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Microsoft Plans to open sources for Windows Forms

Posted by Hemos on from the testing-the-waters dept.

prostoalex writes "Shawn Burke from Microsoft says they are ready to ship sources for Windows Forms for .NET Framework 2.0 and asks for specific advice on accomplishing that (specifically, a smart comment tool). Windows Forms contains .NET framework classes for building GUI applications."

5 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Oy vey... by sethadam1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let me be the first to say that this is a GOOD thing.

    God knows, Microsoft would not be the only group to have the need to strip/edit source code comments. I believe we should try to be constructive instead of 320 comments rated 0 or 1 that trash Microsoft for having naughties in the comments. Every bit of code I've ever seen tends to have jokes, sarcastic quips, etc embedded.

    I can only imagine what the comments might be though. Maybe stuff like

    /* next 10 lines stolen directly from OpenBSD */

    or maybe

    /* add the next bit to ensure that this code will *never* work in Gecko!! Hahahaha */

  2. And this affects us .. how? by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does this make a difference to projects like Mono? And what's the catch? Can I use the source for anything useful without being tackled by lawyers? If I look at their source am I tainted forever?

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  3. Helpful maybe? by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As a user and developer of both custom 'Doze software (by day, for $) and OSS (at night, not yet for $) . . .

    Microsoft is not likely to release these under a genuinely Free or Open Source license . . . but . . . they will be helpful to me as a 'Doze developer by helping me find and work around and/or fix implementation bugs in Windows.Forms.

    I've thus far not had a use for Mono or Dot.GNU, but I suspect that the release will help them for the same reason it will help me: they won't be able to use the source directly but it will help them to find and either fix or (if necessary) re-implement Microsoft bugs upon which software may rely.

    --

    Nonaggression works!
  4. Evil Tricks by FLAGGR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Imagine MS releases source to something like their win32 API, or at least part of it. Then they sue WINE on the next feature that comes out. Sure, it may be soemthing general (They both used the word 'int' in their code :) ) but its still a setback for opensources PR, and with good lawyers and dumb judges, it can be dragged on for forever (SCO vs The World) until the EFF has no more money to give WINE.

    Microsft doesnt like open source things. If MS open sources something, they are up to no good.

  5. ohthankfuckinggod by evilmousse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    -stimpy- joyyyyy~~~~ -/stimpy-

    i can't tell you how many times i've wanted the source when working in .net, especially when creating custom objects to extend some common .net object like a textbox or dataset. I've wept tears for weeks trying to debug things when I KNOW looking at the source would alleviate everything. Sometimes microsoft's APIs are just WORTHLESS.

    I share some of the political concerns over the open-sourcing that I've read in here, but I think this is a bait I'll bite on regardless. I can quit saying "When in doubt.net you can't read the source.net"