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Confirmed: Microsoft Says It Will Open Source VB 6
msmoriarty writes "Microsoft told a group of MVPs today at Tech-Ed that it plans to take Visual Basic 6 open source and will release the source code on CodePlex. A source at the event said that Microsoft is planning to release only the VB6 language on codeplex – not Visual Studio or related tools." Update: 05/20 02:24 GMT by T : Alas, too good to be true. msmoriarty writes with an apologetic retraction: "We got it wrong — Microsoft denied and went back to our source and they pulled confirmation. Our apologies."
ah here we are, this is great news from MS! finally
That's nice and all, but does anyone care?
I mean, I guess there are some legacy projects out there that are still being maintained, but I'm sure those developers bought VS a long time ago.
Or is there some secret in the VB6 code that the open source community can actually learn from?
Got Apathy?
Everyone is using OSS, even MS. It's good to see they are at least trying to show some goodwill. Though VB may not be the best addition to the OSS community, it is at least showing that MS is willing to contribute something. It would also be nice to see more cool OSS things come out of MS Reserach...
The IDE won't be released, just the compiler and runtime. Sorry. No big loss, IMHO, VB6 and VC6 should die. Good riddance.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Once Visual Basic becomes an open source project the public's perception of Open Source software will plummet.
that will be excited about this. All he knows is basic/vb6 and once wondered with pure astonishment why anybody would use such a ridiculous language as c/c++. When I informed him that Windows 7 would be the last OS to support VB6 runtimes he looked at me and asked "Well what the hell are we going to do?" I could go on about this fine fellow, but I have long repressed most of the memories of my time with that company and choose to retain my sanity.
Will it be one of their "shared source" licenses or will it be a true open source license like the BSD license or the IBM Common Public License?
great, now i'll continue praying so they open source windows 3.1
http://agender.sourceforge.net/ get a free schedule tool
Just like making "one true scotsman" arguments on slashdot doesn't make you a logician?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
And we have to live with the patents associated with VB6 for another eight years or so.
Could be a hint that the term for software patents (which shouldn't exist) is far too long.
This will surely confound the uptakers for years on end. BEWARE MSGEEKS BEARING GIFTS !!
If you thought Forth was gawd-awful for humans, wait til you get a load of that threaded p-code bowl of intestines-machinations !! It's like all that's bad with Forth and all that's bad with (anything-)basic, heaped onto a steaming pile of excrement.
So, Microsoft will essientially provide a way to port legacy apps to Linux and Mac OS X? They really want to reduce their precious vendor lock-in?
OS Reviews: Free and Open Source Software
Will they create a community and some kind of entity to manage it all, or are they just releasing it in the hope somebody picks it up? The OS license (if it is FSF compliant) is just a first step to creating a community around it.
http://twitter.com/#!/dseven/status/71352709785198592
@dseven The rumors of VB6 going open source are simply not true. #msteched #vb6rumor #vb6
http://twitter.com/#!/dseven/status/71359684904366081
@dseven @beckynagel I'm the Director of Product Management for Visual Studio Tools & Languages. There's no more solid source than me. Its not true.
Bob and Clippy.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Honest question. Are they open-sourcing the language spec (and what does that even mean)? Are they open-sourcing the compiler? The libraries used to actually build the code?
Article was pretty short on details there.
Now I can write an OPEN-SOURCE program to track the killers IP!
Jason-Palmer.com
I have invested so much time and effort convincing management to let me remove all references to VB6 from our internal systems. If this turns out to be true and some jackass ports legacy support for those awful spaghetti messes to linux I will need professional counseling, and a new job.
I've been thanking MS for years for the decision to kill off VB6 and will hate them with the fury of a thousand suns if that corpse rises again as an oss zombie.
The official statement we got from Microsoft was that the story was not confirmed -- it didn't deny it. Story has been updated with that. Invited Doug Seven to give official comment as well.
Our source on this is solid. Additional details were confirmed. We do stand by the story.
And the person who broke the "news" wasn't even trying to pretend it was true.
http://twitter.com/#!/RoyOsherove/status/71334987152101376
@RoyOsherove here's a more official video of announcement of VB6 going open source from #msteched http://bit.ly/79qHlZ
I see where Microsoft says it's not true. But what if MS did open source VB? What would happen? What good and what bad?
- Lots of old Windows apps become available on Linux. (spread the love)
- Lots of crap written by just-got-a-book-on-that "programmers" pollutes Linux. (spread the clap)
When I read the headline, I figured it was an offensive move on MS's part. Sort of a pollute-the-waters strategy.
