platform. You will have access to these.
This is true, the WinForms subsystem is currently tied to Windows, and it will not be part of the upcoming shared source release. However, Microsoft and Corel are working together to create a cross-platform GUI toolkit based upon TCL. Also, there is nothing about the actual WinForms interfaces that are tied to Windows, so I suspect that a few dedicated people might build a WinForms backend for GTK or QT, etc.
One issue is speed. The .NET runtime is much faster than Java. In the Beta 2 release, a tool called nGen is included, which can be used to "pre-jit" code, creating native images at install time. C# is also a very nice language, with several nicetieties that Java does not have including delegates (typesafe function pointers), user defined events, operator overloading, unsafe code for when you want to get down and dirty, the foreach construct, etc.
This is equivilent to saying that having a Java compiler and JVM on a varietly of different platforms does nothing to help interoperability because its all bound the the JVM API and its internals.
The CLI is the .NET equivilent of the JVM it allows managed code to executed on a variety of different platforms. This shared source implementation will be initially available for Windows and FreeBSD, but is available to be ported to any other platform. This does a lot to increase interoperability.
"is it a Good Thing for [Microsoft] to "get it"?"
Microsoft probably understands Open Source and Free Sotware very well.... they probably know it a lot better than most people who support Open Source and Free Software do. Why? Because Microsoft may be evil, but it doesn't remain evil without having incredibly talented and intelligent people working for it.
The issue isn't whether Microsoft gets it or not - they get it, for sure.
The real issue is how Microsoft is going to respond to Open/Free source. We've seen time and again how Microsoft will take a non-Microsoft standard and either introduce their own modified version of it, or introduce an alternative and push it as a competing standard. They want control of everything, and they are going to try to gain control of the resources of the Open Source and Free Software communities, or try to make them irrelevant.
Microsoft will try to re-define what "Open Source" is, or they will try to steal all of the source code press, or they will try to achieve "buy-in" from Open Source community participants.
Just as a basketball team in an away game will try to quickly silence the hometown crowd, Microsoft will try to marginalize the advantages and resources of Open/Free source. But don't for a second think that Microsoft doesn't "get it" right now, or that they have any potential to become the good guys in all of this. Microsoft wants money, and is trying to position their products, services and public image in a way that will allow them to capture more sales.
Benefit? From the utter sources created by Microsoft programmers? It would set back the very percentage of good opensource code back by at least 50%. As if there isn't enough slugish code already.
This is a replacement signature.
Well, remember, Java is also available under a shared source license, which actually could hurt open source Java implementations.
Wahoo!! Just what every open source programmer needs. I think MS is only interested in sharing whatever it thinks will increase its .NET adoption.
.NET API and internals.
Having these tools does nothing to help interoperability, since that is all bound to the
It will not be good! I'm afraid this 'shared source' initiative will spread itself like a cancer through our community!
This is not only funny, but very true in a rather scary way. I didn't think it was possible, but it looks like Microsoft is now trying to "embrace and extend" our development model. If it works (and a quick rundown of Microsoft's marketing history gives very little reason to believe that they won't convince people to buy into it), we're in for a bumpy ride, to say the least.
Ph3ar.
v. tr. Coming soon to a dictionary near you...
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Oh, grow up. I've been buying O'Reilly books for years and I don't recall ever getting them for free. Just like Microsoft, O'Reilly is in business to make money. The fact that many people -- not just Microsoft -- see the GPL as an impediment to their right to sell software at a profit shouldn't surprise anyone anymore than the fact that O'Reilly expects you to pay for thier books. If you're real issue is a denial of the right to own and sell software, then cut to the chase and declare yourself.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
. As such, it seems to me that O'Rielly is merely logically following a trend that will impact his core community.
I'm amazed -- and a little frightened -- by how many slashdotters assume exposure == legitimacy, or that information == support.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
After reading this:
3 281,00.html
.NET. I'm not sure if I should laugh or be scared.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,509
(yes, that's right, Microsoft and others will spend a collective $1,000,000,000.00 marketing Windows XP)
I have to wonder how much they'll market
Get ready to fight the FUD.
Why do people say this when they point out the obvious to those who haven't grasped it for the zillionth time?
What has it got to do with shampoo?
I really would like to know.
Oh, for completeness I'd like to add that you are (i presume) referring to the POSIX tools included in the NT Resource Kit, which are GNU tools.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Looks like Microsoft is trying to "Embrace and Extend" the concept of Open Source.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Let me translate: We feel Linux if a threat to the Windows operating system and we dont want to aid in its development.
"We've discovered websphere developers write 80% less infrastructure code"
As far as the License itself goes, it looks like the Lawyers are still working on it.
