Slashdot Mirror
Rotor: Shared Source CLI
Oink.NET writes "The O'Reilly Network reports on an unannounced BOF session at BSDCon 2002 regarding Rotor, a shared souce implementation of Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure that currently runs on Windows and FreeBSD. It relies on a Platform Adaptation Layer, similar to Apache's Portable Runtime, that simplifies porting to other OS's. As to the licensing terms, the Rotor FAQ says "Microsoft intends to provide very liberal non-commercial licensing terms and is interested in gathering community input on the design of the license." Wonder if that includes Slashdot community input..."
Obviously, a plan to get ahead of and preempt commercial support for any shared-source implementations that might have liberal non-commercial licenses (ie, Mono).
The thinking seems to be, give the hobbyists something they can dink around with and they won't be worried about 'software freedom'; they want neat toys, not free software!
"Why FreeBSD?
f v= 1
One goal of creating a shared source implementation of the ECMA CLI is to prove that the technical choices being made by the ECMA technical group can be implemented on multiple operating system platforms. FreeBSD seemed like a good choice, since it is both a representative UNIX implementation and a platform that has historically encouraged unencumbered experimentation. Microsoft has no plans for supporting other platforms or chip architectures in this implementation at this time."
I think they chose freebsd because it it _still_ driving the majority of hotmail, perhaps this is thier "FreeBSD version of Linux" See the link below:
http://www.cw360.com/article&rd=&i=&ard=110220&
"Microsoft has built a FreeBSD version of Linux, but this is more of a publicity gig than a serious endeavour."
"The once beautiful rose blackens slowly..."
Rotor was a gravity-based vertical 2d scroller game with vga/ega graphics
*sigh*
coincidentaly, i w4r3zeD it lately, and played it.
like a punch in the face sending you 10 years backwards...
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
wtf is wrong with these people, reusing existing acronyms?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
microsoft sure likes the BSD license.
The existance of a widely distributed "visible-source" version from MS means that developers of Open Source versions have to take special care to document their development. If there's any similarity between Mono or DotGNU and the MS offering, MS can try to say that their code has been stolen.
Note that if MS really wanted independant implmentations then they would just use a BSD license. They're not doing that, and that means there's something sneaky going on. Don't trust them.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
It could be a problem.
I am absolutely positive that the licensing terms for the 'shared source' are going to involve some sort of extreme IP protection mechanism that will give MS unimaginable amount of power to prosecute anyone who they believe is violating their IP.
From now on, FS developers will have to make sure that anyone on their project has _not_ agreed to the MS shared source license. Kaffe has a similiar policy because of Sun's nasty license.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
yeah right. look around. its more of a community of people who "hate" microsoft, but want to make .NET work outside of Wintel. thereby aiding microsoft in world domination. you also have the legions of microsoft employees who troll and subvert. and then of course the mac fiends. (of which i am one) and somewhere theres the few unix heads who contribute.
i guess i'm just sick of hearing people who "hate" microsoft helping them by promoting their architecture and systems. to me it is the biggest hypocritical side to slashdot. well other than the subscription gig.
Extend and embrace?
I was on a bus in Seattle and overheard Bill Gates say Bill Joy admitted CLR was better than Java and begged Bill for a job.
non-commercial licenses (ie, Mono)
For God's sake would you all please stop referring to non free / closed source software as `commercial'? Not only is it simply incorrect there are many Open Source / Free apps produced for commercial benefit (eg, Zope) and many non-commercial apps with non Open Source licensing (eg, much Windows `freeware').
Why is it that people (not referring to the person I'm replying to, just Slashdot in general) claim they care about Free Software so much and have never read The Free Software Foundations list of words to avoid. I imagine the OSI would shaare this vview.
Long live commercial software, as long as its Open Source!
Wonder if that includes Slashdot community input...
By which you mean fanatical, Stallmanist screeds about the evils of proprietary software? The written equivalent of storming the castle gates with torches, pitchforks, and not a thought in your head?
Probably not.
--saint
I hate this kind of untruthfulness. The authors of the GPL document know the real meaning of open source, and the other terms they plan to redefine. They mean to sway the minds of the rest of the public who don't know how self-serving their redefinitions are.
