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Shared Source .NET Ported to Linux
bjepson writes: "Shaun Bangay of the Rhodes University Computer Science Department has
released a port of Rotor
for Linux. You can find more details, including a download, at the O'Reilly Network."
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From the licence attached with Rotor:
"You may not use or distribute this Software or any derivative works in any form for commercial purposes."
Rotor on Linux is as about as usefull, to me, as a Corvette is on Mt. Everest.
Except that the Corvette is cool, and Microsoft
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
timeh! timeh!
FIST!
This is the biggest disaster since the conception of Windows.
In fact, when I contacted the support people, they recommend copy and pasting their example and using it as is. The C# code looks fine. It's just that it shouldn't be in an ASP page.
Microsoft Shared Source Initiative Encourages Academic Innovation
.NET source code for academic research purposes under a shared source license, a licensing framework that provides researchers, partners, customers and outside developers with the chance to work directly with Microsoft source code. The Shared Source CLI is an implementation of the CLI for the FreeBSD flavor of the UNIX operating system, as well as Microsoft Windows XP.
.NET Framework, the company's platform for the development and deployment of XML Web services. C#, which is pronounced "C-sharp" and is derived from C and C++, provides the world's first component-oriented language for C and C++ developers. The CLI, a subset of the .NET Framework, includes libraries and components that make it easier to build, deploy and run XML Web services.
.NET, Stutz says, marking the company's commitment to both the contribution and implementation phases of the standards process. As more organizations and industries make the transition to XML Web services, the Shared Source CLI implementation will make it easier for developers to experiment with programming languages, create inter-operable XML Web services and create implementations of the ECMA standards.
.NET technology."
.NET Technologies - Dec. 13, 2001
.NET Web Site
REDMOND, Wash., March 27, 2002 -- David Stutz believes Microsoft is providing the academic community with a software "erector set" similar to that of the popular computer language, developed in the 1970s, called C.
"With C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) standards, we have produced a new standard that will be as important going forward as the C language was 30 years ago," says Stutz, Microsoft's group program manager for the Shared Source CLI. "It's something that's not just (Microsoft) Windows-specific. We think it will be extremely popular for developers."
Microsoft, however, has gone beyond simple standardization of a programming language. The company has released more than 1 million lines of core
Stutz says the C# and CLI standards are key technologies underlying the multilanguage Microsoft
Microsoft and a dozen other industry leaders submitted the CLI specification along with the C# programming language to ECMA (the organization was founded as the European Computer Manufacturers Association and is now known solely by its acronym), an international standards organization, in October 2000; ECMA ratified the specifications December 2001. The release of the source code to the Shared Source CLI implementation demonstrates Microsoft's commitment to academia, research, standards and the Shared Source Initiative.
Health of Industry Ecosystem a Microsoft Priority
Jason Matusow, Microsoft's Shared Source product manager, says Microsoft recognizes the critical role that academia is playing in the "software ecosystem, and is therefore making significant investments in it."
Matusow says Microsoft's approach comes, not surprisingly, from its position as a commercial software company. It believes that all organizations and individuals who study, develop and work with software interact within an ongoing cycle of sustained innovation known as the "software ecosystem." The success of the information economy is due, in large part, to this essential cycle, in which the governmental, academic and commercial sectors have collaborated to advance technology.
As a commercial enterprise participating in the software ecosystem, Microsoft believes in sharing its source code without sacrificing its intellectual property rights, according to Matusow. The Shared Source Initiative supports an array of licenses and programs that make source code more broadly available to customers, partners, developers, researchers and other interested individuals.
The Shared Source CLI implementation also represents the evolution of Microsoft's standards strategy for
"Academia is the launch pad for the next generation of developers," Stutz says. "More importantly, academia has a history of delivering breakthrough innovations thanks to pure research. With the Shared Source CLI, Microsoft's hope is the next great innovation will be based on
Matusow says additional Microsoft contributions to the academic community include Windows source licensing, which allows academic access to Windows source code and also allows non-commercial modification for academic and research purposes. Windows CE also has a Shared Source license, which gives all users, including academic users and enthusiasts, even greater access and the ability to modify and redistribute Windows CE source code for noncommercial use. The Windows CE Shared Source Academic Curriculum Program recently expanded these rights to enable academic institutions to include Windows CE source code in textbooks and courseware.