"We don't actually have a license for you because they're lawyers," Stutz said. "If it was me, I'd have the license."
Pardon me if I don't hold my breath waiting.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I hate to agree with you, but I'm starting to. What the hell is going on Tim!?!? Is that really you? Or did Bill kill you and replace you with a robot designed to do his bidding? What's next? O'Reilly only publishing on C# and Microsoft products? The Armadillo book being delisted in favor of the Mandrill?
Let's call open source "communism." Yea, everybody hates communism. That didn't work? How about "cancer." Yea, cancer is even worse than communism. The whole attack on open source is not working? Okay, lets say we are the friends of open source. Whatever works, I guess.
Er, this is not an example of begging the question. Please learn the correct use of the phrase, or don't use it at all.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Of course not. They just want you to debug it for them.
This .NET thing will only work as it is meant to work if *many* developers respect it more or less.. especially those whose code is still less dependent from MS architecture. They will need those guys for the success of .NET.
.NET is *content*, more specific it is really about control over content description, encryption and packaging and maybe even transport.
So they will lower the ethical bar bit by bit, until a enough sheep jumped over it.
Do not forget, the ultimate magnet AND target of
The licensing and technical issue is only a diversion of our attention.
It all boils down again to one sober observation: the Answer is not Microsoft. It is the Question. The Answer is "No".
--------
* Sigh *
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
First of all, he flat out states that the license will be setup in such a way that non-commercial ports to Linux (or any other OS most likely) are 100% OK.
.NET framework. The offerings include:
.NET scripts on other platforms. We'll also have the C# compiler on other platforms. The kicker is the CLI, which gives us the base runtime for C#, C++, VB, Perl, or any other .NET app to run.
This section of the article was particularly telling, in terms of what will be offered in source format and what won't.
Stutz says that the CLI being offered as shared source is a subset of what's in the
the ECMAscript compiler, written in C#, which runs on both platforms (Windows, FreeBSD)
the C# compiler, which also runs on both platforms
and the shared-source CLI.
OK, that's good. It means we can run
It doesn't include
ASP.NET
ADO.NET
Windows Forms
I don't see ASP.NET as a problem, since it is so tied to IIS anyway. ADO would be a HUGE boon to Linux in terms of database programming. Of course having a standard windowing model between Windows and other OSes would be great too, but it appears that is not to be.
He did state that MS is always willing to work with commercial porting companies. This is only a list of what they are letting out in source form for free. A company, say RedHat, could very well port ASP.NET to run on Apache, or Borland could sell a Windows Forms environment for the various *nixes.
Anyhow, he goes on:
When this shared license is revealed, it will certainly be the most liberal software license Microsoft has offered. But Stutz says it's not out of the question that in the future, Microsoft's licenses will become ever more open.
"This is all about Microsoft getting serious about sharing source code in a very wide way," he said. "And it's also a serious long-term commitment to establishing the CLI as a basis for web services. It's really not a short-term, tactical Java battle."
-- russ
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
It sounds similar to what Sun does with the source code for Java. Only Sun can distribute it. Only Sun can change and improve it. You can't fork it.
Also, Microsoft all along has done things like making the source for their C runtime library (which is just a bunch of wrappers around the Win32 API, which is in turn a wrapper around the internals of Windows' many flavors) available under various restrictions.
where there's fish, there's cats
From the Microsoft Encarta Dictiionary:
XML and Java are incredibly usable by anyone who's willing to try, thanks to the fact that both are cross-platform and have been a long time in the making, and also thanks to the availability of freely distributable compilers/interpreters, and applications which use them for so many reasons that it would be ridiculous to even think about changing all of these things around to deal with anything new and proprietary and NOT FREE.
So Microsoft has to make these tools free.
The only way to let Microsoft know how completely pathetic this move is would be to ignore it entirely. I mean, seriously, how often do any of us need to see a Microsoft article on a fine site like Slashdot? Can't we cover more atrocities of human nature, more scientific studies, more juiced-up hardware and software?
While I'm ranting and raving, I'd like to talk about Americanism, and what it means to me. Being an American -- that is, being free to be me, to think and feel the way I want to think and feel, and not hurting anyone in the process, and being able to believe in what I know is true -- has always meant that I could be giving of myself no matter what. I'm a second-year Software Engineering student, and I dread the day that I have to work for someone who doesn't see the world exactly that way. I understand that people tend to fear not having enough money to afford a "normal" life: large TV, nice car, big house, big yard, spouse and kids optional. However, I believe that if you care enough about doing something, -- programming, writing, painting, running, dancing -- ANYTHING, and if you can try to understand other people as well, you'll not only survive, you'll find that the quality of life is better when you're open to other people. Imagine families sharing their dinner tables, their yards and their pools with their neighbors, and, with a little consideration, no one gets angry or frustrated. Maybe I believe too much in the phrase "property is theft", but I'd give every last cent in my pocket for the next person -- IF IT WOULD HELP THEM. That is, we have to stop throwing money at problems and notice the lives around us. If we're not willing to tend to a sick or dying person with our own heart and hands, who are we, really?
