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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.
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.
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.
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!
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)
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.
Best Schwartzenegger accent:
"It's NOT a tumor"
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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).
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?
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% ?
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.
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
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.
You Said:
Like it or not, Mickeysoft has some good programmers. I don't like Microsoft, but even I can admit the programmers there are pretty damn smart. Ever read any of their books? Writing Solid Code has many good ideas on writing bug free and easily debugged code.
Reply:
And at least as may horrible ones. As a fellow developer, I beg of you to be very careful of adopting the views of that book. A detailed review of why it can be harmful is available at accu. Code Complete, on the other hand, is a very good book. Not really by a microsoft guy, but the author spent alot of time there as a consultant. Plus he draws all of his advice from case studies, so there is research to back up what he says.
What sets Microsoft apart from all other programming companies is their singleminded need to dominate every market it touches. I don't think Billy can sleep at night knowing somebody out there is turning on a PC or a toaster and he's not getting a couple shekels off of it. Unfortunately, this market dominance manifests itself quite often in apps rushed to the market, too many features (which MS semi-admitted in W2K by having menus hide unused features) which add to possible defects and bugs, and Microsoft giving you what it wants you to have instead of what you want/need (damn paperclip).
Yes, some of their stuff is shit (ever wade through MFC headers or source? it's ugly in there) but most of them actually have a clue surprisingly enough.
"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"
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)
From the Microsoft Encarta Dictiionary:
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.
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.
And actually I was refering to Interix, the Windows 2000 product that does full UNIX emulation, and costs $99.95.
IMHO, that's the real smoking gun.
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
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"?
--
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.
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