Place nail here >+
Their public denial is on Twitter? Color me confused but I think someone, somewhere isn't being told the whole truth at M$FT.
Rob Osherove was joking when he tweeted that VB6 is being open sourced. If you look at his tweets, he followed that tweet with another with a link to "video of the official announcement" which is actually a link to Never Gonna Give Up. Looks like he was rickrolling. Anyway, Dough Seven, the Senior Product Manager of the Visual Team, had also tweeted that the rumors are not true. https://twitter.com/#!/dseven/status/71352709785198592 via http://digitizor.com/2011/05/20/microsoft-visual-basic-6-not-open-source/
This would have been nice a decade or so ago when they dumped VB6, resulting in lots of panicked and expensive migrations over to .NET. Many companies had made huge investments in VB6 and felt totally betrayed (I worked for one of them). They were hoping for a new improved version of VB6 to be released (some new features here and there) and instead they got something massively different.
If VB6 had been some kind of open standard back then, another company would have come along and basically said "Don't panic everyone, your huge investments in VB6 are safe. We are releasing OpenVB Studio and will continue to improve the language.". That would have been a disaster for Microsoft of course.
Seriously? News articles where tweets are being used as a primary source?
That's it, I'm giving up on Slashdot. It's jumped the shark.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
who'd have thought? from such reputable new sources, too!
twitter -> reddev -> timothy -> slashdot
damn, those nyt people must be shaking in their boots.
Linux already has Gambas. Why bother with VB?
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish doesn't work with Open Source.
We contacted Microsoft for response to this story. A Microsoft spokesperson said the story was not confirmed by Microsoft, but the statement she gave did not deny the story. It reads, "The plan to open source [VB6 on] CodePlex is rumor, and has not been confirmed by Microsoft."
also this tweet refuses such version
Sorry, mate. Microsoft's first commercial product was a BASIC compiler, and compiling VB was possible right up until the switch to .NET. That includes VB6.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
And nothing of value was gained! :)
Seriously, though, I have to offer kudos to MS for this, but I still can't help thinking that it's a trap of some sort, given MS's long and sordid history of misdeeds and betrayal. But this is a move I can applaud, even as I eye it with caution (and a rather severe lack of personal interest).
All assuming its true, which seems to be less than certain at this point.
Seriously. Come on, a friggin' TWEET from some random twat is CONFIRMATION? O.o
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
If only it was true, and Visual FoxPro (Not necessarily the IDE) should also be open sourced, since MS are eager to stop supporting it on newer platforms, and open-source developers can keep it running for them.
VB6 is an American classic just like a 64 Mustang. Forget OOP and just git er done. Its back to the future and I couldn't be happier. Welcome back old friend!
Click on the link in the story. It's been retracted. Nothing to see here, please move along.
"Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get" - Jerry Avins
We had another source who heard it completely Separately from this source. But after we went back to the source with that denial he pulled his confirmation. We have issued a correction and are working to get the story out there to everyone that the story is NOT true. We are extremly sorry for this.
Update:
CORRECTED: Microsoft Strongly Denies VB 6 Open Source Rumors, Sources Retract Statement
Whats next I wonder? Microsoft Bob - lookout Linux!
I wonder if Miguel de Icza's new company will pick up development...
And nothing of value was lost
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Sounds nice, but I am waiting for the source to Ashton Tate's Full Impact.
Phoenix basic looked interesting though not open source
http://www.janus-software.com/phoenix_features.html
of course, there is vb.net implementation by mono project... I hope they survive the new management though it is open source so theoretically it could be picked up at any point
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
BASIC interpreter.
Damn—you got me. Nit successfully picked; for some reason I thought Altair BASIC was a compiler. However, VB6 does do native code generation, and BASICA was on the PC in the beginning in '81—that's pretty early.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
So confess.
How many of you losers actually program in that gibberish? ;-)
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
What a great way for Micro$oft to strike a blow to Linux/FOSS than to have a bunch of applications abend with: "Unhanded exception: 0x80000146 in mscorlib.ocx.so" As a matter of fact... dont give them any ideas!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Powerbuilder and SQL Windows!
What language is that supposed to be in?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd be interested to see the source code for sure
However, VB6 does do native code generation
No it doesn't. VB6 compiles to byte code which is interpreted by msvbvm60.dll
The "random twat" even rickrolled: http://twitter.com/RoyOsherove/status/71334987152101376
That was his third tweet on the subject...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
2002 called, it wants the shark back.
