Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Open Sources .NET Micro Framework

Posted by timothy on from the what's-your-angle-college-boy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Back in July, Microsoft announced it was making .NET available under its Community Promise, which in theory allowed free software developers to use the technology without fear of patent lawsuits. Not surprisingly, many free software geeks were unconvinced by the promise (after all, what's a promise compared to an actual open licence?), but now Microsoft has taken things to the next level by releasing the .NET Micro Framework under the Apache 2.0 licence. Yes, you read that correctly: a sizeable chunk of .NET is about to go open source."

12 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. My first question would be... by Q-Hack! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just what is Microsoft's angle? Surely they are gaining some advantage here.

    --
    Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
    1. Re:My first question would be... by elashish14 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not only that, maybe MS believes that they can use this route to make better software too. If the OSS community can respond and show MS how much there is to benefit from opening one of their projects, maybe they'll be more responsive with other projects too.

      The OSS community should see this as an opportunity to give something back to MS for good reason. They would be less likely to stab the OSS community in the back with patent suits and the like if we can engender a true, two-way relationship. Maybe with some dialogue, we can start moving toward working in harmony instead of against each other.

      --
      I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
    2. Re:My first question would be... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      MS Messenger is pretty good, don't get me wrong. However it does have some downsides. Like how long did it take them to get offline messaging. ICQ had it back in the 90's, and MSN only managed to get this feature in 2006. Which has been a while, but why they couldn't get it out the door earlier is beyond me. And, also, the MSN client is built for 13 year old girls. Great for sending little IMs to your friends, complete with plenty of emoticons, and even attrocities such as winks and nudges, but fails in any kind of professional environment. Why is there a maximum message length. Why is it so short. Why isn't there integrated spell checking. Why are all the ads at the bottom such tripe. You would think that sometool with as large of a user base as MSN Messenger could get some high quality ads for real products that real people would buy. But apparently that's too much. I couple probably go on for paragraphs. But I will stop. Basically, it could be about 100 times better if they had a client that wasn't aimed at 13 year old girls.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    3. Re:My first question would be... by dissy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Perhaps that's a good question, too: why not open source it.

      I can give one example.

      Where I work, our ERP software is primarily coded in .NET, and needs 3.5.

      It is the only reason to stick with Windows on each and every workstation there.
      Every so often I check up on the status of Wine and .NET, only to see 2.x is only partially supported with no plans on supporting 3.

      If this lets me run our ERP client under Linux, be it Wine or Mono or whatever wrapper is needed, that will be a good number of workstation licenses that will fall out of the upgrade cycle.

      It will also let us deploy more ERP dedicated terminals on slightly older hardware that XP doesn't treat too well, and 2k is too painful to run on (Plus we only have so many licenses for 2k that aren't OEM)

      This could very well lead to a measured loss of sales. I am sure I am not the only one in that type of situation, even if it is not very common.

      Still, I am not complaining!

    4. Re:My first question would be... by bernywork · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Windows Mobile.

      This is their smallest subset of .NET. They are already pretty much giving the code away to developers for Windows Mobile, now they are having their arses handed to them by Android and it's only looking worse. They keep going at this rate and they are going to be irrelevant. That's not what they want. So therefore they open source .NET in the hope that they can get some more traction in the market.

      --
      Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
  2. There is a problem by Groo+Wanderer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was initially impressed by the MS 'open' pledges, until I talked to several coder friends. Their take, paraphrased, was that it was window dressing with a lot of traps. Basically, they 'opened' the wrapper, just like they did with their Office formats.

    The problem, as it was explained to me, is that if you want to do anything useful, you have to call a bunch of things that are not opened, will not be opened, and MS can still sue your *ss off for using. One person asked how useful it is to 'open' the hypothetical call, Play_video_with_MS_proprietary_closed_codec? I mean, you can copy the functionality, but your software is only cross-platform to the extent that MS proprietary and closed codecs and other things are 'open'.

    This is nothing more than a stealth PR attempt, they will use it to say, "We opened everything up, and see, Linux still sux0rz because it can't play movies, sound, DRM, or anything else useful. We opened everything up, but the Linux model is broken, and their lazy codes won't do the right thing. If you want real XYZ, you need Windows".

    It is nothing more than opening the most useless bits, and using it as a PR hammer. Yay progress?

                      -Charlie

    1. Re:There is a problem by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ``This is nothing more than a stealth PR attempt, they will use it to say, "We opened everything up, and see ..."''

      Or maybe it's just fear of more lawsuits from the EU.

      However, the result is that .NET Micro Framework is now open source. That's a Good Thing.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  3. Not your father's MS by pspahn · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It seems to me like MS has started acting on consumer's behalf in the past year or two. Despite how much I hate Office and how that unit operates, they have been doing a lot of other things that I've been rather impressed with.

    --
    Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
  4. Re:Yeah, sure by ChatHuant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This. The Micro Framework is for resource-constrained embedded devices... which are just about the last place you'd want to run bytecode anyway, as far as I can see. We've got tons of embedded stuff where I work, but I fail to see how controllers for mechanical bits and pieces are going to benefit from having the CLR, object classes, GUIs, etc. made available to them.

     
    I think they're targetting the same area as some embedded Java implementations, like MicroJava. You're getting a nice programming environment (you can use Visual Studio to write C# software for your embedded app), you're getting automatic memory management and it'll offer a migration path for people familiar with larger platforms. While it's not going to be as efficient as hand-tightened C and/or assembly code, it should allow faster development for embedded applications.

    Yes, I know they're hoping to scoop the mobile market, but which part of it - the non-smartphone (dumbphone) market?

    Not sure they're interested only (or even mainly) in the mobile market; the .NET MF can run on much lower performance processors than the ones used in phones, even feature phones (i.e., not smartphones). From what I've seen most phones use ARM 9 level CPUs, or even ARM + DSP combos, like the TI's OMAP (please feel free to correct me, phones aren't an area I have much interest in). That's overkill for the .NET MF which can happily run on ARM7 level CPUs.

  5. XCode has more than you think by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    XCode is actually a pretty good tool, and while the multiple floating windows of IB can be hard to deal with I find that approach to GUI design to be way, way better than code-behind stuff UI tools normally spit out.

    If you take the time to learn how to use XCode you'll find it does a lot more than you are thinking it does.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  6. Re:I think I'm ill by netdur · · Score: 2, Interesting

    maybe mono showed them what can be done with open source .net? because I have read more success stories about mono than .net

    --
    "Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
  7. Re:Mono and P/Invoke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't forget that quite a few .NET apps also use P/Invoke to take advantage of the Win32 API. Also, Mono is not bug for bug compatible so any apps that rely on bugs in .NET probably won't work right either.