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Microsoft Releases WTL To SourceForge
prostoalex writes "Microsoft's WTL (Windows Template Library) toolkit source code has been released to SourceForge.net [also part of OSDN, like Slashdot.] InternetNews explains that the toolkit allows a Windows developer to create quick GUIs in C++. According to the project page, WTL extends ATL (Active Template Library) and provides a set of classes for controls, dialogs, frame windows, GDI objects, and more. WTL is licensed under CPL, which is the license Microsoft chose for the SourceForge release of the WiX installer."
WTL up to this point, has been done by a single guy at MS. It's a lot nicer to use compared to MFC, and regular ATL, in that it follows the "KISS" aphorism
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
for some reason, i don't think it's a coincidence that both their sf projects are under a non GPL-compatible license.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Microsoft denounces OS yet they contribute... Odd.
If they can't kill it, then they have to resort to "embrace and extend"...
they may have opened the source, but it is not anywhere near what you OSS developers like.
they will almost certainly NOT accept source from other people; (although they may take suggestions, i'm sure).
the purpose of this is not to make their product better by allowing the community to help, but rather to allow people to customize their own toolkits or to at least better understand what they're using.
http://mediagoblin.org/
No, use doxygen. (And make sure to link in the ATL code too)
There are a couple websites that have some examples. I have been using WTL for about 6 months or so and it's pretty neat for porting old straight windows C code with new C++ code. Way more usable than MFC. The downside is there are no real wizards to use once a project is started.
I've tried WTL. It seems great for small, stand-alone executables. However the learning curve is sort of high and you really need to know a bit about ATL. The documentation also isn't near as complete as MFC (even though MFC is ugly).
That being said, the best way to create GUIs in Windows nowadays is to use Windows Forms either in C# or C++. Compared to MFC/WTL/whatever, its a dream come true.
Wasn't WTL available a long time ago? I thought microsoft didn't *support* it at all. it was use as you wish and the source was available.
did you forget to take your meds?
It's a free library, which is only useful to you if you're writing code for the Windows operating system.
Which, I believe, that Justice Department lawsuit requires them to release (i.e., make it easier for 3rd parties to interface to the OS).
It does allow 3rd parties to be better able to program for Windows (so it could negatively impact M$'s ability to protect their own software aps for their OS), but one could also argue that making it easier for 3rd parties to write software for your OS is a disincentive for people to migrate to other OS's. (An extention of the game console arguement - he with the most games wins.)
paintball
GPL: If there is something in this software that is patented, by you or someone else, you can't distribute this software unless a free license to use that patent is available for all. (If a patent prevents anyone you give this to or they give this to from freely distributing this software, you can't distribute it either.)
CPL: If there is something in this software that is patented, and was patented at the time of contribution to the software, this software may still be distributed even if a patent is required to use it.
So it depends on your definition of "free". CPL says you're allowed to distribute the software whether it's patent encumberred or not, GPL says that if it's patent encumberred, you can't redistribute it. So CPL is more BSD-like free. Free as in "Here it is, do what you want", not free as in "Here it is, anything you add has to be free too."
Maybe that wasn't all that short.
paintball
What FUD!
This is from Rob Menschings own blog
Anyway, now that WTL has been released under an Open Source license the community that has built up around the code will finally be able to contribute back (should they desire).
Sounds like he is quite open to me.
This sig intentionally left blank
I finished school just before the tech bubble burst, and had occasion to travel out to the Silicon Valley on business to our corporate headquaters.
There have been few times in my life where I have been more amazed than I was at the number of ways a girl could work some variation of "How much money do you make?" into the first three sentences of a conversation.
I'm happy to report, however, that these women are no longer there.
In retrospect, however, I probably should have just said "A Googillion".
paintball
I read a while back were microsoft was going to try some initiatives to try and ride the open source enertia to better promote thier offerings. I guess it was about how they were tryign to grasp the draw to open source comunities and the tight nit efectivness of them.
If allowing people to customize thier own tools kits and having a better understanding of what they are using is the extent they are willing to participate in, then I feel they would loose out on some of the spirit of it. On the other hand, I think they might use some contributed work in an effort to better understand the open source comunity.
Either way it is going to be interesting to see were this leads us. It really would be strange if microsoft itself was able to prove the open source movment isn't the "root of all evil" after all (as reported earlier today).
I started Win32 programming with WTL. No MFC experience at all.
.NET seeps deeper into the Windows Platform, I am afraid that MS is going to try to root out such a quick and painless way to whip out applications in unmanaged code. There's life in C++ yet, I just don't know if MS believes that.
For those of you who may be curious about this technology, here are a couple of points:
WTL is a collection of header files with the source inlined in. Personally I find the source reasonably understandable. I have had not much trouble stepping through and debugging WTL calls.
It's a light wrapper around the Win32 API. Some people commented on the lack of documentation regarding the WTL. The truth is, MSDN's API and common controls documentation pretty much covers what you need to know. For most cases the library does little fudging between your app and the API behavior.