"Our goal is to provide the next generation of developers with the best development tools and a multilanguage framework for rapidly building XML Web services," Stutz says. "Microsoft is constantly deepening its partnership with academia, and is committed to highlighting its increasingly central role in helping us deliver on our shared vision for the future of technology."
Academia Delights in Shared Source Concept
The reasons for standardization are many, and they include spreading a new technology, vetting such a technology in an international community and facilitating migration of the next version of technology, says ECMA Secretary General Jan van den Beld.
"Typically, some of these reasons for standardization are emphasized and promoted by source sharing," van den Beld says. "I believe that one could argue that a standard is intended as something that becomes public, and that source sharing is even taking this goal somewhat further by also making source public."
Members of the academic community are particularly interested in source-sharing because they are critical, sophisticated users of technology, according to van den Beld. They are also a natural source for distributing and teaching a new technology -- without being suspect for having strong commercial reasons, van den Beld says.
Says Microsoft's Stutz, "By allowing people in the academic community to freely access these tools, they will be able to make changes that can push the technology forward and allow innovation to happen. Essentially, we're willing to invest the amount of what we've put into developing this code, in the community as a whole. We believe very strongly that academia gets technology it can use, a so-called 'erector set' upon which next-generation developers can create great things."
Related Links
Feature Stories:
* Q&A: Microsoft Expands Shared Source Initiative to Include Systems Integrators -- Feb. 21, 2002
* Microsoft Approach to Source Code Sharing Balances Accessibility with Responsibility -- May 3, 2001
Press Releases:
* Microsoft Announces Major Expansion of Shared Source Initiative, Providing Source Code to Systems Integrators - Feb. 21, 2002
* ECMA Standardizes Key
* European Ministry Provided with Microsoft Source Code for the First Time - Dec. 3, 2001
* Bill Gates Emphasizes Importance of Collaboration With Academia For the Future of Technology - July 24, 2001
* Microsoft Expands Commitment to Open Standards and Interoperability - June 27, 2001
Other Microsoft Resources:
* Download the Shared Source CLI Beta from the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network)Web site
* Microsoft Shared Source Licensing Web Site
* Microsoft
External Resources:
* Universities Holding Source Code Licenses
* ECMA Web Site
The Commercial Software Model and Sustainable Innovation
By Craig Mundie, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Corporation
May 17, 2001
On May 3rd, I spoke at the NYU Stern School of Business about Microsoft's position regarding source code licensing. I wanted to articulate some of the benefits and drawbacks of the various ways commercial software companies could share their source code. I described Microsoft's Shared Source Philosophy, a balanced approach that enables commercial firms to share source code with their customers and partners while preserving the intellectual property (IP) rights that support a strong software business. I also articulated some ways in which Shared Source differs from Open Source Software (OSS).
The reactions to my statements have been many and varied. I wanted an active debate about intellectual property and the software industry, and I certainly got one.
But this is more than just an academic debate. The commercial software industry is a significant driver of our global economy. It employs 1.35 million people and produces US$175 billion in worldwide revenues annually (sources: BSA, IDC).
The business model for commercial software has a proven track record, and is a key engine of economic growth for many countries. It has boosted productivity and efficiency in almost every sector of the economy, as businesses and individuals have enjoyed the wealth of tools, information and other activities made possible in the PC era.
Companies have the choice of protecting or relinquishing the IP resulting from their Research & Development consistent with their particular customer and business needs. As the United States Department of Commerce stated in a report entitled International Science and Technology, "Innovation relies on a partnership between the public and private sectors in which the government invests in long-range science and technology and in mechanisms to promote private sector risk-taking and investment."