Sounds like the Microsoft we know. Only M$ can make money. We can be sure what they mean by liberal is that they can comercialize anything they want and lock out the orignials. Like winsock.
No thanks. Not making money, that's a restriction most people can't live with. Comercialization is part of software freedom. I don't need Microsoft's platforms, so why would I care about Microsoft's propriatory "standards" that let me talk to it? I've got ssh, X, and ftp for talking accros reasonable platforms. For those who want the pain and suffering of chasing the M$ tail there is mono. This toy is sure to be broken without recourse as soon as convienent to M$. Will comercial interests really be so stupid as to fall for yet another M$ trick? I hope not. Tell your boss, don't let this one get shoved down on you by clueless management.
As this is the same old story, I expect the same results for those not under the clueless. There have been more Linux developers than Microsoft developers for a while now. This is not likely to change much. Microsoft thinks people just want neat toys but where people are spending their time tells a different story.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Literally, a deal with the devil. Remember folks, these people are above the law. Doesn't matter what promises they make or contracts they sign. They no longer have any need to abide by any agreement they make.
I don't know about your other figures but Darwin and OS X fall under your failing *BSD umbrella and their percentages are rising.
finds an exploit for it you just know it's going to be called roter-root'er.
I only had time to scan the article, so I'm hoping someone who understands this a little better than me can help out...
.NET/c# app?
They say it is for non-commercial puproses...but what part of it? when you build this package, you get a c# compiler and some script compiler, and I assume the class libraries and VM or whatever CLI is (I really don't know). I can understand the part about building an app with their c# compiler being for non-commercial purposes--but don't you need the CLI library or virtual machine or whatever to run a
So if I pull down Rotor, build it-- can I use it (the libs/vm whatever CLI is, tossing out the compilers) to run commercial apps? or is that a violation of the proposed license?
I'd also be interested in knowing if this proposed license would prevent someone from selling sourcecode to a project, and have them compile it themselves on their own copy of rotor (which might be conveniently included with the source).
--Scott
A substantial part of the classes are Windows Forms. How do they plan to implement them on FreeBSD?
Asking slashdot what they think of this would be like asking the KKK what they thought of abolishing apartheid.
Somehow I think they were looking for intelligent informed opinions instead.
The BSDL is monopoly-friendly. The GPL is business-friendly. As long as you're not in the business of monopolizing.
and my personal favorite:
let the flamefest and downmodding begin!
Acts@core.mailboks.com Acrux@core.mailboks.com Adam@core.mailboks.com Adar@core.mailboks.com Ada@core.mailboks.com
Yup that's right.
Sheesh...i'm sick of you FUCKING MORONS!!! Half of why I use FreeBSD is because I'm sick of the stupid GPL orthodoxy mentality expressed by jackasses like you.
Slashdot...where if it ain't GPL it's a Bad Thing.
Open source is a very powerful tool, and, I think has the potential to play a very important part in the future software industry. People here on Slashdot and other developer forums that are linked to Open source software often criticise propreitry software and claim that everything should be Open sourced.
I disagree with that, I am also a firm believer that copyrights should remain in the hand of the IP owner. However, in the case of Operating systems, communications software, communications protocols, and Office/presentation software and formats, I believe Open source is not only preferable, but perhaps neccessary. Having private companies controlling such software and thereby standards is not ideal and could even prove a step backwards in the long run.Another area where I believe Open source should become the norm is tools. There are few more powerful things than source code to make a tool flexible. However, this is a grey area and there are a lot of cases where propreitry tools are better, and for that higher quality the developers deserve to be paid. A combination of open source tools and propreitry tools is healthy, it helps the market to a state of balance. If all tools were open source, development on them would be hindered, and if all tools were propreitry, they would cost a fortune and development on them would probably also be hindered.