For the application I am coding, I use strictly STL strings, containers, and various Boost libraries. With WTL, I don't feel that I am paying for things I am not using like CStrings and such. For non-UI OS calls, I use ATL. In short, WTL, STL, & ATL let me produce efficient code without worrying about reinventing solutions.
One thing I am worried about is the future of WTL. Open-sourcing is great, but I don't know what direction the Windows API is heading. As
I just want to say this is great news regarding MSFT. Let's encourage this behavior, just in case a Microserf is browsing Slashdot.
Microsoft still has a long way to go in my book before I can even consider trusting them as a company, but clearly some of its individuals "get it" and are taking steps. If it's OSI compatible, I feel much less wary. One thing that could really sway me is making certain critical file formats (like Word/Excel) open. And oh yeah, stop trying to hijack the Internet. That would be nice.
So I hope the response from this PR stunt that registers on their radar is that we appreciate OSS-esque gestures (that's really all they've been, really: gestures) but need something substantial before their image truly changes. Open sourcing IE or explorer to community improvements would be absolutely immense. IE could rocket past even Firefox and the ignorant masses of AOL types out there would have a real web browser by default. Microsoft seems as interested in fixing IE themselves as they were with WTL. Maybe this IE thing CAN happen! :)
Remember the days when the MS C++ compilers were horrid? After a revs, it got decent, then it got good. Now it's everywhere and their IDEs set the standard that all others are measured against.
Maybe they are getting the hang of sharing the source to get the community benefit?
Agile Artisans
How is this any different from, say AbiWord, where the app is GPL, but some of the underlying classes derive from the closed source unerpinings of the OS?
I'm not trying to be snarky - is there a real substantive difference?
Yeah, they embrace OSS when it suits them. For example, back in 1998 I used Windows NT 4.0 at work. I had the NT Resource Kit, which came with PERL and some other open-source stuff licensed under GPL (PERL is dual-licensed, IIRC).
Anyway, the Resource Kit's book had the GPL printed in the back. It was VERY amusing to see the preamble of the GPL, which basically denounces predatory closed-source software, in a book by the Microsoft Press.
That's also when I was getting started in Linux, so I found it especially amusing.
make world, not war
I'm in complete agreement with what you said. I was merely attempting to point out that Microsoft cannot kill "OSS" as a concept, technique, philosophy, whathaveyou.
What you're describing falls into the "Microsoft creates a good operating system" alternative. I honestly think it could and probably will happen once Linux eats up a little more marketshare. Microsoft is known for adapting, albeit often late, to stay alive and I think OSS will eventually become at least some part of Microsoft's daily life.
It will take time before they grow up, but it will eventually happen or the monopoly will fall. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme (Mark Twain?).
Cheers
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Lots of people around here write software for a living, not just as a hobby. Unless you write web software, embedded software or other niche software, it's safe to say that you have to worry about people buying and using the software you write, which means using Windows. No, I'd say the fact that MS buys ads on OSDN indicates they understand the audience on Slashdot fairly well and in fact they want to be associated in these developers minds with the positive aspects of the Open Source community.
Anyway, I am an active Slashdot poster, and I know a fair number of other active Slashdot posters, and as far as I know, relatively few of them can say they exclusively use Linux, FreeBSD, or other Free/Open Source operating systems. I don't know if I would call myself "platform agnostic" - I'm not a zealot, and I recognize the strengths and weaknesses of Linux and Windows, but when it comes down to it, I need people to buy my software, and ignoring that fact is a fast road to being broke.
I assume that Microsoft has twice chosen Sourceforge to host their OSS projects because of the visibility and credibility it lends their open source steps. However, MS certainly doesn't need SF's resources. Does anyone know if MS has made any donation -- monetary or otherwise -- to SF?
No, but the malware people are shooting plenty of bullets.
MS just stops providing patches and the pressure to switch increases. Win95 without patches isn't that unsafe - you can remove all the network services. But it's hard to do that with Win2K, XP etc.
It seems to be that no matter what MS does, it's got evil intentions, lacks sincerity somehow, "is merely a public relations move", or whatever.
/. pretty much weekly which, with your cynic-coloured glasses off, are actually positive. Blogging, releasing product source, increased participation in communities, relaxing licensing restrictions, WinXP SP2, etc.
That could be true if it were a few isolated incidents, but there are things up on
Maybe the OSS community is the big lumbering beast which is slow to change while MS is getting on with changing what needs to be changed. Each small change by itself isn't ground breaking, but a trend, well, maybe that is.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
To this point in Microsoft's history, they have done NOTHING that I can think of out of the kindness of their hearts. Everything can be written up as enough to get by with as much money as they can take from customers and carry to the bank.
I can think of two things:
1.) Supporting a $100 O.S. for 6 years with official updates and patches. Quite a deal, one that you certainly won't see from redhat.
