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Microsoft .Net Libraries Not Acting "Open Source"
figleaf writes "Three years ago, with much fanfare, Microsoft announced it would make some of the .Net libraries open source using the Microsoft Reference License. Since then Microsoft has reneged on its promise. The reference code site is dead, the blog hasn't been updated in a year and a half, and no one from Microsoft responds to questions on the forum."
As most people who have tried to write a blog can testify, it is hard to maintain a procedure by force; the reason why so many new blogs are abandoned. If the culture at Microsoft is anti open-source, it will take a constant effort to continue this type of project. The power was obviously not there.
... why?
I bet they expected the OS community to have mirrored the reference code sites, start their own blogs, and master the libraries and dole out advice, if they really wanted the .NET Libraries to be Open Source.
Not defending Microsoft, it's not exactly cool, but like you said, what were they expecting?
The reference code site is dead, the blog hasn't been updated in a year and a half, and no one from Microsoft responds to questions on the forum.
How is this different from the majority of "real" FOSS projects on SourceForge?
I know it's fun to bash Microsoft and all, but the source site here is not, in fact, dead. The other points in TFS might be valid, but I have doubts as to the poster's credibility. I believe this "figleaf" character may just be trying to score some free karma or jollies or something by inciting the standard "M$ sux" response.
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Yup, bait and switch. "We're all warm and fluffy with open source, we're a safe alternative to java, honest, look." *sigh*
Our diversity is our strength
No, it's not an open source license. You get to see the source code, but you have no rights beyond that. Preparing derivative works is not allowed.
I believe source code access functionality is now integrated into Visual Studio, so it is not surprising that the web site is not updated anymore.
The scary part here is that I'm sure plenty of people here are surprised. I wasn't ready to trust Microsoft, and I'm sure many others here weren't either, but an astonishing number of people -including some people in very high places, and yes, Mr. de Icaza, I am looking at you- were. Enough that there were flamewars any time anything remotely .NET-related or Mono-related came up.
Hopefully, we'll be able to get on with our lives now. This has happened before, and will probably happen again, and the community always survives. Some very interesting tools will either die or need to be ported, but that's always how it goes.
That's the reference implementation, which is under a read-but-don't-touch-license. .NET itself is an open specification you can read whenever you want, and they recently made a legally binding promise not to sue anyone for using an alternate implementation (like Mono).
You mean like Mono? The submission is (intentionally or out of ignorance) trying to confuse the read-but-don't-touch "open source" reference implementation that no one uses, their legally binding promise not to sue anyone using open source implementations, and the stuff they have licensed under the OSI-approved MS-PL license.
Large parts of .NET, namely those that are using in the .NET Micro framework, have been released under the Apache license.
Just like most open source projects!
::ducks::
There's a huge difference. If you wanted to make a modification to an abandoned project, you could just fork it. Here, you can't. So you're tied to requesting the modification from MS... It's a similar theme to many OS projects, but it's not a similar situation...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
As SomeJoel has pointed ... the sources are there. Even wpf for the 3.5sp1 stuff (fairly new stuff) ... At least try with something more difficult to verify.
No, it's not an open source license. You get to see the source code, but you have no rights beyond that. Preparing derivative works is not allowed.
Which means that looking at it "contaminates" the developers with knowledge of proprietary code.
If this article were about the the code itself, rather than the lack of support on Microsoft's end, I'd hang an "itsatrap" tag on it.
IMHO we're better off if the site DOES go away.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
No, it's not an open source license. You get to see the source code, but you have no rights beyond that.
I once knew a girl like that.
No news in a year and a half, no source code, forum questions unanswered... sounds like the typical sourceforge project to me!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
So it seems like people here think tha MS wanted or at least promised .NET to become Open Source? How completely wrong. MS never said that and never wanted it. They just released the code so .NET devs could debug it. They still can debug it through Visual Studio integration. Microsoft never wanted to contribute .NET source to the community and to allow forks and I believe that I speak to the majority of the .NET developers when I say that I don't want anyone but Microsoft messing with .NET's code let alone creating forks.
" ... and everyone believed Microsoft at its word ..."
Well, no one should have believed Microsoft at its word. Or Excel. Or powerpoint.
I wonder what the exact percentage of largest software company in the world hosting an open source project to young, naive programmer thinking he can help by throwing up a sourgeforge page is? Comparing MS doing an open source project to most open source projects hardly seems fair.
To put it another way, if you compare MS to say Apache, Red Hat, Novell or Gnome then MS looks pretty bad at open source. Which, on the surface at least, is surprising because they do a much better job of hosting their MSDN content which is similar in scope to hosting a large open source project.
But it's actually not so surprising considering MS's schizophrenic attitude towards open source in general.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Three years ago, the FOSS movement looked like one of the biggest potential threats against Microsoft. This move was designed to mitigate that threat, so it was worth investing energy in it. The idea was to dilute the concept of FOSS in the mind of the public, thereby weakening the FOSS "brand" as a competitor.
Today, it is appears that Apple and Google are far bigger threats to Microsoft than FOSS ever will be. So Microsoft will not be investing significant energy in trying to dilute the concept of FOSS anymore.
This is wrong on so many counts, I don't even know where to begin here...
First of all, this:
Three years ago, with much fanfare, Microsoft announced it would make some of the .Net libraries open source using the Microsoft Reference License
There has never been an announcement that .NET framework libraries will become Open Source. Indeed, the very name of the license - "reference license" - indicates that it's not Open Source! The source is available for reference, so that developers can see what's going on, debug it, etc. It cannot be modified or redistributed.
And nowhere in the original announcement, or in any other documentation for the feature, has it been claimed that this somehow constitutes Open Source. Microsoft releases some of its projects under OSI-approved OSS licenses, and labels those OSS, so it is aware of the difference. There is no desire to confuse anyone about the nature of OSS, which is precisely why the term "open source" is not used here, and other terms, such as "shared source" or "reference source", are used instead.
Since then Microsoft has reneged on its promise.
Source code for .NET 3.5 was made available under MRL, and it still remains available. Source code for .NET 4 RTM isn't there yet (but one for .NET 4 RC is).
So, what promise was reneged on?
The reference code site is dead
It's not dead, it just takes time to update it with a new code release. It has .NET 4 RC bits, and that RC came out on February 10 this year - that's a far cry from "dead". Yes, it doesn't have .NET 4 RTM yet - but that has been released on April 12, less than a month ago. Give it time.
No, it's not an open source project where you see the live trunk directly. It was never meant to or claimed to be that, either. If you expected that, then you either misunderstood the original announcement (in which case I hope this clears it up), or you're just trolling...
Oh, it's a kdawson story. Nevermind.