Art-related software such as games, and any other software that is not directly involved with communications or vital business infrastructure, should not be required to be open sourced.FreeBSD has the potential to fulfill some of the these ideals. It is stable, fast, and an overall brilliant operating system. It could be implemented as a base infrastructure system, powering desktops, servers and eventually embedded devices. This way, game developers would be able to distribute their software with knowledge that the entire system is truly open and Microsoft or any other company will not have advantages due to underhanded management of information regarding infrastructure-level software (OS, etc).
I have talked to several of my contacts in the industry and a lot of them feel the same way. Unfortunately, the current state of the industry makes it impossible to develop for anything but Microsoft Windows, and at a push, the Apple Mac OS, and reasonably expect profits. I do encourage the support of FreeBSD by the general public, because I believe in the long-run, this could be of benefit to everyone. Licenses like the GPL are nonsensical and will never be accepted by serious commercial developers. The BSD license solves this problem and puts FreeBSD at a huge advantage over other free systems.cheers,
Steven WostoenLead Programmer,
J-j-j-julius Games
exactly my point.
thank you. if i had mod points to give you, i would.
Microsoft chooses FreeBSD over Linux, because it
has a more liberal license, but:
"Anyone expecting to use this implementation as the basis for distributing a commercial product would need to negotiate a license for this purpose with Microsoft."
Alot of people are pointing out that MS's licensing could turn out to be really bad for Mono should they say that Mono stole their source. But don't forget, Mono itself is written in C#, not C. That is why it is taking so long to get the compiler self-hosting. I am pretty sure this MS compiler is written in C, so Mono should be OK. That says nothing od DotGNU however, and I do agree that MS is probably trying to pull a fast one with this.
Has it ever occured to people who get upset that one point of view about MS/IP/whatever is followed by the opposite view later on that maybe, just maybe, these two points of view are coming from different people?
Microsoft is engaging in a tactic called "Muddying the Waters" - when your adversary has crystal clear goals and objectives, you can divert him by giving him extra goals and more interesting things to ponder. Any time spent away form the goals of Free Software is a win for Microsoft.
Remember that the sucuess of Linux is due to the GPL and not due to it's technical merrits. If technical merrit were all that mattated - we all would be running Be right now.
Linux and Free Software are winning becuase we are not playing Microoft's game of Shiny-Box-On-Retail-Shelf software. We are using the desruptive technology of the GPL. and Microsoft is now getting wise and is trying to play our game.
Don't let Balmer make you do his monkey dance.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
It's a nice thing watching MS co-operating wih true OSS developers, and not the Linux creeps that lead Linux-based companies to starvation. Although I think MS should stay out of it at all. I'm happy that most people have realised that proprietary software vendors are necessary in order to plot the softare evolution. OSS/FS developers are just waiting for Microsofts and other commercial software vendors to show up with something new that they will embrace and extend. Same with .NET, that's OSS/FS' future...
Available for 'Non Commercial Use Only'? Hmm... But this is a runtime! This has some really interesting implications...
Let us suppose Rotor is fully compatible with the Windows CLI. I develop a commercial application for the Windows CLI. I also test the application for Rotor, but I don't ship the application packaged for it. Instead I ship the application packaged so that it simply expects a CLI runtime.
In my FAQ I mention that it was tested with Rotor and provide a pointer to some generic explanation for installing a CLI application to run with Rotor. My customers wanting to run the app on FreeBSD or Mac (or any future Rotor implementation) simply install the app as described and now have my application there.
Microsoft may have a case against this, but they probably do not have a case against me. And I doubt they would go after all of my customers.
Jack William Bell, who thinks this is a pretty unlikely scenario and is hoping Mono will make it moot.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
It might also provide a base for an OS X version of .NET (I'm not sure if any plans have been announced in that direction).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's too bad that they used a non-commercial license... Just seems like it would be so much better if other companies could take it and turn it into commercial software. Right, Craig? ;-)
So it's a problem when the GPL prevents proprietization of software, but when the MS one even prevents selling it, or using it for commercial work...
Micorsoft has been convicted of breaking the Law
in case anyone forgot.
this makes them one of the evildoers, as the Pez
is fond of saying.
I wanted to know what the hell a BOF is! Am I the only one who was amazed that a "BOF session" could happen with a bunch of BSD geeks? That sounds like how I would spend the night when I had a girlfriend. Now there's unnanounced "boffing" at BSDCon?