2.) Allowing pirated copies of windows XP to install service pack 2. A clip from the article: "Microsoft group product manager Barry Goffe told ComputerTimes that [...] it was more important to keep user safe than to be 'concerned about the revenue issue.'"
~Will
sig?
It took IBM around 10 years. MS earned thier reputation in the past and some would argue are still earning it today (they still finance much FUD). Allthougth in some ways they appear to be making some good moves in the right direction it is a fact of life that it will be uphill.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
fsf has a case (look like windows/lindows case)
people get confused (this is ofcourse what m$ wants).
You are right, Microsoft doesn't claim OSS is virus, that's something many slashdot idiots are trying to twist and most of the other idiots fall into their trap. Microsoft said GPL is a virus and GPL admits that, they even halted the development of x-window.
I think the why is quite obvious. It is in the interests of microsoft to have people develop software for their OS, and if that means giving away free source code and wizards to help people do that then thats fine. Of course, most windows developers already have a copy of VS and thus ALT, WTL MFC etc. The major advantage to a software developer is being able to know that you have the latest, bug fixed version of this toolkit, and that we now have a clear route for submitting bug reports direct to the dev team.
Of course, WTL has never really been a product, so much as a development framework, and the licence has always been pretty open so thats not a really dramatic step, but unlike the Wix thing this is actually really useful and we've (my dev group) already learnt that there are fixes and changes in this version of WTL that we didn't know about, so thats pretty cool.
Kudos to Microsoft on this one I think.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I prefer:
1) Refrain from obtaining money from people by illegally exploiting your monoploy power, thereby leaving millions of individuals and companies more money to use as they see fit.
to
2) Illegally exploit your monopoly to gain much more money than you would have otherwise had, and then give some of it to charity so people think they are nice.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
(this is not a troll: Slashdot editors mod anything with the word 'sucks' as a troll).
.NET platform.
Although it is nice to see the software giant contribute to open source, WTL sucks. It is really no different than MFC, carrying with it all the disadvantages of it:
a) the window creation process: first you create the C++ object, then you call 'create', and then 'preCreate', 'postCreate' and other silly stuff is being called. Contrast that with QT where you simply create a C++ object...
b) message maps: it violates object-oriented programming; introduces macro hell; makes code very sensitive to changes, to the point where if something goes wrong the IDE can not parse the code any more.
c) menus and commands based on numeric ids: maintaining the list of ids is easy at first, but it grows exponentially harder as the project grows, and after a while it becomes unmanageable to the point that it needs serious manual intervention.
d) the stupid UI updating architecture: your UI elements will be updated only when there is no other message in the message loop. You don't know when your UI will be updated.
e) the classes don't make any sense. For example, there is a CMessageLoop class. For crying out loud, who would have thought to make a class out of a message loop ? only MS twisted minds.
f) more string classes.
To me, it seems that releasing WTL is all about making themselves more innocent to the open source world. They now can say "look, we are contributing to OSS, you can't blame us!".
I would have much respect for them if they released anything serious to open source...for example the
If I recall correcly, WTL was never a Microsoft product. Nor is their name mentioned anywhere on the sourceforge site. WTL has been provided on the Platform SDK as an example, or something like that. It is the result of mainly one person (nenad) who, encoureged by the quick adoption by a lot of developers, continued to develop it. He is a Microsoft employee though, so he probabily needed some kind of "approval" from MS for this move, but I don't think it denotes anything more from MS's part.
My Gut feeling is that M$ is just using the opensource community as developers. Hey someone wrote a cool app. and in the next release there it is. Or the opensource starts to develop apps that cross platforms then the developers at M$ use the code to stop it in the next patch. then follow up with a software package that will let you cross platforms for a Price......I wouldn't touch this with a 100ft pole.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.
I greatly welcome this news.
Don't get me wrong, I dislike Microsoft intensely, and find it a pain to develop for at work (am a big Linux fan both for development and general use), but am using WTL on both home and work projects to great effect.
It's a good project and I'm finally glad that
Nenad and the team have been able to get the suits to make it more open than it was before.
After all, most ATL applications (probably most modern Win32 apps!) are actually using WTL in some form, even if they don't know it....
ATLControls.h (part of a code sample back in 1996
from MS is widely used in commercial apps, but is actually from Nenad, (the WTL author) and eventually migrated into atlctrls.h in WTL(!)
Mike
Linux fan and Win32 developer
Who would've thought IBM would someday be the darling of grassroots hackers? I can just see the headline in a Linux Journal story 10-15 years from now: "Microsoft and Linus Torvalds team up in opposing RMS lawsuit against all Linux vendors not using the 'GNU' prefix." And the sub-headline, "Microsoft promises to indemnify customers of its own distribution against any legal actions taken by RMS."
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
It was never a Microsoft product, but it was a work that Microsoft owned because one of their writers started the project as part of a "how-to" article, and then in follow-up editions modified it to the point that it started to become something useful.
Therefore, this was code that Microsoft had that they weren't quite sure what to do with... it wasn't viable as a money-making project, but it did have some value in promoting the use of Windows.