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Why Microsoft Will Never Make .NET Truly Portable

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the write-once-run-everywhere-that-is-windows dept.

Michelle Meyers writes "Just days before Microsoft claimed to be making parts of the .NET CLR "available" to other platforms, NeoSmart Technologies had published an article bemoaning and blasting Microsoft's abuse of it's developers by pretending .NET was a true cross-platform framework when they're doing everything in their power to stop it from being just that. Of interest is NeoSmart's analysis of how Microsoft has no problem making certain portions of .NET available to Mac users — just so long as its distributed under an "open source" license that forbids any and all use of the code except for educational purposes — yet are terrified of the very thought of .NET being available to *nix users, even if that's to the benefit of .NET developers everywhere. Even more interesting is one of the comments on that article linking to legal documents in which Microsoft employees discuss the (im)possibility of creating a cross-platform code and UI framework, years before the .NET project even started!"

4 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Object-orientation and elegance are secondary by WillAdams · · Score: 1, Troll

    at Microsoft.

    When Bill Gates was asked if he'd develop for an object-oriented systems _years_ ahead of anything else then available his response?

    ``Develop for it? I'll piss on it.'' Randall Stross, _Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing_, pg. 72

    Which is probably why the ``Yellow Box'' in Mac OS X was so named. But that sort of attitude on the part of Microsoft goes a long way towards explaining their hostility to a true cross-platform solution.

    William

    --
    Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
  2. Re:Java by oliverthered · · Score: 1, Troll

    .Net is Java without portability and with bugs. and don't even get me started on ASPX vs JSP.

    Unfortunately we have too much code to shift from .NET/asp to Java and most of our developers only know .net otherwise we would be a Java on Unix with Apache house instead of a .NET on Windows with IIS house that keeps having 'problems' with practically everything we try to do with the technologies.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  3. .Not! by clang_jangle · · Score: 1, Troll

    ...yet are terrified of the very thought of .NET being available to *nix users, even if that's to the benefit of .NET developers everywhere.


    Are you INSANE??
    I would never defile my precious machines with that nasty M$ crapware!
    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  4. Re:It's in their interest Not to... by blankaBrew · · Score: 0, Troll

    I disagree. It should be in M$' best interest to make great products that people want to buy, which includes allowing that web developer in your example to run his ASP.Net app on Apache. I hate to keep pointing out Apple, but look at the contrast. Apple gives the Webobjects developent environment for free with MacOS X, and once developed, it can be deployed on any Java server, including linux. They don't try to sell MacOS X servers buy requiring Webobjects to only run on MacOS X boxes. They try to sell their servers based upon their own merit. A company can operate this way and turn a nice profit.