So while I'm pretty sure that BOF has nothing to do with procreation, I'm still unclear as to what it means. It is mentioned twice in the first paragraph, but not defined anywhere. I briefly reference Dictionary.com and the first definition I see is "Boring Old Fart."
There really needs to be a conscienscious effort to improve technical articles, by defining every term that uses CAPS. Even if the word is a common acronym, (or maybe not an acronym at all e.g. BASIC, UNIX, FAX) because as illustrated by the parent post, there are no universally recognized acronyms. The abbreviation can be a good thing for lengthy articles, but not if there is a loss of information.
I had to spend much time googling around oreillynet.com to find out what a "BOF session" is, because Dictionary.com didn't recognize the phrase. Just plain BOF actually had the correct answer listed first, but because I was briefly referencing, and not carefully reading, I skipped the proper definition because it was a hyperlink.
Just to save the trouble for anyone else who isn't familiar with the term, a "BOF session" is a meeting to discuss a certain topic. BOF in this case is "Birds of a Feather" who flock together, whether preplanned or ad-hoc, and the prase dates back at least to USENIX conferences in the early 1980s.
my procmailrc:
:0:
* ^From:.*hotmail.com>
/dev/null
Thanks to BSD, the largest spammer hide out on earth.
BSD == Berkerley Supremacy Dicks
Perhaps something that could be done is to only use historical programming techniques and algorithms in the code. I'm not talking about COBOL, but if a workalike can be constructed using only "phrases" of code from the past (it'd be constructed entirely of prior art), then it won't be liable for resemblance to MS code. I mean, does this project really introduce new computing uses, or is it maybe closer to an integration of existing functions?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Being a command line fanatic/nut/loony toon,
.Net, or anything
I am appaled at M$ trying to change the definition of CLI to something else!
If I did write an app for
else for that matter, I would most likely give
it a pull down console packed with commands.
I don't really liek point and click.
Um, no. BSD is at the core of MacOSX. It just became the Unix for the rest of us. Apple claims they are the largest distributor of a commercial Unix.
I hardly think it is dying.
"Rotor is a gzipped tarball weighing in at about 18.5 megabytes (14,000 files and 1.3 million lines of code), so budget plenty of time for the build!"
Just what i need. 14,000 more files.
It's good not to confuse closed source and commercial software. You're probably more knowledgeable about the FSF for having read the FSF's list of words to avoid. They have several other terms on their list that are often used poorly. However, don't forget that the FSF is trying to push their ideology onto you while doing so. For example, the FSF recommends avoiding words like 'piracy' and 'protection' (as in copyright protection) despite these terms being used in a sense that was well-established before software or digital works even existed.
On another note, I now see the new big adds.. wow, its about the size of a bbox. Yahoo is doing this too.
Only 'flamers' flame!
It is better than that - they use the permutations as well, just to make it extra confusing! CIL is the intermediate language for the CLI...
42
Only few hate MS. The majority just don't want to play by its rules. These are very diferent things!
You're right, they would just send the BSA after you. Your customers files can simply be deleted thanks to the wonders of XP EULA. After they have all pointed back to you, that is.
Is there any reason to develop for Microsoft anymore? Those who have tried, tried and died.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How about this: roll the license up in a ball and stuff it up your ass.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
[I'm the guy on the Rotor team who presented at this BOF.]
We absolutely welcome slashdot "community input." I'm pretty sure that a lot of slashdotters will be interested in taking a look at this implementation; it is a pretty fascinating piece of technology, both in terms of the abstract approach to virtualizing resources that the ECMA CLI uses, and in terms of the implementation choices that have been made.
Anyone who wants to better understand how the .NET Framework works will be interested. Likewise, anyone who wants to better understand Mono or PNET or the Microsoft "Compact Framework" will also be interested!
Many of the comments on this thread might be summarized as follows: why is Microsoft doing this? The answer is that we really want the ECMA standard to succeed (and that includes success for non-Microsoft CLI implementations!) and we also want to seed the use of the CLI over the long haul. The only way to do this is by participating in the community that moves computer languages and runtimes forward - we believe that many experimentally minded folk will find Rotor a great base from which to work.