For those of you who think I'm getting off topic, I'd like to know what exactly Microsoft has done to change the world. Proprietary, closed code is not exactly the worst thing in the world, but if Microsoft wants to prove that open source doesn't work, why don't they set up a project of their own -- some small side job -- and employ the aide of folks like those of the Slashdot community to help them with it?
Open Source is "un-American" my ass. True Americans are brothers and sisters all the way, or nothing. Sharing responsibility and credit for a project that is reviewed by peers and experts, and can help beginners to learn about the way things work is not "the American way"? I lived close near four farms for 8 years of my life, and I've never seen that much BS.
Thank you.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
This is all about Java, and O'Reilly busted him on it. By giving away the source, they hope to give their language a wider audience, hoping that people will choose it over Java. Even Linux Nazi's might be willing to give it a shot if someone ports it to Linux. I'm willing to gamble that C# is probably a pretty good language, if you're into that high level Java style stuff, and by giving the source away they get maximum exposure.
Flame On. Captain_Frisk out.
So, open source is like an orgy while shared source is like a strip club?
Hmm....
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Maybe they figure that since they can't sell it, they'll just have to give it away. lol.
After everything they've said about the GPL, Open Source Movement, and the Free Software Movement, I think its hypicritical of them to release anything under these pretenses. I question thier motives on this, and I wouldn't touch that code with a ten foot pole.
RA7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
*YAWN*
/. /    |\/| |\/| |\/| / Run, Bill!
 _
The Kerberos case is that, as part of the standards creation process it was recognized that all vendors would be interested in having an extensibility hook so that they could essentially incorporate their own native authentication into the Kerberos web of trust. And that's precisely what we did. We used that hook in a way that was intended. And we are willing to strike business deals with people who want to strike a business deal for that implementation detail. That is not a misuse of that standard. ...
/. /    |\/| |\/| |\/| / Run, Bill!
Let see if I follow their logic correctly:
1) Kerberos does adhere to standard because others don't, so they 'forced' used that hook.
2) everybody could strike a business deal for implementation details if they want
Therefore that is not a misuse of standard.....
Sorry I'm still lost....let me go back a little bit...
Standards bodies don't exist just to stamp an existing implementation. They exist so that the members can actually work out consensus among themselves.
What you meant by 'themselves', as you implied, are business partners right? I see now! Standard is being formed by people who signed business deals, and making the profit out of the same technology. Therefore, Kerberos is adhere to standard because it's standard among those who have partnerships with Microsoft.
Got it! Thanks!
 _
*BSD users (myself included) have often wondered why Linux has been so much more popular and what it would take for *BSD to gain a larger following. Could it be that Microsoft will be the trigger for more widespread acceptance? Talk about your ironies. Someone else mentioned the possibility of a MSBSD. That would be interesting, but just as curious would be if the Beast from Redmond were to give enough press to BSD to push it over the top. I don't think anyone would have predicted that.
I wonder if they'll include the comments in this "shared source." I can see a customer of this, asking "um, what does ph33r |\/|Y m3m0r33 l33k mean?"
You guys are looking at this all wrong. Sure, the FreeBSD port may, as a useful (to Microsoft) side effect wedge the free software community (although I tend to doubt it). But the real issue here is that it amplifies a major weakness in Microsofts whole .NET strategy: that Windows servers for .NET will suck, and Microsoft knows it.
.NET as well as Microsoft is going to need them to.
Think about it. Hotmail still runs BSD (FreeBSD?) as far as I know, on its servers, despite being owned by MS for how long? They're going to keep on running BSD so any C# server-side apps that MS wants to run on those servers (and any of the other BSD servers Microsoft runs) are going to have to run under BSD. Therefore Microsoft has to port C# to BSD.
I sincerely doubt MS would bother if it thought that Windows servers would perform for C# and
Not that they'll ever admit that, of course, but to me this is just further evidence that Microsoft, down in its heart of hearts, knows that Windows just doesn't scale as a true enterprise-level server platform.
P2P Anonymous Distributed Web Search: http://www.yacy.net/
- a shared source implementation of the C# programming language and common language infrastructure (CLI)specifications
- that it submitted to ECMA in October 2000.
