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Microsoft Releases ASP.NET MVC Under the Apache License
mikejuk writes "Microsoft has announced that they are being even more open with their new approach to ASP.NET MVC. It is making ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and Razor open source under an Apache 2 license. The code is hosted on CodePlex using the new Git support ... You can compile and test out the latest version, but if you do have anything to contribute you have to submit it for Microsoft's approval."
To get code upstream Microsoft has to approve (pretty typical), but the git branch is supposedly tracking the latest internal release candidate branch (a bit better than Google does with Android, even). Things seem to have changed quite a bit since the days of Shared Source (tm).
i just looked and saw one fly past the empire state building
...my job would be easier. I have the source code. I hit the bugs. Sometimes it's even obvious how to fix them...
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I guess Microsoft's MVC stuff is OK, and Razor in particular is comparable to the best of other frameworks out there, but their C# language is the primary glue that enables the awesomeness. C# is the top of the line within the Java-ripoff genre of languages, and I would like to see Microsoft take steps to help it be used more widely. I realize OSS purists will probably never be on board, and I understand why; but it's definitely not based on the quality of the technology.
I've seen too many "developers" created with VS wizards, who didn't even know what language they were programming in (VB or C#? I don't know!). The apps they build technically work, but are slow, ungainly, and if something breaks, who knows how to fix it? That was SOP at the family-owned Fortune 500 I previously worked at. The open source programmers were forced out, now their whole development staff are dragging and dropping their way to app mediocrity. However, i can see real developers benefiting from this, especially if they can get their asp.net apps to run without IIS, the Windows GUI, and the rest of the usual MS overhead. On Linux and Apache, C# just might scream.
IANAP, but if: .NET tools...
Windows 8 is focusing on HTML5 and JavaScript.
Microsoft still wants to sell
then open sourcing. NET makes sense. give away the handle, sell the blades.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
All evidence points to Microsoft no longer being "evil". At worst, maybe jerks, but not evil:
Internet Explorer is following standards about as well as everyone else
Windows is no longer a horrible, bug-ridden mess - the main complaints are "it's too similar to the last one, no need to upgrade" and "they're changing the interface too much AND I DON'T LIKE IT"
The 360 is fairly open, by console standards, even with "official" homebrew via XNA (you need to buy a license, but it's not a $100,000 developer's license)
They've been submitting a lot of code to open-source, using *actual* open-source licenses
Their stuff works well withttp://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/03/28/142228/microsoft-releases-aspnet-mvc-under-the-apache-license#h virtualization under Linux, and their VM will run Linux (face it, the Old MS would have made it near-impossible to run Windows within Linux)
Now, they're still far from my favorite company, but I for one am willing to reclassify them from "lawful evil" to "lawful neutral".
So, tell me, which flag ship open source projects main branch can you just merge your code into without approval? The Linux kernel? Apache? X? MySQL? Firefox?
Thats a fucking pathetic jibe "Unknown Lamer", not something an editor should be making.
Microsoft now seem to have a really good grasp on how to deal with free software. They know they need to get developers and administrators to incorporate or use their products in part, rather than use the defacto standard free software, and that means they need to be interoperable and compatible.
A conference I attended for CakePHP in Manchester 2011 was sponsored by Microsoft, they provided a 3 course meal and contributed towards the bar tab for attendees.
They know the way to a geeks heart - food and beer - and they also know that they need to get free software communities to build support for Microsoft platforms as well as the free platforms. For example the CakePHP community, Microsoft went to great efforts to ensure that the MSSQL database abstraction class was improved by the core developers to better support the MS platform. Now I can at least choose between MySQL and MSSQL, and there's a chance I'd buy and license it for a particular application.
This attitude from Microsoft isn't new, but I don't really see them being able to execute the "extinguish" part of their normal plan on GPL/BSD/MIT licensed software. Instead I can see them at grassroots level trying to make their platform relevant and make sure people can hook into it, but they get left on the sidelines.
It's not just developers and managers as groups. Remember, that these days Microsoft is a huge organisation and is full of many different divisions. There's Windows, Office, XBox, Windows Phone etc. amongst many others.
The guys that are responsible for this move are the "Web Dev Div", who are a sub-group within the "Developer Division".
It contains many people, including guys like Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack (who recently left to join GitHub) etc., who have always done things that don't seem very Microsoft-like, like releasing ASP.NET MVC as an open-source product - albeit one that didn't accept outside contributions - back in 2009 along with such moves as bundling things like the open source jQuery library with Visual Studio and openly committing improvements back to the core project without trying the usual embrace, extend, extinguish tactics.
Within certain parts of Microsoft, they can, have done, and are continuing to do some very interesting, worthwhile and generally community-friendly (and not-so-evil) work.
And most people who work with it would like for it to die. Which Microsoft has actually been working at facilitating in various ways, between the whole .NET ecosystem and now the ability to write Metro apps in C++ against WinRT, leaving the C API out of the picture completely.
Microsoft has made it entirely possible for many people who work with it to move on to different frameworks, but has responded to developer pressure to keep MFC alive and maintained. I doubt it's one of their priorities, but it's better than where things sat with the release of VS2008. VS2010 has improved MFC, and it sounds like VS2011 is marginally better, with its first-class support of C++.
And while I'd love to ditch having my code support anything older than Vista, that's just not going to happen any time soon. My code isn't written for the mass market, it's written for specced use cases, which includes things like supporting WinXP and even (at times) Win2K. If you're writing a new application every year, or doing a major refactor of your code every couple years, you can keep with the times and depend on bleeding edge libraries.
If you're working with a large legacy codebase with install sites over a decade old, you're not going to be jumping at Metro quite yet. It probably isn't going to be until Windows 9 before Microsoft stabilizes their new platform enough to be worth porting code forward. Look at 95 vs 98 vs ME, and then XP vs XPSP2 (which really could have been a new operating system...), and then Vista vs Win7. Microsoft tick-tocks between "what fresh hell is this?" and "Whew! That's a relief!".
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Just using the word "framework" doesn't imply "MVC framework". Model-View-Controller is a specific software engineering design pattern that is not built into MFC to my knowledge.
yes, this is a "the entire internet runs on Linux", so yes, this is an arena where they compete and come off worse. No wonder they are desperately trying to extend their monopoly onto the web server marketplace just like the desktop.