This is feeding a troll, but please indulge me, because despite the flamesque method of putting forth what he said to a great extent his assertion is accurate. SlashDot is at large a community who rants before it thinks, and doesn't follow through.
.net (oops)
consider these cases, and your opinions now versus when you read them
bnetd
del icaza's rewrite of gnome 4 in
are your reactions the same now as when you posted the pointless gobbldygook you wrote then? Probably not because you either
A: Don't care anymore (Shame on you)
B: have realized that perhaps your initial impression was wrong.
this is a community, not slashdot, slashdot itself is a small part of that community. this troll, has caused us to do something perhaps that we don't want to do. stop, look around at what's going on and reexamine our morality. because ranting and then not doing anything about it as the parent comment said... The written equivalent of storming the castle gates with torches, pitchforks, and not a thought in your head.
think, then write, support the community, it comes first, freedom doesn't come from ranting but from cooperation (and no I'm not a communist, just someone who looks at this from the standpoint that it's easier to work with a friend than an enemy.)
peace
trelane
a bit more about me http://www.advogato.org/person/trelane/ or my private page http://trelane.net
You think 5:00 am is early? You lazy fucker, the US Armed services kill more 3rd world natives before 5 am than terrorists have killed in the entire history of Mankind!
The US Army, not just another job, but a way of life.
No, shut up. Both Free and Open Software are expressions of a meaningless doctrine that is of no concern or importance to anyone except geeks who confuse ideas with their implementation. Software does EXACTLY one thing: animate a machine. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING interesting or vital in software -- the actual computer receipe -- that cannot be described on paper, in a human language for human consumption. We call the latter computer science. Computer science is "free". We call the former software. Software is a commodity.
Shut the fuck up, all of you Open Gaping Head Wounds.
sun has a monopoly on solaris and sparc hardware. sleepycat is too small to do anything. windriver is/has a monopoly on the embedded OS market and bought BSDi to kill competition. apple has a monopoly on generic powerpc hardware (no apple clones) and macosx. they have proprietary hardware and software just like sun.
Yup...give these companies 100% market share and they're ALL MONOPOLISTS. think about it. they're all as bad as M$ as soon as they get 99%-100% market share.
Speaking of MS and command lines, one of my favorite essays is In the Beginning was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson. It must be read in the context of this discussion...the CLI is yet another virtualization to threaten the true way...
42
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback.
...licensing scheme that everybody in the Open Source Community should bitch and moan?
Just a thought.
Ok, MS complains about the GPL, because it doesn't allow them to use the code in their proprietary, commercial products. Then they release their own code under this new license that doesn't allow people to use the code in their commercial products, period.
So, tell ya what, MS. How 'bout if I dual license my software under the GPL and your new "shared-source" license. Your choice. If you find the GPL too evil, you can choose to use my code under the terms of your wonderful shared-source license. That means no commercial use, but surely you don't care about that, or you wouldn't be promoting this license in the first place.
Unless you're being hypocritical, surely you'll applaud this move on my part. And nice guys like you would never be hypocritical, would you?
There are generic (non-Apple) PPC boards that meet the current standard (whatever replaced CHRP). Most are intended for embedded work, and they're almost impossible to find unless you resort to mail order. ISTR hearing that someone got Darwin running on one, but MacOS is probably never going to happen.
From this link:
... trying not to use a word in my thoughts? Not doing something means less choice, not more.
If you don't want to limit yourself to this way of thinking, it is best to avoid using the term ``intellectual property'' in your words and thoughts.
Interesting read, but I kind of have a problem with that statement. Let's see, I'm not limiting myself in my thinking by
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
I just read the Rotor license FAQ. It reminded me of the recent Freedom Network readme:
"Zero-Knowledge is releasing this code under an RSAREF style license, to encourage academic research and other non-commercial use."
I hope you're only going to treat Rotor that rude, not ZKS and their codebase.
It doesn't matter what kind of license it is. It comes from Microsoft. DANGER.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Glad to oblige. Plenty more where that came from.