- this implementation will run on FreeBSD
- and Microsoft® Windows®
- Designed to be used for academic, research, debugging and learning purposes
So they are developing something according to the standard they released to ECMA (a good thing - if Sun had let go of Java we might have never seen dotNET), but they are going to limit it to non-commercial use.How does this benefit anyone other than Microsoft? I've seen enough "hardball" business decisions from Redmond to be a little cynical about this.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
I don't see how Microsoft's license, or their lack of a true open source license, is at all "unfair." Some will argue that not releasing source freely impinges on the rights of end users, but what about the rights of the person who created the software? Open source is good, but the best part about it is that it is a matter of choice--an author opens his or her code freely without being compelled to do so.
Could Microsoft and Apple be working 'Behind the scenes' again? Or could this be a way for Microsoft to make some inroads with Apple? Or just another way for Microsoft to make inroads to world domination? Me? I'm betting on the last one. With OSX largely based on FreeBSD, and many BSDs offering binary emulation support, potentionally Microsoft's C# (and therefore other Microsoft software) could find its way happily running on BSD based servers. Oh, and going 'shared source' just think of security holes this will open up! I'll stick with Perl & PHP, thank you.
"BSD is about people pissing each other.." (Moid Vallat)
Can we take this serious? I don't believe MS is really interested in free software, not through GPL, not through BSD license, not through any licence. They just want to look cool in this momentum of free software interest by the press.
It will not be good! I'm afraid this 'shared source' initiative will spread itself like a cancer through our community!
As I read through the article my initial response was one of suprise. I was impressed that micrsoft was actually do this. I have no problem with their concept of shared source. I am only against them making money off standards. While it seems in this case they are trying to release the standard without making money. I am suspicious tho. I can forsee Miscrosoft doing this to win support for the new technology, getting everyone to play by their rules, and then release some new standard based off the old, but this time it will be proprietary. I dunno. Maybe I need to crawl back under my tin hat. I would love to see Microsoft do this. I am not against making money off source code, I am against limiting progress becuase you have the world by the balls and you are insisting that they use your standards. Just my worthless 2 cents
what?
taco: "We would all benefit"
What do you mean "we"?
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When i first read i, i couldnt believe microsoft would release thier source, but then i learned it was only certain products to certain people, but a step in the right direction for microsoft
Judging from what I recall from some c.o.l.a discussions, not so soon.
You see, when Microsoft sold its Un*x (named Xenix) to SCO, they also agreed not to compete in the Un*x market any more.
Supposedly, it is not widely known, what's exactly in that agreement, but I think it exists, otherwise - internal competition and all - M$ would have re-entered the Un*x market already.
They could, however, influence the *BSDs less explicitly, but I don't think that would change much.
When Microsoft produces a useful work of software (Win 3.1/95/98) it keeps the source code for a variety of reasons, mostly to keep a competitive advantage, also to keep the number of modifications made by users down, and to keep the user base dependent on Microsoft for updates, free or otherwise. Now this immensely complicated technology, .NET, is planned for the use of the general public. All of the reasons Microsoft had for keeping its source to itself are still valid. And the ludicrous security risk posed by distributing an applications programming enviornment across a public network begs for at least a "cryptic" system for encryption and authentication.
It appears that Microsoft would like to embrace and extend the Shared Source(tm) philosophy for the purposes of public relations. Is Bill Gates spending his old age gazing into a mirror, wishing he were a princess?
Java enterprise beans, Linux, BSD, and the unlimited supply of strong development environments on free platforms is what makes Microsoft scared.
The developer community loves this free stuff. The ability to play with new languages, tweak software, and learn new stuff is what attracts developers. Microsoft knows that the developes of today will be the CTOs and IT managers of tomorrow. The linux crowd of today will one day have the power to decide what goes on Joe Schmoe's desktop at work, what mail servers, databases, and web servers to use. Microsoft is scared to death about what'll happen 10 years down the road, so they've started the battle today before it's too late.
They desperately need to lure new developers into their fold.
Microsoft knows this, and is doing everything to scare future developers away from free software, and pretending to offer the same freedoms on their platform. It's pure propaganda of course, but as you know: propaganda works, it's been proven many times, and in large scale.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
'open source: "share and enjoy"; shared source: "look but don't touch"'
Could that be why Microsoft's being nasty towards open source? Maybe they aren't evil after all, they just think we're telling them to "go stick your head in a pig"?
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Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I...
We have recently entered Stage 2. (Counting from zero, of course, as all right-thinking people do.)
well it may not be open source, but it beats no source at all...
Go ahead and waste your life with your inhibitions, just don't ruin other people's lives with your intolerances.
Fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Common tactic used in 'mine is better than yours' wars.
Carl G. Jung
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Carl G. Jung
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"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia