Microsoft Releases Source of .NET Base Classes

Disgruntled Fungus writes "A few months ago, we discussed Microsoft's intention to open source the .NET libraries. According to a developer's official blog, the source code is now available. The source to libraries such as System, IO, Windows.Forms, etc. can now be viewed and used for debugging purposes from within Visual Studio. Instructions for doing so have also been provided. The source code has been released with a read-only license and 'does not apply to users developing software for a non-Windows platform that has "the same or substantially the same features or functionality" as the .NET Framework.'"

Comments

you know what *that* sounds like..

[k-zed]

Microsoft has just begun killing Mono.

(Think "oh, that implementation really looks like ours! you must have read it! here's a lawsuit for you")

Re:you know what *that* sounds like..

[apathy maybe]

Really?
You have one person read the source, document it and put the documentation online somewhere.

You have second person read documentation and re-write functionality of code.

ReactOS does this exact same thing to re-implement the Win32 API, except that they have to 'break' the executable files. (My memory is shot, I can't remember the term for this, or the process as a whole...)

So long as the documentation does not contain source, merely what each function does, and so long as there is no obvious link between the two persons, there should be no problem.

Re:you know what *that* sounds like..

[Ash-Fox]

Why not just have the developer read the .Net MSDN docs for the .Net API. It's not like anything they are doing is extremely complicated.

Because the MSDN documents are not accurate. Many times I found the API documentation do not contain the true behavior of certain APIs. This is one of the reasons why Wine requires testing API functionality on Windows first instead of just basing it all on the MSDN documentation.

NOT open source

[LarsWestergren]

A few months ago, we discussed Microsoft's intention to open source the .NET libraries.

Yes, and as one of the first posters pointed out, unlike Java for instance, this is NOT being published under an open source licence, Microsoft even says so. So why do you keep using the term?

Re:NOT open source

[Coryoth]

...to develop software that has "the same or substantially the same features or functionality" as the .NET Framework ; as long as it's still on Windows...Very obviously a "back off!" clause for Mono and dotgnu. Which is sad really. Only Microsoft could see such a requirement as good, and herein lies the problem of the monopoly. Ultimately .NET is a (relatively) nice programming framework and set of libraries, and were it developed by anyone but Microsoft they would welcome attempts to expand it's availability. Pretend .NET was developed by a small company that had focussed just on the Windows platform. If they were going to open source the libraries, the first thing they'd be doing is ensuring license compatability with Mono so they can expandtheir market. Hell, look at anyone other than Microsoft who do .NET stuff, like Chrome, or the .NET compiler for Eiffel: they both put in significant work to try and make sure they work with Mono (I believe the Eiffel guys actually have active discussions with the Mono team). In any sane world this would be the thing to do, it's only in Microsoft monopoly land that these sorts of license restrictions make any sense whatsoever. Which really shows you some of the ways the MS monopoly is holding the industry back.

Not everything is about you

[Anonymous Coward]

This release is not intended to benefit the Slashdot crowd. Of course it isn't "open source", and Microsoft never said it was. This is Microsoft assisting developers working with .NET on the Windows platform. There are a huge number of developers who fit that description. Sorry if you don't, but not everything is about you.