Hey, an interesting quote popped into my mind. Remember when Tariq Aziz was described as "genius in the service of evil?"
Oh well, never mind.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Like X-Box, if it didnt run windows it would make a great little box for running X on.
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
SHARED SOURCE is to NAIVE DEVELOPERS
as
JOE CAMEL is to KIDS
"DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS (cough) DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS (sweat sweat) DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS (wheeze sweat) DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS (froth at mouth) DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS (polish head) DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS (re-sign contract with satan) DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS ..."
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
No, I'm not. M$ could have saved itself a bundle and worked with Sun instead of trying to "innovate" some piece of crap that will never run well. If they did things that way, they might not have to spend BILLIONS of dollars advertisements. Instead they go through these embrace extend and extinguish cycles to screw the world. Seen FORTRAN under XP yet? Ha Ha Ha, just you try to run something Not M$ under M$. Let's not forget other wasteful practices like buying competitors to shut them down, breaking interfaces regularly to force "upgrades" that do the exact same thing and flying in the face of established standards. Do you know anyone else dumb enough to say that http must die? Wastefull practices like this have ruined them.
People like you might think it's natural for one company to dominate something like software for "economic" reasons. Let's think about that. Software that works has been written for just about everything you could want to do on a computer. The costs have been recouped multiple times. The supply of computer programers and potential software companies is limitless. Supply and demand says cost of software should be zero. The people who write it would rather you use if for free and improve it.
I'm an engineer at a nuclear power plant so I know plenty about community effort as well as supply and demand. The plant is part of a regulated monopoly that provides some of the cheapest most abundant electricty in the world. Think about how much equipment and labor it takes to get electricty to your house and compare what you pay for it to what you pay for telecomunications. If tomorrow fuel cells/solar proves cheaper than nuclear, you can be my company will be building big ones that will cost everyone less than being their own fuel cell mechanic. That three billion dollar plant I work at? Oh well, it's made plenty of money and will run until it's cheaper to shut down.
Microsoft is screwed. When the world realizes it, their stock will drop like a pigeon egg and many many computer problems will go away. It's not as needed as they think it is and the free alternatives are better. The loss of their 7,000 jobs won't even show up as a blip on the US economy.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Take a look at the origins of .NET before writing it off as a clear rip-off:
The origin of this new runtime environment lay in the little-noticed acquisition by Microsoft of Colusa Software in 1996. Co-founded by Steven Lucco, Colusa had released a product in 1995 called OmniVM based on research carried out by Lucco at Carnegie Mellon University. OmniVM was a virtual machine environment that offered two distinct advantages over early versions of Java. Firstly, by avoiding interpretation and using a virtual RISC architecture it provided near-native code execution performance. Secondly, it implemented robust 'application' isolation via a virtual memory manager. This made it a very safe environment for running 'legacy' and 'mobile' code. What caught Microsoft's eye was that, partly in order to support the porting of legacy code to the virtual environment, Colusa had produced both C/C++ and Visual Basic development environments.
No, they don't want to play by *anyone's* rules, except their own. Toddler's rules are the predominant ones around here.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot:
.sig: "All extremists should be shot."
Your comment: "How about this: roll the license up in a ball and stuff it up your ass."
Your
Telling someone to take the license and shove it seems pretty extreme to me... considering they're ASKING for input. I'm not supporting M$, but at least give them a chance before turning away the software/license.
So, should I arrange the shooting?
- Jester
If there's no "innovation" or originality in free software, then why does MS complain so loudly about the GPL? After all, if the code's so boring and derivative, why do they care what license it uses?
"Your code sucks, and I'm really upset that you won't let me use it." Sorta reminds me of the old joke: "the food at this restaurant is lousy, and the portions are too small."
Here's hoping that eventually you'll learn to construct thoughts with your brain instead of your liver. Maybe then you'll gape in wonder at the reality of the world you live in.
If Microsoft wants to gain ground, they need to do better. That would mean an LGPL or BSD licensed, high-quality and high-performance CLI. If they can't do that, then they might as well forget it. A Microsoft "community source license" is even less attractive than a Sun community source license, and Microsoft's technology, so far, is less mature and less complete than Sun's.