No, it doesn't.
VB6 has an _option_ to compile to p-code interpreted executables, which is not switched on by default.
Native binaries produced by VB6 _do_ have a lot of dependencies on the VB runtimes, because it uses them for a lot of it's internal implementation, like bounds checks on primitive types, it's String type, it's array type (which is not a raw array like C but an array class), but they are definitely native binaries. Many of these runtime checks contribute to the perception that VB6 is slow - you can turn a lot of them off in the compiler options. I think you might even be able to remove it's dependency on the runtimes, but that's really a bit pointless for what is designed to be a rapid prototyping / development system - it would be the equivalent of removing all the Python runtimes and wondering why your pace of development ground to a halt.
The main thing that makes people think VB6 is slow is they build large strings by concatenating them - because the VB6 String is an immutable BSTR, this means that every time you append a character, it copies the whole string. Unlike Java, it lacked a StringBuilder class in the base runtimes, and you had to roll your own using memcopy() APIs.
People think VB6 was terrible because it would let you get away with stupid crap. Couple that to it's relatively shallow learning curve and you got a lot of low-quality but otherwise functional programs written by people with less than stellar programming ability, which then go on to cause massive maintenance headaches for people who program professionally.
One of the ancestor posters was right on the money though - it was and remains a way of knocking out something functional very quickly. If you wanted to write something a little more complex in it, you had to be a real hard-ass with yourself, because VB would give you a lot of rope to hang yourself with. But with discipline, and sometimes some advanced tricks to work around it's limitations, you could write high quality, functional software, very quickly compared to C++.
My VB6 skills are kind of my pension plan... it really is the modern COBOL. I see so many job opportunities now that are thinly veiled "VB6 maintenance programmer" roles.
VB6 has an _option_ to compile to p-code interpreted executables, which is not switched on by default.
You're right, my bad.
vb6 would be great, but if they ever open sourced it i bet some critical components would not be open sourced. Like the IDE, and some (very essetial) database connectors. In my team there is still a vb6 application that we need to support, and open sourceing it would mean the step to the next os (windows xx) would still be supported.
Everybody thinks that vb6 is not supported, but some working business application still use it, and migrating those applications to .Net will cost money without a business justification.
Too bad it was only a official rickroll. ( 4 year too late.. but MS is catching up on the memes..)
If MS was going to opensource VB6, that would have been great to a lot of VB6 developers who are currently having problems with getting the IDE running under Windows 7, also for upgrading vb6 to new tech.. Ofcourse I'd rather have them opensource the internal VB7 which never was published and later replaced with VB.NET (vb7 is said to have had real OO and better WINAPI support (for stuff like window hooking etc))..
.NET other than YET ANOTHER FRAMEWORK... And let's not forget, a lot of developers still haven't got a clue that with .NET it's sooo easy to just rip their original sources using a program like Reflector (there are ways around it, but that would nullify the use of .NET)..
Personally I still like VB6 way more than VB.NET because I still don't see the real advantage of
It said Microsoft and Open Source in the same sentence without "WILL NEVER BE" between it.
Which Microsoft wound up w/ and used as the ``inspiration'' for VisualBASIC:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacBasic.txt
Rather a shame that AppleScript Studio in XCode went away w/ Snow Leopard.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Not overly excited about VB6. I would, however, love to see the code for their first project: BASIC on Altair. Not for practical use but historical coolness.
Oh, man the disappointment. VB6 was the best. Ridiculously, super fricken easy, to program with actually working auto complete. Compare it with VBA in excel these days. None of the functions work though they show up in auto complete. I want VB6 on linux.
Right up to the point where we admit it was all bullshit.
Classic MS Basic (including VB6) strings were *almost* immutable. You could use Mid(myString, 4, 1) = "x", which I expect ruled out any optimizations you can usually do with immutable objects.
VB.Net strings really are immutable, plus you have StringBuilder
Visual Basic (and all its variants, including .net) is an abortion of a language - they can keep it.
That would have been *extremely* helpful. As someone who had to reverse-engineer the way VB6 serialized a particular object, as part of a migrator from a previous version of an application that had a component that saved its information by dropping a raw, ugly binary blob straight from VB6 into its save file, and that we then needed to read back later without VB6... I think I did a pretty job of it, all things considered, but I would have been extremely happy to replace that whole VB6-deserialization class with one taken from the original source. Oh well.
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