Microsoft Puts C# and the CLI Under "Community Promise"

FishWithAHammer writes "Peter Galli of Microsoft posted a blog entry on Port25 today, regarding the explicit placement of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (the ECMA standard that underpins .NET) under their Community Promise: 'It is important to note that, under the Community Promise, anyone can freely implement these specifications with their technology, code, and solutions. You do not need to sign a license agreement, or otherwise communicate to Microsoft how you will implement the specifications. ... Under the Community Promise, Microsoft provides assurance that it will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who makes, uses, sells, offers for sale, imports, or distributes any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including open-source licensing models such as the LGPL or GPL.'" Adds reader anshulajain: "Understandably, Miguel De Icaza is jumping with joy."

Comments

No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[eldavojohn]

So after reading the article, the source seems to be Peter Galli's blog:

"The Community Promise is an excellent vehicle and, in this situation, ensures the best balance of interoperability and flexibility for developers," Scott Guthrie, the Corporate Vice President for the .Net Developer Platform, told me July 6.

Ok, I certainly hope he received more than just that before he began proclaiming to the world that Microsoft is doing such a thing.

The optimist in me is excited. The skeptical in me is dubious, confused and does not trust blogs. It's not listed on Microsoft's list of products under the Community Promise so I'm going to refrain from breaking out the champagne until all the facts are finalized.

Anyone else got a better source for this than a loosely affiliated blog that bills itself as "Communication from the Open Source Community at Microsoft" ?

Re:No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[gbjbaanb]

Its not just that its 'promised' to be added to the Community Promise, its only the ECMA 334 and 335 standards that will be added (possibly).

According to TFA:

ECMA 334 specifies the form and establishes the interpretation of programs written in the C# programming language, while the ECMA 335 standard defines the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) in which applications written in multiple high-level languages can be executed in different system environments without the need to rewrite those applications to take into consideration the unique characteristics of those environments.

however.. later on, he says about Mono:

Astute readers will point out that Mono contains much more than the ECMA standards, and they will be correct.

In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.

So really, even if MS adds the 2 standards to their Community Promise, that still doesn't mean you get anything useful - if you write a simple app that does nothing, you're fine. If you want DB access, or web serving, or a GUI.. you're still in the same problem as before.

Re:No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

They're letting you implement the specs, but in exchange you're not allowed to challenge their ownership of the patents or copyrights involved. I don't really know if you'd call this open source or just a benevolent gesture on their part.

Re:No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[nschubach]

The fact that they worded it "Microsoft provides assurance that it will not assert its Necessary Claims" still freaks me out. It's either open, or it's your claim. It' can't be both.

Re:No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[Mr2cents]

I have very strong reservations against C#, not for the language itself but because it has this name of being a "dot-net language". Everywhere C# is promoted, dot-net is mentioned in the same breath. This is a real issue because if I know anything about Microsoft, it is that they like to keep targets moving. This means dot-net will evolve so quickly that there will only be one complete implementation: Microsofts own one. Combine that with the (wrong) assumption in the heads of many developers that dot-net will always be available, and you get a great recipe for a hell called lock-in. With C++, there is no vendor with this amount of power, and that's the way I like it.

Re:No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[Locutus]

it was said, "that still doesn't mean you get anything useful - if you write a simple app that does nothing, you're fine." and then goes on to mention doing a GUI, amongst other types of applications is going to require using some .Net tied libraries. While it was not _that_ clearly stated, the OP was really saying that using C# and the CLI to write more complex applications is very likely to be leveraging libraries instead of every aspect being written from scratch and those libraries are based on Microsoft's .Net patented designs.
 

The fact that Microsoft is mentioning this stuff about C# and the CLI while saying nothing about the .Net patents and libraries should be a red flag because the issue is Mono. Mono is C#, CLI and .Net libraries. They are dancing around the main issue and almost everyone is missing this.
 

LoB
 

Re:No Really Definite Confirmation of This Yet

[TrekkieGod]

Yeah, the implied threat is quite menacing.

"We have this big hammer. Really big hammer, actually. Just acknowledge that it's our hammer, and that's it's a really big hammer, and that we are allowed to hit you with it at any time, and we promise not to hit you with it."

Makes me wanna rush right out and start developing Mono applications.