GPL It and I will have a look, if it's not GPL you know where you can put it......
Got Code?
Bo ha ha ha, sure I will look at the source when they GPL it. Until then I guess I will have to keep using my totally cross - platform and mature java. On second thought why on earth would I even care?
Got Code?
I was having fun trying to spin the non-commercial use clause on its head until your last paragraph. Unless the purchaser of the program you're selling uses the program for non-commercial use, they're violating the license. So you would only be passing on the crime to your clients.
If your clients only use the code for non-commercial uses, then you could sell them the code and let them compile it. But then you wouldn't have many clients. Companies can write-off the purchase of your code if they use it commercially, but otherwise not.
The only thing Rotor offers is the savings in not having to buy Windows Server 2002 or whatever. And that might not be a savings if Rotor is less featured or stable than the Windows version.
I think their dislike of Linux is obvious
But, by porting to a BSD, they have a very short port o Mac OSX. This is probably a way for them to thumb their nose at the Linux people, subsidize their Mac development for the next version of Office, and make people believe they have a standard anyone could implement.
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft uses this to claim a copyright violation against Mono. (Because the source code is available).
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
Maybe MS is being all friendly and releasing this for FreeBSD, in part, as a way of saying "in return for all your networking code that we use, have some of this common language code"?
Granted its not very likely, but it might be a factor in the larger scheme of things.
Actually, that was a typo (thinko?). What I meant was, *software which is free even for commercial users*.
The thinking being that if they can leach off the enthusiasts, they'll fork the open CLI movement sufficiently to prevent it from reaching a critical mass, without risking revenue/control by accelerating developement of a product that commercial organizations could potentially use.
Well it seems all this talk about Rotor source code being available and what it will do for projects such as Mono and dotGNU is rather silly. Sure it has implications, however you can already see the source code to the REAL mscorlib (which includes most (all?) of the ECMA implementation.
Decompilers such as Salamander would show you most of the source code however IANAL and I have no idea of any implications of this. The point is, source, or at least an easy-to-read, reverse engineered representation of the mscorlib is already available and has been for quite some time. Anyone like to comment on the legals here?
- Adam
If a penguin dies in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, what sound does it make?
MS rarely makes a move not calcuated to gain them an advantage...
Look, even when they pretend to give away computers and software, it turns out to be a ruse for hooking kids while they are young... not much gratitude or philanthropy from MS.
Plus, the shared source license is basically: "You can look at our source. and then, if you use any code remotely like it in a product of yours that comes to our attention, we'll sue the hell out of you. All changes you make belong to us anyway. Thanks for voluntering to imporve our product for free! Maybe some one can fix some of those pesky bugs we never get around too!"
MS give a gift to the freebsd community? No thanks...
Juln
Here's the Microsoft Shared Source License.
.NET
.NET platform. You may not distribute this software in source or object form for commercial purposes under any circumstances.
It's a very good example of an open source license - it's short, concise and easy to understand. (Unlike some other licenses out there *coughGPLcough*...)
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.
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Shared Source License for Microsoft Windows CE
This License governs use of the accompanying Software.
Posted: January 07, 2002
You can use this Software for any noncommercial purpose, including distributing derivatives. Running your business operations would not be considered noncommercial.
For commercial purposes, you can reference this software solely to assist in developing and testing your own software and hardware for the Windows CE
In return, we simply require that you agree:
1. Not to remove any copyright notices from the Software.
2. That you are not allowed to combine or distribute the Software with other software that is licensed pursuant to terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be licensed to or otherwise shared with others.
3. That if you distribute the Software in source code form you do so only under this License (i.e. you must include a complete copy of this License with your distribution), and if you distribute the Software solely in object form you only do so under a license that complies with this License.
4. That the Software comes "as is", with no warranties. None whatsoever. This means no express, implied or statutory warranty, including without limitation, warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or any warranty of noninfringement. Also, you must pass this disclaimer on whenever you distribute the Software.
