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."

3 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. 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