As a huge fan of the GPL, I gotta say that's no different than the GPL. "We have the copyright to the software, and we allow you to copy, modify, and distribute the code, but if you ever violate our conditions, we still own the copyright and reserve the right to sue you for breaching." That's perfectly reasonable. So is microsoft's statement. They're basically saying, "you can reimplement this stuff without worrying about our patents, as long as you don't challenge our patents or don't sue us for violating yours. If you do, the claws are coming out." That's pretty defensive.

Honestly, a "promise not to sue" is legally binding. If they sued you without you violating the terms you literally could show that to the court and they would tell MS to fuck themselves. They have given you an expectation that you won't be sued, so the doctrine of Estoppel applies.

Implementations in progress appear not covered

[tepples]

From the Microsoft Community Promise, with my emphasis:

Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation, to the extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications, and is compliant with all of the required parts of the mandatory provisions of that specification ("Covered Implementation") [...] The CP applies only if the implementation conforms fully to required portions of the specification. Partial implementations are not covered.

Free software is often distributed to the public while in an incomplete state. This Community Promise appears not to apply to such an implementation that is published before it is completely compliant.

But they were all of them deceived....

[gwking]

I love C# as a language, and .NET has been one of my favorite products from MS, it's great to use for development and seems to be what Java should have been. My concern with this announcement though is that I can't get The Lord of the Rings out of my head... Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Re:Seriously, who the fuck cares?

[FTWinston]

Hi, I've worked extensively with both and think that they're quite different. Can I presume that Java and C# are the only languages that you've worked with? And C# pretty minimally, at that?

C++ programmers and Java programmers can all feel quite at home after only a short time in C#. It was designed that way. Saying that, coming to it only knowing C/C++, it didn't take much longer for me to develop an initial familiarity with Java. In fact, pretty much by definition, and for obvious reasons of programmer portability, most strongly typed, high-level programming languages are remarkably similar.

To say that C# is identical to Java, though, is bollocks. There are some pretty significant differences, and in many cases I prefer C#'s implementation.

Re:Sounds promising...

[geordie_loz]

This doesn't make Stallman wrong all along. The issue Stallman raised is that the situation was not clear enough to have confidence that freedoms would be safe. If this announcement clears that up (as it appears to do), then the situation is *now* clear, and he can change his view based on new facts. That does not mean that he is then made wrong in his previous statements. This statement has brought the information that many in the community were asking for, it doesn't make them wrong for wanting this.

Java or Mono or Both?

[mrpacmanjel]

I have been following Mono for a while but I am currently still using Java.

The question is which do I commit to?

The way I understand it is:

Java has less "patent liability" than Mono.
All of Java is under an open license including "essential" libraries (e.g. data access, gui).
Only the "core" (including the framework libraries?) of .net are covered by the Communtiy Promise but not some of the supporting libraries (e.g. ado.net, winforms).

I know that these .net libraries have been implemented in Mono but would we have to write new open-source libraries to replace thier functionality and remain "patent-threat" free?

If this is the case then I would imagine that Java would be the preferred choice IF you had to chose one.

What are the overheads of both the Java and Mono virtual machines running at the same time? Would we be better getting behind just one environment and using that.

For what it's worth I really like and prefer Mono - especially Banshee (is there an equivalent for Java?) and I want to develop for it but the Community Promise only covers the ECMA part of .net. Without the other libraries I fear Mono is hamstrung.

At least with Java I know where I stand, all the libraries are included and the functionality is already there.

Re:Sounds promising...

[kripkenstein]

It sounds promising, and it may end up meaning Stallman was wrong all along

You've got the causality exactly wrong. If it wasn't for Stallman and other FOSS people making a lot of noise about this recently, it wouldn't have happened. (Note that I'm not saying Stallman himself is to be thanked for this, it's the general noise about the topic, which he was a part of.)

There are always two levels to statements such as those Stallman etc. made about Mono. On the first level, they are meant to be taken at face value - their arguments are either valid or not, in and of themselves. On the second level, they are intended to cause an effect of some form, such as motivating certain people to do certain things. In this case, the second level was meant to motivate Microsoft to make the first level (the direct arguments against using Mono) invalid. That appears to have worked (well, once Microsoft formally announces this, presumably soon, but all we have so far is a blog post).

Re:Is C# / Mono + libraries really *that* good?

[Blakey Rat]

Considering your entire "question" is basically slamming it, I doubt you'll care what people answer.

But for the record, yes, it is *that* good.

The controversy is all over political crap, not the quality of the language or runtime. If you want to write software, and don't care about political crap, there's virtually nothing out there better than C# and the CLI right now.