5. That neither Microsoft nor its suppliers will be liable for any of those types of damages known as indirect, special, consequential, or incidental related to the Software or this License, to the maximum extent the law permits, no matter what legal theory it's based on. Also, you must pass this limitation of liability on whenever you distribute the Software.
6. That if you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software for a person's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends automatically.
7. That the patent rights Microsoft is licensing only apply to the Software, not to any derivatives you make.
8. That your rights under the License end automatically if you breach it in any way.
They even say explicitly that it is fine to use the code as a reference when building your own commercial code, as long as you don't include any of it.
The Slashdot community also includes .Net fans. I'm very pleased with what I can do in C# on a Windows machine with the .Net framework installed.
.Net stuff, what I get appears to vary between platforms, so what will be missing in these non-Windows implementations?
What's not so clear is what pieces of that will be lacking when using Rotor or Mono on something other than Windows.
.Net and Java are both composed of a huge number of parts (GUI classes, non-GUI classes, language, compiler, runtime locale database, JIT compiler, etc.) In the case of Java (say Standard Edition), it's not too confusing because I get all of it on all platforms.
In the case of the
Will very likely look pretty much this license, which is the Shared Source license for Windows CE .NET.
A large portion of the files counted are small tests, each to its own file. And in the last two weeks, we've managed to pull 1500 files (mostly redundant files used for generating documentation) from the distro.
A quick scan this morning shows me that the CLI itself is around 300Kloc.
wrong
brain dead
wrong
zealot.
wrong
You and your drug-happy
wrong (and prejudically stereo-typed)
brethren
wrong
are the prime reason open source is going nowhere fast.
oh so wrong
with your brain instead of your liver.
wrong (and perplexing)
Maybe then you'll gape in wonder at the reality of the world you live in.
You're hardly in a position to lecture anyone on reality, or the world we live in.
You're not doing so well in the accuracy department. Fuck-wit.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Your comment: "How about this: roll the license up in a ball and stuff it up your ass." Your .sig: "All extremists should be shot."
CONGRATULATIONS! You've won the "who will spot the irony first" award! I knew some clever little wag would pipe up and comment on that. And not just on this post.
Telling someone to take the license and shove it seems pretty extreme to me...
Why? Microsoft has been trying to shove their license up MY ass for years.
considering they're ASKING for input.
And I gave them some.
I'm not supporting M$, but at least give them a chance before turning away the software/license.
Microsoft does not deserve "a chance". Their insincerity is plainly obvious, and even if they were sincere their history damns them. The open source / free software community cannot forget what Microsoft is. It would love nothing better than to stamp the movement into an unrecognizable little pile of goo.
They view us with contempt. The ONLY REASON they are here is to muddy the waters, and to try to co-opt a software development model that threatens their monopoly. This move - a combination of infiltration, deception, and misinformation - is just one front of an overall push to end this threat to their business. They will stop an nothing.
So, should I arrange the shooting?
Get in line. :-)
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Then again, repeating the word "wrong" 67 times is not helping your cause much and does not open the doors of interesting dialogue, hmmm? I was hoping I'd have a chance to insult you a bit more.
Fuck-wit.
Aw, come on. I was expecting something better from you. Fuck-wit? Am I supposed to laugh or cry?
All extremists should be shot.
Take gun, place against head, pull trigger. Let us know how it goes.
Your vision sounds great, but so does Perl6. My friends and I have had fun talking about CLI, but I doubt managed C++ can regain multiple inheritance, or that functional languages will work efficiently. And you must know that many people at Microsoft have expressed very different views than your's on how .NET is going to work.
Then again, you could be the James Duncan Davidson of Microsoft. Programmers need reassurance that they aren't being led into a concentration camp (in the Woody Allen sense). Sun's half-hearted attempts at involving the community with Java failed to produce what you hope for with CLI, despite attempts like Kawa and Jython. I'm loath to see that repeated, and will remain wary until licensing & platform equivalency issues are resolved.
Especially since MS was partly responsible for that. A friend of mine once e-mailed me excitedly about a new version of Java called J++. It took us a while to figure out that it was just a compiler.
Anyway, I wonder how this will affect the *BSD IS DYING posts?