We believe that one of these mechanisms is IP rights. Without IP protection, neither innovation nor a healthy commercial software industry is sustainable. The last 50 years of public-private sector collaboration have demonstrated that when IP rights are protected, innovators are rewarded for their efforts. Furthermore, technology is advanced, which guarantees economic growth and a cycle of future collaboration, investment and innovation.
In my speech, I did not question the right of the OSS model to compete in the marketplace. The issue at hand is choice; companies and individuals should be able to choose either model, and we support this right. I did call out what I believe is a real problem in the licensing model that many open source software products employ--the General Public License. The GPL turns our existing concepts of intellectual property rights on their heads. Some of the tension I see between the GPL and strong business models is by design, and some of it is caused simply because there remains a high level of legal uncertainty around the GPL--uncertainty that translates into business risk.
In my opinion, the GPL is optimized to build a strong software community at the expense of a strong commercial software business model. That's why Linus Torvalds said last week on ZDNet that "Linux is never really going to be a rich sell."
This isn't to say that some firms won't find a business model that can make money releasing products under the GPL. We have yet to see such companies emerge, but perhaps some will. Recent history does tell us, however, that finding a business model that works is difficult. According to ZDNet News, "Ransom Love, CEO of Caldera Systems(TM) said he thinks Microsoft was right in its claim that the GPL doesn't make much business sense."
What is at issue with the GPL? In a nutshell, it debases the currency of the ideas and labor that transform great ideas into great products. Alfred North Whitehead, the renowned British philosopher, logician and mathematician, observed that, "It is a great mistake to think that the bare scientific idea is the required invention, so that it has only to be picked up and used. An intense period of imaginative design lies between. One element in the new method is just the discovery of how to set about bridging the gap between the scientific ideas and the ultimate product. It is a process of disciplined attack upon one difficulty after another."
In other words, a critical flow of information and experimental data follows every major scientific discovery, and results in the verification, refutation or refinement of the new idea or theory. To facilitate this process, neither copyright nor patent protections are available for abstract ideas or theories. This is as it should be.
Legendary inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford (who held thousands of patents between them), succeeded precisely because they were able to use funding, management and market insight to deliver their innovations as unique, practical and useful products. Arguably, the creativity and inventiveness needed to deliver their products was comparable to that needed for the underlying theory or discovery that made their business possible in the first place.
When comparing the Commercial Software Model to the Open Source Software model, look carefully at the business model and licensing structures that form their foundations. This comparison leads to the conclusion that the commercial software model alone has the capacity for sustaining real economic growth. Intellectual capital has always been, and will remain, the core asset of the software industry, and almost every other industry. Preserving that capital - and investing in its constant renewal--benefits everyone.
Yup, that's what M$ intended alright... contaminate as many programmers as possible by exposing them to the rotor libraries, so they can claim copyright infringement on anyone working on free implementations. not a bad plan, actually...
Does anyone know how I can benefit from this?
.NET integration, what do I tell them? It's not possible at all?
.NET commercially for Linux (Python)?
.NET integration going in an effective manner? Are there tools/wrappers?
Specifically I would like to offer customers solutions using Python. But if they want
I'd prefer not to lie to customers.
If I could tell them that it's possible, at a price, that would be something! My customers would be prepared to pay! Not that they may ever need it once I get them their Zope/Python sites, mind you. I just want to leave them the option.
Firstly, what would I have to do (pay) to get
Secondly, is it even possible to get
I don't know about you all, but I can't wait until Linux has the blue screen of death so I can see exactly why it crashed.
Or rather, user attitude during crash.
Windows:
-- Please, don't let it crash this time again! Let it compile just once without me having to reboot! I think it's gonna happen this time! Yes! Yes! Yes! Wha...? Nooooo! BSoD!
Linux:
Ok, hmmm, er, this guy is doing 1800x1440? Ok, if he can do it... But what if the system hangs? Well, it hasn't crashed since long. Oh, what the heck, I'll do it! Let's see... startx... what? no Ctrl-Alt-Del? Sigh... Well, fsck time!
Of course, since FreeBSD is a reference platform it is obviously easy to build it under Linux.
If I wanted to play with .NET, I would be running Windows right now. I'm not. I don't.